Thank you. My name is Matthew, M, W, over from Santa Claus alcoholism. We used to be Victoria, but after the change. But I do share that with you. I don't let anybody call me Matt. So, man, I'm glad to be here. My surprise is May 16, 1993 and this room is buzzing with the the energy of recovery. I've met some wonderful people. Yeah, I was thinking Arash, and I my friend, Arash is a mover and shaker in Santa Clarita sobriety wanted me to give my shout out. We have a mutual friend, a guy sponsored for years and years. And he said something that I've been thinking about since yesterday when I got here, is he said, You know, I used to think that alcohol and drugs were the greatest social lubricant, and it turns out, courtesy and respect are. And I really felt that here. I've really felt that everybody's been so welcoming. A couple of you have come up to are you nervous? Are you nervous? You know, I always like those people. I'm not nervous. If you've been around a for a long time, you know God's in charge, right? So if this goes badly, you can blame God, nothing to do with it.

1:14 But thank you, Diana, for inviting me, and everybody's been so kind. Victory. Guys been really just the people I've met at the tables and Frank, I got to spend some just very quick but intimate time talking to a really wise man. And that's what I love about you know, I was also laughing. I know a Raj the story, and I'm sitting with him, and I'm looking around like I'm with the good people of Alcoholics Anonymous. And nobody would have bet on us being in a big room and somebody going, you're with the good people. We were not the good people. We're out there like slashing your tires and stuff. So I put in, I'm going to Washington. I'm going to ask for us to get federal and state money back because we're sober and we haven't had ambulances or police cars. I just want to, I don't know what I'm going to say today, but yeah, arasha served me so many times. He said, Just do pitch 3b but I was on a meeting the other night, and this guy said that the name of my higher power is blue, because everything good in my life came out of the blue. And yeah, and I've thought about that, because it's true for me. I How many people are in their first year of recovery, raise your hand. Okay, we got a number of you. So for that, welcome to and good for you for being here in your first year, right? So for you, I know sometimes you can come up here and you can talk about your circumstance like I have a one of the interesting parts of my story is I got thrown out of a rock and roll band for drinking too much. I think that that's like, what it was like, you know, like this. It's really hard to do, right? But I could tell you that. I could tell you that I had warrants out for my arrest. I had people chasing me That scared me more than the police. I didn't know what taxes were, so I didn't pay those.

And I, you know, I had various cars I couldn't find and, you know, but those are circumstances, and what you find out when you come to AA is those aren't really your problems, and my problem is alcoholism. For those of you in your first year, I'm just going to try to quickly describe what that looked like. I got sober in May of 1993 so let's say May 1. I'll just pick a random day what it probably looks like. I remember it vaguely, but it was a lot of months of this is I know one of the things that happened at the last five or six months of my sobriety or my drinking, I would wake up and say out loud, I don't drink. First thing out of my mouth, like a desperate my body desperately trying to talk to my mind, don't drink. And it was because of my body, you know, it wasn't because the good reasons. Yeah, my mother was dying of cancer, and when she got diagnosed, I love and respect my mother very close to my parents. I wanted to cut down or chill out, and I didn't, you know, I lost this great job playing music, and, you know, lost a few of them, but I was gonna boil it down to one and, and I thought I should get my act together, come back stronger, don't drink. And, you know, I didn't. I got fired from a job. I thought that was beneath me. Remember that, like you take a job like, well, this job's lame, but I'll take it, and then they go, You can't do this lame job, you're fired. And I got fired from a couple of those, and the last one I got fired from was a restaurant job that I managed this restaurant, and as I was leaving, one of the waitresses said, Hey, I'm pregnant, so like you go. I was kind of a slut. And I looked at her, and this is I'm about to alienate half the room, but I don't really care. I'm in recovery. I have self esteem. I looked at her, she was 18 years old. I was 30. I paused for your judgment, and she said, I'm pregnant. And I actually thought, oh God, not you. I. And this is what I thought, you're too selfish and self centered to have a baby. I'm I'm the 30 year old manager that got this waitress pregnant. I just got fired for drinking too much, and I thought she was too spoiled to be a good mom. And I mean, that's this is the insanity. And I actually, other part that I love about this story is I really with drama, went out to the employee parking lot and slammed the door like I knew where my car was. It hadn't been in the employee parking lot for a long time. I couldn't find it, but I didn't want anyone to know that I didn't have a car in the employee parking lot. So then I crept around to the bus stop and went home, and I thought, I'm the product of love. My parents loved each other. My parents were married for 50 years, and I respected them. I didn't have all that angst. My brothers did. I didn't have it. My mother and father showed me, you treat a woman with respect. You know, you you go to work every day. You have character and self respect and integrity.

And you know, I've thought a lot about what alcoholism has cost me, and it cost me some great opportunities that I worked for my whole life that was hard to swallow. It cost me a lot of money, lots of money, and paying back money that you owed for a long time. There was this weird stuff called interest that somebody came up with, and it cost me a lot of love and relationships. But what it really cost me was my character and my dignity and my self respect, and I didn't even know they were gone. And the thing that's puzzling, when you come in here and you stop drinking for a little bit, you don't know how you're going to get that back. You can't give me back my character, my dignity and my self respect. But I watch people around here talk like I was used to be, and they had it. And some alchemy happens here, this spiritual alchemy, and it's called these elegant steps. It's these 12 elegant spiritual exercises. So I wake up and not want to drink because I'm physically ill, not because of any noble reason, because I have the runs all the time. I have the dry eaves, Dickie and Irish Victoria. And I was sharing our dry heat, comparing our drive E stories and, and then, you know, I really don't want to. I really don't want to, you know, I'm really sick physically. I don't have anyone in my life that girl is getting more and more pregnant across town and, but I wake up and I feel like the worst person on earth. I feel physically bad. I feel I can't think of all the bad things I've done. You know, I remember, I was sitting in the in a Catholic school room. I went to Catholic school, and this nun, I was in seventh or eighth grade, so I was like, just getting into puberty, and this nun looked right at me, and she said, you know, if you're even thinking about sex, you're going to hell. I was like, Oh, God, no, I'm and I looked around that man, it's gonna be so crap.

7:44 I know these guys, and so I kind of thought I was going to hell. Yeah, as I couldn't stop thinking about I never had it, but I thought about all the time. And so by the time I'm walking down is the hallway, and I don't want to drink. I know I'm going to hell. Because of what I've done, I've earned my seat, you know, and I might that day, go into the shower. I turn on the shower. I didn't do that every day. Let's say I did that day. And if you're in your first year, I got in the shower. And, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I'm the worst person on earth. I feel physically ill. The shower is hot, the water hits me, the shampoos in my hair. I'm like, Man, I'm 10% better, and that's a little dangerous for me, and I'm starting to feel better. And like, Okay, I'm not drinking, I'm clean. And then I think, but something good to do, like something a good person would do. And I think I usually thought back then I go visit mom, because she lived two miles away. Mom and Dad are right there. I lived there at the beach, and I would it's an interesting thing when you're living, like, I was living in an apartment by the ocean, but you never saw the ocean because you're just in the apartment when you're blinds and got, like, scrunchies from looking for the SWAT team. I had those blinds when you live in like that, like, time holds still, but out there, it's going on, and my mom is dying, and I thought I went to see her a few weeks ago when I got somewhere. I haven't seen my mother for seven months. I didn't know that, so I'm in the shower. I'm going to go see mom.

So now I'm a good guy, I'm clean, I'm not drinking, and I'm a good guy. But then there's this thing that was referred to by Wes, it's really beautifully last night, and we refer to it in a prayer here, called the bondage of self. And for me, I've noticed over the years, there's two really glaring symptoms. If I'm in the bondage of self, fear is always self based and blame. So if I'm in fear or blame that so they're like, Oh, I got a little bit of a temperature. I'm just bondage of self, right? So fear strikes. I'm getting out of the shower. I put my foot on that bath mat, and I think, well, what do mom and dad know? And what do they not know? Because I lie all the time, and I thought I saw him a few weeks ago, but do they know I don't work? Anymore. Do they know this girl's pregnant? Do they do they know I can't play music anymore? Do they know about X, Y and Z, bad things I don't know. I don't know. Just some of my mail still go in there. Do they know I have warrants? I mean, all of this is coming in. So I walked to the showers of this to the mirror. And, you know, I love this book by JD Salinger, Franny and Zoe, and just this actor and Zoe, they talk about him shaving, and he wouldn't look at his face. He'd look in his eyes when he was shaving because he didn't want to be vain. But I couldn't look at my face because I was so withered and ugly, it scared me. So I'm shaving and looking at my eyes, and I think, well, I'll just get two beers because I live next to a liquor store.

And really, I'm not being sarcastic. Two beers isn't drinking. I drink, and I need to chill out enough to go shuck and jive at my parents house so I figure out what they know, what they don't know, and then I can be a good kid and go visit my mom. And I mean, I'm going, there's no doubt I'm going to see my mom. And I live right next door to Mr. BJ slicker, the only path that I wore out from my front door to his front door. But you know, when you get to the two beers in the cooler, they're so small, like, they seem like, oh, like the commercials you like, there's perspiration, and the Swedish bikini teams gonna date me If I drink this, they're all right there, yeah, and I and I go there, and he's like, so skinny and, but above them is fosters, like Australian people know what they're doing, and, and I have enough money. I have enough money for two fosters, which is a, you know, a decent amount of money. Then I go and put it on the counter. Then, Mr. BJ, I don't want to get too deeply into this, but, Mr. BJ, but look at me over his glasses. Towards the end, they go, Matthew, you got a problem, and your problems trying to convince you that you don't have a problem. And I was like, What are you the Riddler?

11:54 I didn't want to buy this. We did this yesterday. And then I and then I look over his shoulder while he's throwing out these weird things, and there's a bottle of Jim it costs just as much as this. I'm not drinking. I know I'm not drinking because I got to go see mom, but I just take a hit off that, then I'll have alcohol for later. I won't drink my money up. And if you're in your first year, I think you remember what happened. I go home, sit down on my couch, take a hit off that gin. I like gin. I like it because it works fast. And couple of hits off that gin, and I'm feeling pretty good, and I'll go see mama a little bit and then a little bit more. I gotta drink a little faster, so I forget that I was gonna go see my mom, and I don't want to hate myself for another day, and I'd sit there day after day after day, and I didn't want to drink, and that's alcoholism, and I'm such an idiot, like I had this big, cool TV, but I think TVs for for morons, because I have a two degrees, so I never turned it on. So I used to look at my reflection like I see this silhouette of me from the sunlight through my window and drink and not watch TV, and I didn't read the hundreds of books that I have.

I have a degree in literature, a degree in religious studies. I didn't play the beautiful guitars I have. I didn't take the surfboards I had outside to the beach. I By the time I got here, I was just an alcoholic. I wasn't a full blown, three dimensional human being with interest and love and character and self respect and integrity, great parenting, good education, not dumb, talented. I was just an alcoholic, so that's what I was like. What happened is I worked the first step on May 9, and just like that guy said, it came out of the blue. I didn't know what's going to happen. What happened is May 8, my I got super may 16, but I worked the first step may 9, and I didn't even know it. And my brother called, and I'm the youngest of four, and which considered a small Irish, Catholic family, and my brother's like, seven years older than me, and he's the next one up, and he's it was sober for 12 years at that time, and no one had seen me. So he called and said, Hey, tomorrow's Mother's Day. It's probably mom's last Mother's Day, and we want to make sure you show up. Because he said, I know you're having car trouble. You know that I can't I got the key, but I can't find the car trouble.

14:24 And then Irish family, that's car trouble. So, so he said, I know you're having car trouble, so I'll come get you. And I hung up the phone, and all I kept thinking was mom's last Mother's Day. No, no way you know. The reason I played guitar is because in eighth or Seventh, Seventh grade, I think my mom did yard beauty because at Catholic schools that everybody has to help out and and I was at home that night. She came home, she goes, Hey, you don't you don't get picked first for the sports teams, do you? And I honestly didn't care about that. I had very good friends, five good friends. They're all great athletes. But I didn't care about that. And. I said, That's okay, mom. And she said, Do you want to play an instrument? And I, like, leapt up out of the shirt, so I'll play the guitar like, I love guitar music. I love this guy, Steve Howe. He used to play for yes, and of course, Eric Clapton and all the greats, but and she and I had a guitar, like, a couple hours later.

It was a really crappy little guitar, but we didn't have any money, and I didn't know that my mom spent our meal budget. We had soup for like, two weeks, canned soup. I thought it was lent because I'm a terrible Catholic, just they're doing this again. It's because she wanted me to have that, and it changed the course of my life. And this can't be the last day for her. This can't be the last Mother's Day, so I'm going to go get flowers, I'm going to do my laundry, I'm going to clean up, I'm going to look good. I'm going to blow my mom's mind with how much her youngest boy loves her. And I didn't. I sat down and started drinking gin, and he honked his horn. I've been sitting there all night. I've had the same clothes on for three days, and I went there and I ruined it. I ruined the whole thing. I ruined Mother's Day. And I don't know why. I don't know why I never meant to do that stuff. I stayed away from my parents. They didn't know how bad I was. When I walked out to the car, my brother looked at me, and he looked shocked, because no one had seen me. I would 108 pounds and five foot 10.

16:25 Well, used to be five foot 10, but I'm old now. Man, you should have seen that argument with the nurse. It's like I'm 510 and she gets you're five nine. I got 510 look, in certain medical offices, I'm five foot nine, but I weigh 165 pounds right now, and I'm skinny, and I wait 108 and I was like the Pirates of the Caribbean, you know, not like the movie, the ride, you know, like that guy. Everybody knows that guy. That's how I look, just like that guy.

16:59 And I really understand I don't know what I did. I said to my sister, what did I do 20 years later, on my 20th a birthday, I said, What happened on Mother's Day? She said, We're never going to speak of that. I know. She said, You were vile to our dear mother. I loved her. I respected her. I've never once thought ill of her. She is this I know, next to my wife, she's probably the most she had character, dignity and self respect, and I treated her like she was dirt. But I didn't know that something was coming out of the blue that day. And I went home. My brother took me out of there early. He took me away, and we fought all the way, and I yelled at him, and he yelled at me, and I slammed the door, and he left. And, you know, I couldn't let it go. And I love this alcoholic thinking, right? I I'm Gollum living in a little apartment, my branches, I'm talking to myself all day. You know, I don't work. I've hurt everybody. I've got this girl pregnant, all this stuff. And my brother's going to work in business my mom, He's faithful to his wife. He he's a good man. He's sober 12 years.

And I thought I had the moral higher ground. I just ruined Mother's Day. But dude, I got one more point I got to make here. But I didn't know that the blue was opening up. The Blue was waiting to give me grace. And he got home, and I called him up, and I just started screaming at him, and I screamed at him and screamed at him and screamed at him, and then I was really quiet because I couldn't think of anything else to say. And he just said, very quietly, Matthew, I think you have a problem with alcoholism. And I said, Of course I do. And I never said that. I'd heard that before, but I'd never said that, and that's grace. I didn't even know I was going to say that that came out of the blue and out of my mouth. And then my brother and I worked the first half, and the first half I admitted I was powerless of Rockwell. I'd never said that he was he lived in his car. I went to colleges, I toured with bands, I did everything I ever set my head, my heart to and then my brother said something really funny. Said, Don't go anywhere.

19:07 Okay, I was gonna move to that end of the couch. I don't go anywhere. Like, don't worry. Yeah.

19:18 And he raced over, and he did this amazing thing. And I'm going to start my talk about the steps with the 12th step, because it's how we get here. My brother came in the door. He inhaled, and he goes, Let's go to the beach. There's a little ripe in there. I didn't there were dishes in the sink from the Reagan administration.

19:41 It felt like a cat box, and I don't I don't have cats. I don't even like heard they taste like chicken, but, uh, whatever. I don't care what you think of me. I have self esteem.

19:57 But we went to the beach and he did. This thing that I did that surprised me. I actually thought he's gonna knock me around for ruin and Mother's Day, and I won't drink anymore. And I had some family history to think that might be his approach. You know, I'm the youngest. We grew up with some volatility, all you know, friendly sibling volatility, and he took me to the beach, and I was holding these cigarettes. I was trying to light a cigarette. I hadn't had a drink, and I'm scared, and I'm afraid, and I don't like me, and I don't want to be with him, and and he took the cigarettes and he lit two, and handed me one back. And my brother didn't smoke. He just sat there smoking with me, so I would just calm down, and then I expected the something on the chest. And he didn't do that. He said, Let me tell you how I felt. My mom and dad kicked me out of the house. I was like, God, I remember that it was 11. I couldn't believe we did that to one of ours. I was so sad that day, and so like, the world didn't add up anymore. And he started telling me how he felt. And then he goes,

Wait, what's your plan? And I think, God, he doesn't know. I owe 10s of 1000s of dollars. I'm unemployable. And then he told me how I felt when his wife and son kicked him out of their house. My brother got his high school girlfriend pregnant the year after high school, and he called me that day, I was about 1514, and he told me, I don't know what to do. And I remember, I said, Why don't you stop drinking? Because I hadn't ever started drinking. And he said, You don't understand. And then he said, What's your plan? I thought he doesn't know. I pushed that pregnant girl down a flight of stairs two days. He doesn't know who he's talking to anymore, and I didn't want to hurt her. I just want her to get out of the doorway. She said, We need to go to the doctor. And I was on a binge. I've been drinking for days. I'm not going to the doctor. And she just I couldn't even so I just pushed, grabbed her little wrist, I pushed her, and I saw her face as she fell, and I slammed the door. And it's when I worked the second part of step one is I thought my life is so insane. He wouldn't believe me if I told him, and he knows me pretty well, my life was completely unmanageable. So the end of this, I said, you know, you're right, I should go to AA. And he goes, Oh, dude, you're not going to AA. And I go, I'm not. And he goes, No, you're going to a hospital.

22:23 And I'm a little busy for that. Like, that seems so extreme. Like, seriously, I just almost killed my child. I put a gun in my mouth on Tuesday. But let's not rush into anything. I think I can handle this, you know, like, we already crazy. Anybody too busy for rehab? Well?

22:47 And he goes out. He goes, Yeah, I go, how long is that? And he goes, I think it's like 30 days. And I'm like, Dude, I can't who's not gonna pay my bills? I'm the guy that doesn't do that. I could feel that laughter of Yeah, I did that.

23:06 So that was the first step on May 9. And then my brother, I remember, I walked up to my doorway, up the stairs, and looked at me here say, don't die. And I thought he knew I did put a gun in my mouth with some regularity, but I didn't have any courage. And what he meant was, if you die of alcoholism before mom dies, I'll kill you, you know, because my mother didn't deserve that. And when I think about how selfish I was putting that gun in my mouth, little baby coming, my mom's dying, and I'm not depressed, I want to be clear. I'm a coward. Depression is a real illness I had. I can't face the life I've made illness. It's called alcoholism. So on May 15, he called and said, I'm going to come get you tomorrow. So I drank all night because I forgot I was going to rehab. Wait, that was a long time ago, may night. You know, where are we going? We're going to rehab. I'm like, so I really just squalor.

And I drank so much, I passed out on the floor, and the phone rang, and I only answered it because I thought it was him. Early in the morning, it was a woman that said, Hey, your daughter was born. Can you get to the hospital? And I had they've been calling all night, but you don't pick up the phone at 3am because that's the bad guys. And so I said yes, and I took my keys and all my optimism and ran out, and I found my car grace. I really did, I mean it. I've seen it a really long time. And a Redondo Beach, if you get as many tickets as run my car, they tow your car away. It didn't even have a boot on it. They probably looked at this crappy AMC and goes, this guy's enough problems.

24:44
And I drove right to the wrong Hospital. I'm here. They're not, but I am. And I went, Well, we're selfish and self centered. I went to the hospital where I was born. That's.

25:00
Where babies come from. Everybody knows that true story. And I yelled and yelled at this lady to make them appear above me, you know. And honestly, and I didn't mean to get this deeply into what happened, but not long ago, I went to the Getty Museum. Was probably a year and a half ago, and there's this beautiful vase in the antiquities Museum, and Malibu's beautiful vase, and it's so paper thin, and it's from before the time of Christ. And I have four children at one time. And thought, you know, my that face would last like 20 minutes in my house, but I'm looking at this thing, and it's so delicate, it's so beautiful, and I could tell the value of just its survival with its fragility. And it was like that day when I walked out into the hospital, the parking lot of little company, Mary hospital, like I took that base. It was all my character and my dignity, my self respect, all the love I've been given by my good parents, all the kindnesses of strangers, all the fun I had, all the opportunities I had, and like, I smashed it in that parking lot, and these little, tiny pieces are glittering up at me, and I know I can't fix that. I'm looking at what I've made in my life, and I decide I'm going to go kill myself. I have a gun. Some guy left a gun at my house, and I'm going to go kill myself.

And I got in the car, and I put my head on the steering wheel, and I turned the ignition, and my head bounced off the steering wheel because the car was really bad. It just like bucked because I hadn't driven it in a while, and the name of the right hospital came into my head. And if you're in your first year and you're having a problem with the God thing, don't worry about it. Like Scott Redmond said, do these 12 Steps and you will be contacted. But I'm telling you, you've had Grace advanced to you. If you're sitting in here in your first year that you can't even understand, and that was Grace that day. And I know it's grace because I meditate. Anybody else meditate? Good? It's a step. You should be meditating.

26:53
And probably half of you raise your hand, are really meditating. I'm very proud of you and but if you try to meditate for two days in a row, the first thing you find out is you're not in charge of the thoughts that come into your head, right? You're not. That's kind of a big surprise when you start like, Wow, that's crazy up there, right? I was in Australia two years ago. I said a conference, and I meditated and Carla Rojo came into my head. Carla Rojo wouldn't go to a dance with me in eighth grade. I'm 63 yesterday, 63 years old, and I got mad at her all over again, terrible, terrible person.

27:34 So I wasn't trying to think of the name of the right hospital. I was trying to keep my eyes on just being dead in 20 minutes, and I had an involuntary electrical impulse go across my gray matter that said St John's. And I drove to St John's, I think that's grace. And I got to St John's, and I ran upstairs and Anna, I saw Anna's. Anybody seen a woman that just had a baby? I Yeah, hey, I'm speaking today. Hey, I am not running for president. I don't care what you think of me. I'm trying to be honest, she did not look good. She's been in labor for a long time, and I wasn't in love with this woman. And she got up and she's coming at me like The Elephant Man, you know. And she's okay, whatever please. And then as she's getting closer and closer, there's this gladness in her eyes, and there's this presence about her, and there's this beauty about her that wasn't there before, and it shamed me. She looked terrible, but there was something so genuine about her. I'm so radiant about her that I wanted to run away, because I'm ugly. I'm so ugly inside, you wouldn't believe it. And then she handed me Phoebe, who was perfect, and I wanted to throw up. Because for me, when I'm in the bondage of self, one of my techniques is I paint everybody in the room with my interior ugliness so I can walk through the room. I'm a liar, but so are you. I'm a cheap but so are you. I've done bad things, but I know you and my paint would not stick from these perfect women and I lied. First thing I said to my daughter was a lie. Said, everything's going to be all right.

And in my mind, I'm like, because I'm going to be dead in a half an hour, and I'm not depressed, I'm a coward. And I got in the car, I was with them for two minutes. And, you know, there's a terrible thing being in the bondage of self, because I have since been with people when their first child is born, it's the most beautiful thing that could happen to you. Not me, because I'm an alcoholic in the bond itself, looking through a pinhole of how does this affect me? I can't see perfect grace when it's right in front of my face. And I raced in my house. I ran up the stairs, and my brother was standing right in front of the door. Grace. Grace. I. Grace is all around us. We're swimming in it. I just can't see it because I'm in the bondage of self, where there isn't ever a place where Grace isn't trust me. I've been all over the world. It's always here. I just block myself from it. He took me to rehab. I got out of rehab 30 days later, all I remember from rehab is I gained 47 pounds.

30:27 I slept a lot. Then I get out, my brother pushes me out of the car and says, Go to go to a meeting. And I'm like, I just was 30 days in the hospital. I want to see my mom. I want to see my baby. I got to do my laundry, I got to get a job, but I lied a lot, and I said, Oh yeah, of course, I'm going to meet him. And he drove off, and I went into my apartment. There's a big party in my apartment, and I live by myself. There are girls in bikinis snorting cocaine off glass tables. There was a guy smoking a joint in my kitchen. Somebody handed me a beer, a joke about this. It wasn't a beer. Was a course, I don't know what you call that, but, and I don't know them, and they're welcoming me very happily to a party in my house like they had broken in. Some drug dealer told him I was gone, and lot of my stuff is gone.

And I had one of those moments of grace. You know, I'm looking at all my favorite Olympic events, and my thought was, Wow, you got nothing. Now you really have nothing. This is it. You don't have any character, self respect, integrity, you don't have any possessions. You don't have a place that's yours. It was very lonely. But then I had the grace thought the out of the blue, thought you got 30 days. And I never had that. And I asked for it every morning out loud, and I didn't want to get rid of if you say, what can you write on your name and say, This is mine, I don't owe it to anybody. That was it. So if you're here in your first year, I hope those days are precious days, because if they're not, I can tell you, you'll lose them.

32:05 There's a prayer. I'm going to go off on a tangent. I may never come back. There's a prayer in this thing that we say, and I have a degree in religious studies, and I thought it was the lamest ass prayer I'd ever seen in my life. God grant me a serenity. I was like, seriously, this little, tiny bird of courage to change the things. And I knew what it was about. It was about, God give me the patience to put up with all this crap I can translate, right? That's what I thought that person for years. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I thought it was, grant me the patience to put up with all this. BS, the courage to change the things I can. I went, No, I can't do that. I tried to be different than I was. Sister, Dennis Ann told me, I can't think about sex. I'm going to hell. And I tried to be good. I tried to throw my will at my shortcomings, and I failed. So I just blocked that out. The courage to change the things I can, tried it for years, can't do it, and the wisdom to know the difference.

By the time we get to wisdom, I'm already out. You know what that prayer says For those of you in your first year, grab me spiritual centeredness, peace with exactly who I am, to accept the world as it is that's a really great place to live. I live there now, the courage to change the things I can there's an alchemy in the spiritual world. It's not the same as the material world, and this material world, courage is bravado, certainty. You know, fearlessness. Courage here is there's two things that add to courage. It's willingness plus humility, and then you get enough courage for that moment. I had a woman in Australia asked me this year, how do you get the strength to do it all? I don't have the strength to do it all. I have enough willingness and humility to do this. That's how it works. I was in a prison panel up in Seattle, and this woman came up to me, and I loved this woman. She's sponsoring everybody. I said, Hey, what are you in here for? She said, Oh, and she seemed kind of surprised, because I was involved with a man's death. It's okay. And then she left. And during the meeting, I could feel her staring at the side of my face, so I walked over there and go, Melissa, what's up? And she goes, I wanted to correct something that I told you. I said, What was that she goes? I brutally murdered an innocent man. I was not involved in a man's death. I said, Melissa, why do you think you had to tell me that she goes? Matthew, I never want to drink again. A little willingness and little humility, and she was courageous.

So I ran away from a party at my house. 30 days so far. I was like, saying to the girls and bikinis, like, Okay, I'll be back. I'll be back. You know, I don't know where I'm going. And I ran to a payphone, and I called AA and like, the guy answered the phone, like we said, central apps answer the phone. I threw up all my problems. On him. And while I'm doing that, he found out where I was standing, and he's flipping through some papers, and he goes, Hey, there's a meeting right across the street from where you're standing. Grace, Grace. A lot of you are thinking about the grace that happened to you, that got you here right now. That was a moment of grace. But I said, So what do you think I should do?

35:20 Like I told you, I have problems, like those guys gonna raise this baby I didn't want.

35:30 And I went to the meeting, and I worked the second step over the next few months, and I didn't know it. I had a guy at the meeting offered to give me a ride home. He knew my brother. In Buddhism, there's a thing called the 10,000 things. And one of the interpretations of the 10,000 things is every moment of your life, 10,000 things, the moment before contributed for that to happen. And it's just a fact, if you meditate or pay attention, that's what's happening all the time, right? That's part of the out of the blue grace. And this guy came up to me, said, can I give you a ride home? Because he knew my brother, and I got in his car, and I couldn't tell him where I lived, because I can't go there. And then he goes, we could go to your parents house. And I said, No, we can't go to my parents house.

With the 10,000 things he knew where my parents lived because his group painted my parents house and my mom got sick, the one guy at that meeting who knew where my parents lived offered me a ride home. And I said, we please. We can't go there. And he said, why not? And my perception was, they're good people. They love each other. My mom is really sick with cancer. My dad's beside himself, the loser, fresh out of rehab with an illegitimate child across town with no prospects, no character, no self respect. I'm not showing up on their porch tonight and bringing my darkness back to them, they don't deserve it. It's too embarrassing. It's too humiliating. So he dropped me off at my parents house, because you guys don't listen to newcomers. You know, it turns out.

36:54 And I you know, some of you might know Torrance, California. It's a bunch of parents houses like that's all nothing else but parents house. It's like there's nowhere to run. You know, I can't go hide at somebody else's parents house. So I knocked on the door and I looked down on the porch and there was a guitar pick with my name on it. And I hadn't been there in six or seven months, and I didn't know why it was there, because my parents were loving dustidious. They presented well, and it took a while for them to get to the door, because they came to the door together. They're Midwesterners. My mom had a big thing oxygen. And they opened the door, and they were glad to see me like, way down inside of them. They came shooting out of their eyes. My mom, particularly, I remember my mom just kind of opening the door with a little bit of a like, you know, I'm sick and looked up and there's brightness. I can't see grapes. I can't see perfect reality.

Because when I'm looking through my perception, which is fear and guilt and filth and negativity and anticipation and baggage and junk, I got a kaleidoscope that makes everything look like black blobs, and I'm looking I can't see perfect reality. And there it was. You know what was really happening? My mom and dad are madly in love with each other. My mom's dying of cancer. They've been praying for me for 30 days, and I showed up, it was perfect. It's always perfect. It was uncomfortable. Perfect is often uncomfortable. We don't do that well, we do pleasure. Pleasure is perfect.

38:34 That's perfect, that orgasm, that was perfect. All the rest of this is BS, right? I'll tell you something about pleasure, like I chase pleasure. Turns out pleasure doesn't run that fast. Catch me. You can catch me. And I catch pleasure, right? And then I take the pleasure and I like ring, everything you could get out of the pleasure, till I've degraded me. I've degraded everyone around me, and then I got to go find some more. That's what pleasure is. But we find joy here. And you know how you get joy? You got to make room for joy. You can't chase it. That's what happened to me. I used to sit at the proverbial banquet of life and eat only cheesecake, and I'd be like, Why am I sick all the time, and there's all this beautiful, healthy food that God's like, please come to the rest of the party. Just come into the party.

You know, that's one of the things that I think about a lot, is my conscience whispers, my truth whispers, and it's indifferent to whether I listen to its call. And because of the elegant steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and lots of meditation and working with others, my conscience doesn't speak any louder, but my room is so much quieter, and your experience combined with my experience, give me enough willingness and enough humility to do the next courageous thing, which might just be come here for all of. To 20% of you that didn't want to come today. We know that's the average of the meeting, right? So I was living with my parents, and step two says, came to believe, right? Came it doesn't say someone forced. We agnostics, don't we went, Okay, all right, there's a God, you know, like, sometimes we act like that, like we have to convince the newcomer, there's a God, stop it. God's like, really, seriously, you're going to convince them about me.

40:27 That's not how it works. But I was really uncomfortable at my parents house. I was taking care of a mom who was sick. I was taking care of a dad who was crying at night, and I'd love to do it again. And it was really uncomfortable. But part of the discomfort was they were like, nice, right? They were honest all the time. I was like, You people are driving me nuts, right? I just being it was hinky. Remember when you only hung out with criminals, and then you go to normal people, you're like, what's going on here? That's what it felt like. These people were great, but I wake up and I gotta get out of here, like I woke up in my old bedroom, in my big poster.

Eric Clapton, I'm like, Jesus, I gotta get out of here. And I had a little meeting directory, and I said, Dad, can I go to the it's a 7am attitude adjustment. And he gives if you're going to a meeting, take the car, because he saw my brother. So I took my also. My dad told me, on his deathbed that my grandfather, who died in 1945 an investment banker of alcoholism, knew Bill wells. He said your guy tried to help my dad. Yeah, that's how far back this goes for me. We're Irish, but I go to the meeting, getting away from the uncomfortable place, and then it's you people, no, like I'm not in the club. I don't know why you're laughing. I don't know why you're hugging each other. I don't know why you think that's good coffee.

41:46 I'm really beside myself with the weirdness of AA, but then I'm done the meetings, done. I gotta I go home. I got nowhere else to go. And then I sit with my annoyingly loving parents till I can't take it anymore, and I go to the next meeting at noon. And I did that. I went to uncomfortable place, an uncomfortable place. And if you're new, we don't care why you do it, just do it. And what happened for me was step two is my mom was making my dad was making breakfast, and I knew that was a bad idea, because he never did that. I could smell it. So I went down the hall and go. Dad let me and I'm making breakfast with my dad, and he's looking at the side of my face, and it's a mess.

There's eggs on the counter, so he doesn't know what he's doing. He's got his mighty guy built a big business and fought in World War Two, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. And he's looking at my face, and he said, you know, do you want to hear about why I love your mother, and he just starts talking about intimacy and years of togetherness and kindness. And I, I was the recipient of all this, and I saw this beautiful man. I got enough relief from the bondage of self to see perfect reality. I'm the luckiest guy on Earth. This is my dad. And then I looked at my watch and go, shit, it's almost seven o'clock. I want to get to the attitude adjustment meeting, because Carol goes there, and Carol speaks inappropriately about her sex life.

43:10 And I like that. Yeah. God bless the Carol. Some of you are like, I think I'm Carol. Doesn't matter why you go. You just got to go. And then after a while, I started looking around the room. I really like that guy, Bill, he's so funny. I really like Sharon. She's really smart. And I got relief from the bondage of self. And then step three, I had a sponsor. We're step three. We're in his house, and we'd read the book, and he had to get a little gate in his courtyard that locked behind me. I noticed, you know, then I go across the courtyard, we go into his apartment, and He locked the door, I noticed. And then we're reading the book. And he goes, Okay, we're at step three, all right. And he read the whole step. And he goes, now we're going to get down on our knees on my kitchen floor. Then we're going to hold hands, and we're going to say this prayer. And I'm like, No, we're not. Like, that's, I'm not doing that. And he gets down on his knees. So now he looks really weird down there by himself. So I go, alright, so I get down on my knees, and you cannot have a distance between you when you're kneeling holding hands. We're making out on his floor. I'm like, I barely know this guy. I'm on page, whatever, right? And he goes, God, I offer myself to thee and I welcome. We said the prayer, relieve me of the body. And I got up real fast, you know, kind of brushed myself off like something happened. And I got up, and he goes, Okay, now do a step forward, I said.

And I went, got in my car and my dad's car, and I was driving home, and I thought I just did something that I didn't understand. It was really uncomfortable for me, because I don't want to live like I've been living. And that's the whole thing. That's the whole thing, willingness, personality, I'll tell you. Step three. What does it really mean? I'm going to go about two minutes over that. Okay, okay. What does it really mean? Step three. Do well, my brother, I was about a year sober, my brother got me a job interview, and I was at these terrible jobs. I was living with my parents. I was trying to pay a little bit of child support. I'm going to these lame jobs, going to my meetings, and this guy offered me the job when I interview for a job I don't think I'm going to get. I interview really well, I just answered the questions. Who thought of that? And he said, I'm going to give you the job. And it was a salary job. There's like, three to 400% more than I was making. I could move out of my parents house. I could pay more child support. I could hold my head up. And I got to my brother's work and said, Hey, I got the job. He's hot, so great. When do you start? And I go, Well, I start 630 or 6pm Monday, 6pm again, because, well, your home groups the most of each Monday, night, Wednesday, whatever. And he goes, Wait, is it all week 6pm I guess the night shift. It's a manage, warehouse manager at the airport, because you can't take that job. I thought this guy's crazy, these aa dudes, you know. And so I went home, took a shower, went to my home group, told my sponsor, hey, I got that Chuck. He decided, so great. When do you start? I said, next week.

Six o'clock at night, and he goes, don't take that job. And I didn't take that job. And that's step three. They cared about me, and I'd been looking through such a polluted perception Kaleidoscope that I was starting to think maybe I don't see things clearly, but it was so embarrassing to go back to my minimum wage job knowing I could be making enough money to buy a car get out of The house, but what surrender, then you see the grace and then the love. And I'm just going to finish with this story. So I went to my meeting couple months after that, and I'm sitting out in front with my sponsor, Bill, and I said, you know, I'm saying that prayer every day, relieve me of the bondage of self. And he goes, Ah, that's interesting. I could tell it was I didn't get my good boy points I wanted. And I go, Well, what do you mean? And he goes, Why don't you help God relieve you of the bondage of self? And I go, Well, how do I do that? Because why don't you do good things for people? And just don't tell anybody. Why would I do that? Not how my world works, you know. And but I went in that day and I thought about it, and we have big meeting, and there's I had my chair, and we asked if there's anybody from out of town. This guy said, I'm visiting from Australia, and I'm gonna come once a month. Great. I'll remember his name, and I'll be relieved my huge altruistic act. And a month later, guy walks in. He had a suit on. We don't wear. Seats at my meeting. And I said, it's Kevin. And I ran across the room.

He said, Kevin, welcome back to the greatest meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He landed on your feet. He goes, Why you remembered your name? My name. What do you do for a living ancestor? I'm so embarrassed. And he goes, I didn't understand that. He goes, here's my card, get a suit, put together a resume, come to my office next week. So I did, and I it was so funny, I wasn't going to tell this part, but I had a black suit. My parents always had weddings and wake suits, you know, black suit, right? And I had brown hush puppy shoes, which in no way go with a black suit. But there were the shoes that I had, so I wore them. They look like bricks, you know. And I walked in and he laughed at my shoes, like, look down, burst out laughing. So I feel like this big, my shoes are growing. He says to this woman, Sandy from Japan via Hawaii, who floated across the room. She was like this beautiful goddess.

48:45 She's the head of HR Sandy looked at my shoes and got a very tight disapproving smile on her face. And now my shoes are, like, really big, you know. And then we go in her office, and she's she's not asking me any questions. She's looking at my resume. I went to a party for 12 years playing with a band. It's like big hole. Then she looked at my DMV. I got arrested twice for one DUI, and then I'm crossing my legs. I got giant red clown shoes on, and I'm sitting here going, Why am I here? And she didn't ask me any questions. She goes in his office right behind me, and I heard him through the wall. He's not gonna fly the goddamn planes. He's gonna put people on.

49:25 And I got real calm, because he's the vice president of this airline, and she gave me the job, surrender, Grace. I didn't hustle this guy because I knew he was the vice president airline. I remembered his name because he thought it might be tough travel. Didn't remember how important that is to do that. I went to Starbucks when I shouldn't have I was like, three months sober, 90 days sober. I went to Starbuck. I didn't have five bucks for a cup of coffee. I just didn't have it. But I was lonely and squirrely and weird. I'm new. So I went to Hollywood or Viera, and I go Matthew, whatever I ordered. And they wrote Matthew, and that went and waited, looked out the way. Know, couldn't lock eyes with normal people, or they know, I was a pod person, you know, and I burst into flames. So I'm looking out the window, and the guy goes, Matthew, yours up. And I turned around and said, Your name is Matthew, and you have 90 days today. Guy who made the coffee was in my home group. I didn't know it was him, and I didn't know it was my home group. I it.

50:24 But I didn't feel weird for the rest of the day. I felt like maybe I belonged here. So I remember this guy's name, so I'm going to work every day. I swear to God, it's almost over. The Saga of Matthew Mitchell was almost over. So I go to work every day, and I'm staying with my parents. I'm paying money back to people. I bought a guitar on my way to work, a really beautiful guitar, a Taylor Dan curry single cut away with a pickup. You play guitar, you're jealous of me. Now, it's a bad self esteem. I can handle it, and I get into there, and nobody trusts me, right? The Vice President hired me. I'm not drinking at night with them. I'm not chasing women. Can you imagine? Hey, baby, come here. I live with my parents.

51:01 I got a baby, and that baby's as old as I am sober. I just wasn't crossing the Great Divide, you know. But I left, I didn't know. Nobody wanted to see my guitar work. So I got to the employee bus stop, and there's this woman from British Airways. I worked at Qantas, and I turned to her, random person, and I said, Hey, can I show you this guitar? Just bought it because I'm going home to my parents. And I said, Can I show you this guitar? I just bought it surprised. I'll never forget it. She's very pretty. She looked like Audrey Hepburn. She went, I don't look at strange men's guitars. I'm like lady. I'm not hitting on you. I swear to God, you know? But, but I felt like a creep, you know, and I might think about sex and go to hell. And I got on the bus, and she was smooshed up against me. Show a book in her hand called surprised by joy, by CS Lewis of Christianity, and read it, and I could tell she was real uncomfortable, because bus is real crowded. We're 20 minute ride to the employee bus stop. So I just said, Hey, I've read that book. And she said, Cut to the chase. Do you believe in God?

52:07 Shaking God say, oh yeah. She's like, Oh God, I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of here, almost reaching for the emergency break. It was so weird. And I'm like, Oh God, Matthew just shut up.

52:22 So I just asked her, and she didn't believe in God. And I talked to her about God, and I said, Well, I believe in the obvious God. I don't believe in that God you just described. And I got off the bus, and I was walking back to my car, and I thought, I don't want to there was something about standing near her. It was beautiful. I ran back, and I go, Hey, do you want to have dinner sometimes? And, boy, did she not want to have dinner with me. Oh, right. Look at my guitar. I read that bats coming at me, you know?

52:55 And I said, hey, no is the complete answer, because I was I started like my own company coming here, and it snuck up on me. And she said, she's that surprised her. She said, Okay, no.

53:10 And I said, I think. I said, which would be more bold than normal? I said, I think we're missing something. And I went back to my car. I drove home. My dad waited up. He didn't wait up. He fell asleep in his chair and pretended he waited every day that my whole life. And then I told him, I said, Dad, I met this girl, and she felt like home. He said, Wow, really got so interested. And I thought, but he's so interested. Later, I realized he wanted me to move out.

53:33 I thought he cared about my life. We're walking down the hall, and I remember very he turned into history. Put his hands between my shoulder blades, and he said, That's not over. And I'm walking into my room going, boy, you didn't hear her. You know, the next day I went to work and I saw her. I only thought about her like 137 times, and she's right over there. I'm over here at my counter. I but got ran to get to the 945 bus instead of the 10 o'clock bus, and she came up right behind me, and she tapped me on the shoulder today, I was rude to you. And I go, that's okay. She goes, I'm not gonna go out with you. I see you know you've been super clear about that.

54:15 We don't need to renegotiate that. And she said, but if you want to miss this bus, you can have coffee, and I can't drink coffee afternoon, I like, Yeah, let's go. And we stayed till they closed down the airport, and we took a cab. We can have Uber to the employee bus stop. And 17 days later, she proposed to me, and we've been married for 30 years, surrender, Grace.

54:42 Love like giant love like 1000 sons. Love. We raised Phoebe together. We had our own children, both of our kids. I was in the right car. Went to the right hospital with the right person. Sobriety works, but I just want to finish with this one of. The definitions of recovery is to reclaim something precious that you lost, and I'm standing up here, and I'm a man with character integrity and self respect, and you gave that to me.

Thanks. Let me show you.