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 All right, Nate, alcoholic. First of all, I want to thank Quality of Life, you know, just for

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 the honor and the privilege of being the secretary for the last year.

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 I ran out of excuses and I, you know, it was my turn and I had to do it and I'm glad that it's

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 over with, but I did have a wonderful experience doing it. I was telling Abraham, you know,

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 as far as commitments go, it's a lot of work, you know, but once you find that groove and you,

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 you know, get used to incorporating, you know, making the phone calls into, you know,

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 kind of your work weekly routine, it really isn't that big of a deal and the feeling that you get

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 and when you get to hand it over is worth it. You know, so I've been, you know, honestly,

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 I've noticed that it does feel like a little bit of weight has been lifted and yeah, I'm just

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 grateful for all of it. Going back to, you know, Quality of Life getting started and Chuck and,

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 you know, the founders, we've got some of the founders of Quality of Life here who decided to

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 make that split. You know, I'm super grateful that I ended up here. I'm super grateful that I'm here

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 today now with you. I'm really grateful, period. You know, they talk a lot about the gift of

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 desperation and I certainly had the gift of desperation. I didn't lose complete hope,

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 like a lot of people have to do to make that, you know, to be able to be walked through that door

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 and be confronted with the fact that they have a potentially fatal progressive illness and if they

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 don't treat it, you know, it's jails, institutions, or death. You know, it's very serious and we have

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 fun in this group. You know, a lot of fun in this group. We like to joke around and laugh and stuff

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 but I just wanted to touch on that really quick because it is very serious and we have to treat

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 our disease. So, that being said, I want to first qualify my sobriety date is 4/11/2016. I've got

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 nine years of sobriety. My sponsor is sitting right here, Scott B. Yep, awesome dude. Check

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 him out if you don't know him. Sean, he is joining us on Zoom. He is my lone sponsor for the time

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 being and I love him very much. He got his commitment covered. He's got a panel at a

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 treatment center in Las Vegas and he got it covered so he could be here to support me

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 tonight. Sean, I love you very much. The light of my sobriety, I would have to say, helping him

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 through, you know, some of the challenges that he has faced has been extraordinary in my own

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 recovery. You know, I know that I've got somebody that I'm basically guiding and knowing that,

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 make sure that I stay accountable for my own recovery. You know, and he'll call me on my

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 stuff too. You all know that. He's not shy. So, I appreciate that and I appreciate him. So, let's

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 start with the BS before sobriety. Let's talk about what I was like, what happened to me, and

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 what I am like now. I think that's an important distinction to make. A lot of people come up here

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 and say what it was like, what it's like now, you know. But it wouldn't have been as it was if I

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 wasn't as I was. So, you know, let's talk about causes here, you know. Owning my side of the

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 street, it's been a fun experience for me. So, you know, I'm from Minnesota, just outside of

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 Minneapolis. Until I was like five, my parents were married. We had a nice little house in South

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 Minneapolis, you know, pretty nice neighborhood. Some of my earliest memories are, you know,

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 very joyful memories playing with my brother and our chocolate lab named Dorje. That's a Tibetan

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 word. I'll tell you about it after meeting a few other kids. But, you know, it was a loving house,

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 but my parents were at each other's throats. And I remember lots of arguing, lots of hostility,

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 you know, and none of this made me an alcoholic. I want to be very clear about that. I'm not sure

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 exactly what made me an alcoholic. But I do know that my alcoholism certainly manifested way before

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 I had my first dream. I was always on edge. I was always uncomfortable. I always felt like people

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 had it all figured out. They were at ease in their own skins. And, you know, growing up,

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 I developed a pretty good knack for hiding how I really felt on the inside for the most part. You

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 know, I don't want to make that a blanket statement because I did have, you know,

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 lots of good memories. I always had friends, you know, I have good memories. I didn't,

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 you know, there wasn't any real trauma that I had to contend with at an early age other than

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 my parents splitting up. And, you know, I remember my, after they split up, you know, my mom,

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 she did the best she could. She was diagnosed with lupus right around the same time that my

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 older brother was born in 1980. And she had a whole host of, you know, physical problems that

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 went along side the lupus, either caused by or, you know, intensified by. She was, you know,

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 a single mom, you know, working part time jobs when she was well enough. We didn't have a lot

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 of money. I remember one of my first resentments was at my aunt. They, my aunt and her husband,

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 her husband owned a commercial heating and cooling company, and they were really well off. And,

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 you know, I just remember thinking to myself, like, you know, all these kids at school, like,

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 you know, they all have like nice things and stuff. And like, you know, why won't she buy

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 that stuff for me and my brother, you know, and just just really no starting point for being

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 grateful. I always felt like the world had a leg up on me. And it, it bothered me. I was embarrassed.

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 My mom, she would drop me off to friends' houses and stuff. And I remember having her drop me off

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 down the block, like, you know, just like be read like I would turn be read about like her dropping

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 me off in her little five speed hatchback Mazda with a white door on a maroon car because she got

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 into an accident. And I was just like, I was petrified that people would like think that I was

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 less than, you know, that's, that's what it was. I was trying to, Matt, I was trying to compare my

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 insides to your outsides, you know. And, you know, that's, that's, that's disaster for a young kid.

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 So, you know, it started with GI Joes and Ninja Turtles and He-Man and stuff like that. Cartoons,

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 you know, anything to avoid being present in the present moment, I was petrified of dealing with,

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 you know, these weird thoughts, these weird, weird emotions that I didn't know how to reconcile,

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 you know, I didn't know why I was feeling that way. So instead of like, you know, opening up

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 about it, and risking my exposing my, my, myself to people, you know, admitting that I was less

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 than perfect, I would just, you know, do my best to pretend that they weren't there. And GI Joes

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 and Ninja Turtles and He-Man helped a lot with that. It was baseball cards, man, I had boxes and

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 boxes, boxes of baseball cards. It was baseball itself. I used to throw tennis ball up against

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 the garage door like 1000 times, you know, which did end up serving me a little bit later in life

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 before I, you know, showed up to a tryout with a bottle, a jug of vodka in my baseball bag and did

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 not make the team, needless to say. And it was skateboarding, it was hockey, my mom, you know,

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 she knew well enough to move me and my brother to a nice suburb, you know, with good schools,

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 no crime, you know, that kind of stuff. And so, you know, where I grew up, it was like the lone

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 apartment complex in like this really nice city. And, you know, we used to call it the projects and

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 stuff like that. But one good thing about it was that there's huge field for playing sports. And

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 during the winter months, there was a hockey rink, you know, complete with like, you know, goals and

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 a warming house and all that stuff. So you know, every day after school, it was just March on down

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 there, no matter how cold it was, and, you know, play hockey. Yeah. And forget about my feelings,

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 you know, I did get pretty good. I, you know, I was always trying to be a class clown. I was

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 always like a popular kid. I always had little girlfriends. I always had friends, you know,

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 but it was it was it was terrifying for me. I and I didn't know how to articulate any of this.

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 Very tough for a little kid. I had an older brother who was three years older than me,

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 which also might have fed into me isolating and not letting people in knowing exactly how I felt

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 and what I was thinking. You know, my older brother, and I had an older cousin who was two

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 years older than him, you know, they used to really put me through the ringer. You know,

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 they would pick on me, you know, pretty harsh for a little kid like pin me down and fart in my face,

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 you know, that kind of thing. And it was tough, you know, and I remember just like, you know,

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 I would I would go crying to my mom. And, you know, they'd be like, Oh, quit being such a baby.

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 And I'd be like, Alright, I can't win here, you know, what am I supposed to do and just take it

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 started, you know, pick up a butter knife and fight back what, you know, I probably

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 read shows back. I don't know. Um, but like, that's the extent of like, my problems, you know.

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 So, um, my, my brother, he will come back to for sure. He, he was probably in sixth grade,

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 which would have made me in third grade, he started getting in trouble. He started smoking

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 pot, you know, I come to find out doing a lot of LSD, mushrooms, you know, probably other things,

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 I'm not sure definitely drinking, you know, getting in trouble at school, he ended up

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 knocking up his girlfriend when he was 15. You know, working a McDonald's job and really not

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 caring about school. And, you know, it started to be a real big problem. So, you know, my mom,

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 again, with her wisdom, who, you know, in my eyes, today, absolute saint, despite her shortcomings,

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 she moved us to another school district, about 15-20 minutes away, even nicer suburb, Minnetonka,

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 they talk about in Boring, the principal be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place.

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 Great for, you know, great for everything. My, my brother, you know, he found his people right away,

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 and I didn't have any friends. And sure enough, I fell into a crowd where they were smoking and

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 drinking and having fun. And, you know, at first, I was able to be like, No, I don't want any of

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 that. I'll hang out with you guys, though, because you're funny, and you're fun. And we like the same

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 music. And I really didn't want to be like my brother. I despise my brother. Another one of the

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 early resemblance that I had towards him is I remember he would, he knew how much I loved

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 baseball. And he did it at some point earlier, too. I would, you know, beg him, beg, beg him

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 to come play catch with me outside. Like, finally, I get him out, it'd be going great for about five

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 minutes. And he purposely throw the ball over my head, I'd be in the woods looking for the ball.

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 And by the time I found the ball and got back out, he'd be gone. And, you know, what a jerk,

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 you know, he was a jerk. And we ended up talking about it after I got sober. And he came to tears,

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 he had no idea that that stuck with me. And, you know, he was very apologetic about that.

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 So, you know, I found my my clan. I was really into rollerblading and skateboarding and BMX,

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 you know, my grades, you know, because I had that transition phase between new school or old school

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 and new school. Like all of a sudden, I'm getting like perfect straight A's. You know, I'm taking

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 all the advanced classes later in high school, the AP classes, you know, I'm an excellent student.

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 I'm a good athlete. I've got everything going for me. Like, really, but still, there's this nine

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 thing at me in me that I don't know what's wrong. I don't even know how to address it, you know.

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 So, by that time that I was 13, and I had that first drink, or that first hit a weed,

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 I was ready for it. I was ready for it. And it shut my head off. And I had found bliss in a bottle.

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 I absolutely wanted to drink every single day of my life. And the mental obsession grabbed a whole

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 pretty damn quick in me, you know. And I'd been working at a little pizza joint. The managers,

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 they were like, cool, like, you know, in their 20s, guys, you know, they would buy me and my

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 best friend, you know, like a case of beer to do the cleanup for them. So, we were staying there,

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 you know, Friday, Saturday nights, smoking pot. But yeah, I could not get enough alcohol,

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 like, and it was apparent at a very early age that, you know, I was a problem drinker. I didn't

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 see it that way. I, you know, really, it was the effects of alcohol, right? That was why I drank.

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 And that was all that I cared about. Any consequences that came my way because of it?

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 Well, that's just, you know, part of doing business, you know, being a drinker, I need to

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 feel good. And I don't care really what happens outside of that, you know. I didn't trust like,

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 a little bit later on in life, like, you know, after I turned 21 and stuff, like, I did not

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 trust people that didn't drink or at least smoke a little bit of weed, for heaven's sake. Like,

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 I did not trust you. Like, I thought something was wrong with you. Like, straight up, like,

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 did not trust you. So, you know, that was it. Just the incomprehensible demoralization of some of my,

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 you know, early decisions that ended up defining, you know, kind of my early adulthood. Like,

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 I had a high school sweetheart, you know, we're madly in love. And then she ended up going to

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 college about an hour and a half away. And I, you know, I would come visit her on the weekends and

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 stuff like that. But every time I would go out there, you know, I would make a fool out of myself.

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 I would, you know, cause her trouble, you know, with her friends, get her friends asking questions.

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 So then, of course, she'd be asking me questions. And I don't want to hear any questions. How dare

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 you question how I'm drinking, you know. Again, this is what I need to sustain myself, because

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 it makes me smarter, funnier, better looking, all that, you know, BS. And so, you know, needless to

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 say, I, you know, give her no choice but to break up with me, destroy that relationship. My

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 grandfather ended up passing away from lung cancer. I was really close with him. He was this

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 cool World War II vet. He loved baseball, loved pool playing. My middle name, Sonny, actually,

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 was his Navy pool playing nickname. They would call him Sonny. And that's my middle name, Bill.

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 So I'm looking like you could really understand. And he passed away. And I showed up to his funeral,

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 drunk as hell. And got into a big fight with my cousin, like fistfight out in the parking lot,

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 you know, just brought so much shame to my mom, the rest of the family, you know, and of course,

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 it was always somebody else's fault. It was never me. I was perfect. I was, you know,

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 I was the smartest person in the room, you know, and if you don't believe me, go ahead and test me.

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 But if you say something I don't like, I'm leaving and it's your fault. Yeah. Yeah. And so then

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 there's that I got fired from a bunch of jobs. I was an assistant manager at a Valvoline instant

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 oil change when I was, I don't know, I was in college, so I must have been 20 or 21.

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 A girlfriend was coming to pick me up to go to a party, I was supposed to count the cash and

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 lock the door and all that, of course, we'd be we would have been probably each of us,

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 all three of us that were working on Saturdays, we were, you know, at least 10 beers in, you know,

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 and I left the cash register uncounted open, I left my keys on top of the podium. And I didn't

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 lock the door, you know, that was actually a really good job. They were helping pay for my

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 school, my schooling and, you know, manager got called. He was on a fishing trip, like two hours

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 north, had to drive all the way back in the middle of a vacation. Yeah, it was not pretty. Shortly

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 after that, I got my first DUI blew a .29 crashed into a neighbor's parked car, you know, it was

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 pretty disastrous. So, you know, after all that, I just, you know, basically given up on, you know,

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 trying to finish school, working a good job. Basically, from there on out, it was just get by,

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 as long as I can drink the way I want to drink, I don't care about all the rest. And that's what

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 I did. My mom passed away a couple years later. My father, who had been basically estranged, lived

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 out here in, he lived in Thousand Oaks at the time, he was like, "Hey, you should come work

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 for my friend in Santa Barbara. It'll be great." I had no idea what I was getting into. I ended up

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 in Goleta right next to Isla Vista, a great party town for a 23 year old buddy and alcoholic. Like,

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 honestly, I cannot think of a better place to end up. And I had lots of fun, you know, from what I

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 can remember and what I'm told. And, you know, it was great. One day I woke up, my dad called me and

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 was like, "Yeah, your boss, Todd, he's in jail, and he's probably not getting out anytime soon."

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 He drank like I did, snorted cocaine like I did, smoked weed like I did. His father was a legitimate

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 rocket scientist for Raytheon. And part of my job was to hang out with this guy. He had like early

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 onset Alzheimer's, or some kind of dementia. And so I would bring him to appointments, bring him

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 out to get ice cream, that kind of stuff. And he, you know, he had quite a bit of wealth. And Todd,

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 my boss, was fraudulently signing checks from his dad's estate account. And him and his sister didn't

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 go along. His sister caught wind of it and, you know, called the authorities. And I was out of

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 job, he was in jail. And so I moved into another one of my dad's friend's houses. Oh, I only got

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 like 10 minutes left. I better get sober. I ended up helping my dad's friend get sober. When I was

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 17, I tripped for a month straight on LSD. It was a drug induced psychosis. I'm lucky to have gotten

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 out of that relatively unscathed. I had to do a month in a psych ward and I had to go to rehab.

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 In that rehab, they brought us to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And these meetings were

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 not like anything I had in my mind. They were fun. It was young people smoking cigarettes,

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 joking, laughing, enjoying their sobriety. That right there, I am super grateful for,

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 because that left a good taste of Alcoholics Anonymous in my mouth. I never really lost

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 complete hope, I think, at least partially due to that. I always kind of knew it was waiting for me.

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 So I drank myself silly, you know, burned all my bridges, ended up homeless on the streets of

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 Minneapolis. Really, I thought I was sick. My dad made a phone call or asked part of the church that

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 he was a part of the Center for Spiritual Living, which isn't a traditional church, they honor all

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 faiths. If, you know, anybody knew how they could get his son into rehab, my boss's boss

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 was a practitioner at that place. And he said, "Get him on a plane." And so I hopped on a plane.

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 My dad had to come get me from Las Vegas airport, because there is a liquor store in that airport.

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 And I did not make my connecting flight. So my dad drove from Camarillo out to Las Vegas,

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 and luckily found me pretty quick and brought me to Tarzana Treatment Center. And, you know,

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 I can't believe that I work there now. It's kind of surreal. I never wanted to work in rehab,

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 in treatment. I just, you know, I figured I'm batshit crazy enough, you know, I, oh,

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 I don't need to be around it, you know. And, you know, I had a pretty decent job out of treatment.

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 So, you know, it wasn't really something that I was thinking about doing. Sean worked in the

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 outpatient department after he finished, and he was moving to Vegas to be closer to his kids.

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 He'd finished school. And, you know, he's like, "Hey, you should work at Tarzana Dream Center."

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 And, you know, I gave it a little bit of thought, and he talked me into it. I can't remember exactly

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 how that went down five minutes. And, you know, I ended up there, which is a very beautiful thing.

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 But, you know, getting to treatment, like, I had had my fair share of fun. I, you know,

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 I knew what was coming. I knew that I needed help. Towards the end of my drinking, I was talking to

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 myself, like I would catch myself talking to myself like there's nobody here. I could have

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 swore when I ended up at Tarzana Treatment Center, they were going to give me a bunch of pills. And,

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 you know, it was going to be like a more of a mental health thing. But

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 turns out, I just needed to not drink for like a few days, which I had not done for, you know,

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 15 years or however long it was. And, you know, I had done a lot of work imagining myself sober

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 and happy. I attribute that a lot to my ease, I want to say, or my willingness to relinquish

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 my thinking. I heard everything, well, tried to hear everything that was being said to me.

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 For the first time in my life, I would listen to people. And, you know, a lot of people might think

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 that that would be burdensome, but it was so freeing. Finally, I didn't have to figure

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 anything out. I trusted what you guys were telling me, I could feel it in my heart. And I fell in love

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 with Alcoholics Anonymous. You know what I did, you know, I say I'm grateful because, you know,

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 Alcoholics Anonymous, if you catch alcohol, alcoholism in here, which I did, you know,

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 Alcoholics Anonymous will leave you better than it found you when you first were, you know,

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 diagnosed with with your disease. You know, my life is so much better than it was way better

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 than I could imagine. And it's all because of this program. My brother, he definitely drank like I

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 did. During the pandemic, he was a chef by trade. He was a great musician, too. You know, he was out

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 of work, drinking, you know, all day, every day, nothing really going on in his life other than

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 drinking. And he was hospitalized. And he was diagnosed with hepatitis A, that's alcoholic

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 hepatitis, you know, liver problems. And he, you know, he was he wasn't forthright with with any

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 of the family or me. And he, you know, he passed away. He wasn't wasn't even the call. And I was

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 very fortunate to be able to do a very thorough amends with him, you know, focusing on my side

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 of the street, you know, because always it was back and forth, back and forth. And nothing came

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 to that I had to just focus on being a good brother, you know, and through, you know, strong

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 sponsorship and, and the steps and, you know, I was able to have a pretty good relationship with

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 him. And I'm, I'm super grateful for that. He knew, he knew where he could go, you know, and,

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 and why I got the gift, and he didn't, I'm not sure, you know, we did, we did not have a great

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 relationship. Um, you know, we had a terrible relationship until I got sober. My dad, he used

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 to smoke weed and drink, like every day until I was like a year sober. He just he saw the change

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 in me and he just quit. You know, I helped him clean out his apartment when he moved up to

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 Seattle about three years ago and, and on it in his armoire built behind a bunch of like paperwork

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 and stuff. We found an almost full bottle of absolute vodka, and like a half an ounce of some

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 really green stinky weed. It was amazing. He was like, I was like, Oh my God, and like he just

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 poured it down the sink and you know, flush the weed, which I was like, dude, you could at least

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 sell that, you know, like you're basically throwing away money, you know, and then he went

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 to a meeting and, and he called me and he's like, Hey, Nate, guess what? I'm not an alcoholic. I was

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 like, I know, alcoholics don't, you know, just throw away stuff, be able to stop it at, you know,

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 whenever they want, you know, which is weird, you know, bless his hippie heart. I want to,

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 I want to thank you guys very much for allowing me the opportunity. I haven't came up to this

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 podium and spoke like this since Friday night, you know, eight years ago or whatever. So, you know,

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 for more than 10 minutes, Abraham, thank you very much. And I love you all. I want to thank

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 my sponsor, my beautiful higher power. And that is unconditionally loving of all of us,

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 as well, Bill and Bob, Scott, Sean, both of you guys. Thank you.