Isolation and Hope – Big Book Study – Part 7 of 7 – Local AA Speakers

My name's just Dave, and I'm an alcoholic. Dave, Dave. Just Dave. There's no other Daves in AA, is there? Dave K., for anybody taking notes or keeping track. You know, I'd like to congratulate the celebrants, first of all. You know one of the things I always love about celebration is it's a sign of hope. It's that small sign of hopefully. It's the small sign and hope of somebody coming in and seeing that it is actually possible, Even though we don't have an indication of what's possible or what we have to do to reach that goal, we see somebody with a year. I know with me coming in, I couldn't get more than 30 days in five years. Thirty days, and I hear people saying, I have a year, my first reaction is, you're lying. You look like crap, you are drinking every day, aren't you? I honestly, I went to a meeting and they gave me a coffee commitment. and this is how insane it is but they gave me a coffee commitment and they said if you make coffee you'll get 90 days this person had the coffee commitment before you and is celebrating 90 days and I looked at him and I thought you're lying there's no way you have 90 days because I can't get 90 days, but I did take the coffee commit and I would make coffee every Wednesday I would drink the entire week before but something was bringing me back to that meeting to make the coffee. I would stop like two days before to detox. I would show up. I would make the copy. I'd leave and start drinking. Not sharing with anybody what's going on, but wanting to be a part of that hope, wanting to being a part of a community that I was not a part of any community outside of that meeting. I was isolated in my room for three years, drinking with the shades drawn, the lights out. me and a bottle of vodka I had resigned to not driving so I wouldn't get a DWI you know that brilliant resolution that we come to I don't want to get a GWI so I won't drive I'll stay home and drink and I would get my cigarettes, my booze lock the door I didn't want my roommates to see me drunk didn't let them know I was drinking I thought I was so sly but when your room smells like vodka and urine for three days. You know, it's kind of hard to hide that. But there was some hope that I knew that maybe, you know, it was true. Maybe there was a possibility. Maybe there were things and maybe there was something out there that I could do. Because I knew the way I was living was not the way I should be living. I knew The Way I Was Living was not what we would call normal. But why that was, I wasn't 100% sure when I started going to meetings. All right. One of the things that, you know, you've mentioned the sign, you know, the vodka ad and just recently I went to dinner with somebody and, you know, they didn't really know my whole alcoholic situation. I don't really hide it. I'm pretty probably bore people from talking about it so much but they said about halfway through the meal, does this bother you? And I literally had to look at what they were talking about, you know, like the candle, the check. I don't understand what is going to bother me. And I looked and it was a glass of wine. It didn't even dawn on me that they had ordered it. It didn' t dawn on m e that it was sitting there. It didn'' t dawn o n me that I have a problem with it. I was neutral, all right? One of the greatest promises to me is the 10th step promises. And it says, and we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. And I love how they hyphenate there. It kind of goes back to the hyphen in the first step with we are powerless over alcohol and our lives are unmanageable. It's kind of like, you know, okay, there's this alcohol thing, but there's a little more. And then at the tenth step, they say, well, you now we've solved all your problems. Oh, and by the way, that thing you came in for, alcohol, yeah, that's solved too. Isn't that great? Or is it just me? All right. So, for by this time, sanity will have returned. Sanity. What is the insane thought? They talk about the insane thoughts. The insane thought is that somehow, someway, I can drink like a normal drinker. It haunts me, okay? I think that I'm going to be able to cross that line again. I've crossed it where I'm an alcoholic now. Maybe I can go back and be a normal drunker. So, the insane though would be if I see alcohol as I can drank normal, all right? The sanity is that if I see it, I run away. Or I say, you know what? That's not a choice. Or I'm neutral. But that's a sane thought when it comes to alcohol. An insane thought is I can drink one and get away with it. I can Drink One and stop tomorrow. I can Drink One and the rest of my life next week. I can DRINK ONE. I did it for five years, and every time I drank one, three days later I'm driving in a blackout. We'll seldom be interested in liquor. Seldom. Isn't that a beautiful promise? I thought about it every single minute of every single day for all the time I was drinking. If tempted, we recoiled from it like a hot flame. The actual opposite of what I was doing. If I saw it when I was in the grips of it, I would run for it. I would think about how am I going to get that? Is there enough just for me? How am I getting rid of these other people sucking it down? Can I drink all night? Do I have to really go to work tomorrow? You know? Can I quit my job? You know, I'll find another one. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this happens automatically. Automatically. Okay? To me, that's a beautiful promise. Now, I have to admit, there's a lot of information. I'm talking about working with others. There's a whole lot of people out there and there's just a lot of information in here. And I was sharing with somebody before, my plan today was, I went through, I highlighted all these different chapters, and I was going back and forth and wrote notes. And on the way here, I'm like, where's my book? So best laid plan, you know, God had a different opinion. I have plenty of experience. I have many that I can share with you that would be just as fine, I am sure. There are two areas that I like to touch on when I am working with another person and about working with others, and that's in Bill's story. Bill, you know, very, in a very simple and nice way, lays out him and Abby. You know, it's from 8, pages 8 and on, he lays out his meeting with Abby and how he got sober from that point, okay? It's a much simpler version than, you now, in the chapter working with others is more or less a lot of different situations you might run into, kind of like they lay out the ninth step, they give you a lot of ninth step amends and they give almost every situation possible. That's kind of what they do also with working with others. So I could go through the entire chapter, which would take a long time, but I don't think it's necessary. I'm going to break down for me the basics of what I try to do, the flavor of working with Others. Now when I first came in, which was around 1993, I think. My sobriety day is January 11th, 1997. But in 1993, you know, I was part of a group. I was going to meetings. I was in an outpatient program at that time. I entered by mistake. My father had been in the program all my life and he was relapsed when I was in an outpatient program, and my mother was going to the family group. And I came home with a real horrible problem. You know, this woman had ruined my life by not, you know, breaking up with me. And so that was, you knows, monumental drama. And my mom suggested, well, why don't you go talk to this counselor? I went and talked to the counselor and explained my huge problem with relationships. And he gave me this test. Okay, I'll take the test. And after I took it, he said, well, you know, unfortunately you pass and you're an alcoholic. And I'm like, wait a second, I didn't come here for this. I've got problems because my dad's an alcoholic So reluctantly I decided, I agreed to outpatient. You know, I agree to outpatient. and part of the outpatient was going to meetings. So I went to meetings, I was very open to self-evaluation, I had been in therapy, all these things I'm not afraid of, but my point is when I arrived at AA, I really had no handle on my powerlessness or alcoholism, but I was willing to be a member, I was willing to raise my hand and say, yeah, I'm an alcoholic. I was going to raise my hand, say, Yeah, I mean, an idiot, you know, anything that would allow me to be a part of this group, be part of a fellowship I was wanting to do. But deep down in here, there was not a real big understanding. Now, jumping forward today when I'm working with others, when I was in that group, when somebody walked in and said, I'm new automatically, my thought was I have to keep them here. That person came in. They want help. they must be an alcoholic, let me try to keep them here. Regardless of whatever they were saying, regardless of what they were doing in their actions, I felt it was my responsibility as an AA member to keep people in the room. It was like a recruitment drive. I got Tupperware at the end of the year for bringing in as many alcoholics as I can. It's not a bad thing. I'm showing compassion. I'm truly getting out of myself. However, what I'm doing is possibly intervening with their path. If anything you get from me today is that I carry the message. I am not the message, I do not get people better. I do Not intervene with them. I do NOT manipulate them. I just present. I pray to God that something happens and they get some kind of solution, but I can't take responsibility for either their success or failure. Okay? That would just give me way too much power, and believe me, I would eat it up. I've done it. I've don't know how to do it. I've not done it, okay? And I see it. So people are coming in, and I'd go over and I'll be like, hey, how are you doing? and they're like, yeah, I don't know if this is really for me. Well, just keep coming back. Come on, guy, keep coming back. And I say, well, I'm not sure. I don' t know. I really have a ride. I'll pick you up. Come on. What are you doing? Don't give up. Just keep coming back. And, you know, they would say, well, how do you do it? I just keep coming back, you know. And I was as loony Loony is a tune, you know. And I'm living at my parents' house in the bed I grew up in, you know, and I'm telling the neighbors I'm just saving to buy a house. I had no money, you know, but I'm telling everybody I'm saving to buy a house because here I am again at 32 at home, and I'm going to meetings. I'm constantly going to meetings. One good thing is I'm always going to meetings. And I've been surrounded by people. My first sponsor was a guy that just seemed like a lot of fun. He was cool. He had all women around him and everything, you know? He was the guy I would hang out with when I was growing up or hanging out at bars. That's my attraction to him. So obviously what did I get from that? I got what I was seeking. I got a lot o' fun, but not a lot O' sobriety, all right? And I quickly relapsed. Again, none of this is bad. I believe there's a journey that all of us take. The misconception we have is that everybody arrives at the same place at the same time. And if they don't, there's failure. If they do earlier, it's success. There's no failure. There's not success in this whole thing. We're all on individual journeys and we're trying to come to our conclusion or the light of the truth, okay? At 14, I easily could have qualified, okay. 14 was my first blackout. But, you know, I easily could have walked in the A and said, I'm an alcoholic. When four policemen find you in your own vomit in town, all right, that's not an occasional drinker, all Right? So from the time that I'm 14 to the time That I stopped at 32, really what the journey was was to come to my truth. And that truth was that I was powerless over alcohol. All right? now even though I went to AA in the early 90s doesn't necessarily mean I came to that truth I really was looking for how can I become a normal drinker how can i be a casual drinker what I was refusing to accept was that some days I can't pull that out of my back pocket at some point because I need it for relief it's the only solution I've ever had in my life that gave me any kind of relief don't tell me I can have it the rest of my life so I'm going to meetings and I'm playing with this idea. I'm toying with this idea and my mind's playing with it. So even though I wasn't ready or I wasn' t at that point does not mean that it was wasted time. Does not mean that any approach anybody made to me didn' t click. I hit different layers. I hit different levels. I was an atheist when I came in. That took years to even get to. But I was getting a foundation of fellowship which was really important to me. I spent three years alone drinking, okay? Just people hugging me was something. Just people calling me on the phone was encouraging, okay. That even stopped me from drinking at times when I was down and out and ready to take that drink. I didn't want to lose those friendships. I didn'T want to loose what I had gained to that point. So they had their place even though it wasn't, you know, what we would say is in the steps or in the book or, you know. So that was early on. I thought just let's be encouraging. Later on I've learned different, okay? What happened with me is that I got a sponsor really great. I was still dealing with the God thing, but I was going to meetings. He was taking me through the steps slowly, which again is what he learned and how he did it. There's no right and wrong. I can't judge that as right or I can'T judge thatas wrong because it helped me for what I needed to get through at that time. He sat with me every single night after my meeting to make sure that I was okay before I went home because I would wait for all the liquor stores to close. he opened up his home to me to sit on his couch to wait for the liquor stores so he was supportive and compassionate and kind even though he wasn't what we would call a step nut so he presented that to me unfortunately what happened is because now I don't have a foundation in God I have a foundation in my sponsor. And when you have a foundation in your sponsor, what happens is if you get in an argument, now my foundation is gone. My higher power walked out. My higherpower moved. So I was put in a real turmoil. I was putting a tailspin and that's when I sought my next sponsor which happened to be Chris who's shared here. He was giving a workshop. I hit an emotional bottom. Now, could Could anybody have caused that? Could anybody Have sat down, given me exercise, and all of a sudden I have an emotional breakdown and now I'm looking to do the steps? No. You know, no. Could anybodyhave shared with me their experience with having an emotional breakdown? And I said, ah, I never want to have that happen to me. I better avoid that. Let me do the Steps. No. Because they did. Okay? I had to experience everything that I experienced in order to get to the place that gave me the incentive or drive to either let go of or to pursue. I let go more than I pursued, okay? Preconceptions, misunderstandings, you know, beliefs, reality, whatever. I let goes a lot more than what I pursued. So when I'm working with the guys today, all right, let me tell you where I'm at today working with guys. Um, about two years ago, what happened with me was, um, in 2005, my father passed away suddenly. And at that time he was taking care of my mother. Um, it didn't even dawn, it wasn't even a hesitation. I moved in to help my mother, um you know she had dialysis three days ago. She needed, she didn't drive, you know, she just needed support like that. So I moved into helping my mother a year and a half. I was taking care of her. I was working full time, taking care of her at night and you can tell meetings really suffered. Meetings started really slipping by. Whether it was because I didn't have time or whether I actually just was full of self pity and didn't want to see anybody you know, I don't know. But the reality is I fell back on my program. So she passes away. At the time she passes as a way I took some time, I enjoyed myself, and then it hit me. I had gotten so far away that I needed to dive back into this program. Now one of the things that I look back at is I really look back at early AA. I really reviewed my own program, the program around me, and I started thinking back to the early AAs. Much more success, how did they do it, what were they doing differently? And one of the things that I realized was back then it was a lot more localized. People went to meetings, they were probably from the same town. Everybody probably knew each other growing up from high school. They knew each others' drinking careers. They knew the trouble that they were in. It was a little bit different. There was a whole lot more understanding of the individual and there was a law more day-to-day interaction. There was allot more seeing everybody every day and realizing how they're living. Having said all that, I decided I needed to dive back into the program. Well, at the time I was giving a workshop or I was helping my sponsor do a workshop at a sober house and I was sponsoring a couple of the guys at the sober house and the owner said jokingly, why don't you get a room? Bastard. Because I'm the type of person that starts getting in my head And I start thinking and I'm like, and then it got down to that's not a bad idea. OK, it's not about idea. And so in November of 2007, I moved in one of the and I'll share with you the benefits of that. One of the benefits is that I can't hide. They can see how I live now. I am not saying I live like a saint. Like maybe they see me living like a disaster every single day, but they see how I live. It steps my game up, okay? I have access 24-7, which helps. And I have a guy I work with here, and I'm like looking at him every time I say something, you know, like, is that true? Don't talk to anybody after this meeting about anything I said. So not only does it allow them to see me and call me on my stuff, it also allows them access to me, not just at meetings. I realized when I was sponsoring guys that I would see them maybe once a week at a meeting. We would talk and then they would go home. Some guys I sponsored in the past, I didn't even know where they lived, let alone their wife or their kids. Now I know exactly where they live, maybe across the hall, and I can see how they're living. And a lot of times I find that my guidance, my mentorship, I like to call it more of a mentorship. My mentorship comes from the nonchalant smoking on the porch. Three o'clock in the morning they're struggling. Guys, I don't even sponsor. I'm just giving advice or listening to what they have to say. That's what it's about. giving this is not about the steps, this is about my relationship with my higher power, their relationship with their higher power us coming together with a common solution and a common problem love, compassion, humility all these things don't say call your sponsor every day at two when I was reading Ebby and Bill So, you know, Bill goes through the steps that he took with Ebi and none of it says that, you Know, he called Ebi every single day and Ebi told him what to do. And, You know, when he had a problem, he went to Ebi and none of that. It all goes when he hit a problem he pointed to God. Took a moment, got guidance, not from Ebi, from God. You know it's unfortunate we shy away so much from God My first home group, they voted to take the third and seventh step prayers off the wall because they said God in them. They were scared of the word God. Maybe in some way because that took out the control they had, but they were scared to point people towards God. My experience is that I had to get to a place of desperation that I don't care what you told me as long as it was a solution. I was an atheist, but I was open and willing to accept the concept because I had nothing else. Maybe in 93 I wouldn't have accepted that. Maybe in my 93 I would have run away, and I did. But in 93, I didn't have the desperation I had in 97. In 93,I was still fighting just even the concept. In 93, I still thought I was young enough or I was tough enough or it was just a phase I was going through. But it's all struggles I had with my own personal powerlessness. So understanding that, what's most important for me right now is that I talk to people and I find where they are with their powerlessness Number one, straight up. That's the first thing that we work on. We don't even talk or discuss the rest of the stuff. When I go to rehab and detox to talk, I have a commitment. When I goes there now, all I talk about is one, two, and three. I used to talk about my story or the steps or whatever. And this is on my own personal decision. But what I found is maybe sometimes we give too much information. We have people in Detox and Rehype that have never heard the detailed description or discussion about powerlessness. This book has the first 43 pages are on powerlessness, okay? So it's got a little weight in the program itself. And it talks about you can't even go on unless the individuals hit that bottom, that hopelessness. You know, Bill said, I'm hopeless, and then the next thing you know he's getting better. So the thing I try to stress on is, it sounds cruel, but I'm trying to get them hopeless. I'm tried to get to a point where they understand how messed up they are, how screwed they are because they're this powerless. If they understand that, then I spring on them that there is, by the way, a solution to that and we understand. hand. But what I stress is get to a fellowship. I don't care what A it is, just as long as there's an A at the end of it, you know, go. Okay? I am not, I can't take the responsibility for every individual that's in that rehab or detox. If I could, then I would tell them my program and exactly how I would do it. But it would be unfair to me to give them my program then send them out to another program and for that person to contradict anything I said or to disagree with anything I said. We are trying to build hope here, we are trying to build willingness, we're trying to at least the desire to come in so I just want them to get to somebody or group that can help them and then let them grow the relationship, them introduce the program to them. Let them work on the rest of the stuff. My job, I believe, when I'm going out speaking and things like that is just to get down to the common disease and the common solution, the introduction of the common resolution. I don't know if that was really complicated. It's just what came to my head that I got to talk about it, all right? That's my soapbox, all right. So when I am working with a guy, I sit down and we talk about the physical. Right away I have them read Doctor's Opinion and we talked about the physical. Then we move on to the mental obsession. I generally find in the sober house we have about 50 residents in the house I find that one of the biggest misconceptions is the physical part of it or the spiritual aspect of it. But I can't introduce the spiritual aspects of it until I talk about the mental obsession and the understanding the insanity. And I talk about the insanity and why the mental obsession continues to dog them about the only solution they ever knew, and that's basically because of the spiritual malady. Very basic. I don't get into God, I don'T get into all of that. I just try to put it in layman's terms. One of the biggest helps is in the back, there's a in the appendix is called The Spiritual Experience. If you haven't read it, read it. the reason I suggest that is because it's a very basic layman's terms on what a spiritual experience is it kind of takes the mystic out of it it kindof takes that aura of Bill's story with the white light and it is helpful to have that discussion and have them read it and say hey what do you think of that what are you thinking do you really understand what a spirituality experience is it's really a vital change it's this dramatic change in your personality and in your thinking and we're trying to affect that change. All right? And once we get to that point, if they're willing to move on, then we move on. Now, something that I've changed over time is that I used to kind of have a timeline. I used to have a kind of an opinion on how long it should take them or what they should be doing. And I've kind of backed off from that. And the reason being is I can't make an assumption of God's plan for that. That would really give me way too much weight and understanding. I ain't that smart, all right? I'll tell you right now, I ain'T that smart. Anybody think I'm lying, then come up and I'll prove to you I'm not that smart. Even though I have the tools, sometimes we get way caught up too much into the mechanics. The solution is not in the mechanics, the mechanics are a process to try to get the person to a solution. The solution isn't in me, I am the hope. I am the person that can try to get them enthusiastic about the solution, can try To guide them to the solution can try To mentor them while they get to the Solution however i'm not the solution either. So i can't make the assumption that i know when and where that should happen for them. The mantra that i try to carry into this is that i have to have patience tolerance and love and compassion. So what I try to do is I try to be as standoffish as possible. I present the information and then I let them do what they're going to do. This has led to, you know, I sometimes question it. Sometimes I try to push them on to somebody else. Maybe I'm just not helping you in the way that I need to help you or whatever. However, I have found that there's much more of a chance that they'll come back to me if I don't push them. If I don'T ruin the relationship or the friendship, then there's more apt to come back and talk to me if they really get into trouble. And there's more ofa chance that if I DON'T push it that they will continue the relationship and I can actually still help them by not doing in other ways. I can help them in other way. Okay? So I try to keep that relationship open and going. And I don't judge, and I don' t push, and I don''t prod. Chances are they'll come in and they'll say, I've got this huge problem. We'll talk about it. And I'll say okay, do the work. And they're going to say, I know what you're going to say. Yeah, do the work. So I will keep pushing them, but I won't say you're fired if you don't do this in a week. I don'T know. I honestly don't know. I know what works for me and I know what works for most people. I know what works for somebody else but I can't tell you I have all the answers. I just try to give as best as I can the guidelines that I've had. Now having said that I want to give you an analogy. In here they use the description and I don't know if everybody understands it when they're talking about God you know God is the principal I am his agent that's an insurance term okay It means God's the boss, and I'm kind of his agent. I represent him. So imagine that let's say I have an insurance company, and I won't use any particular name, but let's say it's Mall State, OK? And so I go to Mall State and I want home insurance. And I go through the list. I go into an agent, and the agent says, OK, this is Mall State's home insurance, and I read it, andI really like it, And I say, okay, I want that. And he says, okay. And it's this much money. I go home and I feel comfortable that I'm covered. And then there's a flood. And I call my mall state agent and I tell him I had a flood and he said, oh, you're not covered with a flood and I said, well, I read it and it told me that I was covered in a flood and in the mall state insurance. He said, ooh, well that's the mall estate insurance. I decided that I am going to give you my insurance the Dave insurance because the Dave Insurance works for me It's not as comprehensive as the mall insurance, but the Dave insurance works for me. Okay, so you're going to come to my house? You're goingto give me the money? Oh, well, we don't have the money. We don'thave time right now to come out and help you. I've never had floods, so I really don't know how to help you I don't Have that experience, but thanks for playing. Kind of a strange analogy, butthe point is that, you know, as a representative I have to represent the program, God's program or the program that I've accepted as the program of recovery. Not my interpretation. Not even though maybe I don't do everything I need to represent the entire program or I'd be falling short of being an agent. I would be my own principal. Does that make sense? Okay. So I try to take me out of the equation. How do I do that? When I start working with a guy, I sit down with them and we go through the book line by line. Well, that's a lie. Doctor's opinion, I don't do line byline. But after the doctor's opinion I go line byine. When I do that, I try to use a new book. And the reason I do that, and this is a conclusion I came to myself, I started hearing people going, Yeah, I picked my sponsor because they had this book that was just beat up and disheveled, and everything was highlighted. Okay? Well, I looked down, and I had a book that everything was highlighting, all right? And I realized that those highlights were for me. Those highlights were my experience at that time for where I was at in my program, and that was my higher power telling me what was important and was going to stand out. Why would I make the assumption that that's what they need at that point? Why would I make the assumption that it's something that would stand out to them or make sense to them? Why would i point out what was important to me, you know, 10 years ago? So I try to have a new experience every single time that I work with somebody. And I go into it saying we are going to have an experience. Going into that brings much greater light to the situation as far as I'm concerned. Because now I'm going into it not I need to get you to this place. I need to keep you sober, I need to make you do the steps I go into it going I have a new person and an opportunity to have a new experience regardless of the outcome regardless of what I think the outcome should be the outcome is really for me, from my standpoint, the outcome for me is that I'm sharing my experience, strength and hope that's it I can't have any expectations My life has been proven time and time again, anytime I have an expectation, I get nailed by my higher power. He smacks me right in the back of the head like a nun, you know? Like, bam! Wake up, idiot! You ain't in charge. So going into it with that kind of mindset, with that feeling of, that feeling just, for me, it makes it a much better experience. I know for me and hopefully for them because we're not putting pressures on it. We're not put undo expectations on it, we're just having an experience and I hope that that's what works best for them. I don't have a number of how many people I work with and how long that's going to be. I've actually just, I've always gone with the headset that if it ever became too much that I would stop, I would limit the number, and it's never became too much, you know? Just when I think I'm getting to that breaking point, all of a sudden somebody leaves or somebody goes back out or you know and then a new person it just always seems to work out all right um what it did lead me to though was last year uh i realized how important this stuff was coming becoming in my life um that uh i was sitting at work and um i was really i was struggling with something that later on i did inventory on but i was struggled with something and um I was having a breakdown at work and I realized I wanted to be helping others. I had a guy at the time that was in jail and his wife was calling me wanting me to help her bail him out and I found myself going I want to be there instead of here I called out sick the next day and went and did that and had much better experience than sitting in my cubicle at work so I realized that work had no longer been the place I needed to be. It wasn't bringing anything to me spiritually, all it was bringing was a paycheck. So I resigned and I decided that I was going to go with faith and just pursue something that was more along the lines of my spiritual experience. Didn't know what that was. Um, and really kind of was winging it, but it felt right. Okay. And uh, and what happened was, uh, I think six months later, a couple of guys that I know we started a company, sober construction company. And we're still in business. And we're trying to hire guys that are trying to stay sober that are in construction and that just need some day work or just some money to pay rent or just something else. And the great information I'm getting back from them is it's like a meeting all day. They're working with guys that they're having support and they're having a meeting. Now, does that mean that they're going to stay sober? No. Does that mean that guarantees and they're gonna get fired if they drink? No It means there's a supportive environment You know, we understand And we'll help you to 100% You gotta go to trial hearing? Fine, take off We understand. If you need to meet your probation officer? Fine. We understand You know We will support you the best way we can and that seems to be very helpful. So I've kind of thrown my entire life into helping others in this program, which at this point is what I needed. It could change next year. I don't know, but it feels right right now. I'm telling you, if anybody ever has the opportunity, I know it's a little insane, but I was fortunate enough not to have the ties that wouldn't allow me. I sold everything and I moved in. I'm in the room, okay? Hey, I have a single room with a little refrigerator. And you know what? I found after being there for two years that that's all I need. I don't miss anything that is gone, okay. I actually want to get rid of some stuff in theroom now. You know, it'sa little cluttered. I'm like, we're going to get rid of some more stuff. I mean, that's scary. But I was a guy about stuff. That's why I gathered stuff for years and now I don't need stuff. But if you have the opportunity, it's just really nice. It's really intense. But what I'm finding is that these places do not have the leadership and mentorship that they need. You know? You have houses that are filled with people dying for help, dying to try to stay clean and sober. And the person that's giving them the most mentorship has got like a year, you know? And they're looking. They're trying. Whether they succeed or not is not up to us, but they're look and they're trying and if there is, they're thirsty for help. So if you go in there and people are there with some time, maybe some experience, they'll suck it up, you now. but I think we need to find maybe a little more balance and those are the places that I'm finding more guys to work with when I go to meetings now like I said, and when I'm there I'm meeting families I'm getting to know more about their lives I'm really involved with them a lot more than I ever was before and I found that going to meetings I just wasn't finding the thirst or the people that I needed to work that's the only place that I found it And so it's just a suggestion. But hopefully I covered the topic. Hopefully I brought you a good meeting. And, again, congratulations to the celebrants. God bless and have a good night. Thanks for listening.