Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name’s Darren.

I’m an alcoholic. Darren. Hello hello. I wanna thank the committee for inviting me here, especially Kevin. Thank you so much.

A lot of love for you, brother. And, wow, what a weekend. Went to a lot of the panels, a lot of the meetings, pretty good stuff. I want you to know right out the gate, I’m the worst drunk I’ve ever met. I can’t believe I’m sober.

That’s it. I can’t believe I’m sober and I’m happy. Those two things don’t go together, right? That’s why I don’t wanna get sober. That’s why typically we don’t wanna get sober because sobriety sucks.

Being sober in the beginning sucks. Being sober without a a program definitely sucks. Right? In fact, when I just the elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. When I put the drink and or the drugs down, I am restless, irritable, discontent.

I’m quick to anger, self pity, obvious to us, but if you’ve just come out of the lockdown psychiatric unit, 1,000,000,000 but if you’ve just come out of the lockdown psychiatric unit one more time, the most insane thing you could do would be to take another drink. Yet there I am, all lit up again because they have no other solution. And that was to go on and over and over and over, and my last couple of years of drinking was jails, institutions, and death. And I did not want to come to Alcos Anonymous just like most of you. I did not wanna do that.

Have you seen this thing on the telly? That’s the TV for you, lot. Have you seen it on the telly? It is they always depict Alcos Anonymous the most depressing, boring way you could possibly imagine. Right?

It’s usually 14 bald, fat, ugly men in a in a circle in a smokey filled miserable room. 1 of them might be a weak sober and they’re all clapping and crying. Oh my god. I never would end up there. You know what I mean?

And then towards the end of me drinking, that’s the only place anyone’s telling me where to go. The doctors, the psychiatrists, my family and friends that hadn’t talked to me in over a year telling me, Darren, you need to go to that 12 step program. I’m like, no. No. No.

No. No. Listen, mate. Listen. I’m already suicidally depressed.

And now you want me to go to that a and a bullshit? What’s that all about? Well, you’re trying to finish me off quicker. I don’t I don’t understand it. I remember the moment our now alcohol didn’t do this to me.

I was born in Manchester, England, by the way. I’m not having a stroke. But I remember the first time well, the last time I was absolutely towards the end of my drinking, I was cornered by King Alkal. I had met my match. And, when you come to Alkal’s anonymous, when it’s the last house on the block, it seems to work a little bit better.

That’s just my opinion. And I was living in a in a shitty house, in a crappy room on the west side of the mean streets of Santa Barbara. It was quicksand stretched out all around me. It was midnight, and I was maudlin drunk as usual. My 3 other roommates were downtown partying, having excluded me, of course, yet again, which made for more self pity.

And it was over. I just was cornered in every single respect, and, because I’m gonna kill myself, I finally made that call to Alcotts Anonymous, and it’s midnight, and I’m miserable, and I make that I had to find the yellow pages. Right? You young ones will have to Google that shit, won’t you? I found the yellow pages, and it took that shit, won’t you?

I found the yellow pages, and it took me forever to find the the oh, god. It’s anonymous. That’s how drunk I was. Darren, it’s hey. Hey.

It’s in the beginning of the book. And I called the number, and this lovely older lady answered the phone, and she was so good at her job. I’ll be forever thankful to her. And I got straight down to business. Yes, lady.

I might drink too much, but so would you if what’s happened to me had happened to you, and I’m gonna kill myself anyway. She would always just talk me down off the ledge. She’d insert a little nugget here and there, and I’m just going on and on, and she’s talking me down. And finally, she says to me, well, Darren, have you never been to a meeting? No.

She said, well, oh my gosh. There’s a meeting down the road from you tomorrow night at 8 o’clock. It’s a men’s meeting. And she made it sound so special. So special.

I didn’t know there were 200 meetings a week in Sanabang. I passed out. I came through the next day shaking and baking. And I remembered, oh my god. I’ve gotta go to this goddamn AA meeting.

And I and I can’t now it was in the afternoon. I can’t say I didn’t take a little drink or I had to have a little cheeky drink. You know, if I because I’m physically dependent on out on vodka. Right? Plus, if if I’m gonna leave my bedroom, let alone my house, I need to have something in me.

You know what I mean? Especially if I’m gonna do something really weird, like interact with other humans. And so I had enough vodka in me. I showered for the first time in months. I jelled my hair all sexy, Like I used to be able to.

You know what I mean? And I went wandering down to this AA meeting, and it was nothing like I’d seen on the telly. It was like this place. There was a vibe about it. There was a vast amount of fun about it.

It was a huge lit hall. It was a massive men’s stag, 80 or 90 men, down there. Now they all seemed really happy to see each other. They seemed to know each other. Someone had gotten engaged and everybody stoked for them.

Someone else had gotten a promotion. Now I’m obviously not interacting with these people. I’m sat down away from these happy folks. You know what I mean? Well, by the time I get to AA, I I don’t like people generally speaking, but I especially hate those happy people.

So I’m an observer. I’m just sat down observing what’s going on. And then what happened next really captured my attention. Just underneath, the deadly earnest has started to kick in. The secretary ruffled his shuffle his papers, went and sat down all business like.

Everybody sat down in these two huge circles. Everybody showed up. Everybody got off their phones. Can you believe it? They sat down, and they respected the start of the meeting.

And as they were doing some readings, and I’m just bewildered, I’m looking around going, wow. This is crazy. And as the meeting started, I thought this is a good time to open my jacket pocket. I pull out a huge bottle of vodka and start drinking in the meeting. The guy next to me says, holy fuck.

This it was a potty mouth meeting like this one. I’m so happy she did that. I’m so happy. I’m so He said he said, oh my god. This guy’s drinking vodka in the meeting.

And I was looking around like, fuck. Why is nobody else drinking? Isn’t this Alcoholics Anonymous? Don’t you have a drinking problem? I have a really bad drinking problem.

I stayed drunk in the ruins of Santa Barbara, AA for a year. For a year. I got quite the reputation back then, let me tell you. They all say, like, oh my god. Is that Englishman watching?

He’ll pull out a bottle of vodka in a minute, and I did. It took me 3 months to figure out what you cheeky monkeys were doing. You lot were putting your vodka in a water bottle and bringing it to the meeting. You coulda told me. That wasn’t always like that.

I I started drinking at 13. I drank from 13 to 33. Now 13, I thought, you know, that’s a really young age. I thought someone’s gonna fall off the chair, really. Like, 13.

Oh, that’s outrageous. No. It’s not, is it? Not any not especially not in Outdoors Anonymous. What I’ve realized is over the years is you can’t outdo anybody alcohol synonymous.

Somebody over here say to themselves, I was drinking when I was 8. Oh, fucking k. Okay. Look. This one woman speaker, she gives a great talk.

However, her whole pitch surrounds the fact that she was drunk in her addicted mother’s womb. In the womb. Okay, Theresa, you win. You win. You can’t outdo that one, can you?

I think she was born blowing a 0.25 smoking a pack of Malibu reds. Get her out of there. No. I drank from 13 to 33. I went to college.

I went to, school and college and university. I had a good time. Did anybody else have a bit of a good time? I had a bit of a good time. Some people don’t like that, it seems like.

I don’t know why. It’s like, don’t worry, mate. I am going to ruin my life and then wanna kill myself. We’re gonna get there, but I had a bit of a good time, and I became a a an entrepreneur out of university. My brother had a great idea.

He was already a businessman. He’s 6 years older than me, and he’s old. Darren, come back to Manchester, and we’ll get together. And we made a great team. We made a great team because he’s a brilliant businessman, and I’m a good, bullshitter, bullshitter like you are.

You know? We’re calling the marketing director. And so we would we’re in the insurance company business, and if you had a non fault road traffic accident, my company would go and give you a replacement vehicle, put you with an attorney, get any out of pocket expenses back to you, and we made money at every different turn. It was amazing. It was a great idea.

Every time a check came in, we’d buy another vehicle. You know, the banker watched with amused skepticism. I’ve whirled some fat chips in and out of his account. But when I became into my mid to later twenties, that’s when alcoholism starts to take its grip on me. Now alcoholism doesn’t come in the form of me waking up.

Like, I I didn’t come here for the longest time because I thought I don’t look like an alcoholic either. I have a preconceived notion of what it looks like to be an alcoholic. It’s it’s the bum on the end of the off ramp. Right? The big bushy beard, the dirty tan, begging for change.

So it can’t be anybody in here because you’re either too young, too beautiful, too well put together, too businesslike. Well, some of you look like you’ve had a good drink over there, I suppose, but, you know, so it makes no sense. So as I’m as I’m approaching my mid to later twenties and alcoholism’s taking its grit, it doesn’t come in the form of me all of a sudden looking like an alcoholic and drinking vodka. Alcoholism is subtle and progressive, and alcoholism comes in the form of massive amounts of anxiety. You remember that.

Don’t you? Yeah. And alcoholism comes in the form of massive amounts of depression, and it comes in the form of this spiritual illness that’s eating me alive from the inside out. My soul’s becoming ever blacker and soon it will be ash. And what alcoholism wants to do with us, it wants to get you away from the herd, get you on your own and kill you.

That’s the goal of alcoholism. Now so during the day when I’m not drinking is when alcoholism was kicking my ass the most. When I’m going out at nighttime, drinking is still working for me at this stage of alcoholism. That’s the only time I feel good. You take me out for a night and I have a a couple of pints and maybe a line or something, I’m like a mixture between James Bond, Dave Chappelle, and Harry fucking Potter.

You know what I mean? We’re gonna have a good time. But during the day, I am dying of untreated alcoholism, and I don’t know what’s going on. And the best description I can give alcoholism is that it’s like something weird is happening to me. It’s almost like, Darren, you’ve had such a good time, you little soul.

You’ve had such a good time. Let’s see if you can handle this. And everything changed, and the anxiety ramped through the roof. I remember I couldn’t get out of my nice sports car to go into a meeting that I’d set up the day before because I’m paralyzed with fear. I didn’t know that was alcoholism.

Now because this is Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m gonna talk about alcoholism, but I did try cocaine once for 20 years. I love that shit. I love amphetamine. I love speed. I love anything that will allow me to drink Bob under the table.

You know what I mean? Everybody thought I was an animal. Have you seen how much Darren can drink? Yeah. They But it was such a nightmare.

The other description I would give, what happens when you get when alcoholism creeps in, is it steals your happy gene. Now I couldn’t remember for the longest time when I was last genuinely happy. And then I’d I’d see other people happy and it would piss me off. How can you be genuinely happy and I’m not? And inwardly the suicide thoughts are coming in, and it just doesn’t make any sense.

The other problem for us is what do we have to do? We have to pretend everything’s going alright. How are you doing? I’m like on my head all day. I can’t do my job.

I’m losing my shit. My anxiety’s through the roof. Darren, how are you doing? Hey. I’m alright.

How are you doing? Right? Because if I can in my in my sick mind, if I can convince you that I’m okay, maybe I’ll be okay. Right? And only another alcoholic will understand that.

Things got so bad, I couldn’t do I got away with so much bullshit because I was the boss. But we always have somebody that’s on to us. Oh, my brother, he was on to me big time. And finally, we went to a, we used to have these monthly boardroom meetings. There were four directors.

We’re a small shareholding company. I hated these things. I couldn’t I’m so uncomfortable. And he started the meeting off and said, yeah, Darren, so we’ve actually had a meeting before this meeting, and we’ve decided we’re gonna have to let you go. I said, wait.

What? Can you do do can you do that? Only an alcoholic can pull that off. I got fired from a business that I created, and I knew I knew how brilliant of a businessman he was, and I knew he’d have it all tied up tied up in a nice little bow and so my fear quickly turned to anger. And I said, wait a minute.

What are you talking about? I went kicked the table out of the way, and I went to give him a flying headbutt. Right? Hey. I believe in clear communication.

You know what I mean? The finance director tackles me. It’s just one of those awful classic alcoholic moments that we’ve all had. The mask has slipped. Darren’s been found out.

Darren’s been found out. It was the worst, most depressing, day of my life up to that moment. I had to leave the sports car there. They’re gonna cut me a crappy check. It was the worst time financially to exit the business, of course.

And as I’m wandering home, the only thing I care about like any good alcoholic is, wait a minute. I gotta change the narrative on this shit. Right? I don’t want anyone talking poorly about me, and I’m already scheming. Who was in the room?

Who witnessed this? My brother was there, but he’s a wanker. Don’t worry about him. The 2 other directors that were there, that’s not too bad. All my mates don’t know.

All I cared about is what my crew thinks about me. What do my mates think about me? And as I’m walking home depressed, and I’m, oh my god. Everything’s been found out. What’s going on?

Now it was a Thursday night, and I was already going out with my mates that night. Anybody else’s weekend longer than their week? Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, that was my weekend. So I went to the bar early. Here’s what alcohol does for us.

I went to the bar early and had a couple of stiff drinks and, woof, the old face determination to win comes right back. And here comes my mate, Simon, and here comes Dave. I said, did you hear about that bullshit today? My brother’s a wanker, dude. I built that business up from my bedroom, and he bought it.

By the by this time, I’ve had another drink. 15 of my other friends are all in, and I’ve got an audience and all buying into me bullshit. Said, yeah. I can do anything I put my mind to. I don’t need any of those people.

No. That’s right, Darren. Don’t worry about it. You can do whatever you want. I said I said, hey.

You know what, boys? When I was a student, I used to love traveling. You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna go traveling again. Oh, you know what I’m I’m gonna go to America, and I’m gonna become president of America or some shit.

Hey, apparently, any fucker can become president of the world. So I wasn’t sure of confidence. Now, I think the problem is the shitty UK weather, right? That’s the problem. I think the problem is my brother, you know, he’s a right wanker.

I think the problem is my girlfriend. She keeps leaving me for stupid little things like my cheating on her and stuff like that. But, no. Somebody puts the problem on a flight at Manchester International Airport and flies it all the way to LAX, and there I am. And an uncle I’ve never met before comes and picks me up, gets me in his car.

First thing he does, he builds a big spliff, takes a big drag of it, hands it to me. He says, Darren, welcome to America. I’m all, thank you very much, uncle Patrick. Now this man owns an English bar in downtown Santa Barbara. See?

There is a God. We drive up to Santa Barbara. I came to Santa Barbara for a 2 week holiday 24 years ago. I never made it back to England. Could you believe it?

I came here just to take the edge off. Now now he owns the bar, and so everybody loves this man. He’s a great dude. Within 2 weeks, I’ve become a bit of a local. I realized England has a dark cloud over it still.

And now when I’m on holiday, I like to have a drink. My lack of responsibility alcoholism. Because if you think about it, staying drunk or high is not a problem for us. It’s not a problem at all. It’s a problem for other people.

It’s a problem for the authorities. It’s a problem for bosses. It’s a problem for spouses, but it ain’t a problem for me. So instead of staying for 2 weeks, I stay for 90 days that my visa waiver would allow, and I’m drunk off my ass every every every, day that I’m there for 90 days, I become this daily drinker. A friend then I’m in a blur.

My friend then comes over from England, and I buy an SUV, and we travel the whole of America for 5 months, spending all my money that they had to give me out in England. 5 months, 12 1,000 miles. We saw everything a tourist was gonna see. 32 states. We even went up into Canada, back down through the Rockies all the way through Flagstaff, back to Santa Barbara.

By the time I was drunk off my ass in every little town, city, and state. By the time we got back to Santa Barbara, I had 7 outstanding warrants in 5 different states. That means we had a good time. We had a good time. Now my friend who’s normal, he flies back to England, but he still has a dark cloud for me.

And I be and now I’m an illegal alien as well, whatever that means. My and I become a drunk bartender. I become a drunk bartender in my uncle’s pub. Oh my god. It was the it was the worst job in world and the best job in the world all rolled into 1.

But my anxiety was through the roof. Through the roof. I should have been fired after my first shift. I’m the drunkiest person in the barn. I’m the bartender.

I come to the next morning. They have a shadowy recollection of me being slumped onto a stool in the corner of the pub and watching the locals serving each other, giving each other money. And I’m like, I’m looking at it going, this ain’t right, man. This ain’t right. And I’d be sat on the end of my bed going, what is wrong with me?

I knew I wasn’t normal anymore. Do you remember that moment when you know you’re not normal? I’ve drank so much hard alcohol. I’ve done so many drugs. I’ve ruined my wiring, and only you will understand that.

I’ve cracked my mind. I’m operating on a level that’s not healthy. It’s almost psychotic, and I need dumbing down all the time. And alcohol will do that. That’s the only way I can go to work.

I used to sit on the end of bet my bed going oh my god what is wrong with me? I used to be somebody. Other people were responsible, I was responsible for them you know. Now I just can’t do anything normal. I can’t I have a job where I’m allowed to have a cheeky drink, and I’m even screwing that up.

You know, I would I would come to in the morning shaking and sweating, Jagermeister coming out of every pore. Remember that? I would have to and I and I’d I’d say please please don’t be a workday because I’m I’m the anxiety’s through the roof. I’m gonna have a nervous mental breakdown. Look, I’m like, oh my god.

It’s Wednesday. Holy shit. I gotta be at work in half an hour. God damn. So I’d jump in the shower, jump on my bike because I don’t want another DUI.

Huge delivery I’m bombing it down State Street. Huge delivery trucks are coming up the other way. Oh, I fantasize about just going under one of them, and it would look like an accident, and only you know what I mean by that. But I’d make it to Dargan’s Irish Pub, 9:20 in the morning, desperate for a drink. I gotta be at work at 9:30.

So I put my bike outside Dargan’s, and I wanted I wanted to look normal. Like, what other loser needs a drink? But I need a drink desperately before going to work at the English bar across the road. And I’d open the pub door, and it’d be this huge empty Irish pub just like normal. Beautiful Yvonne.

She was gorgeous. Way out of my league. She’s cleaning the beer pumps or some weird shit. I never cleared anything in my pub. And I’d walk in there going, oh my god.

I’m dying. How can I finagle a drink? And she looked my way and I go, hey. She go, Darren, how you doing, young fella? But, hey, Yvonne.

I think I’m sick actually. And I wanted to get my shift covered, but I’ve had the previous 14 Wednesday shifts covered. You know, because we got to we got to work with a hangover so bad that most normal people would dial 911. Right? And as I’m trying to think about a drink, she says to me magically, would you like a pint?

I’m like, fuck. Yes. I’d like a pint. Now it’s like it’s her idea. Go on then, you know.

Now but here’s the problem. I don’t think I can wait for 30 seconds it’s gonna take her to pour this thing. I’m stood at the bar, she wanders around, goes there, and I’m like, oh my god. You remember you were you’re having a nervous mental breakdown? 30 seconds is a long time.

She’s pouring the drink. She looks my way. Now she comes back to me with the drink, and she puts it right in front of me. But she doesn’t walk off to clean. She stands there looking right at me.

You know, like she wants to chitchat or some shit. And I just wanna pull my knife out and stab her in the neck, get that awkward bit over with, and I grab my drink and I pour my water. I drink my drink. 3 seconds flat, move, but it doesn’t do it. It’s not enough.

It’s not quite enough. It’s not strong enough, and I’m dying. And she can see I’m dying, and I’m about to trudge off to work, and she says, would you like a Jaeger? Oh my god. She’s offering me liquid heroin.

She doesn’t bother with little she doesn’t bother with a little shot glass bullshit. She gives me a tumbler full of that sucker. I feel good, better just watching her pour that thing right to the top. She gives it to me in a go. Get down.

Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

Go. Go. Go. What’s the problem? What is the goddamn problem?

I’ve gone from a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck to a man brimming over his self reliance like that in 30 seconds. Now I’m all cocky and confident. Now I’m gonna go to my bar, my bar. I might I might even come back and shaggy Von on my break. You know what I mean?

If she’s lucky. I go to my bar. I drink too much yet again. I overshoot the mark. I wake up the next morning with 6 missed calls.

I answer the 7th call. Get down here now. Oh. Oh. 18 months, I had a sense of impending doom.

18 months of it. Now I know why we have a sense of impending doom. It’s because something bad’s going to happen. I go down to the barn crying and please, Raf, please don’t let me go. Oh my god.

I know what’s wrong. You’ll never work in here ever again, ever again. You need to go. You need to go back to England. You need to go to rehab.

You need to do something. I should’ve fired you after your first shift. Get out of here. Oh, I tied 1 on that night. The drunk of all drunks.

I got up the next morning and went down to that bar to see who took my shift, and I threw a pint over him in front of everybody. How to ostracize yourself from the whole of downtown Santa Barbara in a from the whole of downtown Santa Barbara in a nanosecond. Only we can pull some shit like that off. Darren, you get out of here right now. We never wanna see you ever again.

And I just go on a death march. I go on a death march for months. I’m not a cute little drunk dude. I’m not a functioning alcoholic. I am a vodka drinking mania.

And nobody’s seen me for months. And a typical day for me is I would come to and it would be pitch black outside, and I have no idea whether it’s night or day. And I would eventually figure it out. Oh my god. It’s 5 AM, that darkest hour before the dawn.

Now I have strong, horrible, warm vodka under my bed at this stage of my drinking because I’m gonna need some of it first daylight. I’m drinking from tall bottles of vodka, and I always have 4 fingers left in the bottom of it because it’s like a science project. That is exactly what I’ll need in the morning, but I so desperately don’t wanna drink. But I can only last 10 or 15 minutes of the mental and hellish torture back and forth about just kill yourself. No.

No. Just do this. I’m I’m just out of my mind hearing the voices, hearing my name being called outside in the darkness. And after 10 minutes, I’d grab that bottle of vodka and it would just about relieve the cracked mind. It would just about relieve the suicide thoughts.

But as I’ve polished that bit of vodka off, here’s the problem. I’ve just fed the beast and now the beast needs feeding. And I would put on my smelly baggy clothing to go one block to Foodland Liquor Store right next to my house. Not even 6 AM. And I go into that place and I’d steal my one time I’m going to Foodland and I come in front of a huge shop front window and my reflection’s so bad I come back to look at it again.

Oh my god. Go right up to the image. I got a big ass bushy beard. The hair is stuck to my head and face all over. I’m so sunken down.

I’m yellow with jaundice. I look 15 years older than I should’ve. And I went right up to my reflection and I said, wow. I’d better not tell anyone about that and carried on to food like that. And I steal me 2 big bottles of vodka and I go clinking off home.

Now when you get home, you what you wanna do is just pound the vodka and pass out, but no. No. No. No. No.

Can’t do that. It’s like a science project. It is immensely important that first bottle gets nursed into the later afternoon Because the second bottle has to get me into the evening, saving enough. But I’m trying to get to for once, trying to get to 10 o’clock, maybe even 11 o’clock at night because I could never sleep till once catch a good enough sleep to wake up and not have to drink like that ever again. And he says the mind and body are marvelous mechanisms.

I drank like that for 2 more years. 2 more years of jails, institutions and death. You cannot scare us with death at our latter stages of drinking. It’s like bring it on. But alcoholism doesn’t have the dignity to take us quickly.

It can mess with you for years if not decades. My fear is not dying an alcoholic death. My fear is living an alcoholic life. What a miserable day at a time. Here’s how I got sober.

I came to 1 morning and there was no vodka under my bed. That had never happened to me before and I took it as a sign. This is the day I’m gonna kill myself. And I was fine with that. I tried to kill myself 3 months prior.

3 months prior, it was midnight. I was modelling drunk. My 3 roommate housemates were downtown partying again, haven’t excluded me. And I remembered one of them was an arsenal of weapons. He was a maniac.

So I broke into his bedroom. I jimmied the door. I found all these weapons. I found like a shotgun, an AK, loaded revolvers. Now I’m English.

I don’t quite know what I’m doing with a gun, but I stumble into the living room with the loaded revolver, and I sit on the couch, I put the gun in my mouth. It’s cold. It’s heavy on my teeth, and I’m thinking, wait. Do you blow the back of your head off, or do you shoot up through the roof of your mouth? And as I’m thinking it through, the thought came to me.

Hey, Darren. It’s midnight. If you pull the trigger right now, you’ll definitely wake the neighbors up. And I’m too polite for that shit. You know what I mean?

So I just finished the job, but today I’m gonna kill myself. I stay in my bedroom for a couple of hours. It’s about 10 AM and I decide to throw myself off Santa Barbara’s biggest bridge, Cold Springs Bridge. A popular suicide spot in my area, a bit like the Golden Gate. I go outside.

Thank god my car is there. Remember that movie, dude, where’s my car? I could never find my car. I jump in my car. I drive 25 minutes up the mountain road.

I park the car. I walk to the center of the bridge, and I pause because I know it’s gonna kill me mum. And in that pause, grace came in the form of a man who told me the truth in Alcotts Anonymous, and I came here drunk like I told you. And I would sometimes share inappropriately, I’m gonna kill myself. This shit doesn’t work.

Blah blah blah. And he got so mad he took me off to the side. He said Darren what are you talking about? You haven’t done nothing around here. And I got angry.

I said I’ve been coming here for a year old man. He said well Darren first of all you should come sober it works better. He said and a drunk like you, you need to get a sponsor, you need to work the steps. And I knew he was right, I’m stood on that bridge and I knew I had 2 big secrets just like many of you have 2 big seekers in here. One was I didn’t have a sponsor, and if I did it was in name only, which is the same bullshit.

The other one is I wasn’t working any steps, and so I pretty much made a decision on that bridge. I said to myself okay, I’m gonna go back to that AA bullshit, and I’m gonna work those stupid 12 steps. And when they don’t work, I’m gonna go and find that man and have a little chitchat. I’ll probably take him off the bridge with me. Right?

Now I know enough about my stage of alcoholism that I can’t just come skipping into the rooms. I need to be once again medically detoxed in the lockdown psychiatric unit. This would be my 4th time at College Hospital emergency unit, the psychiatric, ward. And I was getting used to that place. That was normal for me.

So I drive all the way back down. I go to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital emergency room and park in my usual spot. I’ve been as I parked, I side swiped the car next to me. Can you believe it? I’ve just driven down a fucking mowing road and I crashed in the car park at the hospital.

I get out of the car, security are there, 2 cops are around the corner, they come over. I’m, like, sorry, sir. That’s my fault. I’ve got my ID. This is my car.

One cop goes behind me. The other one comes right up to me. He’s about to say something. He seems to change his mind and says, woah. Have you been drinking?

I think that’s a weird first question. I said, no mate, have you? You don’t like that approach. He said do you reek of alcohol? I said I don’t want to tell you.

He said well you’re doing some field sobriety test. I said okay. I do 25 minutes field sobriety test. Perfectly. He’s so pissed.

He looked at his colleague. His colleague is like this. He said, you’re doing more. I do 15 more minutes perfectly. Finally, he says, you’re blowing into this little machine.

I blow into it with breathalyzer. I blow a 0.32. I haven’t even had a drink yet. I’m waking up at a 0.32, then I’m drinking my I’m sober as a judge. These 2, it’s about 11 AM.

These 2 cops cannot believe it, man. They cannot believe it and they’re jibber jabbering with each other and I’m like is this a good thing or a bad thing? And then and then he starts to get the handcuffs and walks towards me and I’m like my panic then? Have you ever detoxed in jail? Oh my lord.

You don’t wanna do that. And I started to panic and I said, listen dude. If you what are you doing? He said, turn around. You’re going to jail.

I said, if you take me to jail right now, I will kill somebody. I said, I’m small, mate, but I’m fucking dangerous, dude. Then I start to use the language of Alcott Synonymous and start to tell them the truth. And the moment I do that, the miracle almost starts to take place already. I pour my heart out, tell them about AA, I have no sponsor, tell them what I need to do, that I was gonna it was gonna kill me mom that’s why I didn’t do it.

Now of course they arrest me, but they decide not to take me to jail. They take me to the local police station, which felt so much safer to me. I’ll ever be forever grateful for that. And now I’m handcuffed in the back of the squad car and we’re going to the police station. They’re so enamored with what’s going on, they actually raid your ahead to their colleagues, and they say, hey, we’ve got this Irishman, and he blew a point through it.

I said, I’m English, you moron. They send me to the police station. They fingerprint me. I’m in there for at least 2 or 3 hours. I swear to god, everybody that worked in that police station came down to chitchat with the Englishmen.

Everybody. They couldn’t believe it. The tolerance level’s just through the roof. Now somebody that they know and trust comes and picks me up to take me back to the lockdown psychiatric unit. But so what?

I’d literally got undrunk twice on the way home from there. And I suppose it sounds a little bit it is a bit like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and it sounds a little depressing, the lockdown psychiatry unit, but I love me some lockdown psychiatric unit. You know what I mean? You know why? Because a lot of narcotics are coming my way.

And now that I’m jittery, now that the DTs are kicking in, now that I know I need to be medically detoxed, all thoughts of sobriety go out the window because I need to get what I need to get. Right? You need to get well. So they take me to the, the hospital, some security guard I know the drill. I know what you do in these places.

Takes you to a private elevator. You go up to the 5th floor. You get clicked into no man’s land in between two doors, and you have to answer the floor again. They’ll buzz you and let you in. And there you are in the lockdown psychiatric unit one more time.

I know exactly what I need to do. You need to go to the person behind the little drugs window and get as many drugs as is humanly possible. Right? And I go up to that window, she knows me and I know her and I said to her, hello Mary, how are you doing my love? Did you have a nice Christmas?

Mary, I’m gonna need my usual cocktail, please. I would like a 118 Valiums, 2 pints of Seroquel, whatever the fuck them pink things are. I’ll have some of them up there as well. And for once, can I have the Penthouse Suite? And if that’s not available, I’ll have my usual room.

She’s just shaking her head. She gives me as many drugs as she’s legally allowed to give me. 10, woof, 10 minutes later, loaded to the girls. Loaded to the girls, ready to start judging people again. 3 hours ago, I wanted to kill myself.

Now I’m Lord of the Nut Ward. Now I know exactly what I need to do now that I’m in the lockdown psychiatric unit. I know what you lot do when you’re in the lockdown psychiatric unit. I better go and find myself a little girlfriend in the lockdown psychiatric unit. Don’t you lie to me.

So where does everybody hang out? They all hang out in the day room. They’re all in the TV room. Back then, you would go to your room, get changed into a hospital robe, make sure it’s tied at the back. I’m loaded to the girls walking down the hallway.

I open the door to the day room to look for my next victim. I bang the door against the wall so everybody can look my way, a bit like this right now. Everybody looks my way. And, oh, look at all these morons in here. There’s a girl over here banging her head against the wall.

There’s a guy over here just drooling on himself. And then I see her. Oh, she’s the love of my life. I see her. There’s this 1 girl all on her own doing laps around the couch.

All on her own. She’s got this black hair, but it’s all in front of her face. She’s got unusually long arms. She’s just wandering around the couch going, I’m all fucking, look at that. Oh my god.

She looks like that girl out of the movie. What’s it called? The fucking ring or something. I go sliding in there, and I grab her by the hand, and we do laps together. And we fall madly in love.

Then they detox me from the from the alcohol by giving me all the drugs, and then they detox me from the drugs. And 13 days later, Darren’s been missing again for 13 days, and they caught me out sober on the other side one more time. So what? Here’s the difference. The difference is Darren has hit bottom.

Now then, hitting bottom for me gets misrepresented in these rooms a lot. Hitting bottom for me has become something very precise and anybody that sponsors people will know this. Hidden bottom is when you ask somebody for help and follow through with all the directions. Think about it. It’s not your worst drunk.

It’s not that it’s very rarely our worst drunk when we get sober, and I was gonna prove it this time. I was gonna prove it. I came out of the hospital on a Wednesday afternoon. I had my psychiatric patient bracelet still on. Now it was Wednesday night a Wednesday afternoon, and I did not take a drink, which is an absolute miracle.

I went to a very very powerful men’s stag that night called the junkyard dogs. There was 80 men outside this meeting hall, smoking fags and drinking coffee, having a good time. Dozens of them were properly armed with the facts about themselves and the illness. I went straight up to the 1st serious dude I knew and I hey, Mike, I just got out today, man. Yet again, I’m gonna drink tonight.

You know it, I know it, what do I need to do? And he looked right at me and said, holy shit Darren, are you sober right now? I said, yeah. Nobody barely seen me sober that whole year. He’s all, oh my god, Darren.

Shit. He’s all he’s all, let’s get into action right now. I’ve seen how rough you’ve had it this last year. He said, let’s get into action. Let’s do a third step prayer right now.

Listen. He said, normally we do some reading, we might get to page 16, the ABCs. I said, but let’s get into action. Listen. I don’t pray.

I definitely don’t pray on my knees. I don’t believe in God, and I hate religion. I said, what do you mean, Mike, in front of these 80 men? And he said, yeah. And I said, okay.

I said okay because the know had been beaten out of me. Darren wasn’t too cool for school anymore. Darren was about to conform to the process. We hit our knees, we do the 3rd step prayer in front of everybody. I went into that meeting.

I’ll never forget it. 10 minutes into the meeting someone had a grand mal alcoholic seizure. Oh, it was disgusting. Took him 2 minutes of getting redder and redder and seizing up and seizing up and eventually he fell off the chair. Now I’ve had many grand mal seizures, just never fucking seen one.

You know what I mean? I went home from that meeting, and I wrote 100 names on my 4th step that night. That night, I passed out. I came to it 5 AM shaking and baking. I wrote 100 more names.

It wasn’t even 6 AM. I was going to drink. I called my sponsor. He answered the phone. He gave me my next column, and he saved my life.

I called him 12 times that day to finish all three inventories. I went to his house the next day, and we did my 5th step. Took us 3 and a half hours. He’s sending me home for my hour of review, and he’s all missed. He’s he gave me a big hug.

He said, Darren, this is amazing. This has never happened to me. I said, I’m glad you feel good, Mike. I feel like shit, dude. So don’t worry, Darren.

Trust in the process. The next day, I went to his house, and we did steps 6 and 7. 6 and 7? I didn’t understand what 6 and 7 were. Nobody understands steps 6 and 7.

But I had a lot of willingness and humility, and I was desperate to move on and we did. The next day I went to his house and we did my 8th step. It was easy. I already had my list. I just had to annoyingly transfer it onto another bloody list.

And then I added to my list. On my 5th and 6th day of sobriety, I went around Santa Barbara and made 21 amends. 21 amends and I was lit up like a Christmas tree. I was rocketed into the 4th dimension. My little English heart filled up so much I thought it was gonna burst and everything made sense.

Oh my God. This is why Alissa saw into Alcoholics Anonymous. This is why you guys are sponsoring people, which is why you’re being of service. You must get this full heart made and it made sense. Oh my god.

This is why half the people are miserable as fuck. They’re not doing anything around here. Like I wasn’t doing anything around here. They are an epiphany. Oh my god.

Wait a minute. This is what you’re calling god. If you wanna call this god, I don’t give a shit because believed. I felt so good. I got up the next day and went to Foodland Liquor Store just around the corner from and I asked to speak to the manager.

I said sir, I gotta tell you I’ve been a really bad drunk for a really long time, and I’ve been coming to your store and stealing vodka. Said I will never steal from you or anyone else ever again. I said, I’ve added it all up and it comes to $2,750. I said, it’s Friday. I just started work for the first time in years 2 days ago.

It was $25, sir. I’ll be back every Friday with $25 until I’ve paid that whole amount off and any interest you determine. I said, is there anything else I can do to make this right? And I floated off to make some more financial amends. I couldn’t believe how good it felt to give you your money back.

I said to me, sponsor, what’s next? He said, oh my god, Darren. I can’t believe this. He said Steps 10 and 11. I said 10 and 11, what’s that?

He already knew I was a recovered alcoholic if I didn’t. He said: Yeah step 10 man, step 10 is to postpone the punishment off. We’ll show you what to do right here right now. Postpone yes. Yeah.

One day at a time. Like were you not being punished? My god my last few years of drinking and living was hell on earth. He said yeah. You can postpone that one day at a time, then I’ll show you in 11 what to do in the morning and what to do at night.

2 minutes, Darren. 2 minutes of meditation in the morning. You’re already praying, your little English ass up. 2 minutes of meditation, 2 minutes to review your day at night to sandwich the day. Now thank God He gave me the full strength solution.

Thank God I’m the worst drunk he’s ever met. Thank God He gave me what I now call the guaranteed version of sobriety. Guaranteed. It’s not like I like meditation by the way. Just like you lot, I resist and don’t like meditation but he showed me a little routine of 2 minutes and I’ll tell you right now, I fight it every day but I can’t leave anything out.

I can’t leave anything out. I’m the worst drunk I’ve ever met. You can’t leave a 5th step out because you have ADHD, can you? No. You can’t leave out a 9th step because you don’t have enough time to do it, can you?

No. So I know when it became cruel to leave out the meditation part I’m just ever grateful He gave it to me. Now it’s taken me 20 years to go from 2 minutes meditation to 10 minutes meditation. 20 fucking years. But God loves him a little trier.

God loves him a little fucking trier. My god is cool, man. My god is cool. My god’s got a potty mouth. My god is actually up there laughing his bearded ass off at me down here in the mornings doing my shitty prayer meditation.

Laughing his ass off he is. He says to himself, look at that little fuck down there. Look at him doing his shitty prayer and meditation and he sucks at it. But then he says, oh, he sees me trying and he says, oh, you know what? You know what?

Give that little man another day of sobriety. That’s how cool my god is. He doesn’t care I’m a potty mouth man from Manchester. He cares about my actions. He cares about my helping others which I do relentlessly.

Relentlessly. Steps 10 and 11 are like the keys to the kingdom. Steps 10 and 11 are so simple, you won’t do it. Isn’t that the truth? What is wrong with us?

Only an alcoholic will burn his life to the ground to then come running to a 12 step program just to resist the 12 steps. What is wrong with us? But I am in. I am sold on the plan outlining this book. Now some of us are sicker than others.

Right? I’m not as sick as Kevin, but I’m pretty sick. I have to I’m one of those people that has to work a hell of a program just to feel normal. Just to feel normal. I can’t go to 1 speaker meeting a week.

I gotta be in the trenches. I gotta be doing the deal. I gotta be sponsoring people, being of service, doing my shitty prayer meditation. I gotta do all that just to feel normal, just to be another worker amongst workers. I sponsor so many people in Santa Barbara.

I do so much AA. I should be the Delhi fucking llama or some shit, but no. I do all that just to be another bosser on the bus, but that’s alright for me. I don’t mind earning this shit. Why do we do this?

Because we get a full heart. Why do we do this? The payoff is immense because we get to enter the world of the spirit. None of this pink cloud bullshit. It’s all consular and measured towards the the, effort that we put in.

And I don’t mind after having to work for this one day at a time for the rest of my life. I don’t care about that at all. You this is the greatest show on earth, man. This is for fun and for free. If you’re not sponsoring, start sponsoring people.

You get these little soap operas going on in your life. Right? Tragic ones, weird ones, wonderful ones. All these crazy shits going on, but we’ve entered the world with the spirit, and I’ll finish with this story that kind of sums that up. I was speaking in the Bay Area 8 or 9 years ago.

I was speaking at a young person, huge young person’s conference called ACIPOR. If you’ve never been to 1, you gotta go and experience it because it’s annoying as fuck and fun as fuck, all rolled in to one, right. 3000 of these young maniacs have taken over this Hilton complex, right. Many of them ended up in hospital because they’ve overdosed on Red Bull. But don’t worry, they put them on a monster drip, and they were just, now in the closeout speakers, a lot of these little wankers have already gone home.

Some of them have overslept and not come into the Sunday closeout. I don’t know how I’m ever a spiritual closeout speaker. I’ll leave that to Bob. But anyway, there’s about 6 or 800 of these youngsters all all packed into this room, and and I’m on the stage, and I’m from Santa Barbara, drove 6 hours to go to the Bay Area. There’s a girl next to me, she’s gonna speak for 10 minutes before me, and everybody’s looking at us.

It’s only a few minutes before we’re about to start, but she’s texting on her phone. She’s texting on her phone. I think that’s super rude Right? It’s super rude, but it’s got absolutely nothing to do with me. So I get involved right away.

I say, what the fuck? What are you fucking doing? What’s wrong with you? She’s all now she’s from LA. LA.

She’s having a problem with her sponsor. Her sponsor is an LA, Texaner. Her sponsor got sober 21 years previously. Her and this guy, they’re in a co ed sobriety house. There’s 20 of them trying to stay sober.

Usual story most people relax, some go to jail, some back to prison, a couple of people die. Her and this guy stay sober 90 days together. It’s amazing. He moves to Maui, Hawaii, stays sober, gets plugged into AA, has a family, raises 2 kids. There’s a 19 year old boy and a 20 year old boy.

They’re both on the mainland going to college but they are dying of untreated alcoholism. He is desperate. No one suffers more than the alcoholic but the parents are pretty close and they he is desperate. So the only number he still has from all them years ago, he contacts her, she texts a couple of responseees, one sat next to me and she said well can I give him your number I need a mail number? I said, sure.

No problem. We change numbers. Everything’s good. We give our talks. Everything goes great.

Now the conference is over. I’m about to get in the car with all my sponssees. I take all my tough guys with me when I’m speaking out of town. You know what I mean? You take your tough guys you.

Well, you know, all the sleeved up ones, tattoos. You know what I mean? But you never know what might happen. You might run into some of them any fuckers. You know what I mean?

So we all we all get in the car. We’re driving down the freeway, and I remember to call this man. I called the man. He’s on hands free. He answers the phone.

I said, hey. Hey, mate. My name is Darren. I’m just coming back from a conference. I was told to give you a call.

What can I do for you? And there’s just silence on the end of the phone. It’s so weird. It’s just silence and and then we realize the man is sobbing. He’s crying and he can’t catch his breath and it’s such a moment of humility.

And I wanted to cry too, but I can’t because I’m with my tough guys. Right? Then I look across at the guy next to me and, like, where the fucking hell are you crying? Then I look in the rearview mirror. I’m like, oh my god.

They’re crying in the back. I’m like, for god’s sake, you’ve got tattoos on your face, you moron. Everybody’s crying. He eventually gets himself together. He says, Darren, I wanna tell you right now, I’ve never asked for anything of myself.

This whole time I’ve been sober. But my pro has always been for my 2 boys. He said if if I ever need the help of AA, please let the hand be there. I said, do it. I’m in.

I’m all in, man. I’ll do anything I can help. I know a lot of people in many different states and if I don’t, we’ll we’ll figure it out. I says, where are they? What’s going on?

He says they both attend Santa Barbara City College. I said I work at Santa Barbara City College. We have entered the world of the spirit. And I go back to Santa Barbara and I meet those 2 young men. 1 of them becomes a proud member of the junkyard dogs for 7 years and since moved to LA and is killing it.

The other one, dying of untreated alcoholism. Isn’t that the truth? Isn’t that the yin and the yang of Alcoa Synonymous? Someone in your crew is getting married. They get getting engaged.

They’re gonna get married or they’re having a kid or the light comes on when you do a 5th step and it fills your heart so much and then over here someone paroles looking for them. Oh. They’re getting divorced and they’re circling the drain of life. That’s what happens around here. But this is the greatest show on earth.

If you’re struggling with God I’ll leave you with this whether you’re new or not so new. Religion might be for those people that are trying to avoid going to hell but spirituality is for people that have been to hell. Thank you all very much.