Tony Albrecht

Transcript

Stop digging, start changing. Tony Alrech, I woke up beneath blinding fluoresence in a jail cell on the island of Ham. It was Thanksgiving 2009. I was 10,000 miles from home, morally bankrupt and extremely drunk. Now, my drinking had landed me in handcuffs before and in bar fights and in ERS. And now I was three months into a career as a lawyer that was suddenly in jeopardy. And I had to figure out how I was going to get out of jail and into the office on time.

There's a line I love about rock bottom. You hit rock bottom when you stop digging. Now, for whatever reason, I wasn't quite ready to stop drinking after that night, but that was the night I stopped digging and started trying to figure out how to get out of the hole I'd spent years digging. The following Friday night, I snuck into my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I remembered I had a friend from law school who said, "You know, you have a drinking problem if you're drinking causes problems."

I wasn't sure I was an alcoholic yet, but yeah. Yeah, I had a drinking problem. [snorts] And not long after I started going to AA, I heard a stat that only about 8% of people who go to AA actually recover through the program. That's not a good number. At one of my first meetings, I met a guy named Rob. He was another lawyer, a good old boy from Alabama. And with his long gray ponytail and goatee, he looked more like a Grateful Dead Roadie than an attorney.

And after a meeting one night, he was standing outside smoking. He said, "How you doing, Tony?" I said, "Pretty good. Feel like I'm getting the hang of this sobriety thing." He looked at me and said, "No, you're not. But when you're ready, call me." Now, in that moment, I wanted to tell Rob to go to hell. But then when I was ready, I called Rob. He said, "Great. Be at my place 5:30 on Tuesday." I said, "Oh, I usually play pickup soccer at 5:30 on Tuesday.

Do you want to do this or not?" he said. I was at Rob's at 5:30 on Tuesday. He became my sponsor, started guiding me through the 12 steps of AA. And over the course of a very intense month, as we worked through the steps, I found that for the first time in my adult life, I was not pretending to have it all figured out. For the first time, I was learning how to accept what I know now, that I'm never going to figure all this out.

And I remember things starting to shift in me over that time. Now, just a [snorts] few weeks after getting to the fabled step 12, I flew to Japan for a weekend with my buddy Trey. Since that arrest six months earlier, I'd only had one drink, but on our first night out in Osaka, we went to a bar. And have you ever been in one of those romances where you know you shouldn't text them, but maybe just one more time? Maybe. I ordered a Guinness.

And that night in Osaka, it was all the things I loved about booze. I was exploring a new city, meeting interesting people from all over the world, having fantastic conversations. We went to a cafe where the sushi came around on conveyor belts. And I remember walking back to the hotel through an empty street as the sky was turning to gray after what felt like a perfect night. I went to sleep on a tatami map. I woke up four hours later to catch a train to Keyoto.

And I have not wanted to drink since. After years of chaos and consequences, the desire to drink left me overnight. And to this day, I cannot tell you what happened or why. But this June, my wife, Seville, and I are going to celebrate 10 years of marriage. My wife has never seen me drunk. Well, that's for her. She's She's a saint. Neither have my son Wilder or my daughter Leila Sky. But I'm not here to tell you about how to beat addiction because since 2010 I have wrestled with screens and porn and candy and popcorn.

I've spent the last four years addicted to LinkedIn. But here's what I've learned. Change is not probable and change is not at all predictable. But change truly is possible. [snorts] For me, that change started happening when I stopped pretending I had it all figured out. And so tonight, if you're out here struggling to find your own rock bottom, here's what I want to say to you. Every moment is a chance to turn it all around. Every moment is a chance to stop digging and start changing.

And if the lost puppy in that Guanian jail cell can find a way out of the hole he dug, I like your chances. Thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.