Jerome says he was not a has-been, but a never-was, until AA gave him a design for living that took him from Skid Row and institutions to sobriety, family, education, and useful work.

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Jerome shares a vivid AA talk about growing up in South Central L.A., taking his first drink before a high school record hop in the summer of 1962, and discovering that alcohol seemed to make him able to act, perform, and stop caring what anyone thought. That first drink became a long collapse through homelessness, hospitals, arrests, mental health treatment, Camarillo State Hospital, and repeated attempts to explain away what alcohol kept doing to his life. On June 6, 1973, after one more jail cell and one more broken return home, Jerome walked into an AA clubhouse at 9604 South Figueroa and finally listened like only the dying can hear. In this talk, he tells how no-nonsense AA people, sponsorship, faith in action, work, school, fatherhood, forgiveness, and the simple design for living in Alcoholics Anonymous helped him become the man a psychiatrist once said he could never be.

Jerome S. from Corona, California Speaking at the Santa Barbara AA Convention, September 23, 2000