The Group That Pushed Him Into Action Before He Was Ready – Tom I.

Hi folks, I'm Tom Ivester, an alcoholic, and I'm delighted to see you. I'm a member of the primary purpose group of AA in Southern Pines, North Carolina. I was rather gently nudged into Alcoholics Anonymous come February 2nd, will be 42 years years ago. Thank you very much, and by the amazing grace of God, I haven't had a drink since, and that is absolutely a miracle in my scheme of things. I'm just delighted to be here. I've had a few folks this weekend to say that it's awfully noble to give up your Thanksgiving weekend to come out to Las Vegas to be with fellow alcoholics. I swear word of God, that doesn't match up in my economy at all. This is pretty doggone good. Is this great or what? Good Lord. I think it's just fantastic. I've met a few folks from up in the Cleveland area, from Akron area, and I was thinking about our beginnings in the basement of T. Henry's house I wasn't there now by any stretch and in that King School and I tell you we've come a long way baby we've came a long ways and this is a great looking thing congratulations on an excellent conference just been really good I know that there's a lot of hard work been done and it shows I want to congratulate you on attracting the largest crowd I'm proud in the history of this conference. Also, I want to congratulate you on attracting the largest group of hungry people. My God, we tried to eat a piece of turkey Thursday night until midnight, and it looked like the Super Bowl everywhere we went. And so we wound up with a real celebration. My wife had a vegetarian hoagie. is that something I did a little bit I had a Philly cheese steak and a lot of irritability and restlessness and discontent so we've been duly overfed since I do want to congratulate you just an excellent conference and the atmosphere this really is a neat thing to me I was thinking that most conferences have some sort of a theme This one doesn't have one that's spoken, but one that has developed like it nearly always does. And if there is a theme for this conference, at least in my notion, the theme of this conference is hope. And boy, have I ever heard it in every speaker that I've heard, in every conversation that I'm having with people. In every conversation I've had for any length of time, I've read that ringing message of hope and what a great message it is. And I'm a guy who identifies with that. And part of what I want to share around tonight is the notion of hope. You know, I'm an old man. I'm one of those guys who, I've heard this somewhere before, I'm the kind of guy who comes from a place called hope. But it ain't in Arkansas. It's spelled A-A. And what hope there is and what powerful hope there is. And so I want to share a bit about hope. I want to share my experience in the hope that it will revive my own commitment to it and belief in it, and that it might give a little something to somebody else. So I wantto share around and toward the theme of hope that seems to be so strong here. The other thing I wanttodo, and I don't particularly bracket talks or anything like that, but I think the other thing that's heavy on my mind, I wanto talk about freedom. I want to talk about freedom, because when you get into a setting like this, these can be absolutely wonderful places to be. Conventions are for many people, for most people. There are times of warmth and conviviality and friendship, meeting new friends, having a lot of laughs, deep belly laughs. But for some people, they are miserable, miserable, lonely times. Sometimes a convention of Alcoholics Anonymous can be one of the loneliest places on earth. And so freedom isn't something that's an automatic product of just being dry, anything but. So I want to have freedom on my mind as I share my experience. I really appreciate this conference. I was thinking about the setting. Here we are in one ofthe fun cities of the world. and we're a group of sort of self-described hopeless cases that have taken, we're overdue on celebration but we've taken time out to come in and sort of reflect on some things that are tremendously important to us. And the thing that's come home to me when I've thought about who we are gathered here tonight we're in this place where fun is the name of the game. It permeates everything that I've seen about Las Vegas. But we're meeting in a setting where we're dealing with some principles by which we live. And I think there's an awfully strong message in that, that one can't exist without the other very well. And so I'm delighted that there's a conference in the city of Las Vegas, in the Riviera Hotel, with slot machines going 24-plus hours a day, that I can walk around with the imminent opportunity to become fantastically wealthy with the pull of a handle and only a slight chance that I might lose. What a great place! How great it is to see alcoholics loose as a goose walking around fat-mouthed, and my God, when you get 3,400 and however many people gathered like this, it is a cacophony of sound. What we do basically here is just kind of bunch up somewhere. And we spend these three or four days talking. Ain't nobody listening. I mean, everybody's talking at the same time, usually. Introduce ourselves hundreds of times Often to the same people And promptly forget who we just met Still smoke a little bit in Las Vegas Thank God Man, I'm from North Carolina We need all the business we can get The kids are running barefoot Smoke them if you got them Man, we appreciate it I said, we smoke, we drink more coffee than anybody in the known world. Cuss a little. And we talk about God. And that's who we are. We're a strange gathering of people. And that'S who we ARE sitting in the city of Las Vegas tonight. I'M DELIGHTED TO BE IN YOUR PRESENCE. AND I'M DELIGHTED TO be in your midst. WE'VE HAD A GOOD TIME. Now, I'm supposed to talk about drinking and puking and all the thrilling days of yesteryears. And I'll tell you, I don't drink. I'm a drunk-a-log man. I love drunk-o-logs, especially mine. I can talk about that stuff forever and not feel guilty about it because if there's any big book technicians here, they'd tell you a lot better than me if you look at the first 43 pages of the book. That's basically what you're going to hear. Now, Bill used some fancy language, but he's talking about grunting and groaning and drinking and stuff in those first 43 pages. One-fourth of our text is made up of drunk-a-lots. So I love drunk-alots. God, I love mine and anybody else's. But I'm going to forego a little pleasure. Instead, I want to kind of sort of condense a little bit and just sort of share with this whole business of where's the hopelessness, where's hope, and where's freedom. You know, I found myself, identify with Mike a bit, I found oneself, 24-year-old man, sitting in a maximum custody penitentiary. I'd been in jail hundreds of times, but I'd never been in a penitentiary. I'm sitting in a penitentiary in a group called Alcoholics Anonymous when I started to come to some level of awareness. I was sitting, but neither one of them was not a real great place to be. The penitentiary was self-evident. AlcoholicsAnonymous was not all that much better. I didn't really believe I was an alcoholic. I was 24 years old. I think one of the reasons that I appreciate a conference in a place like Las Vegas is that it communicates effectively that there really is life after sobriety and that it can actually be enjoyable. Boy, is that ever an important message for a guy like me. Because I don't know about you, but I wasn't just dying to stop drinking. I was, butI didn't know it. And I wasn' t all that fond of the notion. I'd never met anybody who didn't drink who didn' t look like they didn' d drink, looked like they were in mortal pain. never saw what I wanted to be like, never had really had a conscious kind of commitment to stop me drinking in my life. So I'm sitting in a thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. Resign to my fate is basically the way I felt. Felt like I was in the Legion of the Damned. Now, I knew these folks were serious about not drinking, and they were serious as a heart attack. That's all they talked about. And they talked about not drinking for a long time, forever. Jesus! And my first few months in Alcoholics Anonymous were basically spent vacillating back and forth between sort of hopefully thinking, do you suppose this thing could work for a guy like me? and then that other little voice saying my God what if it does and I'm going to get struck bone dry probably never smile again for the rest of my life and I wasn't keen about all that now I couldn't imagine what people did who didn't drink never had tried it had no experience I couldn'T imagine what they did for fun If anything. And when I thought about my future, for the life of me, it was about like trying to look at you guys. It was just a long gray tunnel. And I couldn't imagine anything imaginable in my wildest dreams that would be enjoyable. Now, I don't know if you've experienced the same thing, but I think it's fairly standard among males that after you're sober for a while, if you've got any left, there's a certain level of friskiness that comes back. You know what I mean. I won't get graphic with this, but, I mean, ifyou've got the... Well, you know, it's things straighten out is what happens. And you get some urges to come back. Well, I mean, that wasn't immediately troubling to me when the urges started coming out because I was in jail. And I didn't have any interest too much in sex in there because I wasn't sure which end of it I was going to be on. And I was choosy about that. But, you know, you get to thinking maybe someday. day. And I thought, what do sober people do about sex? I never had done anything about it sober since I was a fumbling kid. Well, they sure could. I thought where do you get a girlfriend? You go down to the Baptist church and hit on somebody. That would go over great. We had a man of the cloth come in there one day that wore his collar backward, wasn't supposed to know anything about sex much. And he left some time for questions. You'll always get somebody that will take you up on that. And some guy asked him, of all people, he said, when you're in recovery, what do you do about sex? Well, the good clergyman and said, ready, answer. He said, if you ain't married, nothing. I thought, my God, sober, miserable, bored to death, ain't never going to have no loving. And I'm telling you, it was a major miracle to me that I stayed here because I didn't love it. I didn' t buy the cause. I didn''t want to join the Army. I didn ''t want a wear to sarong. All I wanted, I was just there. And I tell you, that's not altogether kidding around Because that's really the way I felt And it was a precarious hold at best On this thing called sobriety So I just sat there The miracle to me is that I stayed And thank God I stayed long enough for something To start cutting through And start making a difference with this guy That's essentially what I want to talk about That whole business of what cuts through Because I sat in our college I didn't readily identify with anybody I was in this program for almost two years before I heard one speaker with whom I identified. I was quite young then. Jack mentioned last night how he felt at 32, and I was 24. And there weren't any 24-year-olds back then. There were some around, but they were drunk. But there were none that I met in AA. I was the youngest member in every group I attended for years. I was a youngest member of the entire state of North Carolina. Started the first young people's group in the state of North Carolina. Now, youth is not a fatal condition. It passes away in time. And that's the good news. So if you're in it, you'll get out. But it is tough. It's tough sitting in something called Alcoholics Anonymous when you're a youngster trying to feel compadre with folks. You know, I looked around at that bunch I was in there with, And I swear to God, it looked like I was in a geriatric ward. Most of those folks had drunk more years than I was years old. And you really do get a lot of real considerate attention. Well, it's well intended, I think. Guys come over, how old are you? Boy, 24, sir. My God, are you going to quit drinking at 24? That's what I was thinking about it. Oh, man, you don't know nothing about drinking You haven't even started yet Real encouraging Or the kind just as bad That, and I know it's well intended That would sort of, figuratively Sort of paternalistically come over And pat you on the head My, my, my young fellow How old are you? 24? Well, isn't that wonderful aren't you lucky God what an incredible run of luck here I've been living 24 years and it honest to God would have been better had it never happened by any measure I'm sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous my life's over with a bunch of old warts done more damage than any human ought ever be allowed to do I'm sitting in a penitentiary. I don't think I'll ever get out. Oh, yeah, man, I've got a roll going here. Things are looking up. Well, it's not really comfort producing when you start. Well, thank God, I just kind of hung in there. And so I started listening a little bit to folk. I would listen to stories, I would get into them and listen to them but not identify with them. Some were entertaining, some were heartbreaking, some Were unusual, and I'd cry at the drop of a hat about anything. Didn't mean anything. I'd laugh, but it didn't mean much. But then slowly a picture started to emerge, and I'm just going to capsule it just a little bit. Yeah, I started to identify first that if alcoholism was about being drunk, then I'd been that all my life, because that's all I ever did. I never had a normal drink in my life. So if that was what it was about, but no, it was more than that. If it was About Trouble, certainly I'd had enough of that. But that didn't seem to be it because I met many respectable members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I still can't believe I'm saying this. Respectable members of alcoholics anonymous who have never been to jail. God, can you imagine that? There's probably some sitting in this room tonight. night. Now, I'll just tell you this. My observation has been that it has nothing to do with our behavior if we didn't go to jail. It's just a commentary on law enforcement. Wasn't our fault. We tried. I used to kind of think deep down that folks that didn't go to jail were sort of second-rate members, you know, that they really hadn't paid the dues right and kind of snuck in under false clothes. Until one night I was sitting in a meeting between two guys who were megabucks guys. And I knew that. They were guys that had more money than they could spend in many lifetimes. and I was sitting there and for some reason the picture came through and I thought Jack talked about it very well last night but what I thought about was my God what did it take to bring these guys here these are guys who could buy a hospital could buy a chain of hospitals could hire an army of physicians could buy any comfort that men could produce Deuce. How much absolute anguish must it take for somebody to reach a sufficient bottom to try this program? For a guy like me who's hit with every weapon known to man, who had nothing to lose, it is relatively simple by comparison. And so that really clarified for me something that gives me sort of common denominator with every other alcoholic in in the world. It isn't about the externals, it's about what happens to somebody on the inside. It has nothing to do with attainment or material goods. It has to do với the loss of one's soul. And so I started to see it wasn't about trouble. It was about some sort of strange driven behavior that I didn't understand. And slowly a picture started to occur. Now I'm not a causation freak, let me just allude to a couple of things and maybe you'll see where I'm coming from. You know, what slowly started to emerge was an identity with every alcoholic and most every Al-Anon that I've ever heard speak about feeling that exquisite misery of being unable to connect and relate to other people, that feeling of isolation. And I started to recognize that all of my life, all of My life as a young child even, I had experiences that didn't set well with Me. And I developed some real deep-seated problems of fear, insecurity, of isolation, of how to separate myself and a lot of anger. Joe, who spoke at the Al-Anon luncheon today, was one of the few people that I've heard describe the same that I do. And I identified very much with Joe in his description of the thing that happened. You know, those kinds of things that occur, and they happen to everybody. everybody, but I was one who developed defects of character to sort of cope with what my life had become. Yeah, when I first came in AA, I thought defects of character were naughty behavior. I didn't understand that they were deep-seated behaviors that drove my life. They were what made it possible for me to function in a world. And so it wasn't a matter of just surface behavior. It was a matter of that kind of thing. Now, I went through childhood and adolescence and early teens like that. And then when I was 16, I found a solution that was magical for me. I found booze and I took my first meaningful drink, not behind the gym at school, but my first real drink when I Was 16 years old, got drunk on a billy goat, pledged to stay that way if I could and tried to do so. I just fell in love with it. I wasn't an instant alcoholic. I was a guy who just absolutely loved the effect produced by alcohol, loved everything about it, and man, it did wonders for me I was not somebody who had problems with alcohol. Right off the bat, I had some things that looked like problems to the untrained eye, but they were not problems to me. I fell in love with a lifestyle. I found a sense of adequacy and comfort and compatibility with the world that I'd never known. And even though my drinking was a bad-looking scene to somebody who looked at it from the outside, boy, it looked great to me, And my idea of heaven on earth was jetting into some old cool jazz club and sucking on some tall, cold something. And man, I could have stayed there the rest of my life. And I'll let you in on a little secret. I am not a temperance worker. I'm not here tonight on moral grounds. If I could've continued to drink as I drank, even though it looked bad and produced some kind of aggravating side effects like jail and fights and lost jobs, if I could're have continued that, it would've been small price to pay and I would be doing that tonight. I'm not here because I made some calculated choice that this is better than that. No way. I'm a guy who's here because he developed alcoholism. Now, I didn't know it at the time, but when I was in my 18th year, best I can tell, I really appreciate you guys reading chapter 3. We don't do that much back about East, but it reinforces every time I hear that about this strange chemistry that happens to alcoholics. Now,I don't understand it altogether. together. I don't even understand what Bill wrote. I don't understand what Silkworth wrote. I don' t need to. I do' n't understand the concept of allergy. It baffles my mind. Allergy is a strange thing to me anyway. I'm allergic to wool collars. If I wear one, my neck breaks out. I can wear a wool jockstrap and it doesn' t bother me. Now, I never have worn one, but I know I could. And I know that I, best I remember, I'm more sensitive down there than I am up here. I don't understand allergies. I don' t understand allergy to alcohol. I don''t understand compulsive behavior. I don ''t understand obsession. I know some words that describe it, but I don'T understand that junk. I don´t need to understand that chunk. What I need to understanding is that I am somebody for whom it happened. I don?'t know why. I could go into heredity and genealogy and all that stuff, not very deep, but I could in little ways. But why? You know, what happened was that in my 18th year, what we call crossing the line occurred. I crossed the line from that wild, crazy recreational drinking to uncontrolled drinking or alcoholism. Didn't know it, didn't drink any different that I recognized. No bell went off. But my life changed dramatically and will never be the same in the sense that the way it's described here, not in these words, but what it says is that when that happened to me, I parted company with every other drinker in the world except other alcoholics. I lost the ability to control my drinking, and that is the heart and soul of the problem. My alcoholism is not defined by how many jobs I lost, how many times I got married. I got marry quite a few. Some I knew about, some I didn't. But they were all legal anyway. Well, most of them. Not defined by that. Not defined by how many times I went to jail, how many time I got my nose broke, how many I got drunk and woke up in the wrong state. None of that. It doesn't define alcoholism. It's not defined pushing just a little further. It's now defined by how much I drank. I drank all I could get. But it's not defined by how much I drink nor what I drank I drank everything from champagne to hydraulic brake fluid. Now, I didn't mean to drink the hydraulic brake liquid. The Yankee bootleggers sold me that stuff. And war ain't over yet. I tell you, it worked, brother. It locked me tighter than a drum. I never went back to it either. It was not my drink of choice. It's not defined by that. Yeah, it's notdefined by any of those externals. It's defined by one simple thing. I'm a guy who if I take a drink of anything with alcohol in it, I cannot predict my behavior. I cannot predic what will happen. And that is the heart and soul of alcoholism. Nothing else. because everything else is a secondary product of that. You know, certainly there are occupational hazards of alcoholism, but the heart and soul of the issue is that. And, you know, I could tell you a thousand stories of stuff that happened. I really like to boil it down to just a couple things because if I tell you one story, one experience, I've almost told you all the experiences because it became sickeningly similar with that strange kind of ballet of death that we call alcoholism. I was the kind of guy that loved to stop by some place, have a couple drinks with the guys. My pattern of behavior was that I would usually wind up closing a joint, going to a bootleg joint, going to jail, waking up in some crazy, crazy place in absolutely bizarre circumstances. Not what I had in mind, but it was the way it worked. And my pattern of behaviour was essentially this. I would wake up, come to, and then, you know, blackouts. I was a blackout guy. Blackouts only become funny after about ten years. Absolutely nothing in the annals of alcoholism are as terrifying as blackouts." Wake up with that sheer panic, with frantically trying to put it together, where am I? Where am I supposed to be? What have I done? And God knows how many thousands and thousands of speakers I've heard describe the same terror of frantically trying to put it together. Going out to see the car, if it's there, if he's got blood on it. What's happened? And then slowly try to piece it together That was my pattern of behavior, because every fiasco would be the same thing. And I would come to, go through the panic, finally realize what I'd done one more time, and then would start to contemplate what I do. Suicide was a constant kind of visitor. Do I just do it in? Do Ijust keep going and disappear? Do I go back and apologize again? Again, the hell of alcoholism. The thing that's absolutely unbelievable to me, but it's to do with the deep-seated nature of alcoholismo to me is that I never personally saw that behavior clearly until I was sober and Alcoholics Anonymous for a good while. It's a really interesting thing to me. I'm not academic about this, but it's a really interesting thing to me. Our society is replete with language about denial. Every human condition now is built around the notion of denial and what a barrier it is to getting better. One place that you won't find that word is in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. You can look her through, it ain't there. And I don't think it was overlooked because the word merchant Bill Wilson didn't know the word. I don't think he used it because I don t think it applies. I think it s a too lightweight term for the condition that we deal with. See, my problem wasn t a debate with myself about stuff or arguing with the evidence of my life. My problem was an inability to see the behavior. Couldn t see it till I was sober for a good while. Our book describes describes, describes this in a number of ways. One place it describes it as an inability to separate the true from the false and living in that illusion that it'll be different. Very, very fundamental to the illness of alcoholism with this guy was that inability to clearly see the behavior. I don't recall a single time when I would go through that, put my head in my hands and say, for God's sakes, what's wrong with me? that I ever answered, well, you drink too much. It was always circumstances and events. Never once did I recall saying, you drank too much The other thing that happened was characteristic of my episodes was every time I would screw up and bomb out somewhere and take that geographical thing we call it new town, new place, new hope, new friend, new wife, whatever ever, never did recognize that every time I fell and started over, settled for a little less and a little less, until in fairly short order. I wound up last year that I drank living on the streets up in the city of Flint, Michigan. Not a wonderful place. A few years ago it was rated the worst place in the United States to live. I took a little pride in that. I think I helped destroy that city. But that's where it ended for me. And I pray God that, you know, there are a lot of things to do with alcoholism, but the grim reality of alcoholism is what it did to me as a human being. And I never want to forget for one second what the consequences were for this guy. I don't want to forgot for one second what it was like. Like, I've watched guys around this city this weekend, and everyone that I see, I relate to. The only way they make me uncomfortable is that they remind me of me. And I remember what it was like to wander the face of this earth and have no place that I could comfortably call home. I never want to forget that feeling of being so lost and despairing and hopeless and dirty and shameful, just humiliated with what my life. Total loss of self-respect. Never want to forget that despairing condition as a young fellow. Don't want to forgive what it was like to hustle on the street from folks I didn't know, to rob other drunks. Some days I was friskier and some days they were friskrier, and so it was just a matter of that's the way that society worked. That was the economy. It had nothing to do with crime. It was just the economy I don't want forget that. Don't forget what it would like to sell my life's blood five bucks a throw. That's what my kind did, that's what I did. To take gifts from well-intended strangers, but I remember the demeaning feeling that I felt accepting it. Well, you know, it'd be nice if I could tell you that somebody threw me a rope and I called for help and so here we went, but it just didn't happen. You know, I don't know of many alcoholics who haven't had that terrified feeling of doing great damage to other folk. Thank God for most, it's a bad dream. But for some, it's a real nightmare. And I woke up one morning in Flint in jail. There was no novelty to that. I was there much of the time. And I knew everybody there. I knew most of the guys locked up, knew everybody that worked there, and I assumed I was in there for the same as always. I had no recollection of what brought me in there, but I assumed it was the same thing. It was the exact same as all this hustling, fighting, or whatever. And a jailer came by a guy and asked him when I could get out, and he said, I hope never, and kept walking. and I had no earthly idea of what he was talking about. No earthly idea. And he didn't explain. And then some of the other guys in there told me that the night before I'd been driving somebody's car down the main street of the city in a blind, drunken blackout and they'd run down and kill two people. And my reaction, you know, even though I was a character like I've described, I was not a subhuman. I was an insensitive man. And I simply could not handle that fact. You know, mine's a funny thing. It protects itself. I resolved that by just pushing it away and refusing to accept it, and gradually accepted the truth. The only time I'd ever been in jail, I didn't try to get out. And then somebody, I had some family in North Carolina, and somebody at that jail, only knew who it was, contacted my folks, and they made what I, well, I hope, I know it was my mother's last trip. I hope it was my sisters, but they came up to get me out one more time. It wasn't their first one, but it was for my mother to be her last one. She died some 29 years later, and when she died it was with a tremendous heart full of gratitude for a program that had given her a son for 29 years of whom she was very proud. I'm a busy man in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have been for all these years, but everything I have ever done in this program ten times over would be worth it for what I've just said. I didn't know how to tell him I was afraid to get out of jail I didn' t want to get out it was a shame to get out I couldn't look at anybody I didn t think I would ever drink again the guilt was too great I didn t honest to God didn t think I could physically pick up a drink from July to November of 56 had drank like nobody I've ever seen and I worked with thousands and thousands of alcoholics I've never worked with one like me I mean, I've held an alcoholic in my arm before he died. And he wasn't an alcoholic like me. I just absolutely gave in. I didn't particularly think about alcoholism or not. I was trying to drink myself to death. A wino could have diagnosed me. That was obvious. And November the 19th of 1956 was the date of what I hope and pray was my last drink. Didn't know it was going to be at the time, but I knew it was gonna be lasting for a long time because I was being tried that day for the crime of manslaughter. And I went down. I had no defense. I couldn't even tell them what I'd done. They had to tell me what I'd done, and I was, of course, found guilty. Sentenced to max for 15 years, and that's what brought up that sitting in that meeting that I was talking about. I hit that institution, mighty sick young man, resigned to my faith, never believed I would come out of there alive, and truly didn't care. And that wasn't cynical disregard. I just simply was done. All I wanted to do was disappear. beer. And then little did I know that what ripe conditions those are for a thing called alcoholic synonymous. I'd never heard of alcoholic synonymous in my life. I've never heard anybody helping a drunk in my life. It just wasn't common knowledge back then, and certainly not where I lived. And a guy one day called me. I didn't socialize with people, didn't speak to anybody. I sat in my cell and stared at my my navel, anything to keep from thinking. And one day a guy called me out for an interview, a little old social worker fellow, no offense for him, but he was a social worker, prissy little old guy who just got out of Michigan State, real rookie, and he did, I guess, a standard social work interview with me and he gave me the same diagnosis everybody who ever talked with me gave me. You're an alcoholic or you're drunk or, you know, that kind of stuff. I'd heard that many times, and he made the diagnosis. It looked like he had a lot of trouble with booze. Then he added something I never heard. He said, we have an AA group here at the institution. I think you better go. It wasn't an order. They didn't have to go. It certainly wasn't invitation. It was just a flat declarative statement. We have a group. Think you better do it. Think you'd better go." And February 2nd of 57, I walked into that group, probably much like you did into your first one, totally ignorant of what to expect, wouldn't have believed it if they'd have told me. And I sat down in the middle of 300 and listened to my first AA meeting. The man who spoke that day became my first sponsor, and I came to love him better than Peter loved the Lord. That day, I thought he was a fruitcake. He told his story. And I'd never heard an alcoholic tell his story? I'd heard them tell stories, but not their own. And that guy told that thing. And when he got through, now if anybody had asked me what I'd seen, I'd have probably said, man, you wouldn't believe it. I mean, this is wild. And the amazing thing to me is that I went back the next week. I stayed in there three and a half years, and they told me I could leave if I would agree to go to North Carolina and ask them to let me take it under advisement. You know I did. And I never missed a single meeting. But you can hurry up and believe what I was kidding around a little bit about in the beginning was very real. See, I'm somebody who believes Well, I don't believe it, I know it That, you know, like our book says Self-centered isolation is the core of the problem for us It's the core Of the problem And I was self-centered and isolated before I ever drank Drinking solved that problem for a while But then the solution became heavier than the problem And so what freed me from the prison of my life became the even stronger prison of my life. Well, when I got into AA, the drinking was no more. But if that condition wasn't caused by drinking it certainly wasn't relieved by not drinking. And what it left me with was just what I had before only worse, only worse. And when I was talking about being lonely in a large convention is real. Being lonely in in a small, intimate group is very real. Because that first eight months I sat in AA, I was as isolated, as miserable, as alone as I've ever been in my life. I went through the motions, didn't believe I was an alcoholic. I said I was because I hated to be the only something else in the crowd. So they all said they were, and I said, yeah, me too. But it didn't mean anything. It was just a word. And I kept going back. Now, I've always been a reader. I started reading right off the bat, probably defensively, but I was reading nonetheless. I've always have just been an inveterate reader. And so I did that, and when I think about the chain of events, and I want to tell you that in a rushing hurry, the chain OF events that started to turn the life around of that guy. You know, what is it that brings hope to what is a hopeless situation? Now here I am, a 24-year-old guy sitting in a maximum custody penitentiary in a program for a condition I didn't even believe I had and a solution that had very little attractiveness to me. You know, that thing of vacillating between maybe it'll work for me. My God, what if it does? Yeah, I don't know about you, but I didn't know anything about sobriety. I was kind of like that old adage of the devils you have versus the deviles you may get. And when I tried to imagine being sober, I thought sober was about a first cousin to rigor mortis. It seemed like the most dull, boring condition. It was bad enough already. ready. You don't have to get out and fellowship with other dullards, and so I kept going back to that thing. When I think back to what was it turned it around for me? Yeah, I will always be grateful for the recovery group Jackson Prisoned, and I'm not soliciting members. I've offered it to a lot of people. I haven't had a single taker so far. Home group. I just don't want to be a regular member. And that group meant a lot to me in the sense that, in every sense, but particularly because it was an excellent group of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was not some goofy meeting with just sort of flying by the seat of your pants. It Was a well-ordered, purposeful meeting. It did as good a job of putting the Fifth Tradition in practice as any group I've ever seen. It is an excellent Group. Thank God for that group. Thank god for the guys in that group who dealt with me with patience and concern, infinite patience, helping me get through the resistance and the stupidity of my own frame of mind. Thank God for that group. Thank God für a Gruppe that did a fine job of helping a newcomer understand that this is not some mystical thing that happens to a fortunate few. It is the most logical design for living that I've ever seen. Now, I'll tell you this. I've been a manager for the last 35 years or so. And my whole life has made plans and projections and goals and all that kind of stuff. That is the most logical design that I have ever seen in any organization I have ever been involved in. Now, I didn't think that when I first saw it, but that group started to help me see that. And I will always be thankful. I'll always be thankful for the fact that that group pushed me into action. Now, I'm an action guy. I'm still an action guys. And I'm not somebody who, you know, we've moved in a lot of ways in Alcoholics Anonymous. Most of them not all that great. But one of the ways that we've move is into a more analytical kind of educational approach to the program. You know, I am a guy who believes in action. You give me a newcomer, this is not what I'm going to put him into. to, I'm going to put him into action. I'm gonna put him into physical action because I don't know of anything that so quickly produces the sense of belonging as active work in the program. The learning shall come later and I'll be thankful ever for that group that pushed me into action and didn't wait till I felt ready. I tell you this for whatever it's worth, 42 years later almost the I'm as active today as anybody I know. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I've been as active as anybody I know for as long as anybody I know, and we're not competing for activity. That's the core of a belief system that's mine. I'm somebody who believes in the magic of action and tries to practice it accordingly. Accordingly, and I put that back to where my origin, you know, that group didn't wait. And I, honest to God, didn't know there was a spectator option in Alcoholics Anonymous. I really didn't. The guy said, come on, here's what we do. And that's what he did. And I got pushed into action. And I mean that literally. I'll tell you this for whatever it's worth. So far, understand what I'm saying? And so far, I have never said no to a genuine request for AA service on the basis of personal comfort and convenience. Now, I say no hundreds of times because I've got other commitments, I've Got Other Things To Do. But not one time have I said no on the base of personal comfortable and convenience." Now, here it is. I have never said yes comfortably, not once, including this tonight. I've done this 10,000 times and people ask me, do you still get nervous? You bet your fanny I still get nervous. And I truly believe the day I quit being nervous, I need to stay home. Because if I let this become some mechanical performance out of my head or some entertaining little fling, it will have lost its meaning and its integrity. It's got to be coming from the heart. Otherwise, it just don't mean much. Thank you, God. Well, and the truly important thing is that every time that I've had to step through that little curtain of fear, here, the curtain has become a little less formidable because that's where growth comes from. Growth doesn't come from operating in my comfort zone. I don't need to be in my comfort zone, I guarantee you. Any place that I felt totally comfortable would probably be a bad place for me. I need to be... Well anyway, enough said. That action is a magical thing. Now and I'll tell you what really turned the tide. I've got a lot more sermon and not much more time because we've got to dance or do something here. I don't know what, but we'll do something. I want to tell you where that process started to come alive. It started to come along live there for sure, but there's more to it than just adrenaline charge or being pumped up or being excited or being knowledgeable. There's a great deal more to it than that. Now, I read a lot, But knowledge is not enough. It says that in our book, knowledge won't cut it. It's about having it in your life. Now I'll tell you what was the turning point for me. I don't like to overemphasize anything in the program, but I don' t like to evade the fact. The thing that was a genuine foundation point for Me was four steps. I went to a meeting one day, didn't intend to do anything life-changing that day, just went to the meeting. And they had a guy spoke, spent the entire meeting talking about nothing but four steps up, a solid hour in the fourth step. Read part of it out of the book. Stressed the importance of writing it. Well, I knew what he was talking about. I'd been reading the book, I knew what He was saying. Up here. But I didn't know it in my life, and there's a big difference. So He got through with that, I went back to my cell, and I said, okay, I'm going to do that. I got out of The Old Trusty Legal Pad, and I started writing. Now, what I meant to write was a little story about life and its cruelties and what a victim of circumstances I was. That's what I meant to do. But the founders were wise when they said to write because I wrote about two lines of what I had in mind and then I swear to you with no intent whatsoever. I mean none. All at once, it was just the charade was over. And I had what old Hemingway wrote about a lot, that moment of truth, the time when a person comes face to face with themselves. And that was a first-time experience for me. I came face to face with me. And all at once, with no preparation, with no guidelines, with nothing, I started to write what poured out of a tortured young man. That's all. And I guess you would call that a cathartic experience. I just absolutely just poured. I could not have not taken that inventory if I wanted to because it was just absolutely just pouring. and my hand raced trying to keep up with the torrent of things that came out. And when I got through, I had three pages of that scrawl that was barely legible. It surely wasn't fit for publication, but it wasn't written for publication. I'll tell you what it was. It was the most, without question, the most important day's work I have ever done in my entire life, bar none. Because that became the foundation for my life. I knew that day that I was an alcoholic, period. That's all. Not the young guy, not the smart guy, not the tragic case that I Was an alcoholic period. I have never seriously doubted that for one second till this day. See, that was a transforming moment where a foundation where I knew exactly who I was. That day I became a solid, functioning, recovering alcoholic and a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't sign anything, but I was no longer just a face in the crowd. I was not longer a lost soul waiting for lightning to strike. I was a guy who understood the condition and was resolved to do something about it. I have never gone to a meeting since without fully understanding why I'm there, including this one, because my purpose is clear and resolute. I'm not here for performance or for fellowship. Those are nice things, but I know what I'm here for. I'm dealing with a killer condition, and this is my only hope. Don't ever want to lose that. Well, that was the story. And the thing that really made me... I just sort of found recently a way to describe what happened. You know, I want to do about three more things before we go dance. And I warn you in advance what they are. One, I wanna talk about what is it that takes that worthwhile beginning and then generates that into a way of life that truly has meaning and purpose. What is it has to happen? And then I want to talk about what the payoff is for that. What is it that can happen unbelievably in the life of an alcoholic? And then the last thing, in honor of old people, I wantto talk about the viable role that old people play, pardon the expression, but I'm one of them in alcoholic phenomenon. And that's where I'd like to wind up. Let me just do that in a rush. You know, when you think about, again, who am I? I'm that 24-year-old guy, wrecked life, mountain of guilt, living in absolute shame and disrepute, sitting in a maximum custody penitentiary. You don't think I'm ever going to get out. I'm in a thing called alcoholic synonymous. I have taken a look at my life, and I know who I am for the first time in my entire life. Where do you go from there? Well, there's a place. There's not one right here handy, so I'll just have to do this from some crude semblance of memory. It'll be close. But there's a place that puts some meaning into a term I've heard for years in AA that we talk about all the time, that sobriety is not a destination, it's a journey. And that's a nice cliché. What does it mean? What is this thing called alcoholism? There's a space in the 12 and 12. Now, I'm nothing against the 12-12, but the 12th and 12th when I came into AA about the same time. And I didn't really cut my teeth on that. I'm a big book guy. I mean, I just like that old Wild West style. I love it. But there's a place in the 12 and 12, in the preface of all places, where it's got a little thing that I think puts so much clarity and so much meaning. And it says something basically like this, right about in the middle page. You can check me out and see what it really says. It says our 12 steps, the heart and soul of our recovery program. Our 12 steps are a set of principles, spiritual in their nature. Well, that tells us what their tools are. Set of principles, spiritual and in nature. Now here it is. Which if practiced as a way of life, if practiced as away of life not worked not studied not written not workshopped not seminared now those are all helpful things but that ain't what it says and it's not what I believe. What does it say? If practiced as a way of life, if surrender is not an exercise for me, it's a state of mind. And I have to practice surrender every day of my life, a life of surrender. If practiced the way of light. We'll do two things that are unbelievable. If practiced in the wayoflight, but will expel the obsession to drink. Interesting term. I knew what expel was. They did that to me in the fifth grade for the first time. I knew What it meant. It ain't far off. I looked it up in the old trusty dictionary and see what it said, and this really is a good term, I think, for what happens at least to what it seems to me. Expel means to push out, to press out. What does that mean in real life? I'll tell you what it means. Almost 42 years, I don't want to discourage anybody, but I have never consciously solved one single problem in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not one. Not one single time have I sat in a meeting and said, that's it, I've got it. No, not at all. It ain't a fix-it shop. It's a set of principles, spiritual in nature, which if practiced in the way of life will expel, will push out the obsession to drink. Read the book, you get a little confused. First place sounds like a lobotomy when they talk about the obsession to drink says it's sort of plucked out like a surgeon. Don't quit. Read a little bit further because then it sort of conditions the statement that what we have in reality is what? Daily reprieve. Continual maintenance of our spiritual condition. It expels. See, my obsession is expelled. I haven't had it for 36, a little over 36 years. Did the first five years or so that I was sober a couple of times. So mine's expelled. But it ain't far away. Cookies sitting on it right over there. She's guarding that sucker for me. And all I have to do to see that boy again is let up on the practice of these principles which are the principles, and hello, obsession. I honestly believe that we lose a lot of members who are simply not prepared to deal with the fact. See, I'm an alcoholic. I didn't used to be. I have active alcoholism. It would not surprise me if I had this obsession to drink in Las Vegas tonight, nor would I be unprepared. I'm a drunkard. I'm not an alcoholic, so this set of principles will expel that obsession to drank, And then the second thing it says that's unbelievable. Something like this, will enable the sufferer, me, to become usefully whole. Oh man, oh man. What does that mean? That's a nice sounding little piece of poetry. I'll tell you what it means. I'm the same guy who sat there whose life looked like a long gray tunnel. Who wondered what he would ever do. Remember those days when you worried about what you would do with your time? Remember that? Oh, my God. I have not been bored in my memory. Instead, my life has been fired with absolutely unbelievable experiences. God knows, I don't mean anything romantic. Well, a lot of that too. But, my, God, it's just been an amazing, amazing journey. And all I did was practice some principles as a way of life. And it led me to become usefully whole. Because what those steps do is take me through three basic segments, and that's the way it looks to me. The first three have to do with my powerlessness, my relationship with the power. That's all. All it is is just the foundation for the new life. Four through seven have to deal with getting at peace with myself, knowing who I am, what I'm about, and then that critical decision to change. And then the 8 through 12 basically have to do with my relationship with the rest of the world. And if I practice these as a way of life, I'll be amazed before I'm halfway through because amazing things will happen. And I'll tell you, there are amazing things that happen. Now, I'm a practical guy. Yeah, I're a very practical guy, almost a pragmatist when it comes to what our book's about. And I think it's borne out in here. It's placing ourselves, okay, to have your head in the clouds but keep those big flat feet on the floor. And I believe that. I'm a guy, I'm a deeply spiritual man. I practice a spiritual way of life in every segment of my life. But I'm not a mystical guy. I'm the guy who believes in miracles. I don't believe in miracles. Man, I know them. I've lived them. I'm a guy who believes in miracles but I have a very down-to-earth kind of belief in what miracles are. Yeah, I think miracles are the product of when preparation Preparation and opportunity come together, and God handles the introduction. The farmer plows his field, he plants the corn, God causes corn to grow. Man meets woman at the right time, and a child is born. Preparution meets opportunity, and miracles happen. And my God, how that's happened in my life. Many, many unbelievable miracles that happen just as a product of that way of life. Does it work? I'll tell you, it works. You know, there are times when, maybe you can relate to this, that there's a guy from North Carolina that played a little basketball by the name of Jordan. He's had a little notoriety. By the way, he's building a house about five miles from us down in Southern Pines, and we'll welcome him to the neighborhood. but we're about five miles and five light years apart in the economy, but he's coming down. And I watched a game, and you might have seen this. You know how they run those reruns over and over and over about plays of the year or whatever? They were playing a game with somebody, and Michael had one of those blind pig days. He could not miss. I mean, he could throw that sucker blindfolded through his leg like a football, and he just couldn't miss. And at one point, they had a picture of him trotting down the court. And he looked over at the opposing team's bench and he just gave them that salute. Like, don't ask me, man. Don't ask be. And my God, he later called that a zone. That he got in a zone he just couldn't miss. I know what that guy's talking about and I'll bet you do too. I played golf with a couple of guys one day that were not very good golfers and I was playing pretty good then and I wasn't even trying to score and I just sort of turned loose and played within my limits and I tied the course record on the first nine and I ain't that good a golfer. I just sorta let go and let it happen. I got in tune with nature and let the natural flow occur and when I got back to the back nine I said man alive I'm really gonna do it now so I started bearing down And I've shot a .32 on the front and a .47 on the back. That's what happens when old Ivester takes charge. But the zone is just that thing, and my God how many times that happens in my life. What I found out is that the zone for me has to do with some things like I'm talking about, about these principles in my affairs. I was walking down the terminal at O'Hare in Chicago one day, And it dawned on me I was grinning. Well, you're not supposed to grin at an airport. I mean, everybody's mad at an airport. Ain't nobody grinning unless they're loony. And I'm walking along by myself grinning like an idiot. And it daunted me what I was doing, and I felt a little embarrassed and promptly put on my airport face and kept trudging. Then it dawnned on me later. Yeah, that was one of those times that that zone was there. And, man, I could have been just anywhere and wouldn't have felt a bit better. And what it really comes down to to me is three things that will produce the zone. And I think it's the product of what I'm talking about in practicing these principles. When I am who I'm supposed to be with no pretense, with no sham, I'm in tune with the natural rhythms of who I'M supposed to BE. be. And I'm where I'm supposed to be, and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. Man, that zone just happens. And I become about as strong as they come. I'm borderline bulletproof when I get like that. And that's what happens with these principles as a way of life, by being in tune with nature. My good buddy Julian who lives over in Boulder City, he's an old, old friend of mine, and took me to see Hoover Dam. And I was properly oohing and awing about how wonderful that was, and my God, that dam will be there forever. And old Julian just sort of stood there looking wise. And he let me get through with my ranting and raving. And he said, Tom, the river will win. And I said, what are you talking about? Man, that's 17 feet of concrete. That ain't going nowhere. But that river wasn't designed with a dam on it. and one day that old river will find a crack and the first thing you know that river will be back where it belongs and that's the way this is if I'm in tune with the stuff now what happens and I'll tell you this just real quick because it is getting there tell you what happens just like the book says you'll be amazed before you're halfway through I finally got out of jail and I want to just tell you about just as quick as I can about just some major miracles because I have my life, and I want to do it in the interest of anybody who's wavering in the Hope Department. When I left that prison, the only thing I had was a heart full of hope and a deep-seated commitment to never go through that kind of indignity again. And I knew that this program was it for me. I didn't have to start anything. All I did was just move my membership to a new place. And I'm telling you, it was amazing. Two weeks after I was out, somebody asked me to go and visit a prison where they had an aid group. I didn'T think they'd ever let me go in to visit, guys. Two weeks after I was out, I was back visiting guys in a joint. It wasn't one I was in, but it was a joint, and there were guys there just like me. Two months after I Was Out, I Was Named Outside Sponsor of that group. An amazing thing, an amazing thing. Man, I tell you, most people wouldn't see that as some euphoric kind of event. Now, I couldn't have been more gratified if they'd elected me governor. What a tremendous affirmation. About the same point, my parole supervisor came to me one day and said, He said, Tom, you're a little active. I said, hey, thanks. Yes, sir. And I thought you were going to tell me to slow down. I knew I wouldn't. He said wouldn't it help you if you could drive? And I said yes, sir, but I can't as if he didn't know. And he said let me take a look at that. A couple weeks later he called me and asked me to meet him at the Sears store uptown. And to give you some clue about where we live, that's where the license agency was. And this story is true in every detail. I walked up in front of that Sears story. I could see my man all the way at the back of the store at the counter with the guy that was the license agent. I walked up to him. We visited a minute. The man, the license agent, handed me a driver's license. Didn't even ask me if I could drive. Didn't take a test of any kind whatsoever. Didn't Even pay for it. Now, you know that's illegal, isn't it? There ain't no way they're just going to hand out a driver'S license. But they did. I've had people say, well, you must have been well-connected politically. Yeah, I sure was. I knew the sheriff of that county very well. I'll tell you what I deeply believe is that that's one of God's miracles, and when God's got work for us to do, the walls come down. And I don't care what they are. I know that not only on the basis of my life but hundreds and hundreds of my buddies. Five months after I was out, I was elected DCM in the service structure of my state. I barely could spell DCM. I'd finished two years at Michigan State, but we didn't major in spelling much. And I wasn't campaigning for that job. I didn't even know it was available. I didn't realize that's the best way to get elected. It meant an awful lot to me because I was the same guy who wondered if he would ever be trusted by anybody to do anything. And here were the people in 12 cities asking me to be their trusted servant. What a tremendous, tremendous homecoming, in a way. Two years after I was out sitting at my house one day, I got a phone call from the state capitol. Normally for a guy like me, that would be really bad news. And this guy identified himself. He worked with the Department of Correction in North Carolina, and he visited the group I sponsored one time. So I'd met him, didn't know him. But he said, Mr. Ivester, we are expanding our rehabilitation program in our prisons. And we were wondering if you would consider accepting a position in that. And the first thing I said to him was, are you sure you know who you're talking to? I mean, there had never been an ex-con in history hired or anything like that. And I knew they weren't going to start with me. And so he assured me that they probably knew me better than I knew myself, and they had checked me out, of course. And I never believed that would happen. You know, up here I said, God, I'd rather do that than anything I could possibly imagine. Down here, you know what I said. There ain't no way. But lo and behold, it did. And I was employed as a rehab supervisor for the prison system. Very awkward place to be in. There was nobody to talk to because I was the only one around. But this program is what pulled me through. A few years after that, I'd never have carried up, eight or nine, something like that. I was enjoying everything I was doing, mud wrestling with the guys. I really loved it. And one day the head of the prison system called me and asked me to come by his office. I went by. He said, Tom, I would like for you to take an assignment for me. And I said, yes, sir, what? Normally he wanted me to pinch hit for him at a civic club or something. And I says, sure. He said I'd like for your to take over an institution as warden. And I thought, God, when I got up off the floor, I said, Boss, I don't know if I want to do that or not. I don' t want to be the man. I don''t want to mud wrestle. I don ''t want that to be a keeper. And then I decided to do it. And that started a tremendous career for the next 20 years. That's what I did was an operating institution. My specialty was developing new facilities, and I had the opportunity to do some very important work, at least in my vision of things. I'm not running institutions anymore. I'm still with Corrections. I'm as busy as I've ever been, and I work with the system statewide now, and I don't run one particular institution any longer. That's obviously very meaningful to me personally, but what really counts to me, That's kind of like alcohol is to alcoholism. That's very, very important stuff and it's significant. And I hope for anybody that's got a question about the future that that will reinforce the hope because I don't care who you are, I don' t care where you come from, you could not possibly have a more bleak future than this guy had. And unbelievable things have happened in my life. I've gone to the very top of a profession. Now, I didn' t just... I mean, they don't... I don''t know of anybody that' s marketing for ex-convicts. I didn't, I was not appointed a warden because I was a good inmate. Yeah, I did bother to work very hard and I bothered to finish my education in correctional administration. I wasn't particularly ambitious. I just wanted to serve and I've had a, God, what a wonderful career. Wouldn't trade it with anybody in the world, nobody in the World. And so it's certainly a significant, it's symbolically important, but it's very important to me personally. The other thing though that really counts, you know, when I left that, You know, of all the things a guy dreams about in a prison, that kind of a career track would never enter the picture, would it? Now, those aren't what counts. What I dreamed about when I was at that place was if I could just be out and be a free person physically, if I Could just have an honest job, make a living, if I can be a citizen of a town I never had been. Things like that, just simple stuff. And I'm here to tell you that dreams do come true. true. They truly do. I'm a citizen now. I am a citizen in every sense of the word, and a pretty darn good one. I pay my taxes regularly. Don't even complain. Vote every time the polls open I vote. Sometimes I don't even know who I'm voting for. But I vote because I remember when I couldn't. And I do that. We have a home there that we now own far more of it than the bank does. It'll be paid for pretty quick. And 33 years ago, I met a delightful little lady while I was up in Saskatchewan trying to do God's work. Didn't want to get captured by no Canadians. But I met her. I met that little gal up there and she lit my fuse, I'll tell you that. And I tell you, Southerners talk slow and some people get faked out by that. But this girl was working for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And I'm a fugitive-looking guy from North Carolina, and she left everything, unbelievable, she left every thing she knew and owned and moved down to my state. And 30 years ago last July, we started 30 years of continuous marriage. Wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff, I say. And I'll tell you this without elaborating one second on it, at one of the most beautiful moments in my entire recovery. We talk about relationships and how to form relationships and how To have good relationships. I'll just tell you this for what it's worth. I think you have to hit bottom in relationships much like you do in alcoholism. And when the day came that I knew that I, honest to God, wanted to make a commitment to this lady, that was the most beautifully moment in my life. when I knew that I genuinely loved another human being and that love wasn't something you find or fall in or junk like that, that love had to do with caring about somebody wanting to take care of them. When I asked her to let me be her husband, that's exactly what I meant. Thirty years later, that marriage is as strong or stronger and I love her even more deeply. That's a beautiful thing. That comes, I had never had a good relationship with a single person at that level in my entire life. This program gave me that. And we've got a couple of kids that have done well. One of them went bad, became a psychologist. Joe, I'm sorry about that. Tried to talk her out of it, get her to join the Army or something, but she wouldn't. And so now she's in that field. And I have a son who's a physician that, those kids, I thought they were both airheads. I really did. But I think, if anything, they didn't inherit any brain power from me particularly. And I don't really think from their mother that what they had was a home where recovery was in place. And they've never once had to be ashamed to bring anybody home. They've never Once had to deal with violence, loud, abusive profanity. They've had a home Where they could live, where they could be nurtured, where that could be supported, and man, I'll be ever grateful for that. That's a tremendous, tremendous figure. Those are the dreams that count. I'm an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't used to be. I still am. And my earnest hope is that I remain active in this program. I want to live till I die. I don't want to die before I die." I see a lot of people who walk around and it's all done except for breathing, and I don' t want to do that. You know, I want to be a vibrant member of Alcoholics Anonymous who's doing good stuff with other alcoholics. Yeah, I'm somebody who is still on fire about AlcoholicsAnonymous, and the reason for it is I still do the things that light the fire. If you're not on fire, if you're absolutely enthused and burning to share this with somebody else, for God's sakes, light that burner, man. You only got one shot at this thing called life. And wherever you are, I wish you the best. Thank you. Thank you.