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 My name is Ken and I am an alcoholic.

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 I'm Ken.

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 I'd like to thank the friends that came out tonight and I can thank God for the program

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 of Alcoholics Anonymous for my life today.

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 Literally owe it to this program.

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 My sobriety date is March 12th, 1994, just not my first one.

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 There's a story about me being two years old and my parents were having a party and

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 there were factories going around and I got ahold of one of them and I spun around in circles

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 until I passed out.

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 That was two.

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 I grew up as a kid in a house, middle kid of three.

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 My dad was an airline pilot, grew up in Camarillo.

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 My mom was a stay-at-home mom and I had a little brother with cerebral palsy that I

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 could put a weight on the house.

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 We always had that weight.

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 So my old man was a Navy pilot before he became an airline pilot and so his thing for relaxing

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 in the evenings was barbecuing and Jim Beam and Ginger Ale.

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 And I learned early that, you know, I can go get a little bit towards the end of that.

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 Things get a little better for me as a five-year-old little kid.

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 That's just a good weight.

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 I can see the pressure come off when he did that.

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 I could use the pressure coming off, you know, from a very early age.

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 I would spin around on a bar stool until I couldn't stand up.

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 That's where I wanted to be, exactly, except that I got sick, so I don't go too well.

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 But always, always, whatever I could find growing up through that to take my head out

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 of the game.

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 I got in trouble in grade school because somebody brought a mixed jug of something from home

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 that they got out of their liquor cabinet and all these girls were going to share it.

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 They wanted to tell me about it and they showed it to me and I drank it all.

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 And they were mad.

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 So they ratted me out and I was lit.

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 I'm in the principal's office and I'm getting yelled at, you know, you tell my parents to

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 send me home and I just don't let them know you're drunk, you know, just so I got, I think

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 I got mindfully busted, but not as much as I should have with my dad and I knew.

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 So, you know, my story involves a lot of other things, but that's how everything started

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 on my problems starting in with drinking.

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 Every relapse I never had started with, you know what, I'm just going to have a beer,

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 just a beer, or I'll smoke a little pot on the weekend, it'll be fine.

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 So there it is, you know, high school started and I got turned into marijuana earlier, which

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 was easier to get than alcohol for a kid my age at that time.

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 So that became my thing.

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 And of course I was chewing tobacco.

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 I got busted chewing tobacco at nine years old.

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 You know, I was smoking early on, I had to buy my first pack of cigarettes the day my

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 dad quit smoking and I was 13 because I couldn't steal anything anymore.

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 So it's just, it was something, you know, once I was smoking or dipping or whatever

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 it was that it's something to take the edge off and it's always been that way.

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 I went to my first 12 step meeting at 16, because I thought I might have a problem doing

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 cocaine, which I did.

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 I got arrested at 18, fresh out of high school, just because I was in the wrong neighborhood

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 because I was.

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 So that that led my first trip to my first rehab.

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 So I got out of my first rehab on Memorial Day in 1988 and moved into the Kepra house

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 up in Ventura.

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 I spent six months in the halfway house and I got a job sort of working in the oil fields.

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 And then I started doing alcoholic math because, you know, I don't know about you, but when

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 I was in school, I didn't study, I didn't do my homework.

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 I crammed before the class to the next class and I would take the test and I would get

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 by fairly well.

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 Just, you know, I always took shortcuts.

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 I always took shortcuts and I thought doing it all, following all the rules, you know,

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 it's for suckers, you know, it's for other people.

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 I mean, I, I wanted to skip to the end and think, you know, can we just straight line

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 it and be done with that and move on to the next thing because I need to go have a cigarette

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 or, you know, smoke a little something in the bathroom or.

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 So there was a lot of near misses along that line of stuff.

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 You know, I got smoke in my freshman year, I got smoke in my senior year.

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 But my senior year, my principal just yelled at me for bombing cigarettes from underclassmen.

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 Told me if I really needed one come see him, just graduate, go away.

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 So anyways, back to the rest, Kepper House and my alcoholic math.

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 So I would do the first three steps on the wall and I would agree with all of them.

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 No, no, no on that fourth one up there.

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 And then, then I would get a job and I'd start making some money and, and you know, I'd go

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 to some meetings.

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 We could go into meetings, I get a job, I'm living in a halfway house and then I find

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 a power greater than myself and her name was.

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 And as long as those then, you know, I would say cocaine is the problem.

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 And I'm just going to have, you know, a couple of beers and smoke a little weed.

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 It'll be, you know, just take the edge off.

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 But as soon as I did that and the inhibitions came down, you know, it was just that much

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 easier for me to go, you know, I'm already here.

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 And then the next justification would happen and, you know, at some point I would be a

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 resident in recovery.

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 It was possible.

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 But the whole kind of how it, how it went up the second treatment program I was in after

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 that kind of went away, I ended up going to one with my parents.

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 It was a place called be free up in thousand Oaks and it was for young adults that were

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 having trouble.

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 And it was a kind of a group therapy thing where the parents did therapy and the problems

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 that they're in the other room.

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 And yeah, there were some AA base to it and quilt and then encourage going to meetings

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 and that was really good.

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 And I was doing that and then I got rehired again on another way of plot warm.

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 So once again, I am making money and I'm doing good and staying sober and everything is just

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 working out great.

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 Right.

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 Um, I successfully completed probation off of the first thing and that all went away

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 and just disappeared.

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 And, uh, and then I started taking my therapy.

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 Once again, we are doing the math that I'm doing.

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 I am making money and I found my heart power and, and even worse now it's a secret because

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 that's more fun.

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 Um, but I can't tell anybody that I'm going to meetings with who I'm dating.

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 So I basically shut down my entire support system.

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 Right.

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 So all that's got to go away.

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 So now I am completely and totally untreated and hope by the way, one, two, three hike

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 because we need to do number four.

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 There's no sponsor in here because you know, I'm smarter than the average bear and not

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 a good recipe.

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 I want to do the first three steps and they'll do the fourth and the fifth and forth with

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 a sponsor actually do all of that.

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 You know, you're listening because it gets worse.

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 Um, so, uh, so that happened, uh, things went bad with her at all was horrible.

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 I ended up in a cross country motor home trip as a designated driver to Laughlin with a

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 motor home full of oil bill workers.

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 And uh, and there were some things in the back of the motor home that were transpiring

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 and I decided, sure, I'm going to have a little of that.

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 So now I'm on a run in Laughlin.

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 I'm afraid that if I don't have a drink before I go from one casino to the next, then I'm

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 going to sober up in between and we all know once you start sobering up, so the hangover

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 hits.

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 Uh, so you can't do that.

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 Um, so once you get off to the races and that ends me up with a getting called in and asking

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 me by the department of transportation, if I have a prescription for me, um, cause I

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 came up dirty on the D O T drug test oil file form and uh, put me in another rehab of the

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 Ventura trying to save my job.

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 And I, uh, I did that and they tried to give me a bunch of, uh, segments when I went in

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 there and I kept asking, Hey, there was a really good stream value and how did those

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 smoke?

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 And, uh, I don't really think giving me more drugs is the answer, um, to any of this.

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 So they brought me in and then the guy that was in recovery and we just started to get

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 sober.

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 Um, I seem to think I knew way too much about the program at the time and didn't do what

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 they said.

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 Still thought I knew what I was doing and I got loaded, uh, I think two weeks out of

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 that rehab under the guys, I would just have a couple of beers on the weekend and I would

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 be done on Monday, go back to work.

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 Eventually I couldn't go to work anymore cause I couldn't test clean, so I had to stop going.

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 Uh, meanwhile I lost a house.

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 I break down all the relationships with my parents.

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 I ended up living in the back of 70 Dodge Dart smashed in the front of the passenger

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 door to the rear bumper and uh, I had warrants in Ventura County, so I met a nice girl from

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 that V3 program and we lived in Agora and she took me in off the streets and started

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 taking me to games down here, valley, Davis, Oliva, and she saved my life and she introduced

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 me to some people up at the Topanga fireside meeting and down at St. Mel's Friday night

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 book study.

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 And I was sitting in there loaded and I was listening to her read to begin to get me and

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 they talked rarely have we seen a person fail who is thoroughly followed our path.

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 That's one thing I had not done here.

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 I had not done thoroughly called path and work on steps, have a sponsor to get on instead

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 of me to the old heel.

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 Um, so of course during all that whole time I planned to get sober for new year's.

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 That's why my sobriety day's March.

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 I remember hearing a guy named Rick Chevy take a cake for 10 years and uh, he was talking

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 about his experience and I had to listen to him in this book study for some weeks then

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 and I finally realized that maybe just maybe I can give this a shot.

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 So uh, I made the right decision two days after that to not buy any more pot between

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 meetings and that was my first first day sober during that time.

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 A couple of weeks after that I was leaving that book study on a Friday night stop by

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 to see one of my friends growing up who was closing down a liquor store because that's

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 what he worked and I was telling him about how good I was doing.

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 I hadn't had any big look at my back pocket with the highlights in it that I'd been taking

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 it to being bad about two weeks sober.

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 And I love the camera rail on Centro Boulevard with blue stations down the street from the

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 liquor store.

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 And three patrol cars go to the exhibit by like they're going back to the station and

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 they're going, "Yeah man, all good.

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 You know good stuff that those guys when they come back and talk to me they'll be fine."

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 They did.

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 They took me that night because I had a warrant because one of my stubers, I thought it was

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 really good to transpose a couple of house numbers on the uh, address when I was reporting

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 again and they were sending the notices of failure to appear to the next door neighbors

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 and they weren't bothering to send them over so I didn't know I had a warrant the way I

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 went with my big book on my back pocket.

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 But hey successful that night I didn't pick up any new charges right?

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 So there you go small, small things.

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 So um, I had to go clean up the wreckage of my past and I had a guy that his name was

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 an unblocked head of step study at his house on Wednesday nights at the time and I'm in

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 Ventura County jail doing 60 days or do a 90 day sentence he let me out at 60 and he

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 let me call into his step study meeting collect on Wednesday nights and he looked at the speed

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 book and that's what I did when I was in jail and then I got out for two weeks on bail before

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 my next charge.

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 Um, this is all under damn for this type of stuff and uh, and I had to go back to work

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 furlough of the camera reel and I was one of the only ones that would read chapter five

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 or chapter three and then 12 traditions at the start of the meetings that the panels

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 brought in to work furlough and uh, did that for another nine days.

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 Uh, then I did a lot of meetings, my first 10 years I was uh, you know, the book study

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 on Friday night was my uh, my home group and we, we got after that and then the best highlighters

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 intellectual rules, lots of dictionaries and we just tore up that first hundred 64 pages.

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 We did that for years and years, um, commercial Saturday night from the dawn, uh, Topanga

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 fireside was a regular app for many, many years.

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 I had a sponsor, his name was Paul Johnson and uh, and things were going good.

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 You know, I had relationships, uh, my current wife, I had dated before we broke up and I

195
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 changed jobs.

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 I was working as a mechanic, oil field, and uh, I was a starving to death as a mechanic,

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 so I decided I would go back to school for electronics, learn something about it because

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 the electronics in the cars are baffling me.

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 So I did that and I got out of school and uh, went to work in the medical field as a

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 violinist at a hospital.

201
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 Your circumstances about that time as I'm getting ready to graduate, I reunite with

202
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 my, my now kernel wife, I'm dating and things are going good and I'm still going to a bunch

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 of meetings and I finished school at the top of my class and I got the new job and two

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 weeks into that new job, they handed me the keys to the narcotics pumps and said, you're

205
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 going to be doing maintenance on these IV pumps to deliver the medication.

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 And I just went, no, these people can't know me, they can't know my past, they'll never

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 trust me.

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 So now I'm pulling.

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 Is that me?

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 Nope.

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00:14:04,980 --> 00:14:05,980
 Nope.

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 Okay.

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 So that's, um, I had to kind of pull in my program there, you know?

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 I think things quiet and I want everybody to know what's going on with that.

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 So my, uh, my outside life kind of became a secret in my work life.

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 That's the start of some, you know, some stuff, um, I sponsored after nine years, I got colon

217
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 cancer and died.

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 Uh, it was a big time for me.

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 I was still dating my wife who used to wear this big shirt that said, don't marry, be

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 happy.

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 And, uh, and here I am, I'm, I'm advancing in my career.

222
00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:46,120
 I'm moving out of, uh, uh, the biomed field inside the hospitals.

223
00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:52,480
 I'm going to move over to imaging, work on CT scanners and MRIs, more money, more responsibility,

224
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:53,480
 different stuff.

225
00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:55,200
 And I'm looking to go settle down.

226
00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:59,040
 So I'm, I tell my wife, we've got a breakup and you don't want to get married.

227
00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:02,200
 And I do, I want to go buy a house and settle down and do this.

228
00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:03,600
 So we're going to do that.

229
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:05,640
 We're at my sponsor's funeral.

230
00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:08,120
 She's completely torn up over this thing.

231
00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:09,120
 I'm a mess.

232
00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:14,320
 And, uh, and I'm burying my sponsor and I don't do anything about it.

233
00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:15,320
 I'll go get a new one.

234
00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:17,000
 I got to go to a bunch of meetings.

235
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:18,000
 Sure.

236
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:19,000
 I'm going to stay doing that.

237
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,480
 I'm going to hang out with the people that know me, you know, the, the Rick Shevit, uh,

238
00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,480
 Tom O'Brien, Tom Blount, the people at the book study, you know, I'm still there, but,

239
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:28,640
 uh, you know, things are changing.

240
00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:33,160
 Um, me and my, my girlfriend, wife, we get back together.

241
00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:35,000
 We decided maybe we're going to do this.

242
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,400
 She comes to a thing that maybe marrying me isn't going to be horrible.

243
00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:43,580
 Um, thank God it wasn't, um, but, uh, so that's going better.

244
00:15:43,580 --> 00:15:44,580
 We're getting back together.

245
00:15:44,580 --> 00:15:45,580
 I shouldn't have a sponsor.

246
00:15:45,580 --> 00:15:49,760
 I just don't have a sponsor, but I got a job, job with more responsibility, job that works

247
00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:50,760
 evenings and afternoon.

248
00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,840
 So that's, that's kind of rough because now I'm working from noon to nine and all those

249
00:15:54,840 --> 00:15:58,440
 meetings that I wasn't regular at, I can't get to anymore unless I'm cutting work.

250
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:02,000
 So I'm trying to substitute one in one there and once in a while I'm showing up at the

251
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:03,560
 valley club at noon sometime.

252
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:07,880
 You know, I'm still trying to, you know, do the right thing, do the right stuff, but I'm,

253
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:11,520
 I'm not a regular part of AA anymore.

254
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:16,120
 This is a tale of, you know, for you guys to learn, this is not the way to do it.

255
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:19,720
 This is not an example about it to work your program.

256
00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:25,160
 So for, um, 10 years, these 10 years, that's what I was doing working nights.

257
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:30,680
 I was going maybe three meetings a month and I was just standing sober and I wasn't doing

258
00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:31,680
 anything.

259
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:33,800
 I wasn't really talking to people in the program much.

260
00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:38,280
 I was fishing with my friends and doing things and you know, going to parties with other

261
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:42,440
 people and my wife and they're all drinking and they go, Oh, well now I know I'm doing

262
00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:43,440
 it.

263
00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:44,440
 So I just don't drink.

264
00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:47,600
 I actually had a dear friend of mine that came and spoke here a couple of weeks ago.

265
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:52,480
 Um, he was having some trouble with, uh, with drinking and he reached out to me and he wanted

266
00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,760
 to go to a meeting and I took him to his first meeting and I introduced him to some people

267
00:16:56,760 --> 00:17:01,760
 that did the Saturday night commercial and I am listening to some people and said, you

268
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:05,620
 need to do what that guy's doing and what that guy's doing and what that guy's doing.

269
00:17:05,620 --> 00:17:06,620
 Don't do what I'm doing.

270
00:17:06,620 --> 00:17:10,960
 You'll never make it if you're doing it when I'm doing what I do because I'm barely making

271
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:11,960
 it.

272
00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:13,440
 Well, and you'll never make it doing this.

273
00:17:13,440 --> 00:17:18,840
 And he did, he picked on some good examples, became a regular over at the Valley Club and

274
00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:22,640
 got a sponsor and it's going to be great for him.

275
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:24,200
 I was dying on the line.

276
00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:26,360
 I was dying on the line and didn't even know it.

277
00:17:26,360 --> 00:17:27,360
 You know what I'm saying?

278
00:17:27,360 --> 00:17:30,600
 It's like you put a frog in the water and you start turning it up to heat, they don't

279
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:31,600
 even know they're boiling.

280
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:33,360
 I had no idea I was boiling.

281
00:17:33,360 --> 00:17:38,400
 The book study that I was a regular at was down to like six or eight people.

282
00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:40,280
 It was just, it was a dying meeting.

283
00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:43,800
 It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a bunch of newcomers who weren't, you know, spreading

284
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:44,800
 the message.

285
00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:45,800
 I wasn't helping.

286
00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:46,800
 I wasn't doing any of that stuff.

287
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,060
 They talked about working with others, doing none of that.

288
00:17:50,060 --> 00:17:53,580
 It was all about can getting his, you know, what about mine?

289
00:17:53,580 --> 00:17:56,640
 And my alcoholism was coming down in different ways.

290
00:17:56,640 --> 00:18:01,320
 You know, most people don't understand when I say that anything worth doing is worth doing

291
00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:02,320
 until it kills.

292
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:08,280
 Because they don't have that let's take it to the nth degree drive in them, which I was

293
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:14,560
 doing house projects, whatever it was, I would kind of overshoot the mark with my alcohol.

294
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:20,520
 And then sometime before COVID, almost six or eight months, I got turned on to go into

295
00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:22,760
 the, I made a change in my life.

296
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:28,300
 I started doing martial arts and some other things on the weekends, and then made a change

297
00:18:28,300 --> 00:18:31,680
 to actually do more martial art training, sort of working a day shift.

298
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,120
 So I'll be like, yeah, I'll go to war meetings.

299
00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:37,640
 We're married by then for several years, I've got a house and everything's looking really

300
00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:38,640
 good on the outside.

301
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,040
 And I said, yeah, you know, I'll go to some war meetings.

302
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:44,600
 I'm going to get invited to this Wednesday night men's stat and I'm sitting there in

303
00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:47,360
 the back and they're reading, working with others.

304
00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:51,360
 And I realizing that there's all this stuff these guys are doing in the program of Alcoholics

305
00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:54,720
 Anonymous and I'm doing it and not working with newcomers.

306
00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:59,320
 In fact, I don't even have anything I can give a newcomer because I've been crispy and

307
00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:00,320
 dry for so long.

308
00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:02,600
 I don't even know if I could take it back to the steps.

309
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:07,520
 So I'm just starting to get good with that and go on to war meetings and becoming a regular

310
00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:08,520
 to commit visit meetings.

311
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:12,860
 I'm doing all the stuff that I used to do when I was in and my life is getting better.

312
00:19:12,860 --> 00:19:13,860
 And then COVID hits.

313
00:19:13,860 --> 00:19:18,680
 And I kept this one guy kept asking me if I wanted to attend the steps study and I kept

314
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:20,920
 telling him, you know, I'm busy on Thursday nights.

315
00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:22,440
 COVID fixed that for me.

316
00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:24,660
 I was no longer busy on Thursday nights.

317
00:19:24,660 --> 00:19:28,640
 I was completely and a hundred percent available and that steps study meeting was on.

318
00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:35,380
 So I did have a lot of stress going on during that time because I was still in the hospitals

319
00:19:35,380 --> 00:19:38,680
 because I work on medical equipment during the whole COVID thing.

320
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:39,680
 I have elderly parents.

321
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:45,760
 I have a handicap little brother who has since passed and I kept worrying that I was going

322
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:50,360
 to be the guy that was going to take the COVID to his nursing home, swipe everybody out.

323
00:19:50,360 --> 00:19:53,040
 So that was a little bit stressful.

324
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:55,840
 So I doubled down on my AA program.

325
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:59,700
 I had 25 years sobriety, did steps all over again.

326
00:19:59,700 --> 00:20:04,600
 And I did them from the viewpoint of I need to write all this stuff down so that I can

327
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:09,000
 take somebody else through the steps and use it as a sponsor guide.

328
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,080
 And that's what I did.

329
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:17,300
 I started a meeting where we get on Zoom every morning.

330
00:20:17,300 --> 00:20:22,160
 We do the third step prayer, we read a daily reflection from the night before, do the seventh

331
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:23,160
 step prayer.

332
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:28,680
 We go through the 24 hour day for today and then we do the St. Francis prayer and it takes

333
00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:29,680
 us 10 minutes.

334
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:33,440
 It's the best 10 minutes of my day, absolutely every day and we're doing that seven days

335
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:34,440
 a week.

336
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:38,360
 This is my fifth week this week so things have changed.

337
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:42,540
 Since that time, I am a hundred percent all in for AA.

338
00:20:42,540 --> 00:20:47,440
 I got to sitting in that meeting when I was coming back and I was realizing what I wasn't

339
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,440
 doing and what was lacking in my life.

340
00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:57,160
 My happiest time in my life was my first 10 years of sobriety and work in my life at that

341
00:20:57,160 --> 00:21:01,080
 time was that thing I had to do between meetings.

342
00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:04,960
 Once I reset my priorities, I put that on the back burner.

343
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:08,040
 Now work is that thing I do before I go to the meeting.

344
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:09,840
 But the goal is always going to the meeting.

345
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:14,800
 I don't know about you, but I start feeling better as soon as I point the car at the meeting.

346
00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:16,240
 I know it's going that direction.

347
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:21,280
 I started getting that same ease of comfort I used to get when I was going to the bar,

348
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:22,280
 the connect.

349
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:23,280
 8 minutes.

350
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:24,280
 8 minutes.

351
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:25,280
 Looking alike.

352
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:30,320
 So let's talk about the good stuff that I have in my life that AA is good.

353
00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:35,200
 I have a wife that's been married to for 20 years and she still likes me.

354
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:36,200
 That's something good.

355
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:42,120
 That means I haven't destroyed that relationship with alcohol for 21 years or given her a reason

356
00:21:42,120 --> 00:21:43,780
 to hold the grudge.

357
00:21:43,780 --> 00:21:47,520
 So I'm doing the right thing when it comes to that.

358
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:53,600
 I have a house and a career and all the other cash and prizes that you get when you don't

359
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:54,600
 drink them away.

360
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:56,320
 So I have a host of friends.

361
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:59,480
 Some of them came up to see me tonight and thank you for that.

362
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:05,200
 I have a community within this program of ours that I wouldn't trade for the world.

363
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:07,980
 I've actually decided what retirement looks like for me.

364
00:22:07,980 --> 00:22:10,440
 I'm going to be furniture at Clubhouse.

365
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,200
 So I'm going to be, I'm going to be that guy that's always up in the house because why

366
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:14,200
 not?

367
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:16,200
 This is where magic happens.

368
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,360
 I don't see why.

369
00:22:18,360 --> 00:22:22,800
 Before I got here, I told you about living in the back of that car when I was dying in

370
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:24,180
 the back of that car.

371
00:22:24,180 --> 00:22:25,180
 I was semi-psychotic.

372
00:22:25,180 --> 00:22:27,520
 I was 20 pounds underweight.

373
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,720
 I wasn't even going crazy.

374
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:33,200
 It was just, it was not good.

375
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:38,360
 But you know, it's something about being fond of accelerates when you add that to your alcohol

376
00:22:38,360 --> 00:22:41,320
 and it really helps you hit bottom faster and add speed.

377
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:42,800
 It's a big balance for that.

378
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:46,080
 I guess we'll start talking about the steps.

379
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:48,280
 So I actually think I'm going to end this stuff.

380
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:50,740
 I want to thank you so much for having me come out.

381
00:22:50,740 --> 00:22:55,780
 I am so sorry I couldn't get some more time out, but I think that's the important part.

382
00:22:55,780 --> 00:23:00,600
 Which the best thing about doing this thing is please, please, please be all in.

383
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:01,600
 Be all in.

384
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:02,600
 Do it all.

385
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:03,600
 Just go to the conventions.

386
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:04,600
 Hang out with the new people.

387
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,480
 One of my favorite things to do, I'm the secretary of a meeting.

388
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:13,320
 I spend more time standing up front, shaking hands in the way of the door outside.

389
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:14,320
 It's being a breeder.

390
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:16,320
 It's one of the best people to get to know everyone.

391
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:17,320
 It's comfortable.

392
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:18,320
 It's underappreciated.

393
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:19,320
 So thank you so much, guys.

394
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:20,320
 And that's enough.

395
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:21,320
 I'm leaving.

396
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:22,320
 Thanks.

397
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:22,320
 Bye.