October 13, 2025 • 55 mins
A Story of Survival and Second Chances | Gary K at City on a Hill Church DFW September 28, 2024
Gary K's Inspirational Journey: From Addiction to Recovery In this episode, Gary K, a national AA speaker, AA historian, and Hazelden published author, shares his gripping and inspirational story of overcoming addiction. Gary recounts his struggles with addiction starting from a young age, his life in the spotlight on Broadway, the depths of his substance abuse, and his eventual recovery.
He discusses the brain science behind addiction, the 12-step program, and the importance of community support in recovery. This touching narrative serves as a beacon of hope for those struggling with similar issues and emphasizes the transformative power of recovery.
Want to book Gary K for your next event? Visit www.garykrecovery.com today for more information or reach out to Robert at 616-489-0084 for details.
00:00 Introduction and Early Life 00:52 Discovering Alcohol and Early Addiction 01:53 Family and Personal Struggles 02:31 The Impact of Addiction 03:49 First Experiences with Alcohol 05:56 Teenage Years and Escalation 14:17 Life in New York and Career Beginnings 17:44 Broadway Career and Substance Abuse 21:36 Rock Bottom and Consequences 29:20 Final Reflections on Sobriety 29:43 A Desperate Night in Times Square 30:14 An Angel in Disguise 31:22 Hitting Rock Bottom 34:17 A Moment of Clarity 36:11 The Road to Recovery Begins 36:24 Guidance from Legends 38:14 A New Life in New York 38:55 From Addiction to Priesthood 39:41 A Life Transformed 47:54 Battling Cancer 52:00 The Power of Community 54:07 Final Reflections and Encouragement
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
My name is Gary Kay, and I'm a grateful,recovered drug addict and alcoholic.
Uh, my sobriety date is August25th, 1996, and I am eternally
grateful for the gifts that I'vebeen given through 12 step recovery.
(00:21):
So here we go.
Um,
you know, I'm a littlenervous about doing this.
Because I asked Brian what the dresscode was like, how should I dress?
And he goes, well, youknow, shirt and pants.
And I thought, what's up with the pants?
(00:44):
Anybody that's heard my story knowsthat it's much more compelling
when I'm not wearing pants.
But just to be respectful, I wore pants.
So I'm from Akron, Ohio.
The first time I ever got arrested fordrunkenness, uh, was about two blocks
from Dr. Bob's house on Ardmore Street inAkron, Ohio, and I'm very proud of that.
(01:11):
I started drinking when I was 12.
Uh, first of all, I'm adopted andmy adoptive family, no one drank.
No one used no one.
Sweared, uh.
They were the kindest people.
They lived in these spiritual principles,but I got the, I had the disease.
(01:34):
I had two sisters who lived normalhealthy lives and good marriages and
kids and lovely homes and careers,and that's not what happened to me.
I was pretty good up until the age of 12.
Um, by the way.
I, as I said, I was, I'madopted about two years ago.
(01:58):
I got a phone call one night fromthis guy who said he was my twin,
and he really is.
Isn't that, that's a scary thing.
There's two of me and uh, he foundme, and I have six other brothers
and sisters we're all addicts.
Two of us are clean and sober.
There's seven kids all togetherin that family, and both birth
(02:20):
parents died from this disease.
And, uh, my birth mother's motherdied from this disease, and my birth
father's father died from this disease.
And I'm clear today that whatI suffered from is an illness,
a chronic, fatal, progressive illness.
I'm always thrilled to share mystory and carry a message of hope
(02:42):
because the stakes are very high.
Addiction and alcoholism has becomea global pandemic in America's
number one public health crisis.
And, uh, I had said in the last session,every year now for the last several years,
over 250,000, 20 something year old malesdie from just from opiate addiction.
(03:05):
I read a report recently from theOffice of National Drug Control
Policy that in the last 12 months,over 20 2010 to 15 year olds died
from opiates in the United States.
That's just phenomenal.
Every year in our country,it's killing more people.
Double the number of allAmerican military casualties.
(03:26):
Since World War ii, I lost a son.
My only child died fromfentanyl overdose in 2018.
It's wiping out a generation, so ifI can do anything to carry a message
to one person, that helps healsomeone, and I have not lived in vain.
(03:49):
So I was 12 years old and my adoptedfather Bruce, who never drank in his
life, uh, he lined up convertibleautomobiles for the football Hall
of Fame parade every year, which isjust south of Akron in Canton, Ohio.
And one year the board oftrustees gave him a gift.
It was a decorative whiskeydecanter, a commemorative whiskey
(04:12):
decanter made out of porcelain.
And it looks like the football hallof fame, like the actual building.
And if you've ever seen a football hallof fame, the roof is a, is a big football.
So the cork in the bottle is a football.
And what was inside thatbottle was what interested me.
It was 80-year-old Jim Beam whiskeyand I was eight years old when
(04:35):
that bottle arrived in our house.
And my father was soproud of this gift he had.
He worshiped football andhe was so proud of this.
So he built a shadow box in the den.
And he put that bottle in the shadow boxwith one track light shining on it like it
was a shrine of the Virgin Mary, you know?
And, uh, the day it arrived, I kept goingin there and picking it up and shaking it.
(04:58):
I had heard from my Pentecostalminister grandfather alcohol bad.
My parents said alcohol bad.
And at eight years old, I wanted that.
I wanted to know what that, what's sobad about this thing that's in a bottle.
And I knew somehow in the deepestpart of my soul, I was born to
have a relationship with whatwas on the inside of that bottle.
(05:21):
So the day it arrived, Ikept playing with it all day.
And my father, who was, uh, underwaterdemolition in World War ii, he
had, uh, during an accident, duringexplosion, one of his hands was mangled.
And when I would act up, he would alwayssay, do you want hospital or sudden death?
He was a very gentle man.
(05:42):
He never touched me, but he alwaysthreatened me with that and it
scared the hell out of me and Iwould straighten up and fly, right?
And um, that day he said, you'regonna get hospital and sudden
death if you open that bottle.
Oh, no.
Swear dad.
I never would do that.
So from the age of eight to 12,I frequently would go in and
shake that liquid in that bottle.
(06:03):
No one in my life drankexcept our neighbors.
We had a lot of Italian neighborswho had grape barbers and they made
their own wine and grappa and, butno one in our family or any of my
parents' friends, nobody, nobody drank.
And, uh, I'd never seen a drunken person.
And when I was 12, I had agrowth spurt and I got taller.
(06:26):
I had been, uh, molested between the ageof eight and 12 by an older relative.
My parents would go away on aweekend and they would leave me
at this farm in southern Ohio withthis relative who would rape me.
And I never knew how to ask for help.
And I'm clear today that that is notwhat caused my alcoholism, though it
did throw gasoline on a fire that wasalready burning from the day I was born.
(06:50):
And it accelerated the progressionof the disease at a very early age.
Up to age 12.
It was chocolate milk and Pop-Tarts.
That was my drug.
Well, on this particular day, theywere gonna leave me at that farm,
and I had a growth spurt and my voicechanged and I said, I'm not going.
And I was a pretty goodkid up to that point.
(07:12):
And my father talked to my momand he said, all right, we're
gonna leave you home alone.
I'm sure you can take care of yourself.
You're a good kid, andvery capable young man.
So prove that we're right about this.
And he said, if you touch that bottle,I'm gonna take my belt off and whip your
(07:33):
butt till it looks like peppermint candy.
And I said, oh, I swear, dad.
Soon as the car disappearedfrom sight, I ran.
I've been waiting forthis since I was eight.
I ran into the den, I grabbed thebottle, I took it in the kitchen.
I filled up a tea kettle withwater and got ahead of steam going.
And I spent about an hour very carefullypeeling the seal off that bottle.
(07:57):
I saw that on I Love Lucy.
She opened a letter, so Ricky didn'tknow that she read it so well that
worked and I drank for the first time.
And the first time I drank,instantly the wall went down.
That separated me fromevery other human being.
And for the first time inmy life, I had courage.
(08:19):
I spent most of that weekenddrinking and running around the
neighborhood at night naked.
I don't know why that is, but every timeI drank I had to take my clothes off.
When I smoke crack, I would tearmy clothes off in front of the
window and then I'd get paranoidand I'd army crawl across the
apartment and hide under the bed.
(08:40):
Oh, that was horrible.
And um.
So anyway, at one point I drank abouthalf of that bottle and there was a kid
in the neighborhood named Philip Paxton,and he used to beat me up all the time.
He was a real bully and I had a grossspurt, and I was as tall as he was now,
and I went over drunk as a skunk, wentover and banged on their screen door.
(09:00):
He came to the door and I made abowl of spaghetti outta his face.
I beat that kid and I feltreally proud and courageous.
I felt like a superhero.
And I finally had courage, so I drank thatentire bottle that weekend, and then I
filled the bottle up with water and I putthe cork back in and I glued the seal back
(09:25):
on and I put it back in the shadow boxwhere it remained until my father died.
Speaking of that, um, myparents were married 69 years.
I never saw them have a fight exceptone time my dad, my uncle and I went and
killed a bear up in Canada, brought itback and my dad wanted her to cook it.
(09:49):
That was the only time she everraises her voice to him, said,
get that bear outta my house.
You know?
Um, they had a great marriage and theywere friends and lovers until they
both died within a month of each other.
Well, my father had had cancer fora long time and my mother called me.
I was living in New York City,and she called me and she said,
you better hop on a plane.
We're on death Watch.
(10:10):
So I came home right away.
I was there within three or four hoursand uh, my mother was clearing out some
of my father's things and she was inthe den packing some of his stuff up.
She, you know, she had a long timeto prepare for his death and there
was that bottle in the shadowbox and I shook and it still had
(10:30):
water in it from when I was 12.
And I said to my mother, I haveto go to the hospital right now.
I need to go see dad.
I never made amends.
For defiling this thing, whichis his PI prized possession.
So I went to the hospital.
My father was in apnea breathing.
He would only breathe onceevery 60 seconds or so.
(10:52):
And um, I waited for him to open hiseyes, which this was very ironic.
One time I had overdosed and I wokeup and my father's face was right
here, and he hollered at my mom whowas out in the hall in the hospital.
He is alive.
And he said, you know what, kid?
If you would've died, no one of 'emwould've come to your funeral 'cause
you're a disgusting human being.
(11:14):
And in sobriety, he and I became greatfriends and I'm so grateful for that.
So in any event, I waited forhim to open his eyes and he did.
And he went like this.
And I said, Bruce, there'ssomething I have to tell you about,
something I need to make amends for.
And he went, oh Jesus.
(11:36):
Like enough of this AA stuff, poor man'sdying, and I'm such a selfish alcoholic.
I want to get something off my chest.
So I said, it's aboutthat whiskey decanter.
And he takes in a breath,in a painful voice.
He says, full of water.
I said, Bruce, he saidThe seal's on upside down.
(12:01):
You're an ass.
Wow.
And we chuckled and he closed his eyes.
That was the last conversation I had withmy father, and he died later that day.
And I tell you this, if you haven'tworked your steps, if you're afraid of
the ninth step, it's for our comfort.
It's to give us relief from guilt,shame, remorse, resentments, anger
(12:22):
and fear, and set us free and removethe things that are blocking us.
From God.
From God, and the source of our good.
So in any event, once I starteddrinking, I drank every day.
I would go to our neighbors andsteal their booze and bring it
home in, uh, dish soap bottles.
And I punched holes in the panelingin my room down in the basement, put
(12:44):
a little finishing nail in there, andI would tie a little piece of fishing
line to the bottle and tie it onthere and drop it down in the hole.
And that became my wine cellar cellar.
And I would lay downstairsand drink wine all night long.
When I was 16 years old, I drank an entirebottle of grappa and a couple bottles
of wine early, early in the morning.
(13:04):
And I had my first blackout.
And my father was a car dealerand he had given me a car.
So I got in that car to drive toschool, and I killed two people
in a drunk driving accident.
And, uh, by the time I was a senior inhigh school, I had totaled 11 automobiles.
Uh, had maimed four other peoplein other drunk driving accidents.
(13:28):
I never went to jail.
Um, the traffic judge, uh, wasa close friend of the family and
the form of the grand jury wasmy father's business partner.
And I never went to jail, although Ihad jail in my mind, suffered enormously
from guilt and had terror mirrorsabout those accidents for the rest
(13:49):
of my life until I finally did EMDR.
Around, uh, 2001, uh, traumatreatment in any event.
Um, so I drank and I drank and Idrank, and I was sneaking outta
the house at night, going to clubsin Akron and Canton and Cleveland,
and stripping on the dance floor.
I loved to do that.
And I was training to be a tapdancer and, uh, I was incredibly
(14:12):
athletic and I was buff and 17and loved to take my clothes off.
Um, I was accepted at the AmericanAcademy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
And the day I graduated highschool, I was handed $5,000 in cash.
And in 1976 that was like having 50 grand.
That was a lot of money buy in,buying power compared to today.
(14:34):
And I took the Amtrak to New York Cityand I never looked back and, uh, talked
my way into an apartment that very day,right in the middle of Times Square, and I
kept that apartment until last Christmas.
That was a horrible place todo drugs and get paranoid.
It had floor to ceiling windows lookingout into Times Square, and the whole
world was right outside the window.
You know, I'd get paranoid.
(14:55):
I spent a lot of time hiding under my bed.
Uh, so I did go to the AmericanAcademy my first morning in New York.
I walked around and I found this shopcalled Abracadabra, which sells, um,
magic tricks and costumes and party goods.
It's still there.
(15:16):
And there was a nightclub I wantedto go to where you had to either be
very famous or crazy, sexy, beautiful,or a freak in order to get in.
And the doorman decided who got in andit was just filled with celebrities.
I wanted to go there.
So I bought a big straw farmer hatlike you'd win at the county fair.
(15:38):
A big pair of sunglasses, a sixfoot long red ostrich feather boa.
And a pair of very tight, very short,very thin Daisy Duke gold lame shorts.
And I took everything off, put onthis outfit, just the shorts, the boa,
the big farmer hat, 17-year-old buffripped like shredded wheat, half naked.
(16:01):
And I made a beeline for Studio 54,and the doorman said, kid, come on in.
And like it says in Bill'sstory, I had arrived.
And that night I met cocaine.
And I met a lot of celebrities andhad a lot of, uh, compulsive sex.
And, uh, I ended up strippingbutt naked on the middle of
(16:21):
the dance floor at Studio 54.
And one of the owners, Ian Schrager hiredme and I became a go-go boy at Studio 54.
And I started stripping at other clubsin New York, regimes, the Ice Palace,
Gigi Knickerbockers, all kinds of places.
And I was sexually compulsive.
And at one point a friend said, you know.
(16:42):
There's this place you couldgo on 53rd street and you
could become a male prostitute.
And I thought, you know, money'sslipping through my fingers and I'm
having, I'm waking up with coyote uglyin bed next to me every day anyway,
and I was completely compulsive.
So I thought that's a good idea.
And I became a male prostitute.
And I did that for a couple of yearsand, uh, I just couldn't keep money.
(17:06):
It just went through my fingers.
And one, I was there tobe an actor and one day.
I saw a notice in an acting publication.
It was an audition notice.
It said, looking for young, tall,athletic males who are willing to
dance in their jockstrap in a lockerroom scene, playing a Texas Aggie
(17:31):
football player in the musical, thebest little whorehouse in Texas.
And I thought, well, I'ma whore and I dance naked.
So this is a no brainer.
And I auditioned and thatwas my first Broadway show.
Uh, over the years, I did lots of tours.
I understudied a lot of famous actors.
(17:52):
I sold drugs to everybody on Broadway.
I became a terror to work with.
I was ruthless and ambitious.
I did 39 Broadway musicals, lotsof international tours performed
in over 60 countries and on about800 stages around the globe.
Uh, my mother kept track of all those.
How?
How, oops, sorry.
It's how I know that number.
(18:14):
Did I ruin this?
Okay.
Okay.
And I became a nightmare towork with, and at this point
I was addicted to alcohol, marijuana,opium, hash morphine, ketamine,
Percocet, Perkin, and Vicodin.
Restoril.
LSD.
Quaaludes Black Beauties.
Whippets Whippet.
(18:35):
Good.
Yeah, Ivy, heroin and crack cocaine.
I was sent to therapy, manydifferent kinds of therapy.
Um, shock therapy, union therapy, Freudiantherapy, psychodynamics, gestalt therapy.
(18:55):
Over the course of my using,I was jailed 11 times.
I caught two felonies.
Which by the way, were later, many yearslater, expunged by two sponsees I have
who are sitting federal judges who I tookthrough the steps and as an anniversary
gift, they had my record expunged.
Thank you.
God,
(19:19):
I can never repay the debt thatI owed to Alcoholics Anonymous.
So, um, yeah, I became anightmare to work with.
The promoters knew I was adrug addict and a coke freak.
And I remember walking into atheater up in Canada, a big beautiful
(19:39):
theater, and there was a, a notethat said, welcome to Toronto.
And there was a fifth of Jack Daniels,a big fruit basket with a pineapple
in it and an eight ball of blow.
And I remember thinking, what'sup with this fruit basket?
Who's gonna eat a pineapple whenyou're doing an eight ball of cocaine?
But.
Anyway, things got pretty crazy.
(20:00):
Uh, we were at a theater in Green Bay,Wisconsin, and somebody on the tech staff
said, you know, there's this bar in townthat's closing and they're inviting people
to come tonight and just trash the place.
I said, oh, let's go.
That sounds great.
So I go to this place andwe're smashing glasses.
They had a tabletop Pacman machine, and Itook it outta that bar and I put it in my
(20:22):
tour bus in the back room and the stateroom in the back was, which my bedroom.
And I used that.
I put there were four holders for 40ounce bottles or cups or whatever, and
I put four different kinds of unblendedscotch in those holders with big bendy
straws that I got from a truck stop.
And I would turn on the machineand lay out my lines of cocaine.
(20:45):
I never played Pac Man, but I likedhearing Waka Waka Waka Waka Waka
when, when I was doing the cocaine.
Funny thing about triggers thatbecame such a thing in my head.
Uh, about six years ago, I was akeynote speaker at the California State
Convention of Alcoholics Synonymous.
And I walked into the lobby to, uh, youknow, check into the hotel, and I hear
(21:09):
in the background, somewhere in thatlobby I hear Waka Waka, Waka Waka Waka.
And I got bubble guts and poopedmy pants right there in the lobby.
Triggers, they never go away.
It's a neuro pathway carved into thebrain, which is why we must avoid people,
places, and things for a very long time.
Some of us, some of us permanently.
(21:31):
Those triggers are so deep.
In any event, uh, it things just got nuts.
I became a nightmare to work with.
So I'll fast forward my lastshow I was hired to play.
This is my last war story.
Well, one more, two more war stories.
Um.
I was hired to play Daddy Warbucksin the Broadway musical, Annie, and
this was gonna be my first starringrole where I didn't have to understudy
(21:55):
somebody and take over the role.
It was a big deal and I went outand had a tuxedo made for the Tony
Awards 'cause I was so fond of myself.
I was just sure I'd win a Tony.
And uh, in those days before youopen on Broadway, you did what
was called an out of town trial.
So you would go to six or eight theaters.
(22:15):
In different parts of the country and testthe show, test the audience's reaction.
Make sure you nail all yourjokes, get your timing down.
So we had to play atheater in, uh, Allentown.
We played the Schubert inNew Haven, Connecticut.
And this particular performanceI'm gonna tell you about was at the
(22:35):
State theater in Albany, New York.
And, uh, it holds maybe 4,000 people.
And we're, you know, manysemis with equipment.
Uh, there was a famous televisioncomedian who played Miss Hannigan.
There were the 30 little orphan girlsin their understudies and the chaperones
and the teachers, and sandy, the dog,and the dog's understudy and the dog
(22:59):
trainers, and a 30 piece orchestra,the conductor of 65 adult actors.
It was this massive amount of people goingdown the road, and it cost a fortune.
And this particular performance wasgonna be a benefit for an AIDS charity.
This was in the early 1990s, and thatnight the governor of New York was
to be there and the mayor of New YorkCity and, uh, lots of celebrities.
(23:23):
And it was a thousand dollarsa ticket for an AIDS charity.
Now, my life at that point,here's how my days went.
I wake up in the morning before I go tothe bathroom, I knock back a scotch, take
a rest, real smoke a joint, then I go pee.
Then another scotch, anotherRestoril or Valium or a couple
of them and a couple joints.
And I get back in bedand I stay there all day.
(23:46):
And, uh, and late afternoon mydresser would come in and slap
me awake and drag me into thebathroom, take me off to the theater.
And this was tolerated in that business,you know, lot of drug addicts and drunks.
It was a, a haven for me to staysick and a haven for my ego.
(24:09):
So then I would go to the theaterand I'd lay off the drugs and
the alcohol until intermission.
Then I would have a couple linesof cocaine, one Jack Daniels neat.
Then I'd be out all night, whatevercity we were in, in the nightclubs with
coke, hookers and booze coke, hookersand booze, coke, hookers and booze.
And then before going to sleep, Iwould eat copious amounts of eggs,
(24:30):
pancakes, and orange juice to put myself.
To, uh, to, uh, absorb the boozeand then I would inject heroin into
my jugular, put myself to sleep.
Then the next day, that was real heroin.
That was your grandfather's heroin,not the stuff that's going around
today that, that opiates the digestivetrack, which cuts it off and creates
pressure and it builds up pressureand at some point you relax and that
(24:55):
unop opiates and you ninja vomit.
Like I could knock your glassesoff the top of your head from here.
And that was very inconvenient.
So it's the second act I'vejust told little Annie I'm
gonna adopt her audiences.
Packed men in tuxes 30 piece orchestra.
They start playing a balladcalled, something was missing.
(25:16):
It's violins and French horns andcellos, and it's also beautiful.
And there's what's called a twinkledrop cost about a quarter of a
million dollars piece of equipment.
That's the night sky and a moon.
And every night when that lit up, theaudience would say, oh, like this.
And, uh, I'm adopting Annie.
So I tell her I'm gonna adopt her.
(25:37):
This warbuck mansion disappears.
Twinkle drop, oh stage,flooded with dry ice.
And the little girl and me, big,tall, bald, crazy man, start waltzing.
And as I'm waltzing and I'm singing,I'm choreographed at the end of the
song to pick up the little girl.
Hold her right here and hitthe last note of the song.
(25:58):
And I'm itching, I'm seeing spots.
I'm sweating really bad.
I pick up the little girl.
I hit the last note, no one apart
and I vomited in Annie'sface Point, blank range.
The audience screams.
People are walking out of the theater.
(26:19):
The whole New York Press Corps is there.
The post, the Daily News, the Times.
And I dropped her and kept pukingand then I started laughing like
it was the funniest thing I'd everseen, which was very inappropriate.
And they pulled the curtain down andsaid there'd be a 45 minute intermission.
And the producer came outand punched me in the face.
(26:41):
And, uh, I started trying tobeat him to death with a chair.
I was absolutely went into a blindrage and the police came and I spent
quite a bit of time in jail for that.
Then I went back to my Times Squareapartment and I couldn't work.
I was blackballed and I couldn't work.
So I tried to sell drugs, whichI didn't do very well, and
(27:03):
uh, I stopped wearing clothes.
I stopped bathing.
I was going to the bathroom andcool whip bowls and throwing 'em
out the window into Times Square.
I wouldn't go in the bathrooms.
There was a big window.
I thought the Ninja policewere gonna come in and get me.
I was very paranoid.
My hair got long.
(27:24):
I had a beard and stank to high heaven,and I did look like a combination between
Nick, no, Nick nte, Gary Busey, and uhCharles Manson, all on a very bad day.
And I made a decision I wasgonna murder a drug dealer.
I, at that point in time, I was carryinga gun around and at night and I would go
(27:45):
out into alleyways and muck people andtake their stuff and pawn it to, uh, buy
more crack, the more heroin, more alcohol.
It was just awful.
Well anyway, I arrangedto meet this drug dealer.
In the middle of the night in a remotepark in Forest Hills, Queens, and I knew
(28:07):
that he kept a lot of crack inside thepanels of his truck inside the doors.
'cause I watched him get it many times.
I'd bought from him for yearsand he trusted me, I guess.
So I pulled the gun out right inhis face, pulled the trigger, fully
intending to blow his head offand take everything that he had.
That was my plan.
(28:27):
And the gun jammed and hisfriends beat the hell out of me.
I had a broken sternum, fourbroken ribs, a broken jaw,
two stab wounds right up here.
They grabbed my hair and wentlike this and cut my scalp.
They cut me across my face, acrossthis nostril in this eyelid.
(28:50):
They stuffed my mouth with crack pipes andhit me in the face with a baseball bat,
and that's when I lost consciousness andwhen I woke up I was bleeding profusely.
I had a mouth full of broken glass andthey had defecated on me from head to toe.
And if that hasn't happenedto you, then that's it.
Yet
(29:14):
it'd be a lot easier to get a donutand a cup of coffee and work the steps.
Amen.
Surrender, full surrender.
That's where the power is.
That's where peace of mind is.
That's where dignity is.
That's what sobriety means.
You know, that you lookit up in the dictionary.
(29:34):
It has nothing to do with alcohol.
It says dignity, integrity,clearheaded, self restrained,
self-control, peace of mind.
That's what sobriety is.
So, um, I crawled out to the street,bleeding covered with crap, mouthful
(29:55):
of glass, and here comes the taxi.
And I crawled out in front of that taxiand then got to my feet and started
waving my arms and he stopped for me.
And I remember saying, I'm not a monster.
I was on Broadway and he helpedpick glass out of my mouth.
That man was a memberof Narcotics Anonymous.
(30:18):
He had, uh, an na basictext in that taxi with him.
Tried to 12 step my assand I didn't want to hear.
I didn't want to hear nothing about it.
I wanted to die.
This was the night I'mleaving the planet now.
I talked him into taking me backto my Times Square apartment.
He wrapped me up in a blanket that hehad in the truck and let me get in his
(30:40):
cab covered with crap and bleeding.
He actually had some rags.
He tore up and tied tostop some of the bleeding.
He was so kind, I'll never forget.
Never saw him again.
I think it was an angel.
There's lots of angels, aren't there?
(31:01):
There's angels in this room.
Earth Angels.
There's one sitting right thereand there's a couple back there.
I don't know the rest of you, but I'vemet a couple of those guys and I know
her and they're definitely angels.
In any event, uh.
Where was I?
(31:21):
Was I puking on somebody?
Oh, yeah.
Uh, so, uh, he got me backto my Times Square apartment.
I went up the fire escape, broke inthrough that bathroom window, hit my head
really bad on the tub, and I was starving.
I hadn't eaten in a very long time,and I crawled into the kitchen.
(31:41):
I used to hang out with thisdoctor named Sandra, and she was
an infectious disease doctor fromBeth Israel Hospital in New York.
And she died fromaddiction many years ago.
And we used to hang out and do alot of twisted things together and
she like cracked the way I did.
And, uh, she helped me steal anIV drip machine from the hospital
(32:01):
and I had that in my bedroom.
And, uh, she would get memorphine in these big saline bags.
He would hook on the IV and I kept themin the vegetable bin, so I crawled to
the refrigerator thinking maybe I hadsome of that in there and there was
nothing in there but a carton of milk.
And I grabbed it and Iimpulsively downed it.
(32:22):
It had been spoiled for a verylong time and I began to wretch
and I ran to the sink, and thesink filled up with amber liquid.
I'm vomiting.
And the milk that I drankcurdled in that booze.
It smelled like Jack Danielsand that's what it was.
I was puking up Jack Daniels andlittle white lumps of curdled milk.
(32:44):
So being a good drunk, I stuck my facein the sink and I la that puke back up.
I don't wanna waste that booze.
And then I startedspitting out these lumps.
I would go like this till I hit a lump andthen I'd spit it out and I'd try to dry
it off on a paper towel and I was stuffingthose lumps of curdled milk into a.
Broken crack pipe trying to smoke my puke.
(33:07):
That's where it took me from a goodfamily in Ohio, the Broadway stage to
that in the gutter, totally in the gutter,covered with shit bleeding profusely like
a stuck pig, completely out of my mind.
No morals.
(33:28):
Well, when that didn'twork, I had a suicide kit.
I had one more fifth ofJack in the hall closet.
I had a, a, uh, mason jar full of Vicodin.
This dealer used to alwaystoss me a few Vicodin.
I didn't like 'em.
I decided to save them in casethe Ninja police ever came in
that I would commit suicide.
I'm not going to prisonfor the rest of my life.
(33:49):
So I drank all the JackDaniels very quick as I could.
I stuffed about 200 Vicodin in me, andthen I got a big knife from the kitchen.
If you were up here, you could see 'em.
And I deep cut my wrists and my elbowsand under my arms, and I laid down in the
hallway in a pile of blood covered withshit profusely bleeding with all these
(34:13):
pills in me and booze hoping to die.
And I had a moment of clarity.
It was like a voice inside my head,said, you don't want death, you want
more life, and I'm gonna show you how.
And suddenly my mind was floodedwith thoughts about an actor.
I'd worked with Richard Springle.
He played Colonel Pickering to my HenryHiggins in the World Tour of My Fear Lady.
(34:36):
And I hadn't been to his home, Ididn't know where he lived, and I
hadn't talked to him in probablyfour years since we toured together.
And I thought of his phonenumber and I, in this condition,
I crawled to my landline.
I called and he answered, he said, yellow.
I said, Colonel, I'm dying.
And I passed out and only because Icalled him Colonel, he knew who I was.
(34:57):
He called 4 1 1 information and hesaid, Bruce Kimble, he knew my parents.
He had met them on when we were touring.
Bruce Kimball, Akron, Ohio.
And he gets my mother on the phoneand said, where does he live?
She gave him the address directlyacross Times Square from where he lived.
Is it odd or is it God?
(35:19):
He made a beeline across times Square.
Doorman didn't wanna let him in,so he punched him out and screamed
at him to call an ambulance.
He came up to my floor, brokethe front door part, carried me.
Bleeding covered withshit blue, not breathing.
Carried me outta the buildinginto a waiting ambulance.
I regained consciousness About twoweeks later, scrapped down to a gurney
(35:40):
in a psych ward in a facility in NewJersey, and I knew that I had hit my
bottom because I was in New Jersey.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'll be here all night.
(36:02):
I'm so done with suffering.
I, I love to laugh.
What a gift it is to be alive.
So, um, that started the firstof 19 trips to treatment.
Over a period of four years, I walkout the door, get high, go back,
walk out the door, get high, go back.
'cause I wouldn't listen.
(36:24):
And I met two old men, Mel and Edgar.
Edgar's father was one of the first87 members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He did his steps with Bill Wilson and HankParkhurst the first time he did the steps.
And another man named Mel Barger.
Uh, Mel also did steps with BillWilson and four men from Akron,
who were sponsored by Dr. Bob.
He wrote five of the books that arelisted in the front of the big book,
(36:46):
uh, uh, pass it on a Comes of Age.
Dr. Bob and the good old timershe edited as Bill sees it.
And he was a's official historianand archivist and editor of the AA
International Grapevine Magazineand Bill's traveling companion.
And these two men were great pals andthey were there, uh, at that treatment
(37:06):
center bringing h and i meetingsinto the center for four years.
They kept doing that.
Mel was in New York at the time,writing a book on Evie Thatcher, and
they made a decision to co-sponsor me.
I did not ask them.
They told me we are going to do this.
Do you wanna live or die?
So you're a 5-year-old on amommy leash now, and we're not
(37:28):
gonna tell you any suggestions.
We're gonna give you commands, we'regonna tell you exactly what to do.
And they had me discharged, rode thetrain back to New York with Melon Edgar,
they strip searched me in my apartment,had me pack a bag and took my keys.
They convinced me to sign documentsthat made Father Edgar my guardian.
Wow.
(37:49):
And they took all my rights away.
I wouldn't recommend that with everysponsor, but I'd gotten to know these
guys over four years and I had greatrespect for them and I knew they
were like icons in recovery and youknow, being on Broadway and all that.
And I was like, oh, I like thatwhole star thing, and these
guys are like stars in recovery.
So that appealed to me and I choseto listen to what they had to say
(38:12):
and they took me back to New York.
We did the steps thefirst time in one week.
Quickly and often the way theywere designed to be done, I did
like four, four steps over a periodof my first month in recovery.
Uh, started going to sixto eight meetings a day.
They told me Recovery is now yourcareer for the next two or three years.
(38:36):
'cause you're a very sick person.
It's gonna take a longtime for you to heal.
So I listened to what they hadto say and I let them command me.
I got out of the way and I surrendered.
I just surrendered.
That was, that was the greatest feeling.
Just give up.
Let God take the reins.
I didn't believe in God,thought that was horseshit.
(38:58):
Now I'm a priest.
How did that happen?
You know, from crack who to priest?
Just amazing what God can do in your life.
Right, whatever that is.
And I don't pretend to understand, God.
I don't understand it, butI certainly experience it.
(39:19):
I also don't understand Google,but I use it all the time.
You know, I don't understandelectricity, but there it is.
You know,
we can either use that energy to killourselves or we can use it to build
something beautiful and, um, what anextraordinary life it's given me so.
(39:41):
I worked closely with Melon Edgar.
Uh, I started doing a lot of service,had my first EE at 30 days, applying the
steps I was living with Father Edgar,sleeping on his pullout couch in a
studio apartment in midtown Manhattan.
And he was eyes on me all the time.
They told me Whatever happens in NewYork, uh, after the sun goes down is none
(40:04):
of your business and you're not allowedoutside alone without adult supervision.
So for a couple of years I wentnowhere without some guy from
AA with me, the grocery store.
Nowhere.
Nowhere.
And that saved my life.
I did a lot of step work,did a lot of service, and my
whole life radically changed.
(40:26):
I started working on WallStreet, made my financial amends.
I was working for WaterhouseSecurities as a result of that.
I was in the South Tower onnine 11 when the planes hit.
And, uh, narrowly escaped that, um,
sponsored a lot of guys.
I had my first sponsee at 30days, a man named Alex Alexander.
(40:49):
I was commanded by Father Edgar.
He said, okay, you've got 30 days.
Go out and get a sponsee, and ifyou don't bring a pigeon back for
me to meet, you can just move outof my house and get outta my life.
There's 25 million peopleon this island at 12 noon.
Go, go find a drunk who needs help.
Should be no problem at all.
So I went to a meeting, I was thefirst one there the night before.
(41:13):
I was hanging out with this girl who wasstudying cosmetology, and I let her bleach
my hair and it looked like Bart Simpson.
And I put on a pair of whitejeans and a yellow polo shirt
and this crazy looking hairdo.
And I waited.
I set the chairs up.
I was there early and I waitedfor somebody to show up.
And the first guy that shows up, he's gota potato nose and his eyes are watering.
(41:36):
Hello, welcome.
His eyes are watering and um, he's got anexpensive suit on and his hands shaking.
He's smoking a cigaretteand he's standing outside.
So I go out, I open the doorand I say, hi, my name's Gary.
Are you new to AA or new to me?
And he stared at me like this.
His eyes went bug-eyed and heturned and he started running.
(42:00):
He really did.
And I thought of what Edgar said, andI went after him, chased him all the
way to sixth Avenue from 10th Avenue.
And, uh, we, he went into a Barney StoneBar and I went in right after him, sat
down at the bar, stool bartender cameup and said, what do we have boys?
I said, Coca-Cola.
He looked like he wantedto tear my head off.
And I talked him out of that bar andinto a park and into the next meeting.
(42:24):
And I said, I'm gonna sponsor you.
I've got these really coolsponsors, and they'll help.
He never talked.
I started thinking he's a deaf mute.
And, uh, I wrote my number down andI said, we're gonna start step work
tomorrow at the Westway Diner andbe there if you want to get well.
And he kept going like this,and he kept crying a lot, but he
(42:44):
never talked until that night.
He called me about four o'clockin the morning at Father Edgars
and just spilled his guts.
He was a lawyer for Deutsche Bank.
And, um, the next day we startedstep work and Father Edgar sat there
with me and he never said a word.
I'd looked to him forhelp and he'd just grin.
(43:04):
He was just there for moral support.
Like, just do it, getthrough it, you know.
And I, and we started, we did one,two, and three sitting in that di.
And, uh, Alex remained my sponsee forthe next eight years before he died from
lung cancer, but he never drank again.
Over the years, I've taken about2000 men privately through the steps,
(43:24):
and four women and, uh, in groups.
I've taken probably a hundredthousand people through the steps,
uh, in groups the way it used to bedone in northeast Ohio, in the late
1930s and early 1940s in groups.
And, uh, it's given me a great life.
So, um, I went back to school.
(43:45):
I studied neurobiology 'cause I wantedto understand why the 12 steps worked
for people who didn't believe in God.
And I found the answer to that abouthow this spiritual action of this
program changes brain function,which is pretty fascinating.
I'm gonna talk aboutthat in the next session.
And so I went back to school.
Um, I studied addiction medicine.
(44:09):
And that fascinated me.
I was learning all about my condition,about what, what had happened to me.
Why did I behave the way I did andwhy did I harm so many people and
myself and cause so much pain andsuffering for me and everyone around me?
I wanted to understand that 'cause I,nobody ever told me I had a disease.
(44:32):
I thought I was a bad person.
My family thought I was a bad person.
They, because theythought it was a choice.
They thought I was choosing to bethis way 'cause no one understood.
And that's not the case.
We're not choosing to be this way.
It's not a choice, nor is it a moralfailing, nor is it because of weakness.
It's an illness in the mindand it's highly treatable.
(44:57):
So, let's see, to wrap up, um,yeah, my life just got really good.
After nine 11, I went to amonastery in Bardstown, Kentucky
called the Abbey of Gethsemane.
Also, by the way, I went to seminaryand became an ordained Episcopal priest.
And uh, that was a highlight of my life.
(45:19):
Something I never thought I'd do,but I did what my sponsors did.
Mel wrote books.
I'm now an author.
I did what he did, he guided me.
I'm now an author andhave books published.
Edgar was a priest and now I'm a priest.
You know, you do what theydid, you get what they got.
If you want, what we haveand what we have is dignity,
(45:42):
integrity, peace of mind, clarity,self-control, self-restraint and joy.
Yeah.
So, um, I've had the opportunity towrite books for Hazelden Publishing.
Um.
Under Melon Edgar's guidance, I wrotea play about Bill W and Dr. Bob that
was produced all over the world.
(46:02):
And I hired Richard, whosaved my life that night.
When I, last time I tried to kill myself.
I hired him to play Dr. Bob, and wetraveled the world playing Bill and Bob,
and if you don't believe in miracles,you gotta be fucking kidding me.
That was an enormous,incredible experience.
Uh, I was, as a result of that, I gotinvited on two episodes of Dr. Phil.
(46:26):
And Ellen and four Times on the TodayShow, uh, the program intervention on two
episodes of that five episodes of DopeSick Nation on, uh, Viceland on a and
e. It's actually on Amazon Prime Now andthe documentary that's coming up next.
Some filmmakers from PBS followedme around for 10 years and made a
(46:47):
documentary about my recovery, showingthe 12 steps in action in someone's life.
Um, just incredible things.
I became ambassador of education.
For the National Council onAlcoholism and Drug Dependence,
their Washington DC liaison.
Um, I met Barack Obamaand he said, hi Barack.
I'm the president.
(47:07):
He snuck into this meeting and it wasright by the door, and I was sitting
right by the door and I looked upand I looked, I guess astonished.
And I like this.
And he goes, hi Barack.
I'm the president.
And I said, uh, Gary Kayrecovered crack whore.
And he laughed his head off.
He laughed and laughed and laughed.
That was pretty cool.
(47:29):
Went from the gutterto meeting presidents.
You know,
I actually got an email on my sobrietyanniversary from Joe Biden, uh, who
had invited me to Washington once tospeak on the steps of the Capitol.
It's just been crazy, man, and I wouldn'ttrade this life for anything in the world.
I have 143 Sponsee currently.
(47:53):
Here's something I wanted to mention.
In 2022, in September, 2022, I wasdiagnosed with stage four cancer and
they told me I'd be dead in two monthsunless I did a brutal treatment.
That just might work.
I took my problem into the rooms andmen in the rooms and women who had gone
(48:13):
through similar things told me whatdoctors to go to, and I was able to
get in with a world famous oncologist.
And he said, I have 72 patientsthat have gone through what you've
gone through, and they're all cancerfree, and I could do it for you.
You have to know that healing is80% emotional and 20% physical.
(48:34):
So if you can stay in the righthead space, he said, but the
treatment's gonna be brutal.
You're gonna have to do65 radiation treatments.
By the way, it was anal cancer.
I said, no way.
I'm dying from as cancer.
They're gonna put that on my tombstone.
Well, finally took 'em out.
He died from as cancer afterall the shit I've been through.
(48:56):
Are you kidding me?
Not happening.
So he said you're gonna have65 radiation treatments.
You're gonna have seven months of chemo.
Then it's gonna be about six toeight months to heal from that.
And then we're gonna have to remove yourrectum, your anus, your large intestine.
And we're gonna take a muscleoutta your abdomen and sow up
(49:17):
your ass like a Barbie doll.
I have a Barbie doll ass.
Could I have a round of applausefor the Barbie doll ass?
And they gave me a colostomy,my little friend here.
And now I'm cancer free.
I don't have cancer anymore, andI'm able to be back in the saddle.
And why am I sharing this with you
(49:40):
when you hear cancer?
You do whatever they tell you todo 'cause you know you're gonna
suffer and die from it, right?
Addiction kills more peoplethan cancer or heart disease
or diabetes, or AIDS combined.
(50:00):
The number one killer of human beings.
Will you go to the recoveryoncologist and follow their guidance?
Will you go to any length?
Will you do what they tell youto do to conquer this disease?
Because it is a disease in the mindand the body, and there's a treatment.
(50:24):
And you don't have to do chemo.
You don't have to do radiation.
You know what you do?
You get a donut.
I like donuts.
I like donuts and a cup of coffee.
Smoke some cigarettes.
Hug people.
Stop acting like a turd.
You do some praying and meditation.
(50:45):
You apologize to people for harm's causeyou pay back money that you owe and you
do the right thing and you stop causingpain and suffering for other people.
And there's a set of tools in that bigbook that teaches us how to do that.
And you follow that path and you can doit quickly and you can stop the bleeding
and you can stop dying from this diseaseand the mental obsession will leave you.
(51:08):
And you won't think about it.
And if I don't think aboutit, I don't put it in me.
If I don't put it in me, I don't havethe phenomena of craving, and I don't
drink gallons of booze and smokepounds of crack and shoot up pounds
of dope, and then I'm free from this.
But it's a chronic illnessand you have to keep doing it.
There are things I have to doto continue treating my cancer.
(51:30):
To make sure that that doesn't come back.
I had to change a lot of things aboutmy life, what I put into my body.
Yeah.
And like an idiot.
I still smoke sometimes.
Yeah.
I had a cigarette beforeI came in to talk here.
'cause I'm a junkie.
I'm an addict, but I'm recovered from aseemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
The mental obsession andthe phenomenon of craving.
(51:52):
I no longer have that.
I will have craving if I put it in me,but I don't have the mental obsession.
I go to a meeting seven days a week.
I'm 63 years old.
I go to meetings seven days aweek, Monday through Friday, 6:30
AM Prior to that, I do my 11 step.
(52:12):
I send out my gratitude list.
I see my sponsor at my 6:30 AM meeting.
We go out to eggs every daywith some other guys and women,
and we laugh and we have fun.
And then I go to work.
And then Monday night I goto a men's big book study.
It Tuesday night, I go to a smallgroup in a church that I like, a
bunch of old people that are my pals.
(52:34):
And uh, Wednesday night I takea meeting somewhere Thursday
night I take a meeting somewhere.
I've been doing this for thelast 10 years, just 10 years to
take in the evening meetings.
Never stopped doing that.
One of them is into the county jail.
We call it gun club down in Florida.
And, uh.
Thursday night, I go to another smallmeeting in a church, and Friday night
(52:58):
I go to another men's big book study.
And uh, Saturday night I goto a different men's meeting.
And then Sunday is my home groupat 8:00 AM on Sunday morning.
So I go to that many meetingsreligiously every week.
When I had cancer, they had asignup sheet in my home group,
and men came to my apartment andbrought meetings to me every day.
(53:20):
And they'd sit around, sleepon the couch next to me.
They were with me.
The arms of AA were around me thewhole time I had, it was amazing.
Go ahead.
My first week in the hospital, I had68 visitors in the hospital, asked me
to not have so many friends come, andthey loved me through it, you know, and
(53:41):
they got me through it for four months.
My feet were in straps andI had to lay on my back.
I couldn't roll this way.
I couldn't roll that way.
For four months.
Just laid there.
What do you think I did?
I talked to God a lot and I listened
and I knew if I ever got out of thatand I stayed alive, I had a job to do.
(54:03):
You know, he didn't get me wellagain, just to go shopping.
So it's a privilege to be hereif you're new, for God's sakes.
Get a sponsor.
Work the steps, work themquickly, work them often.
Get a service commandment.
Get a home group.
You have a disease that's gonna killyou, and before it does, it's gonna rob
us of everything precious about life.
(54:25):
It's gonna stop us from being ableto give and receive love, and we're
gonna be blocked from ourselves,from other people and from God.
And this simple program with these simple12 steps, you can walk those steps and be
free and tear down that wall of blockageand make that spiritual connection.
I didn't believe it, but it happenedto me just the way they said it would.
(54:51):
You know, we've seen impossible domesticsituations, righted men and women
come out of asylums and prisons andresume a vital place in the lives of
their families and their communities.
There's for scarcity, any form of troublethat has not been overcome among us.
We become citizens of the world.
I'm quoting Bill Wilson.
(55:13):
Never again are we alone.
In 1935, a candle was lit. That candlehas been passed on to each one of us.
Take that light into any dark cave wheresomeone is suffering and pass it on.
God bless you.
Thank you.
My name is Gary Kay, and I'm a grateful,recovered drug addict and alcoholic.
Uh, my sobriety date is August25th, 1996, and I am eternally
grateful for the gifts that I'vebeen given through 12 step recovery.
(00:21):
So here we go.
Um,
you know, I'm a littlenervous about doing this.
Because I asked Brian what the dresscode was like, how should I dress?
And he goes, well, youknow, shirt and pants.
And I thought, what's up with the pants?
(00:44):
Anybody that's heard my story knowsthat it's much more compelling
when I'm not wearing pants.
But just to be respectful, I wore pants.
So I'm from Akron, Ohio.
The first time I ever got arrested fordrunkenness, uh, was about two blocks
from Dr. Bob's house on Ardmore Street inAkron, Ohio, and I'm very proud of that.
(01:11):
I started drinking when I was 12.
Uh, first of all, I'm adopted andmy adoptive family, no one drank.
No one used no one.
Sweared, uh.
They were the kindest people.
They lived in these spiritual principles,but I got the, I had the disease.
(01:34):
I had two sisters who lived normalhealthy lives and good marriages and
kids and lovely homes and careers,and that's not what happened to me.
I was pretty good up until the age of 12.
Um, by the way.
I, as I said, I was, I'madopted about two years ago.
(01:58):
I got a phone call one night fromthis guy who said he was my twin,
and he really is.
Isn't that, that's a scary thing.
There's two of me and uh, he foundme, and I have six other brothers
and sisters we're all addicts.
Two of us are clean and sober.
There's seven kids all togetherin that family, and both birth
(02:20):
parents died from this disease.
And, uh, my birth mother's motherdied from this disease, and my birth
father's father died from this disease.
And I'm clear today that whatI suffered from is an illness,
a chronic, fatal, progressive illness.
I'm always thrilled to share mystory and carry a message of hope
(02:42):
because the stakes are very high.
Addiction and alcoholism has becomea global pandemic in America's
number one public health crisis.
And, uh, I had said in the last session,every year now for the last several years,
over 250,000, 20 something year old malesdie from just from opiate addiction.
(03:05):
I read a report recently from theOffice of National Drug Control
Policy that in the last 12 months,over 20 2010 to 15 year olds died
from opiates in the United States.
That's just phenomenal.
Every year in our country,it's killing more people.
Double the number of allAmerican military casualties.
(03:26):
Since World War ii, I lost a son.
My only child died fromfentanyl overdose in 2018.
It's wiping out a generation, so ifI can do anything to carry a message
to one person, that helps healsomeone, and I have not lived in vain.
(03:49):
So I was 12 years old and my adoptedfather Bruce, who never drank in his
life, uh, he lined up convertibleautomobiles for the football Hall
of Fame parade every year, which isjust south of Akron in Canton, Ohio.
And one year the board oftrustees gave him a gift.
It was a decorative whiskeydecanter, a commemorative whiskey
(04:12):
decanter made out of porcelain.
And it looks like the football hallof fame, like the actual building.
And if you've ever seen a football hallof fame, the roof is a, is a big football.
So the cork in the bottle is a football.
And what was inside thatbottle was what interested me.
It was 80-year-old Jim Beam whiskeyand I was eight years old when
(04:35):
that bottle arrived in our house.
And my father was soproud of this gift he had.
He worshiped football andhe was so proud of this.
So he built a shadow box in the den.
And he put that bottle in the shadow boxwith one track light shining on it like it
was a shrine of the Virgin Mary, you know?
And, uh, the day it arrived, I kept goingin there and picking it up and shaking it.
(04:58):
I had heard from my Pentecostalminister grandfather alcohol bad.
My parents said alcohol bad.
And at eight years old, I wanted that.
I wanted to know what that, what's sobad about this thing that's in a bottle.
And I knew somehow in the deepestpart of my soul, I was born to
have a relationship with whatwas on the inside of that bottle.
(05:21):
So the day it arrived, Ikept playing with it all day.
And my father, who was, uh, underwaterdemolition in World War ii, he
had, uh, during an accident, duringexplosion, one of his hands was mangled.
And when I would act up, he would alwayssay, do you want hospital or sudden death?
He was a very gentle man.
(05:42):
He never touched me, but he alwaysthreatened me with that and it
scared the hell out of me and Iwould straighten up and fly, right?
And um, that day he said, you'regonna get hospital and sudden
death if you open that bottle.
Oh, no.
Swear dad.
I never would do that.
So from the age of eight to 12,I frequently would go in and
shake that liquid in that bottle.
(06:03):
No one in my life drankexcept our neighbors.
We had a lot of Italian neighborswho had grape barbers and they made
their own wine and grappa and, butno one in our family or any of my
parents' friends, nobody, nobody drank.
And, uh, I'd never seen a drunken person.
And when I was 12, I had agrowth spurt and I got taller.
(06:26):
I had been, uh, molested between the ageof eight and 12 by an older relative.
My parents would go away on aweekend and they would leave me
at this farm in southern Ohio withthis relative who would rape me.
And I never knew how to ask for help.
And I'm clear today that that is notwhat caused my alcoholism, though it
did throw gasoline on a fire that wasalready burning from the day I was born.
(06:50):
And it accelerated the progressionof the disease at a very early age.
Up to age 12.
It was chocolate milk and Pop-Tarts.
That was my drug.
Well, on this particular day, theywere gonna leave me at that farm,
and I had a growth spurt and my voicechanged and I said, I'm not going.
And I was a pretty goodkid up to that point.
(07:12):
And my father talked to my momand he said, all right, we're
gonna leave you home alone.
I'm sure you can take care of yourself.
You're a good kid, andvery capable young man.
So prove that we're right about this.
And he said, if you touch that bottle,I'm gonna take my belt off and whip your
(07:33):
butt till it looks like peppermint candy.
And I said, oh, I swear, dad.
Soon as the car disappearedfrom sight, I ran.
I've been waiting forthis since I was eight.
I ran into the den, I grabbed thebottle, I took it in the kitchen.
I filled up a tea kettle withwater and got ahead of steam going.
And I spent about an hour very carefullypeeling the seal off that bottle.
(07:57):
I saw that on I Love Lucy.
She opened a letter, so Ricky didn'tknow that she read it so well that
worked and I drank for the first time.
And the first time I drank,instantly the wall went down.
That separated me fromevery other human being.
And for the first time inmy life, I had courage.
(08:19):
I spent most of that weekenddrinking and running around the
neighborhood at night naked.
I don't know why that is, but every timeI drank I had to take my clothes off.
When I smoke crack, I would tearmy clothes off in front of the
window and then I'd get paranoidand I'd army crawl across the
apartment and hide under the bed.
(08:40):
Oh, that was horrible.
And um.
So anyway, at one point I drank abouthalf of that bottle and there was a kid
in the neighborhood named Philip Paxton,and he used to beat me up all the time.
He was a real bully and I had a grossspurt, and I was as tall as he was now,
and I went over drunk as a skunk, wentover and banged on their screen door.
(09:00):
He came to the door and I made abowl of spaghetti outta his face.
I beat that kid and I feltreally proud and courageous.
I felt like a superhero.
And I finally had courage, so I drank thatentire bottle that weekend, and then I
filled the bottle up with water and I putthe cork back in and I glued the seal back
(09:25):
on and I put it back in the shadow boxwhere it remained until my father died.
Speaking of that, um, myparents were married 69 years.
I never saw them have a fight exceptone time my dad, my uncle and I went and
killed a bear up in Canada, brought itback and my dad wanted her to cook it.
(09:49):
That was the only time she everraises her voice to him, said,
get that bear outta my house.
You know?
Um, they had a great marriage and theywere friends and lovers until they
both died within a month of each other.
Well, my father had had cancer fora long time and my mother called me.
I was living in New York City,and she called me and she said,
you better hop on a plane.
We're on death Watch.
(10:10):
So I came home right away.
I was there within three or four hoursand uh, my mother was clearing out some
of my father's things and she was inthe den packing some of his stuff up.
She, you know, she had a long timeto prepare for his death and there
was that bottle in the shadowbox and I shook and it still had
(10:30):
water in it from when I was 12.
And I said to my mother, I haveto go to the hospital right now.
I need to go see dad.
I never made amends.
For defiling this thing, whichis his PI prized possession.
So I went to the hospital.
My father was in apnea breathing.
He would only breathe onceevery 60 seconds or so.
(10:52):
And um, I waited for him to open hiseyes, which this was very ironic.
One time I had overdosed and I wokeup and my father's face was right
here, and he hollered at my mom whowas out in the hall in the hospital.
He is alive.
And he said, you know what, kid?
If you would've died, no one of 'emwould've come to your funeral 'cause
you're a disgusting human being.
(11:14):
And in sobriety, he and I became greatfriends and I'm so grateful for that.
So in any event, I waited forhim to open his eyes and he did.
And he went like this.
And I said, Bruce, there'ssomething I have to tell you about,
something I need to make amends for.
And he went, oh Jesus.
(11:36):
Like enough of this AA stuff, poor man'sdying, and I'm such a selfish alcoholic.
I want to get something off my chest.
So I said, it's aboutthat whiskey decanter.
And he takes in a breath,in a painful voice.
He says, full of water.
I said, Bruce, he saidThe seal's on upside down.
(12:01):
You're an ass.
Wow.
And we chuckled and he closed his eyes.
That was the last conversation I had withmy father, and he died later that day.
And I tell you this, if you haven'tworked your steps, if you're afraid of
the ninth step, it's for our comfort.
It's to give us relief from guilt,shame, remorse, resentments, anger
(12:22):
and fear, and set us free and removethe things that are blocking us.
From God.
From God, and the source of our good.
So in any event, once I starteddrinking, I drank every day.
I would go to our neighbors andsteal their booze and bring it
home in, uh, dish soap bottles.
And I punched holes in the panelingin my room down in the basement, put
(12:44):
a little finishing nail in there, andI would tie a little piece of fishing
line to the bottle and tie it onthere and drop it down in the hole.
And that became my wine cellar cellar.
And I would lay downstairsand drink wine all night long.
When I was 16 years old, I drank an entirebottle of grappa and a couple bottles
of wine early, early in the morning.
(13:04):
And I had my first blackout.
And my father was a car dealerand he had given me a car.
So I got in that car to drive toschool, and I killed two people
in a drunk driving accident.
And, uh, by the time I was a senior inhigh school, I had totaled 11 automobiles.
Uh, had maimed four other peoplein other drunk driving accidents.
(13:28):
I never went to jail.
Um, the traffic judge, uh, wasa close friend of the family and
the form of the grand jury wasmy father's business partner.
And I never went to jail, although Ihad jail in my mind, suffered enormously
from guilt and had terror mirrorsabout those accidents for the rest
(13:49):
of my life until I finally did EMDR.
Around, uh, 2001, uh, traumatreatment in any event.
Um, so I drank and I drank and Idrank, and I was sneaking outta
the house at night, going to clubsin Akron and Canton and Cleveland,
and stripping on the dance floor.
I loved to do that.
And I was training to be a tapdancer and, uh, I was incredibly
(14:12):
athletic and I was buff and 17and loved to take my clothes off.
Um, I was accepted at the AmericanAcademy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
And the day I graduated highschool, I was handed $5,000 in cash.
And in 1976 that was like having 50 grand.
That was a lot of money buy in,buying power compared to today.
(14:34):
And I took the Amtrak to New York Cityand I never looked back and, uh, talked
my way into an apartment that very day,right in the middle of Times Square, and I
kept that apartment until last Christmas.
That was a horrible place todo drugs and get paranoid.
It had floor to ceiling windows lookingout into Times Square, and the whole
world was right outside the window.
You know, I'd get paranoid.
(14:55):
I spent a lot of time hiding under my bed.
Uh, so I did go to the AmericanAcademy my first morning in New York.
I walked around and I found this shopcalled Abracadabra, which sells, um,
magic tricks and costumes and party goods.
It's still there.
(15:16):
And there was a nightclub I wantedto go to where you had to either be
very famous or crazy, sexy, beautiful,or a freak in order to get in.
And the doorman decided who got in andit was just filled with celebrities.
I wanted to go there.
So I bought a big straw farmer hatlike you'd win at the county fair.
(15:38):
A big pair of sunglasses, a sixfoot long red ostrich feather boa.
And a pair of very tight, very short,very thin Daisy Duke gold lame shorts.
And I took everything off, put onthis outfit, just the shorts, the boa,
the big farmer hat, 17-year-old buffripped like shredded wheat, half naked.
(16:01):
And I made a beeline for Studio 54,and the doorman said, kid, come on in.
And like it says in Bill'sstory, I had arrived.
And that night I met cocaine.
And I met a lot of celebrities andhad a lot of, uh, compulsive sex.
And, uh, I ended up strippingbutt naked on the middle of
(16:21):
the dance floor at Studio 54.
And one of the owners, Ian Schrager hiredme and I became a go-go boy at Studio 54.
And I started stripping at other clubsin New York, regimes, the Ice Palace,
Gigi Knickerbockers, all kinds of places.
And I was sexually compulsive.
And at one point a friend said, you know.
(16:42):
There's this place you couldgo on 53rd street and you
could become a male prostitute.
And I thought, you know, money'sslipping through my fingers and I'm
having, I'm waking up with coyote uglyin bed next to me every day anyway,
and I was completely compulsive.
So I thought that's a good idea.
And I became a male prostitute.
And I did that for a couple of yearsand, uh, I just couldn't keep money.
(17:06):
It just went through my fingers.
And one, I was there tobe an actor and one day.
I saw a notice in an acting publication.
It was an audition notice.
It said, looking for young, tall,athletic males who are willing to
dance in their jockstrap in a lockerroom scene, playing a Texas Aggie
(17:31):
football player in the musical, thebest little whorehouse in Texas.
And I thought, well, I'ma whore and I dance naked.
So this is a no brainer.
And I auditioned and thatwas my first Broadway show.
Uh, over the years, I did lots of tours.
I understudied a lot of famous actors.
(17:52):
I sold drugs to everybody on Broadway.
I became a terror to work with.
I was ruthless and ambitious.
I did 39 Broadway musicals, lotsof international tours performed
in over 60 countries and on about800 stages around the globe.
Uh, my mother kept track of all those.
How?
How, oops, sorry.
It's how I know that number.
(18:14):
Did I ruin this?
Okay.
Okay.
And I became a nightmare towork with, and at this point
I was addicted to alcohol, marijuana,opium, hash morphine, ketamine,
Percocet, Perkin, and Vicodin.
Restoril.
LSD.
Quaaludes Black Beauties.
Whippets Whippet.
(18:35):
Good.
Yeah, Ivy, heroin and crack cocaine.
I was sent to therapy, manydifferent kinds of therapy.
Um, shock therapy, union therapy, Freudiantherapy, psychodynamics, gestalt therapy.
(18:55):
Over the course of my using,I was jailed 11 times.
I caught two felonies.
Which by the way, were later, many yearslater, expunged by two sponsees I have
who are sitting federal judges who I tookthrough the steps and as an anniversary
gift, they had my record expunged.
Thank you.
God,
(19:19):
I can never repay the debt thatI owed to Alcoholics Anonymous.
So, um, yeah, I became anightmare to work with.
The promoters knew I was adrug addict and a coke freak.
And I remember walking into atheater up in Canada, a big beautiful
(19:39):
theater, and there was a, a notethat said, welcome to Toronto.
And there was a fifth of Jack Daniels,a big fruit basket with a pineapple
in it and an eight ball of blow.
And I remember thinking, what'sup with this fruit basket?
Who's gonna eat a pineapple whenyou're doing an eight ball of cocaine?
But.
Anyway, things got pretty crazy.
(20:00):
Uh, we were at a theater in Green Bay,Wisconsin, and somebody on the tech staff
said, you know, there's this bar in townthat's closing and they're inviting people
to come tonight and just trash the place.
I said, oh, let's go.
That sounds great.
So I go to this place andwe're smashing glasses.
They had a tabletop Pacman machine, and Itook it outta that bar and I put it in my
(20:22):
tour bus in the back room and the stateroom in the back was, which my bedroom.
And I used that.
I put there were four holders for 40ounce bottles or cups or whatever, and
I put four different kinds of unblendedscotch in those holders with big bendy
straws that I got from a truck stop.
And I would turn on the machineand lay out my lines of cocaine.
(20:45):
I never played Pac Man, but I likedhearing Waka Waka Waka Waka Waka
when, when I was doing the cocaine.
Funny thing about triggers thatbecame such a thing in my head.
Uh, about six years ago, I was akeynote speaker at the California State
Convention of Alcoholics Synonymous.
And I walked into the lobby to, uh, youknow, check into the hotel, and I hear
(21:09):
in the background, somewhere in thatlobby I hear Waka Waka, Waka Waka Waka.
And I got bubble guts and poopedmy pants right there in the lobby.
Triggers, they never go away.
It's a neuro pathway carved into thebrain, which is why we must avoid people,
places, and things for a very long time.
Some of us, some of us permanently.
(21:31):
Those triggers are so deep.
In any event, uh, it things just got nuts.
I became a nightmare to work with.
So I'll fast forward my lastshow I was hired to play.
This is my last war story.
Well, one more, two more war stories.
Um.
I was hired to play Daddy Warbucksin the Broadway musical, Annie, and
this was gonna be my first starringrole where I didn't have to understudy
(21:55):
somebody and take over the role.
It was a big deal and I went outand had a tuxedo made for the Tony
Awards 'cause I was so fond of myself.
I was just sure I'd win a Tony.
And uh, in those days before youopen on Broadway, you did what
was called an out of town trial.
So you would go to six or eight theaters.
(22:15):
In different parts of the country and testthe show, test the audience's reaction.
Make sure you nail all yourjokes, get your timing down.
So we had to play atheater in, uh, Allentown.
We played the Schubert inNew Haven, Connecticut.
And this particular performanceI'm gonna tell you about was at the
(22:35):
State theater in Albany, New York.
And, uh, it holds maybe 4,000 people.
And we're, you know, manysemis with equipment.
Uh, there was a famous televisioncomedian who played Miss Hannigan.
There were the 30 little orphan girlsin their understudies and the chaperones
and the teachers, and sandy, the dog,and the dog's understudy and the dog
(22:59):
trainers, and a 30 piece orchestra,the conductor of 65 adult actors.
It was this massive amount of people goingdown the road, and it cost a fortune.
And this particular performance wasgonna be a benefit for an AIDS charity.
This was in the early 1990s, and thatnight the governor of New York was
to be there and the mayor of New YorkCity and, uh, lots of celebrities.
(23:23):
And it was a thousand dollarsa ticket for an AIDS charity.
Now, my life at that point,here's how my days went.
I wake up in the morning before I go tothe bathroom, I knock back a scotch, take
a rest, real smoke a joint, then I go pee.
Then another scotch, anotherRestoril or Valium or a couple
of them and a couple joints.
And I get back in bedand I stay there all day.
(23:46):
And, uh, and late afternoon mydresser would come in and slap
me awake and drag me into thebathroom, take me off to the theater.
And this was tolerated in that business,you know, lot of drug addicts and drunks.
It was a, a haven for me to staysick and a haven for my ego.
(24:09):
So then I would go to the theaterand I'd lay off the drugs and
the alcohol until intermission.
Then I would have a couple linesof cocaine, one Jack Daniels neat.
Then I'd be out all night, whatevercity we were in, in the nightclubs with
coke, hookers and booze coke, hookersand booze, coke, hookers and booze.
And then before going to sleep, Iwould eat copious amounts of eggs,
(24:30):
pancakes, and orange juice to put myself.
To, uh, to, uh, absorb the boozeand then I would inject heroin into
my jugular, put myself to sleep.
Then the next day, that was real heroin.
That was your grandfather's heroin,not the stuff that's going around
today that, that opiates the digestivetrack, which cuts it off and creates
pressure and it builds up pressureand at some point you relax and that
(24:55):
unop opiates and you ninja vomit.
Like I could knock your glassesoff the top of your head from here.
And that was very inconvenient.
So it's the second act I'vejust told little Annie I'm
gonna adopt her audiences.
Packed men in tuxes 30 piece orchestra.
They start playing a balladcalled, something was missing.
(25:16):
It's violins and French horns andcellos, and it's also beautiful.
And there's what's called a twinkledrop cost about a quarter of a
million dollars piece of equipment.
That's the night sky and a moon.
And every night when that lit up, theaudience would say, oh, like this.
And, uh, I'm adopting Annie.
So I tell her I'm gonna adopt her.
(25:37):
This warbuck mansion disappears.
Twinkle drop, oh stage,flooded with dry ice.
And the little girl and me, big,tall, bald, crazy man, start waltzing.
And as I'm waltzing and I'm singing,I'm choreographed at the end of the
song to pick up the little girl.
Hold her right here and hitthe last note of the song.
(25:58):
And I'm itching, I'm seeing spots.
I'm sweating really bad.
I pick up the little girl.
I hit the last note, no one apart
and I vomited in Annie'sface Point, blank range.
The audience screams.
People are walking out of the theater.
(26:19):
The whole New York Press Corps is there.
The post, the Daily News, the Times.
And I dropped her and kept pukingand then I started laughing like
it was the funniest thing I'd everseen, which was very inappropriate.
And they pulled the curtain down andsaid there'd be a 45 minute intermission.
And the producer came outand punched me in the face.
(26:41):
And, uh, I started trying tobeat him to death with a chair.
I was absolutely went into a blindrage and the police came and I spent
quite a bit of time in jail for that.
Then I went back to my Times Squareapartment and I couldn't work.
I was blackballed and I couldn't work.
So I tried to sell drugs, whichI didn't do very well, and
(27:03):
uh, I stopped wearing clothes.
I stopped bathing.
I was going to the bathroom andcool whip bowls and throwing 'em
out the window into Times Square.
I wouldn't go in the bathrooms.
There was a big window.
I thought the Ninja policewere gonna come in and get me.
I was very paranoid.
My hair got long.
(27:24):
I had a beard and stank to high heaven,and I did look like a combination between
Nick, no, Nick nte, Gary Busey, and uhCharles Manson, all on a very bad day.
And I made a decision I wasgonna murder a drug dealer.
I, at that point in time, I was carryinga gun around and at night and I would go
(27:45):
out into alleyways and muck people andtake their stuff and pawn it to, uh, buy
more crack, the more heroin, more alcohol.
It was just awful.
Well anyway, I arrangedto meet this drug dealer.
In the middle of the night in a remotepark in Forest Hills, Queens, and I knew
(28:07):
that he kept a lot of crack inside thepanels of his truck inside the doors.
'cause I watched him get it many times.
I'd bought from him for yearsand he trusted me, I guess.
So I pulled the gun out right inhis face, pulled the trigger, fully
intending to blow his head offand take everything that he had.
That was my plan.
(28:27):
And the gun jammed and hisfriends beat the hell out of me.
I had a broken sternum, fourbroken ribs, a broken jaw,
two stab wounds right up here.
They grabbed my hair and wentlike this and cut my scalp.
They cut me across my face, acrossthis nostril in this eyelid.
(28:50):
They stuffed my mouth with crack pipes andhit me in the face with a baseball bat,
and that's when I lost consciousness andwhen I woke up I was bleeding profusely.
I had a mouth full of broken glass andthey had defecated on me from head to toe.
And if that hasn't happenedto you, then that's it.
Yet
(29:14):
it'd be a lot easier to get a donutand a cup of coffee and work the steps.
Amen.
Surrender, full surrender.
That's where the power is.
That's where peace of mind is.
That's where dignity is.
That's what sobriety means.
You know, that you lookit up in the dictionary.
(29:34):
It has nothing to do with alcohol.
It says dignity, integrity,clearheaded, self restrained,
self-control, peace of mind.
That's what sobriety is.
So, um, I crawled out to the street,bleeding covered with crap, mouthful
(29:55):
of glass, and here comes the taxi.
And I crawled out in front of that taxiand then got to my feet and started
waving my arms and he stopped for me.
And I remember saying, I'm not a monster.
I was on Broadway and he helpedpick glass out of my mouth.
That man was a memberof Narcotics Anonymous.
(30:18):
He had, uh, an na basictext in that taxi with him.
Tried to 12 step my assand I didn't want to hear.
I didn't want to hear nothing about it.
I wanted to die.
This was the night I'mleaving the planet now.
I talked him into taking me backto my Times Square apartment.
He wrapped me up in a blanket that hehad in the truck and let me get in his
(30:40):
cab covered with crap and bleeding.
He actually had some rags.
He tore up and tied tostop some of the bleeding.
He was so kind, I'll never forget.
Never saw him again.
I think it was an angel.
There's lots of angels, aren't there?
(31:01):
There's angels in this room.
Earth Angels.
There's one sitting right thereand there's a couple back there.
I don't know the rest of you, but I'vemet a couple of those guys and I know
her and they're definitely angels.
In any event, uh.
Where was I?
(31:21):
Was I puking on somebody?
Oh, yeah.
Uh, so, uh, he got me backto my Times Square apartment.
I went up the fire escape, broke inthrough that bathroom window, hit my head
really bad on the tub, and I was starving.
I hadn't eaten in a very long time,and I crawled into the kitchen.
(31:41):
I used to hang out with thisdoctor named Sandra, and she was
an infectious disease doctor fromBeth Israel Hospital in New York.
And she died fromaddiction many years ago.
And we used to hang out and do alot of twisted things together and
she like cracked the way I did.
And, uh, she helped me steal anIV drip machine from the hospital
(32:01):
and I had that in my bedroom.
And, uh, she would get memorphine in these big saline bags.
He would hook on the IV and I kept themin the vegetable bin, so I crawled to
the refrigerator thinking maybe I hadsome of that in there and there was
nothing in there but a carton of milk.
And I grabbed it and Iimpulsively downed it.
(32:22):
It had been spoiled for a verylong time and I began to wretch
and I ran to the sink, and thesink filled up with amber liquid.
I'm vomiting.
And the milk that I drankcurdled in that booze.
It smelled like Jack Danielsand that's what it was.
I was puking up Jack Daniels andlittle white lumps of curdled milk.
(32:44):
So being a good drunk, I stuck my facein the sink and I la that puke back up.
I don't wanna waste that booze.
And then I startedspitting out these lumps.
I would go like this till I hit a lump andthen I'd spit it out and I'd try to dry
it off on a paper towel and I was stuffingthose lumps of curdled milk into a.
Broken crack pipe trying to smoke my puke.
(33:07):
That's where it took me from a goodfamily in Ohio, the Broadway stage to
that in the gutter, totally in the gutter,covered with shit bleeding profusely like
a stuck pig, completely out of my mind.
No morals.
(33:28):
Well, when that didn'twork, I had a suicide kit.
I had one more fifth ofJack in the hall closet.
I had a, a, uh, mason jar full of Vicodin.
This dealer used to alwaystoss me a few Vicodin.
I didn't like 'em.
I decided to save them in casethe Ninja police ever came in
that I would commit suicide.
I'm not going to prisonfor the rest of my life.
(33:49):
So I drank all the JackDaniels very quick as I could.
I stuffed about 200 Vicodin in me, andthen I got a big knife from the kitchen.
If you were up here, you could see 'em.
And I deep cut my wrists and my elbowsand under my arms, and I laid down in the
hallway in a pile of blood covered withshit profusely bleeding with all these
(34:13):
pills in me and booze hoping to die.
And I had a moment of clarity.
It was like a voice inside my head,said, you don't want death, you want
more life, and I'm gonna show you how.
And suddenly my mind was floodedwith thoughts about an actor.
I'd worked with Richard Springle.
He played Colonel Pickering to my HenryHiggins in the World Tour of My Fear Lady.
(34:36):
And I hadn't been to his home, Ididn't know where he lived, and I
hadn't talked to him in probablyfour years since we toured together.
And I thought of his phonenumber and I, in this condition,
I crawled to my landline.
I called and he answered, he said, yellow.
I said, Colonel, I'm dying.
And I passed out and only because Icalled him Colonel, he knew who I was.
(34:57):
He called 4 1 1 information and hesaid, Bruce Kimble, he knew my parents.
He had met them on when we were touring.
Bruce Kimball, Akron, Ohio.
And he gets my mother on the phoneand said, where does he live?
She gave him the address directlyacross Times Square from where he lived.
Is it odd or is it God?
(35:19):
He made a beeline across times Square.
Doorman didn't wanna let him in,so he punched him out and screamed
at him to call an ambulance.
He came up to my floor, brokethe front door part, carried me.
Bleeding covered withshit blue, not breathing.
Carried me outta the buildinginto a waiting ambulance.
I regained consciousness About twoweeks later, scrapped down to a gurney
(35:40):
in a psych ward in a facility in NewJersey, and I knew that I had hit my
bottom because I was in New Jersey.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'll be here all night.
(36:02):
I'm so done with suffering.
I, I love to laugh.
What a gift it is to be alive.
So, um, that started the firstof 19 trips to treatment.
Over a period of four years, I walkout the door, get high, go back,
walk out the door, get high, go back.
'cause I wouldn't listen.
(36:24):
And I met two old men, Mel and Edgar.
Edgar's father was one of the first87 members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He did his steps with Bill Wilson and HankParkhurst the first time he did the steps.
And another man named Mel Barger.
Uh, Mel also did steps with BillWilson and four men from Akron,
who were sponsored by Dr. Bob.
He wrote five of the books that arelisted in the front of the big book,
(36:46):
uh, uh, pass it on a Comes of Age.
Dr. Bob and the good old timershe edited as Bill sees it.
And he was a's official historianand archivist and editor of the AA
International Grapevine Magazineand Bill's traveling companion.
And these two men were great pals andthey were there, uh, at that treatment
(37:06):
center bringing h and i meetingsinto the center for four years.
They kept doing that.
Mel was in New York at the time,writing a book on Evie Thatcher, and
they made a decision to co-sponsor me.
I did not ask them.
They told me we are going to do this.
Do you wanna live or die?
So you're a 5-year-old on amommy leash now, and we're not
(37:28):
gonna tell you any suggestions.
We're gonna give you commands, we'regonna tell you exactly what to do.
And they had me discharged, rode thetrain back to New York with Melon Edgar,
they strip searched me in my apartment,had me pack a bag and took my keys.
They convinced me to sign documentsthat made Father Edgar my guardian.
Wow.
(37:49):
And they took all my rights away.
I wouldn't recommend that with everysponsor, but I'd gotten to know these
guys over four years and I had greatrespect for them and I knew they
were like icons in recovery and youknow, being on Broadway and all that.
And I was like, oh, I like thatwhole star thing, and these
guys are like stars in recovery.
So that appealed to me and I choseto listen to what they had to say
(38:12):
and they took me back to New York.
We did the steps thefirst time in one week.
Quickly and often the way theywere designed to be done, I did
like four, four steps over a periodof my first month in recovery.
Uh, started going to sixto eight meetings a day.
They told me Recovery is now yourcareer for the next two or three years.
(38:36):
'cause you're a very sick person.
It's gonna take a longtime for you to heal.
So I listened to what they hadto say and I let them command me.
I got out of the way and I surrendered.
I just surrendered.
That was, that was the greatest feeling.
Just give up.
Let God take the reins.
I didn't believe in God,thought that was horseshit.
(38:58):
Now I'm a priest.
How did that happen?
You know, from crack who to priest?
Just amazing what God can do in your life.
Right, whatever that is.
And I don't pretend to understand, God.
I don't understand it, butI certainly experience it.
(39:19):
I also don't understand Google,but I use it all the time.
You know, I don't understandelectricity, but there it is.
You know,
we can either use that energy to killourselves or we can use it to build
something beautiful and, um, what anextraordinary life it's given me so.
(39:41):
I worked closely with Melon Edgar.
Uh, I started doing a lot of service,had my first EE at 30 days, applying the
steps I was living with Father Edgar,sleeping on his pullout couch in a
studio apartment in midtown Manhattan.
And he was eyes on me all the time.
They told me Whatever happens in NewYork, uh, after the sun goes down is none
(40:04):
of your business and you're not allowedoutside alone without adult supervision.
So for a couple of years I wentnowhere without some guy from
AA with me, the grocery store.
Nowhere.
Nowhere.
And that saved my life.
I did a lot of step work,did a lot of service, and my
whole life radically changed.
(40:26):
I started working on WallStreet, made my financial amends.
I was working for WaterhouseSecurities as a result of that.
I was in the South Tower onnine 11 when the planes hit.
And, uh, narrowly escaped that, um,
sponsored a lot of guys.
I had my first sponsee at 30days, a man named Alex Alexander.
(40:49):
I was commanded by Father Edgar.
He said, okay, you've got 30 days.
Go out and get a sponsee, and ifyou don't bring a pigeon back for
me to meet, you can just move outof my house and get outta my life.
There's 25 million peopleon this island at 12 noon.
Go, go find a drunk who needs help.
Should be no problem at all.
So I went to a meeting, I was thefirst one there the night before.
(41:13):
I was hanging out with this girl who wasstudying cosmetology, and I let her bleach
my hair and it looked like Bart Simpson.
And I put on a pair of whitejeans and a yellow polo shirt
and this crazy looking hairdo.
And I waited.
I set the chairs up.
I was there early and I waitedfor somebody to show up.
And the first guy that shows up, he's gota potato nose and his eyes are watering.
(41:36):
Hello, welcome.
His eyes are watering and um, he's got anexpensive suit on and his hands shaking.
He's smoking a cigaretteand he's standing outside.
So I go out, I open the doorand I say, hi, my name's Gary.
Are you new to AA or new to me?
And he stared at me like this.
His eyes went bug-eyed and heturned and he started running.
(42:00):
He really did.
And I thought of what Edgar said, andI went after him, chased him all the
way to sixth Avenue from 10th Avenue.
And, uh, we, he went into a Barney StoneBar and I went in right after him, sat
down at the bar, stool bartender cameup and said, what do we have boys?
I said, Coca-Cola.
He looked like he wantedto tear my head off.
And I talked him out of that bar andinto a park and into the next meeting.
(42:24):
And I said, I'm gonna sponsor you.
I've got these really coolsponsors, and they'll help.
He never talked.
I started thinking he's a deaf mute.
And, uh, I wrote my number down andI said, we're gonna start step work
tomorrow at the Westway Diner andbe there if you want to get well.
And he kept going like this,and he kept crying a lot, but he
(42:44):
never talked until that night.
He called me about four o'clockin the morning at Father Edgars
and just spilled his guts.
He was a lawyer for Deutsche Bank.
And, um, the next day we startedstep work and Father Edgar sat there
with me and he never said a word.
I'd looked to him forhelp and he'd just grin.
(43:04):
He was just there for moral support.
Like, just do it, getthrough it, you know.
And I, and we started, we did one,two, and three sitting in that di.
And, uh, Alex remained my sponsee forthe next eight years before he died from
lung cancer, but he never drank again.
Over the years, I've taken about2000 men privately through the steps,
(43:24):
and four women and, uh, in groups.
I've taken probably a hundredthousand people through the steps,
uh, in groups the way it used to bedone in northeast Ohio, in the late
1930s and early 1940s in groups.
And, uh, it's given me a great life.
So, um, I went back to school.
(43:45):
I studied neurobiology 'cause I wantedto understand why the 12 steps worked
for people who didn't believe in God.
And I found the answer to that abouthow this spiritual action of this
program changes brain function,which is pretty fascinating.
I'm gonna talk aboutthat in the next session.
And so I went back to school.
Um, I studied addiction medicine.
(44:09):
And that fascinated me.
I was learning all about my condition,about what, what had happened to me.
Why did I behave the way I did andwhy did I harm so many people and
myself and cause so much pain andsuffering for me and everyone around me?
I wanted to understand that 'cause I,nobody ever told me I had a disease.
(44:32):
I thought I was a bad person.
My family thought I was a bad person.
They, because theythought it was a choice.
They thought I was choosing to bethis way 'cause no one understood.
And that's not the case.
We're not choosing to be this way.
It's not a choice, nor is it a moralfailing, nor is it because of weakness.
It's an illness in the mindand it's highly treatable.
(44:57):
So, let's see, to wrap up, um,yeah, my life just got really good.
After nine 11, I went to amonastery in Bardstown, Kentucky
called the Abbey of Gethsemane.
Also, by the way, I went to seminaryand became an ordained Episcopal priest.
And uh, that was a highlight of my life.
(45:19):
Something I never thought I'd do,but I did what my sponsors did.
Mel wrote books.
I'm now an author.
I did what he did, he guided me.
I'm now an author andhave books published.
Edgar was a priest and now I'm a priest.
You know, you do what theydid, you get what they got.
If you want, what we haveand what we have is dignity,
(45:42):
integrity, peace of mind, clarity,self-control, self-restraint and joy.
Yeah.
So, um, I've had the opportunity towrite books for Hazelden Publishing.
Um.
Under Melon Edgar's guidance, I wrotea play about Bill W and Dr. Bob that
was produced all over the world.
(46:02):
And I hired Richard, whosaved my life that night.
When I, last time I tried to kill myself.
I hired him to play Dr. Bob, and wetraveled the world playing Bill and Bob,
and if you don't believe in miracles,you gotta be fucking kidding me.
That was an enormous,incredible experience.
Uh, I was, as a result of that, I gotinvited on two episodes of Dr. Phil.
(46:26):
And Ellen and four Times on the TodayShow, uh, the program intervention on two
episodes of that five episodes of DopeSick Nation on, uh, Viceland on a and
e. It's actually on Amazon Prime Now andthe documentary that's coming up next.
Some filmmakers from PBS followedme around for 10 years and made a
(46:47):
documentary about my recovery, showingthe 12 steps in action in someone's life.
Um, just incredible things.
I became ambassador of education.
For the National Council onAlcoholism and Drug Dependence,
their Washington DC liaison.
Um, I met Barack Obamaand he said, hi Barack.
I'm the president.
(47:07):
He snuck into this meeting and it wasright by the door, and I was sitting
right by the door and I looked upand I looked, I guess astonished.
And I like this.
And he goes, hi Barack.
I'm the president.
And I said, uh, Gary Kayrecovered crack whore.
And he laughed his head off.
He laughed and laughed and laughed.
That was pretty cool.
(47:29):
Went from the gutterto meeting presidents.
You know,
I actually got an email on my sobrietyanniversary from Joe Biden, uh, who
had invited me to Washington once tospeak on the steps of the Capitol.
It's just been crazy, man, and I wouldn'ttrade this life for anything in the world.
I have 143 Sponsee currently.
(47:53):
Here's something I wanted to mention.
In 2022, in September, 2022, I wasdiagnosed with stage four cancer and
they told me I'd be dead in two monthsunless I did a brutal treatment.
That just might work.
I took my problem into the rooms andmen in the rooms and women who had gone
(48:13):
through similar things told me whatdoctors to go to, and I was able to
get in with a world famous oncologist.
And he said, I have 72 patientsthat have gone through what you've
gone through, and they're all cancerfree, and I could do it for you.
You have to know that healing is80% emotional and 20% physical.
(48:34):
So if you can stay in the righthead space, he said, but the
treatment's gonna be brutal.
You're gonna have to do65 radiation treatments.
By the way, it was anal cancer.
I said, no way.
I'm dying from as cancer.
They're gonna put that on my tombstone.
Well, finally took 'em out.
He died from as cancer afterall the shit I've been through.
(48:56):
Are you kidding me?
Not happening.
So he said you're gonna have65 radiation treatments.
You're gonna have seven months of chemo.
Then it's gonna be about six toeight months to heal from that.
And then we're gonna have to remove yourrectum, your anus, your large intestine.
And we're gonna take a muscleoutta your abdomen and sow up
(49:17):
your ass like a Barbie doll.
I have a Barbie doll ass.
Could I have a round of applausefor the Barbie doll ass?
And they gave me a colostomy,my little friend here.
And now I'm cancer free.
I don't have cancer anymore, andI'm able to be back in the saddle.
And why am I sharing this with you
(49:40):
when you hear cancer?
You do whatever they tell you todo 'cause you know you're gonna
suffer and die from it, right?
Addiction kills more peoplethan cancer or heart disease
or diabetes, or AIDS combined.
(50:00):
The number one killer of human beings.
Will you go to the recoveryoncologist and follow their guidance?
Will you go to any length?
Will you do what they tell youto do to conquer this disease?
Because it is a disease in the mindand the body, and there's a treatment.
(50:24):
And you don't have to do chemo.
You don't have to do radiation.
You know what you do?
You get a donut.
I like donuts.
I like donuts and a cup of coffee.
Smoke some cigarettes.
Hug people.
Stop acting like a turd.
You do some praying and meditation.
(50:45):
You apologize to people for harm's causeyou pay back money that you owe and you
do the right thing and you stop causingpain and suffering for other people.
And there's a set of tools in that bigbook that teaches us how to do that.
And you follow that path and you can doit quickly and you can stop the bleeding
and you can stop dying from this diseaseand the mental obsession will leave you.
(51:08):
And you won't think about it.
And if I don't think aboutit, I don't put it in me.
If I don't put it in me, I don't havethe phenomena of craving, and I don't
drink gallons of booze and smokepounds of crack and shoot up pounds
of dope, and then I'm free from this.
But it's a chronic illnessand you have to keep doing it.
There are things I have to doto continue treating my cancer.
(51:30):
To make sure that that doesn't come back.
I had to change a lot of things aboutmy life, what I put into my body.
Yeah.
And like an idiot.
I still smoke sometimes.
Yeah.
I had a cigarette beforeI came in to talk here.
'cause I'm a junkie.
I'm an addict, but I'm recovered from aseemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
The mental obsession andthe phenomenon of craving.
(51:52):
I no longer have that.
I will have craving if I put it in me,but I don't have the mental obsession.
I go to a meeting seven days a week.
I'm 63 years old.
I go to meetings seven days aweek, Monday through Friday, 6:30
AM Prior to that, I do my 11 step.
(52:12):
I send out my gratitude list.
I see my sponsor at my 6:30 AM meeting.
We go out to eggs every daywith some other guys and women,
and we laugh and we have fun.
And then I go to work.
And then Monday night I goto a men's big book study.
It Tuesday night, I go to a smallgroup in a church that I like, a
bunch of old people that are my pals.
(52:34):
And uh, Wednesday night I takea meeting somewhere Thursday
night I take a meeting somewhere.
I've been doing this for thelast 10 years, just 10 years to
take in the evening meetings.
Never stopped doing that.
One of them is into the county jail.
We call it gun club down in Florida.
And, uh.
Thursday night, I go to another smallmeeting in a church, and Friday night
(52:58):
I go to another men's big book study.
And uh, Saturday night I goto a different men's meeting.
And then Sunday is my home groupat 8:00 AM on Sunday morning.
So I go to that many meetingsreligiously every week.
When I had cancer, they had asignup sheet in my home group,
and men came to my apartment andbrought meetings to me every day.
(53:20):
And they'd sit around, sleepon the couch next to me.
They were with me.
The arms of AA were around me thewhole time I had, it was amazing.
Go ahead.
My first week in the hospital, I had68 visitors in the hospital, asked me
to not have so many friends come, andthey loved me through it, you know, and
(53:41):
they got me through it for four months.
My feet were in straps andI had to lay on my back.
I couldn't roll this way.
I couldn't roll that way.
For four months.
Just laid there.
What do you think I did?
I talked to God a lot and I listened
and I knew if I ever got out of thatand I stayed alive, I had a job to do.
(54:03):
You know, he didn't get me wellagain, just to go shopping.
So it's a privilege to be hereif you're new, for God's sakes.
Get a sponsor.
Work the steps, work themquickly, work them often.
Get a service commandment.
Get a home group.
You have a disease that's gonna killyou, and before it does, it's gonna rob
us of everything precious about life.
(54:25):
It's gonna stop us from being ableto give and receive love, and we're
gonna be blocked from ourselves,from other people and from God.
And this simple program with these simple12 steps, you can walk those steps and be
free and tear down that wall of blockageand make that spiritual connection.
I didn't believe it, but it happenedto me just the way they said it would.
(54:51):
You know, we've seen impossible domesticsituations, righted men and women
come out of asylums and prisons andresume a vital place in the lives of
their families and their communities.
There's for scarcity, any form of troublethat has not been overcome among us.
We become citizens of the world.
I'm quoting Bill Wilson.
(55:13):
Never again are we alone.
In 1935, a candle was lit. That candlehas been passed on to each one of us.
Take that light into any dark cave wheresomeone is suffering and pass it on.
God bless you.
Thank you.
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