It is now time to introduce our AA speaker, Dave C from Woodland Hills. Welcome.

Dave C, alcoholic, thank you, Fran, that was awesome. I dabble a little bit in Al-Anon, yeah. Thank you, Diana for asking me, Doug and Sam for coming.

0:39 Gotta hope I'm a good speaker, because look what you guys did to the last time. June 2 of 2000 is my sobriety day. The Burbank group is my home group, sobriety capital of the world. How many of you are pissed off right now? Okay, only one that's not too bad on a good start. Um.

1:03 I got sober in 1993 and I managed to put about 18 months together the Burbank group, old timers there. There was a lot of blue hairs, and a lot of old guys kind of like me right now.

1:22 My Doug look like Doug. They weren't so friendly, they weren't so nice. They practiced tough love. There's kids in the room, so you're going to have to read my lips. They used to say, hey, go empty the ashtrays, or go shake everybody's hand or, you know, and it's like, so I thought that was my name for the longest time. God dang, it's time to wake up. I work graveyard, so I apologize that was my alarm to wake up. I've only got a couple hours of sleep, so if I don't make sense, just go with it. My sobriety date, I said my personal in gave you this shirt. You know, one of the things in here, I'll get back to that part of coming in, is that, you know, you can't choose your blood choose your blood family, but you can choose your AA family in here or your Al-Anon family in here, and welcome to the newcomer in here. It's all about you. At least for me, it's all about you. You're the most important person in this room tonight, even though I think it's me, Diana, is my sister from another mister, and we share a lot of similarities and people and a lot of tragedies. And I'm going to try not to, like, tear up and cry, because there's been a lot of tragedies over the years and and I've met some beautiful fucking people in a sorry kids, beautiful people in a probably nothing your mom and dad haven't said that. You've heard

3:11 Uncle Dave has potty mouth. So in 1993 I knew I had a problem. I wandered into the Burbank group, of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was drinking and using with the person that would become my sponsor's stepson in his house, in my buddy Terry's bedroom, and we're drinking and smoking crack in the bedroom through a can. Who smokes crack through a can? Oh, nice. I'm not alone. I thought I'd be the only one. So I did a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of drugs, but alcoholic at heart, I started drinking at the age of 12. I would go around. My dad was an alcoholic. My dad passed away with over 40 years of sobriety. My mom never claimed to be so she was. She kept right on with my dad. So I'll just leave it at that. I would steal the drinks and stuff, and everybody go, oh, look how the little baby's cute, you know. And and then by the age of 12, my I knew where my dad kept the booze, so I would start stealing his vodka, because he didn't drink vodka, and I'd fill it back up with water. So my dad's friends probably thought he was cheap as hell. And by the age of 13, I was doing methamphetamine and cocaine and and I was off and running, smoking weed daily, drinking daily. Any chance that I could get my hands on alcohol and or whatever you had, if you told me estrogen would get me high, Let's go.

5:04 I'm also addicted to pain. I fall asleep in a tattoo chair. Don't know how that works, but I do. So there's a lot of lot of young trauma. Growing up, I was wound tighter than a golf ball, severely ADHD.

5:32 Anybody else held back in third grade, me, only me. We got two over here. Okay, cool. I am in good company that broke my heart and that just nailed home the fact that I was broken, there was something wrong, and I'm stupid, and I believe that for the longest time that I was dumb, the truth was, is, I'm really smart. I just learned differently. And back in the early 60s, they didn't know anything about ADHD, you know, so they didn't know how to teach kids teach over here, I'm sure she knows how. So I got held back in third grade, and it was all downhill from there. By the time I got to junior high school, I was drinking daily, cutting class, just one of the bad kids, one of the kids you didn't want your kid hanging around. But I had this sweet, innocent face, so they'd always go, no, not baby. He couldn't have done that. And I got away with for a long time. So by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous in the Burbank group in 1983, 93 sorry, 1993

6:58

I was really broken. I and the first thing they did is they hugged me. What the hell is this all about? Because we were in a huggy, lovely kind of family and and then they were all smiling and chanting. And I thought for sure, I'm in a cult here. This is I'm going to be passing out flowers at the airport. Remember the older people probably remember the the whatever the Harry carries, and they would pass out flowers at the airport. That's what you guys were going to do to me. But I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, and I really didn't care, and I needed help, and I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know it was alcohol, and I didn't know it was the drugs. See, alcohol and drugs are not my problem. They're my solution to a deeper, underlying problem, and I I was raised up in the church. My grandmother's father was my great granddad is a Methodist minister, and I loved going to church with my grandmother, so I went. And I didn't really understand as a kid, but once I started to understand this ain't for me. And I put God up on a shelf, and I didn't want anything to do with that. Mean, angry lightning bolt striking God hellfire and brimstone, and the God that gave kids cancer, and the God that this and that and and I saw all the negativities. I didn't see any of the blessings, because that's where my mind was, and I was trapped in that state of mind. And so when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, and God came up in the steps fucking I'm doing sorry. Did it again? Uncle David potty mouth, uh, just don't let Uncle they babysit your kids will come home with some bad habits. So when I saw that in the steps, I knew I was doomed, and this wasn't going to work for me, and just one more time I was going to fail. And I asked this guy to sponsor me, who I was getting loaded with his stepson and, and he was a science teacher. Kind of, kind of got a thing for teachers. They're kind of like friends and, you know, family and, and he was crazy. He looked like Christopher Lloyd with the hair straight up. And he taught science, you know, I thought he stuck his finger in the light socket or something. And he was married to one of my mom's friends that where she worked at and we were all one big family. And he was crazy as long as I. Wasn't as bad as he was. I was going to be okay. And so I didn't really have a God, and I just parroted everything I heard, and I mimicked, and I acted as if, you know, they used to say that in the rooms and and I really didn't have anything, you know, it was a facade, it was an act. It was the best I could do with what I had at that time, and I did all the way up to step nine. And when I hit Step nine, I'm like, slamming them brakes on I'm not saying sorry to nobody, because it's all your fault. If my mom and dad would just leave me alone, if this, and if the teachers and if you know, and I blamed everybody else for my problems because I couldn't see that it was me. I wasn't the problem, and

11:01 I went through the victory house with the AWARE program, and I was in a sober living and I checked myself in because the problem was so bad that I even noticed Bob Turk says that all the time, you know. And I man, it was summertime. It was hot. There was no air conditioner. I went through all that. And instead of doing step work and working with my sponsor, I was in the pool hall, and I was hanging out with friends, and then I met her because we were going fishing on the weekends, and she showed up on the beer one night. I'm looking around as is my ex wife in here, anywhere, any future ex wife in here, because I'm going to go that way. And I met the set. This is the second failed marriage that I that I would go through. I was already divorced once with two kids. My kids were making better decisions than I was at that time, and they were more mature. They're still more mature than I am to this day. And I was going fishing and I was playing pool, and I was doing everything but Alcoholics Anonymous, in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I bet you can guess what happened next. I moved out of state Las Vegas, because people don't drink in Las Vegas, you know, I started working for my cousin. I was doing union plumbing up there, and I was going to meetings up there, and they don't do meetings like we do in California. If you clap, they go, Oh, you're from California. You're from LA.

12:47 How did you know? And

12:53 I was on a job site one day, and I saw these guys, and they were throwing these keys around to each other, and then they would go in the blue box. I'm like, What the hell's going on here? And then my buddy tossed me the keys one day, and there was a little kegger on it, and he goes, go in the bathroom, and I open it up methamphetamine, and I'm off and running. You know? I snapped a beer open at lunch. I guzzled that beer before I even knew what was happening, and I'm doing methamphetamine again, and now I'm off and running, and Vegas almost killed me. The people I was hanging around with were neo Nazi skinheads. They were stealing they stole my car one night, I'm doing security, and they're still they stole my car. And my buddy goes, Hey, there goes your car. I'm like, Yeah, right. It was actually my car going by me. Great security guard, right?

13:58 I dropped him off at a bar one night they threw me a big bag of dough and said, come pick us up around 12, one o'clock or whatever. I get a call that night, come get us. Come get us and throw me another big bag of dough and said, You never saw us tonight. Well, I found out that my best friend up there, his brother, murdered somebody, and he lured them out to the desert. And it was a big thing. He goes. So I'm like, You know what? If I don't get up and out of here, I'm going to end up in prison and or dad and death would have been the easy way out up there. So I was into some really bad shit, hanging out with some people that I had no business hanging out with, and I called my parents.

14:49 There's some other things that happened. The Henderson Police Department kicked my door in. They were looking for my second wife for. Any grand larceny. I mean, we were in a lot of trouble for things that were going on and and I called my parents, and I got up on a plane, and I said, Look, I can't tell you over the phone what's going on. I'll tell you when I land. I land in Burbank, and I had been looking for a bag of dope that I had hidden a long time ago and could never find, and it was under my watch, and I went through the airport security and everything, and I see something sticking out, and I'm like, holy so I'm often loaded. I'm hanging out with the same people that I left to get away from, and I'm right back in the mess that I'm in, and I'm more broken than I was ever before, and I don't know what to do. And in June of 2000 I show back up at the Burbank group, and my sponsor was there.

15:57 I nudged him outside. I asked him if he would sponsor me again, and he asked me a really important question. Said, Dave, are you willing to do the work? And I told him no, and he told me that that was the first honest thing that he heard come out of my mouth in years. Now, him and my mom are best of friends, and he kept telling my mom, kick his ass out of the house and quit babying him. And I'm a mama's boy. I'm an only child, and I use my mom's love against her. I would call her and say, you know, I haven't eaten in days, and I spent all my money on drugs and alcohol, and then it would cause her and my dad to get in a fight. And, you know, they say no regrets in NAA. But the one thing I did is I did is I wish that would have treated my parents better. You know, I put them through fucking hell for no reason, and they didn't deserve that. They loved me, they did the best they could with what they had, and I went back down. I sat inside the room. My sponsor was sitting just like this, staring at me across the room, and I'm like, what are the hell is he smiling about? And I'm starting to, like, tear up, choke up, something's happening, and I haven't got a clue what's going on. I start bawling, and I'm snotting. I'm talking ugly cry and, and everything's in a whirlwind. I feel like I'm going to pass out and, and I nudged him back outside, and I'm like, willing to do the work now. And he goes, Yeah, I thought so he knew what was going on right along and I guess June 2 of 2000 God had his hand on my shoulder because I never wanted to quit drinking or using, you know, the claw marks on everything that I gave everything away. I didn't lose nothing. I didn't care about it. It didn't mean anything. It just hair, whatever. I walked away from marriages. You know, it's like you can have everything. I don't close on my back, I'm gone. You know, nothing really mattered, and I made a pact with him that I would do whatever it took from that moment forward, and whatever he asked me to do, if it meant cleaning these cracks on this floor with the toothbrush, I'd be down there doing it. And he reminded me that several times after remember that day, you said, this is one of those days, Don okay, I'm forever grateful for for that man, because he helped me build a life. And not only did he help me build a life, he helped me find a God that I could believe in. So we're getting back to this God thing, and I'm like, Oh, really? Because I thought I neatly put him on the shelf. He was never coming back off and just I could just squeak by that part, and he's like, No, Dave, it doesn't work that way. He told me that a lot. So what he had me do is he had me we met weekly, we read the book, and I took the steps how they came up in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the only way I know how to do it. I'm do it with my guys. We got to that third step. We did a formal third step. But what he had me do is he had me get a yellow legal pad of paper and make an attribute list of a God that I would want, that I could believe in. And he said, Look, just get rid of that other god. It doesn't work for you. This is going to be your God. And what I want you to do is I want you to get on your knees for two weeks, and I want you to pray to this piece of paper, to this god. That's corny, that's hokey, that's like, really don remember that day you told me so. It. I like, alright, I'll try it. And I started doing it. And at the end of that two weeks, I realized that I wasn't high and I didn't want to be high, and I wasn't drunk, and I didn't want to get drunk, and I felt something different, and I didn't know what it was, because I'm new again in sobriety and and he had me start on my fourth step at that point. And I got to be honest with me for the very first time. I got to see me as the problem, and not you. And I started doing this fourth step, you know, in the columns, and I'm resentful at and I got to the fist at, you know, and we went in his backyard, and he drank probably a pot of coffee. I don't suggest, if you're new, drinking a pot of coffee before you do your fist up. It's hard enough and it's nerve wracking. Is enough. But that's what I did. That's my experience. And you know what? I dumped all that baggage in his backyard, in Shadow Hills, and I've never had to pick it up to this day, it still remains, buried there, wherever, and nothing I ever share with him ever surfaced around the rooms and and 678, and I got to that ninth step again, and this time, I got to make real amends. And they told me to quit saying I was sorry. They said, Dave, we know you're sorry. You're an alcoholic, synonymous. That isn't good enough. That doesn't cut it. You need to change your behavior. You need to correct what you've made wrong to the best of your ability. And I was like, oh, okay, you know. And then they gave me the, you know, when you mend the Constitution speech, they changed the Constitution. They don't say, I'm sorry, this doesn't work anymore. So I got to go to all these people,

21:59 to the first ex wife that I wanted to shoot in the face and make honest amends, and I got to go to my parents and not only make amends, but pay back money that I borrowed recklessly. Now my sponsor told me, Dave, you need to keep little Dave will say, for the kids sake, in your pants. Quit borrowing money recklessly and and he just fileted me out that day and grow the up. And I'm like, he said, How old are you? And I was like, 37 at the time. He goes, start acting like it. And I'm like, this is the only guy that ever talked to me like this, anybody else we'd be fighting. And I'm like, You're right. You're right, you know, and I got to to honestly go and start paying back moneys that I owed and start taking care of my parent now, little did I know that God was setting me up for something greater. Had I had the insight to see God working in my life. I got to take care of both my parents. My mom passed in 2004 I moved back in with them so that they could take care of me. So I thought, but that's not what God had. And then when my mom passed, I had to, no, I didn't have to anything. I got to take care of my father. Now, my I got scars to prove that my father and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum, and that man became my best friend, and he'd go and tell we'd go to take him to lunch every day. And I never let him pay for lunch. And and I was making good money at the time, and I could afford and even if I couldn't, I would have afforded it. And I got to sit and listen to this man till the waitress. This is my son, Dave. He takes really good care of me.

24:02 Fucking heartbreaking. Sorry, young man. I should be a truck driver for a living with my vocabulary, it's like so you know, my dad passed in 2013 I knew I was going to be homeless at that point. I'm making good money. I you know, I don't know why my head goes there, but it does. I was going under the bridge where all the homeless people in Burbank go, and I had people there, and I knew people and I'm going to go look for my place that I'm going to stay, and my sponsor was Dan Dominguez at the time, and Dan said, You're not going to be homeless. And then my buddy Jerry, my best friend, dude, stop thinking like that. We're not going to let you be homeless. Yeah, you guys say that. But, and when my dad passed away. Dan took me in, and a good friend of mine had just moved out, and he had an open bedroom. It's funny how God just moves people around and, and it was like, boom, right in. And he helped me move in and, and then here's where the tragedy start. Dan ended up with bladder cancer, and this guy was a two time felon and loved to fight, and he was a badass. And you guys know Danny Trejo. Danny is a family friend and and Danny looked up to Dan Dominguez. And Danny Trejo used to provide protection for Charlie Manson, so that has to tell you something right there. And this guy that was larger in life, he was my best friend. He was my sponsor, and he was like a brother, I mean, like a brother that I never had, that I always wanted, started shriveling up, losing his hair, and I got to take care of him, and I got to bury him with dignity.

26:11 And then my other buddy, MJ, who we're all very close to, suddenly passed at work when I had a heart attack and slumped over in the in one of the booths and died. And I got to bury him with dignity. And then I had a second sponsor, Dave Brock, and he got colon cancer and he passed. And I'm like, Man, how much can one person take a tragedies? So then, in 20,011 my son jumps off a two story roof and commits suicide, fractures his skull, breaks his back and lives, but for the first four hours, we didn't know if he was alive or dead, and to go and see a crime scene tape up on your kid's apartment building, and you can't get in, and the cops are like rushing at you, stop, stop, stop, and the ambulance is driving away. And it was just one thing after another after another, where you SC hospital, and because of Alcoholics Anonymous and being firmly grounded in the Burbank group, there were 50 people in those rooms all supporting me.

27:36 Wow, it's right. And I had to tell him, Hey guys, I love you. But there's other people in here grieving, and there's other people that need these rooms and stuff. And I kept my sponsor, and I kept just a few core people with me, and and send everybody home and and the love, just the outpour of love, is just like, wow, um. Uh, and he survived, and he was in a coma for little over three months. He had to learn to walk and talk again. Now, if you met him today and I didn't tell you that, you wouldn't know that kid lost more than I ever had, and he was borderline genius computer whiz. I mean, he was fast tracking in the computer industry. He's all over Google, and he's done some amazing stuff, and they had to remove his frontal cortex, so he has no short term memory, so he has all his core memories, but anything like what we just had for dinner, he wouldn't remember. We go to the movies every Tuesday, and he's fully functional. He just can't remember stuff. So you can't leave him alone. And he's such a lovely young man. I mean, you just can't help but to love him and everybody that meets him. Had it not been for alcoholics anonymous in the Burbank group, I would have never been able to get through these things. And then, you know, I've been to some weddings and some people that have had babies, and there's some real blessings in Alcoholics Anonymous. And one of the blessings was that I had all those people around me, and they became family, and to this day, they're still family. You know, for a minute there, I'm like, I don't want to get close to anybody, because they all keep passing away. And I told my sponsor. Now my sponsor is Vicki Francis. She goes, You gotta stop saying that all your sponsors die. If I'm going to sponsor, I'm like, Okay, I um,

29:46 if you want to see me really at my myself out in the wild, come down to the Tuesday candlelight and Burbank. We bang on tables. It's a rule 62 meeting. The meeting is really solid. It's a really good meeting after the break. Take but we goof around and, you know, we don't take ourselves seriously in here. Look, we're all going to die. Nobody's getting out of this life alive, so why worry about tomorrow? Take care of the day, and tomorrow. Take care of itself. I don't have time to worry. I don't, you know, I do security for a living. I'm an armed watch commander in 2000 I was not emotionally stable enough to carry a firearm on my side daily. And now I'm going for my CCW, which is my concealed carry permit. I've been licensed for years. I run a company at night. I have about 3540 cars, about 40 cars under my belt at night in a dispatch center. And if you would have told me that I could do this back then, I would have never believed you. And every step of the way God has prepared me for the next step, you know, it was very nerve wracking, never doing that, and then going in, qualifying, and doing all the things I gotta do to to get a license and to keep my license, and and then running a company and, you know, and my bosses look up to me today. They trust me today. They and it's like, Are you sure you know me? Are you sure you've met me? You know, because the old guys, I still have that memory of that guy,

31:33 I never thought I could act professional. And it's funny, the the word me doesn't cuss. The work me is like super professional, and then the this me, I'm really having to edit myself and keep myself in check, because, like I said, I should have been a trucker. What an amazing journey I found a life in Alcoholics Anonymous acceptable to me and is doable. You know, they've never asked me to do anything that was too hard or, you know, that I couldn't do. I'm about being of service. You know, they taught me early on, those guys that were telling me, hey, go shake everybody's hand that walks through the door. So to the newcomer, get a commitment. I'm not telling you what to do, because you don't have to do anything you don't want to in here. That's the good part of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can do whatever I want, and we will all share the same God. My God is personal to me, and what works for me might not work for you. Might get you drunk, but give yourself a chance. Find a group of people. Click up with them, you know, I got lucky, and I fell into just some amazing people. And, and we've had to hold each other up, you know, and, and I watched Diana go and get her master's degree and become a teacher. And, and, you know, her husband, Sean, we play poker together, and he's got some, you know, very, very good skills in the sound industry. And and watch Sam come in and Doug come from New York. He says he's not from Jamaica Queens, but we're kind of wondering he's from the Bronx, you know. And my mom was raised up in the Bronx and born in Connecticut and and I'm starting to like New York people a little bit, you know?

33:50 I'm just very grateful that these people will put up with me for the longest. The Tuesday night candlelight is near and dear to me. It's one that my buddy MJ and I shared and shared over the last couple years and throughout his life. And I found that commitments for me kept me coming. If I had to be there to make coffee, I was important. You guys counted on me to make the coffee every week, and I had to be there no matter what, and I changed my work schedule just to make it to a meeting or whatever, and and I've just met some amazing people along the way. How am I doing? Diana? Done, done. I did this all thanks to a greater, higher power of return to that childhood Faith, My God knows he's my God. He loves me as much as he loves you. And you know how I know he loves you. I saw your picture on His refrigerator.