“Oh, man, so I’m gonna talk about a place that doesn’t exist anymore, which makes me a little teary. I am grateful for the Solution. And if anyone listens to this, if they do, I don’t know, right? Or if they will. But for the people who listen to this that are not like, you know me, who have experience with Solution. But for people who don’t have any idea about Solution. Oh, man, there are stories, on stories, on stories about the people, and I think that has a greater impact than you can know.

Unless you can experience it. But the people who have touched my life, who were in Solution, alumni, or our Solution alumni, but lived at Solution, the list is… it… I can’t. I couldn’t name all the people in 20 minutes, probably. I mean, Erica, Jimmy, my sponsor, Eric, Donald, the people who have probably had the biggest impact on my life, are people who went through Solution and stayed sober as a result, and they can tell you stories on stories.

My favorite story is Erica’s story; she had to make amends. And she needs to make amends to Starbucks for stealing one of their umbrellas. And she goes to the House Manager Billy…Billy Block. And she’s… she’s like, “I need to make amends to Starbucks.” And he’s like, “For what?” And she’s like “for taking the umbrella. Do you mind if I borrow the van?” And he’s like, “not only can you borrow the van, I will take you” because he wanted to watch her make these amends.

So they take the Solution, Van then… this umbrella from Starbucks into the van; they dropped to the Starbucks on 16th Street, Bethany. And she’s like, “Hey, so as a result of me getting sober through this program, I have to make amends for the things that I’ve done wrong. And I took your umbrella” and the girl standing there. Of course, she’s not the manager that was there.

And she’s just staring at her. And she’s like, “so I have your umbrella.” You know, they already replaced him. She’s like, “here’s your umbrella back. What can I do to make it right?” And the girls just looking at her like, and she looks at and she’s like, “Did you also take the ashtrays like, “No, I didn’t take the ashtrays I just took the umbrella.” But that list goes on and on forever, man, like the people who have touched my life that has been through Solution, I will be forever grateful for the people who I’ve never met who I know stories of that came to that place. I mean, I ended up with Solution honestly to two because my sponsor told me to go because he went to Solution. And he lived down the street from Solution. And he paid my rent. And I get to the Solution. And I’m in the front. I live in the front house. And I remember at the time, I’m six months sober.

When I get to Solution, I’ve never sponsored to do never have a service commitment. Because I couldn’t at the time I got my first home group 711 unloading chairs because I live there and I would take 150 chairs every week. And I’ll unload them from the thing in the back, the… the whatever you call it in your yard where you… where you store chairs, right? The shade goes to the shade, and I would unload the chairs onto this little cart that fit about 20 chairs. And I will those chairs, about 45 yards from there to the grass field, and the grass has to be green.

You know that you water the grass, the grass stays green at the Solution. That is like… that is part of the white picket fence and the green grass. That’s the Solution, right? So you feel at home, and it starts to feel like home after a while. Right? You live there and it starts to feel like your home. And at with those 20 chairs at a time and probably take me 35-45 minutes, set up the meeting. Everybody comes half the meeting for an hour. And of course, they leave without putting up their chairs. And then now it’s been 35-45 minutes taking those chairs, 20 chairs at a time back.

And it taught me a bunch, man. It showed me how to live life. I remember getting into Solution. And I had never had access to meetings all the time. Like… like there were three to five meetings every single day, right next to where I lived. So I would walk from my room when I didn’t have anything to do and I didn’t know Do my hands at the time because I was brand new sober.

And I would walk from my room to Solution to the meeting hall and out, sit in a meeting hall and go to as many meetings as I could. And I’ll probably have my first 90 days at Solution, 20 meetings a week because I didn’t know what to do Saturday and Sunday, I don’t have friends. I didn’t know anybody. Like all my friends were built-in or, you know, 100 people, 80 people, something like that, that lived there. Most of my friends live there. Like it was like a vacation.

Like, I was like, take a trip to go hang out with my buddies by going to the next room and go hang out with some dudes, you know, like, that was like the life for me at that time. And I learned a lot, man, that place… that place gave me a lot. They let me get $400 behind a room. And because I sponsor dudes, and I had service commitments, and I was trying to stay sober. They never want to say anything. I think they pull it one time; I’m not lying. I was $400 bound on rent. And I think they put me in one time to ask me about my fees. Because they knew every time that I did my best to try, I always gave them a check. He gave me a little money for cigarettes. And I breakfast there, and I ate dinner there every single day, seven days a week.

And if I had $10 to get some McDonald’s, it was like, that was a luxury at the time for me. And I don’t know, man, that kitchen room felt like a resort. That little kitchen room felt like a resort to me because it was just, I was grateful man, I was grateful to have a door to open and close to the first time, and I can’t even remember how many years I literally could not remember having a key and a door to my room and a door to the front to the house. And I can open and close a door.

Boom! I was like I can close this door be by myself. This is cool! And I… I just you can’t, you can’t. My Id still says 4210 North Longview still knows the address. Nine years later, I got sober in 2011. And I still… if that doesn’t give somebody the true implication of what this place means to you… Oh, man, you don’t believe me? 4210 North Longview to this day. I will never change that. (A) it’s a reminder. It’s a big reminder of our come from. And (B) I love that place.

That place saved my life. Honestly, if it wasn’t… if I did not follow the path, I did not go to Salvation Army and then go to Solution. I would not be sober. A sponsor my first deal because I didn’t want to get kicked out. I saw a dude get kicked out my first day for not calling the sponsor and not doing meetings and not because they give you enough rope to hang yourself. They tell you that when you check-in and saw what happened when you didn’t do it.

So I was in this rush to get my first sponsee, and I got my first sponsee and my first service commitment. And I chaired my first meeting there. I closed and opened my first door in two years; I got my first key. I did my first meditation outside of treatment there. I made my first friends there. I did so many firsts in that place. That place changed my life, and it… it’s a place where I’m sad that the solution doesn’t exist. But I’m grateful that the Hope House and new Solution exist.

Because I prop Solution. Honestly, in my opinion, my opinion is jaded, but I’m going to give you my opinion my opinion is that Solution produces some of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. People who genuinely care people who know what it’s like to receive a helping hand and I think everybody that showed up at the Solution was in a similar position in the sense that they had nowhere else to go and the solution opened the door to them. I think that’s kinda like the thing with Solution people and what Solution people are so giving is you’re required to, you get a strike for not getting strikes, right? They make you do dishes. You got to learn to wash dishes and help other people take out the trash, water the grass, which was my first chore.

Gods in the dishes. I had to look I had to water the grass, and I liked watering the grass. If you were the grass watering dude, you were like the coolest chore guy.

And I’d watered the grass right on 4210 North longer because I was in the front building and watered that grass every single week. And I got that short; I think they kinda pick because it’s supposed to rotate. But I think if you watered the grass well, you got to stick with that chore. And even when I would get a strike, it would be like, I’ll take out the trash.

And like, when you move in the person that they… that they… that takes you around to show you everything, man, it’s making me remember, is always a resident. They always grab a resident; you go in, you do your little intake, and as soon as you walk out, they’re like, hey, somebody is walking by always.

There’s always somebody that lives there walking by and grab you, and then they take you I show you the laundry room; they show you the donation closet, they tell you about breakfast, they show you the strike list, they show you the meeting Hall, and then they show you. They give you the breakfast times. And they show you the list with all the names on it. I remember that. I forgot about that. That’s been a long time. And I took some shoes that you gave me.

I still have those shoes you gave me… you donated them. They were like some new balance rock climbing shoes. That I still have awareness trail shoes, electro shoes. Oh, no, I don’t But I remember you donate them. And I remember I’ll tell you; I’ll say a story. I remember. I’ve seen this gone a long time this guy gets out of prison-like 20 years. And in our meeting hall, we have a TV. Right? There’s a TV there and it’s got a cable box with all the channels. That’s the one place that has cable, right. And I remember he got out of prison, and I’m sitting in there eating.

And this is just the Solution way, right? So I need help you help. And I’m sitting in there eating. And this guy comes in and he looks at the remote. And he looks at the TV and he looks at me. And he’s staring. And I’m like, “What’s up, man”, he’s like, “I don’t know how to work this.” I’m like, “What”, and he’s like, “They didn’t have this when I went to prison.” And I said that dude, that was like twice my age at the time, how to work with television because he had never used a cable box. When he went to prison, it was just like TV channels change as crazy to think about, like that kind of stuff.

And I don’t know, I guess I’ll wrap it up with saying that. Oh man it makes me teary if you don’t know of Solution is a good place. It’s a great place. It’s a place where first happens, where people learn to communicate and help each other. A place where you know, you feel safe and protected and loved and cared about a place where you’re taught accountability.

A place where you get to turn yourself with the help of other men. You get to turn yourself into the person that you’re going to become in the future. It’s crazy to think about, I know, everybody who’s ever been at Solution. I know people started Solution, and I’ve met a day in my life. I know stories on top of stories on top, I’m nine years sober. So the people that are telling me these stories, these stories are 20 years sober.

And they’re still at 20 years sober, telling stories of the Solution in their mansions. I’m not even joking. They live in houses that are… I was homeless hope to die. Drug Addict who’d never accomplished anything and the only degree I had was a prison degree. And I’m sitting in their house. That’s amazing with their kids and their wife in their cars. And they’re telling me stories about when they got sober Solution. They tell stories about Solution.

That’s what happens. You produce business owners, it produces doctors, lawyers, it produces parents, it produces brothers and produces sisters, it produces moms, it produces real citizens. And that’s the truth of the solution like that place produces some of the best members of society, drug addicts or non-drug addicts.

It produces real people. I think every person would benefit from going to Solution even though we don’t accept anybody. But if we did, you know, you had a kid that just didn’t listen, Solution could show them their lives, man. There’s something cathartic about watering grass and reaching your hand out to somebody else. And it’s almost built into the culture.

Like you have to, you know when you get there because of the people helping you that you have to extend that same courtesy. So we’re to think about that. You don’t think about it because it’s so normal for our culture, and the Solution is the people who graduated the Solution. And it’s kind of it’s also the truth and like the Solution need you to do anything almost Everyone’s like “Yeah cool. What do I need to do?” “What do you need me to show up? I’ll be there.” There is sober living across Arizona who couldn’t get alumni that show up in Solution gets hundreds of people to show up whenever they need their help, so surely grateful with Solution and thank you for everything you’ve done for me and I hope I continue to get back.”