An Attitude of Gratitude Is an Action Word – Hal M.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Hal Marley. I'm a very grateful alcoholic from Washington, D.C. I use my full name because I do not practice personal anonymity within the fellowship of AA, but you can be sure I'll respect yours. I am in awe of this fantastic group here tonight. Fantastic, to use a Keith Carpenter statement. Fantastic. I was privileged to be in New York at the Bill Wilson dinner a week ago last Saturday. I met a lot of old friends I hadn't seen in some time, and I was amazed at that. But nothing compared to tonight. My God. I've met people from New Zealand that I knew. Russ, I met an old State Department friend who's stationed, George T. and his wife are stationed in Bamiko. That's deep, dark Africa for you non-geographical experts. All over the world, they're all here tonight. you know, God forbid, but if a bomb dropped on this room tonight, A would be set back 54 years. Wiped out. WipED OUT. You heard Dick talk about gratitude. You heard Nancy talk about gratitude. And guess what I'm going to talk about? So are you going to get a triple shot of gratitude tonight? I am a grateful alcoholic and I try to live an attitude of gratitude because I've got so much to be grateful for and I said tonight my gratitude cup runneth over it is indeed a privilege a pleasure and for me an undeserved honor to be here to participate in this auspicious occasion celebrating Clancy's 30th year of continuous, devoted, selfless service to Alcoholics Anonymous. I met Clancy in 1968 at the first Midland Midwinter. He and Chuck were two of the main speakers. I was very impressed with the quality of his sobriety. Twenty years ago, during the intervening 20 years, I've had the privilege of hearing Clancy three or four times a year. I get to visit this group once or twice a year. We get him in Washington at least once a year to give us a shot in the arm that we need. He's spoken to my home group, The Ayes and Nays, which meets every Tuesday morning at 8 o'clock a.m. in the capital of the United States. And I was supposed to be in Bristol, England last month where Clancy spoke. For those of you who haven't kept over his itinerary, he spoke Saturday night at the Blue Bonnets conference in Scotland and Glasgow. He spoke Monday night in Dublin, Ireland. Then he went to the opposition in Whatcher Belt Pass. The next night he came over to Bristol and spoke at the reunion of A.O. Reunion in Bristol, an old meeting that's been going on for a number of years. And I don't know whether he shared this with you. Saturday night they had two speakers. Fancy was number two. The first speaker was a non-alcoholic Jewish rabbi from London named Lionel Blue. I tried to connect him with Ben Blue, but he refused to acknowledge any connection. At any rate, Lionel Bleu, non- alcoholic Jewish rabi, stood up there for 50 minutes at that podium telling jokes about himself and stuff, trying to entertain all non-AA chatter. I was sitting with Clancy, and the time came when the rabbi started to unwind. I started wondering, now, how in the hell is Clancy going to segue from this non-alcoholic Jewish rabbi into his AA message? Now, I have confidence in Clancy. I knew he'd do it. I didn't know how he would do it, but Mr. Empson came to the podium, him, and he segued. He segued beautifully. And if you hadn't heard that tape, I suggest you get a copy of it because he did a fantastic job. I know you would enjoy it. So out of the privilege of knowing and admiring and loving this gentleman for many, many years. Back in my early sobriety, I was attending some meetings in Chicago, and I ran into a a gentleman named Doug Doolittle, old Chicago. He was the honcho of the Kitchen Table Group, west side of Chicago. Doug, God bless his soul, died of cancer some years ago. Anyway, Doug gave me a little book. It was Henry Drummond's The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drumond's treatise about love. And in the front of that book, Doug had inscribed, Love is delight in the well-being of others. AA is love in action Love is delight In the well-being of others And AA is Love in action Now I think those remarks Are very pertinent to this evening's program But Mr. Emerson In my opinion has spent 30 years Of his life Helping alcoholics Get into AA and get sober He has spent thirty years Being delighted in the well-being of others. If you want to look at action, there's no more living example of love and action than Clancy. So it is indeed a privilege, a pleasure, and an undeserved honor to be here with him and all your wonderful people tonight. I guess I'd better start at the beginning. My first drink was in New York City. I worked my way through college as a dance orchestra. I was a trumpet player, 802 New York City. You know, booze and the dance band business goes hand in hand. I had my first drink at Columbia as a freshman in New York City in 1933. I was 18 years old. For those of you who are slowing your mathematics, stop figuring. I'll give you the answer. It's 73, 73, so you don't have to figure it out. And booze was my best friend and became my best friend for many, many years. I drank for 32 years, and the majority of those years were grace. Booze was the basic ingredient in gracious living. I loved it and enjoyed every drink of it. Booz lessened the pain of reality. It made reality acceptable. Booge made good things better and better things best. And it was a great relationship, just couldn't get enough of that booze. Some of you will not remember Mae West. She had a one-liner that expressed my feelings towards booze very succinctly. And he said, Too much of a good thing is wonderful. And that's how I felt about this booze. It couldn't get enough. One person had a disease called alcoholism, which is progressive. And it progressed. In 1955, I was an Air Force career officer pilot stationed at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland as the air ratty day. Now here after drinking too much too long, our guests, I crossed that line from social drinking into addiction. I became dependent upon alcohol, I became addicted to alcohol, and I became an alcoholic. And also I became an alcoholic in Warsaw because this is where I lost my story. Up until then I drank because I wanted to drink with nice people in nice places, gracious livings, a wonderful life. But I drank because I wanted to, with nice people and nice places in the city. I didn't have to drink. But in Warsaw, I suddenly realized I had to drink to live. I had drink to function. I had lost my soul. And I crossed that line from social drinking into addiction. Warsaw was a hardship place for at least three years. I spent the three years, but I never had it so well in my family and I in terms of material things before or since. Came back to the States in 1968, debriefing all Iron Curtain out-of-state because of a horrendous 21 days in Washington. Being coerced by the intelligence analysts and CIA, the State Department, NSA, military, and so forth. I was supposed to be the expert on the Polish Air Force and the Soviet Air Force in Poland. For this, I thought it would be a cheap performance. I had to have some booze inside of me. So I'd get up in the morning, be up here saying, have a couple shots to keep me getting well for the briefing. And I had to have booze with me throughout the day so I turned my booze around in an Attishay case labeled Top Teacher for obvious reasons. And I get to the first briefing, excuse me gentlemen, I have to go to the men's room, my Attishaya case has classified material, I must take it with me. End of the John, bloat, bloat. Next briefing. End ofthe day, back to the BOQ and I realize I've consumed one bottle of booze nipping out of that Attishaye case. but the normal cocktails at lunch and dinner. And in a moment of lucidity, I realized it was beyond the realm of social drinking. The little computer went back 17 years, 1941. I was a second lieutenant on the horse cavalry, New York National Guard from New York City, Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Like all guard units, we were inducted for one year of federal service. March 1st, 1941, one of our cohorts came into the happy hour. We met for happy hour every afternoon at 5.30 and wrote that Jack Alexander article in the Saturday Evening Post, March 1, 1941 and read excerpts to us over the bar during happy hour. And I remember our reaction. Mixed with pity and sorrow for poor alcoholics. They joined AA and they were going to live but they could never drink again as long as they lived. Horrible, horrible. For all the stresses of our imagination, we couldn't picture a happy life without booze. Here it was 17 years later, and I remember that article. And I thought I remembered it saying that these alcoholics could not stop drinking on their own. They had to join AA. There they found out and they stopped. But they couldn't stop on their owns. So a little computer says, if you can stop drinking alone, you're not an alcoholic. And I stopped on May 1st, 1958 in San Francisco. My next of kin was Hamilton Air Force Base, San Francisco, March 1st. Not a drop for eight months. Went back to gymnasium, lost 20 pounds of fat I'd picked up in Europe. Never felt better physically in my life. Went back church. There had been no open churches in Warsaw. Hadn't been to church in three years. Back to church, paying lip service. At the office, occasional cut on the back. Things looked good. but inside I was the most bored, resentful, unhappy, sober person in the state of California. This was May 1st, 1958. Those of you who are good on your chronology, at that same time, in a little city some hundred, couple hundred miles below San Francisco called Los Angeles, there was a drunk wandering around named Fancy Emerson in his last throes of fighting the bottle. As you know, Clancy had his last drink on October 31st, 1958, six months after I stopped drinking. Now if, if I hadn't gone back to the bottle, it's a big yes, I would have six months seniority on Clancy. Six months senior already on Clency. I came back as close as I've ever come to AA fame. That close. I was that close, and I blew it. I stayed sober for eight months on my own. It was a horrible life. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. I stopped drinking. That was my problem. I should be well. I should have been happy. I hadn't had a drink in eight months. So obviously booze wasn't my problem, and what was? Sobriety was my trouble, ladies and gentlemen. I couldn' handle the reality that went along with sober living. Just me. I didn't have any tools. I didn' t know that I had a disease called alcoholism, pre-trial disease, mental, physical, and spiritual. And on my own, still in the driver's seat, I'd been able to cope with the physical aspects of alcoholism. I'd stopped drinking. If you put the plug in the jug, that takes care of the physical aspect. But on my arm, still on the driver seat, still running the show, I had not been able cope with mental and spiritual aspects of this disease. It was just me, and that's all I had, and I wasn't enough. It was sobriety, a dryness of life without meaning, without purpose, without direction. Sobriety without AA, and it wasn't Enough for Me. I went back to drinking, drank for six more years, came back to Washington, D.C.I., the best job there was in the Air Force for someone of my background. A member of the faculty at the National War College, the highest educational institution in the federal government, had a wonderful wife and daughter, had the world by the tail. I had it all right in my hand. And I drank it all away. This was in the days where the military, the Air Force had a solution for its drinking problem. They kicked them out. Very good way to take care of the booze problem. And they didn't kick me out. They allowed me to retire. I had a choice. They said, you can stay in and we'll court-martial you and take away your pension or you can sign these retirement papers. Fairly simple decision I had to make there. At any rate, the Air Force got rid of me. And the psychiatrist, God bless him, I went to the psychiatrist. And again, by the grace of God, I picked a psychiatrist unknowingly who was a recent graduate of Columbia PNF, one of the first medical schools to teach about alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous. After 30 days with him, he said, Howie, you're not psychotic. You're not crazy. You're an alcoholic. And I, as a psychiatrist, can't help you with your booze problem, but there is an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous. I suggest you go see them. And I turned my first day of moving, November 17th, 1964, at the Venice Air Group to East 90th Street in New York City. By the grace of God, this program, and people like Clancy and all of your wonderful, wonderful winners. I haven't found it necessary or desirable to ingest any mood-changing chemical into my body. Ten days in New York City, I was at a third step meeting, short of that, and those days, three meetings a day, beginners' meeting at 7.30, 8.15 upstairs for the regular speakers' meeting, noonday meeting, so a minimum of three a day. And I was attending a third-step meeting, And I said, my name is Hal. I'm a grateful alcoholic. And I'm doing just what you told me. Falling direction. As far as the third step's concerned, I don't drink. I come to meetings and God, it's all yours. But you told Me, let go. Let God. Turn it over. Turn itover. And I thought that's all I had to do. Stop drinking. Go to meetings. And God, It's all Yours. One of the old farmers called me out after me and said, Hal, you misunderstood or misread the third step. It doesn't say turn your life over to God. to turn your will and your life over to the care of God. So you think all you have to do is stop drinking, go to meetings, and God's going to take care of everything. There's no other best way. God does the impossible, and you haveと do the possible. But this is a program of action, and you are the action officer. God will do the impossible. I'll do the possibly. He told me God would do nothing for me I could do for myself. And what I did, this is a program of action. He quoted Bill Wilson in the program called Joy of Living is a Theme and Action is the Key Word. Action, action, action. And I was the action officer. And he says, another one-liner from Yogi Berra, the famous New York catcher. Yogi was a man of action and Yogi said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it! Action, action, action. Program of action. So what I did was the third step was form a partnership with God. God's my senior partner. I'm the junior partner. Very close partnership. Don't have to go through any secretary, telephone to get to my senior partners. Available at all times and all places for whatever help, support, guidance I need. And it is a close partnership I'm aware of the long-range plans. I know there are deadlines next week, next month, next year, but I don't project how modern are those deadlines. I'm not responsible for next week, next month, next year. My responsibility in implementing these long-range plans is one day at a time. And sometimes a day is too much. An hour at a Time, five minutes at atime, little chunks I can manage. And my sponsor warned me there would be some days where I didn't get my way, these seemingly bad days, where all I could do is sit there and bite the bullet. And he taught me how to do that, too. And again, they're telling me some of these seemingly bad days where everything seems to go wrong, where mercy's law is operating on all sinners. His answer was to stop whatever he was doing and repeat a little psalm from the Bible. So whenever I have these seemingly good days, these seemingly Bad Days, and I must admit they've been fewer and fewer over the years, but occasionally they occur, and whenever it happens, I just stop whatever I'm doing and read this little psaum. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. 46 Psalm 10th verse. And I find by repeating that for a few seconds or a minute or whatever time I have, get back into the proper frame of reference, back to sense of values, back to being able to accept that reality that I couldn't accept for so many years. so this partnership with God has worked beautifully for me and there's a gentleman Al Brown God bless his soul Al is a Jesuit priest who died he came in in 64 died of cancer a couple years ago Al had this concept of God partnership with God summed up in eight words much better than I can sum it up Al said without God I can't without me He won't and that's it ladies and gentlemen And without God, I can't. Without me, he won't. So if any of you are having trouble managing your lives, may I suggest you look into this partnership with God concept and understand there are a few partnerships still open and the price is right. It's a good time to buy in. The market's going up. A few minutes I have left. I want to talk about gratitude because that's how to live an attitude of gratitude. It is the basis of my program. Now, for the newcomer, don't misunderstand me. No booze a day at a time is the basics of my programming. Don't drink and go to meetings. However, most of us find sobriety is progressive, just like our disease. And many of us, by the grace of God, give on him all this no booze a day of the time and are able to channel our small talents in other pursuits. They told me to be a grateful alcoholic. They told me if I saw a grateful alcoholic, I'd see a sober alcoholic. They told Me if I wanted the roses that came along with this program, I had to accept the thorns because roses have thorns. And ladies and gentlemen, I've learned to be grateful for the thorn. The thorns of reality. Most of them haven't. But they make me appreciate the roses all the more. They told My there's no law of physics. Two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time. And therefore, if I had a heart full of gratitude, there would be no room in my heart all my life for anger and fear and guilt and remorse, self-pity, resentment. All those things are driving our colleagues back into the bottom. So no matter how bad it gets, no matter what they do to me, even though they are wrong and I'm right, if I approach that individual or that situation and use the tools you've given me, The virtues that come from an attitude of gratitude, if I face that individual or that situation with patience and tolerance and kindness and generosity and understanding and compassion and humility and love, the principles of alcoholic synonymous. If I use these two as you've given me, I can happily accept any situation or any individual that comes down the pipe. And I emphasize that word happily accept, not begrudgingly accept, not copingly accept. Happily accept any situation or any individual that comes down the pipe. Misery is optional, ladies and gentlemen. Misery ist optional. Can't change reality, but I can change my attitude towards reality. And I can't emphasize the word happy enough. I want you to take a damn view of these eight gurus who stand up here and put up a big book by page number. There's usually one in every group. Horrible. However, on page 133, it says God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. And that's God's will for me, ladies and gentlemen. And on the preceding page it says we absolutely insist on enjoying life. And that spells it out for me ladies and gentleman. That's the A way of life. Happy, joy, and freedom. Enjoying this way of living. This is the way of live. a few months later my sponsor said you got a gratitude list I said a gratitude what's that things you're grateful for have you written them down I said no what do you mean just got kicked out of the air force I'm bankrupt mentally physically spiritually financially I can't get a job so now you have a gratitude list things you are grateful for I said I don't know what I'm grateful for he said ok you write and I'll dictate so I got my paper and pencil and said write down you're grateful you're alive ok You're grateful you're sober. Grateful I'm sober. You're gratefully a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Okay. You're gratefully got over 300 friends you didn't know three months ago. All members of AA. Okay. Gratefully you got a place to sleep tonight. Okay. Grateifully you got food tonight. Okay. You're grately got job. Wait a minute, don't have a job. Remember, got kicked out of the airport. Grateful you don't. Don't have job gives you more time to go to AA meetings. So I went to a lot of meetings. Total immersion, total immersion. First thing I said, now, no big deal sitting around these meetings saying, my name is so-and-so, I'm a grateful alcoholic. I said words are cheap. Words are cheap, we have to live an attitude of gratitude. As Dick mentioned, gratitude is an action word, an action world, not a passive word. You've got to live and attitude of gratitude. Ladies and gentlemen, I wouldn't presume to try to tell you how to live an attitude or gratitude anymore. where I tell you how to work the steps. It's an individual program, easy does it but good, but I will show you how I try to live an attitude of gratitude. So as I open my eyes in the morning, I get out of my bed on my knees and I thank God for those three basics. Number one, I'm alive. Number two, I am sober. And number three, I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I figure with those three things going for me, I am in pretty good shape. Not just to cope with another day. I don't like the white teeth, white knuckle, clenched teeth implications of the word coat. Well, those three things going for me, I'm in pretty good shape to live and thoroughly enjoy another 24 hours of the AA way of life because that's what it is for me later, gentlemen, a way of light. It's not something I joined. It's something I live a day at a time. So on my knees in the morning and on my knee at night, still no big deal. Let the good Lord know I'm grateful. But about nine to five, out in that real world, That reality that I had so much trouble with. Ladies and gentlemen, prayer has become increasingly important in my daily life. My original sponsor was a Methodist minister, Tom L. He taught me a lot about prayer. He referred me to Norman Vincent Peale's little poem, Action Prayers, Thinking Prayers. Shooting Prayers is a book called God Calling. It's another daily reading that I use for quite a bit. I was leading a meeting in the Washington area a couple of years ago. closed me in the subject of the third step prayer relieve me of the bondage of self is one of my quotes and I talked about the the fact that I had to kill self and there's a quote from the God Calling book on May 3rd, kill self now and I was repeating it you've got to kill yourself now you've gotta kill yourself now and relieve me of the bindage of itself and the kill self, kill self now, now, now. A little girl came in late. She asked her seat and they said, what's the subject? She said, suicide, suicide. But that's what I have to do. Kill myself, commit suicide a day at a time for the rest of my life. One of the prayers that I use every day is January 12th in the 24-hour book. I pray that I may be grateful for the things I have received and do not deserve. I pray that this gratitude will make me truly humble. What that prayer says at all for me, it reminds me from whence I came, it reminds мне that my sobriety is a gift from God, a pure case of serendipity, undeserved gifts. And the second part about humility reminds me of the definition my sponsor gave me many years ago. Humility is a recognition of the allness of God and the nothingness of self, But nothing is a self. Of myself, I am nothing. Now, I was leading a meeting on this again. Someone said, oh, you've been to a lot of meetings. Yeah, I got a few 25. You deserve real credit. I said, no. Of myself I am Nothing. It's a matter of record. For 49 years, self ran the show. And I ended up, as I told you, kicked out of the Air Force. My life, total disaster. That's the end result when self ranthe show. Came into this program in the partnership with God. And things are different. As long as I keep killing self, I'm sure it will continue to be as good as it has been in the past and even better. Another book that I use to try to live an attitude of gratitude is Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God. Let me stop for a minute. For the newcomers here, forget about God calling, forget about Brother Lawrence. I'll tell you what Chuck Chamberlain told me many years ago. Everything I need to know to solve any problem as long as i live is contained in the first 164 pages There's a big book called Alcoholics Anonymous. Everything I need to know. As Chuck said, putting the plug in the jug to take care of the booze problem. But most of us have living problems. And we need the spiritual interpretation of those 12 steps to solve any living problems we'll ever have as long as we live. So if you're new to karma, you stick to those first 164 pages. Forget about these other books. At least until you reach the first level of sobriety. I don't know what the first plateau out here is. The first level of sobriety back in Washington is when your sponsor lets you go to meetings by yourself. When you reach that level, then you can go to these auxiliary complimentary readings I'm talking about. The lives come on, so I'm going to have to wind this up. So, I would like to extend to Clancy my admiration, my respect, my love. Because the big book says somewhere that our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God. and, in my opinion, Clancy has spent the last 30 years of his life in selfless, dedicated service to God and the people about him. Thank you. Congratulations, Clancy. Thank you all for listening, and God bless you. Our first ten-minute speaker tonight will be Dick M. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dick Martin, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. But for the grace of God and sponsorship and the actions of AA, I've been sober since September 15, 1965, and I'm very pleased about that. That's not a world record. It's not anything. It's nothing important to you except to show you the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous, by my example, works. And it works for a long time or a short time. It only works a day at a time, however, and that's one thing that I've had to learn over and over and over again. I was having a conversation with one of my hosts this evening, spent, came out here for the celebration this evening. And my host, he and I were talking about gratitude. And I said, gratitude to me is not something that I can really talk about. It isn't a commodity or something I can put my hands on or I can grasp. It isn'T something thatI can give away. It isn' t something that's a piece or a part of me. And gratitude is something that'S an action. It's an action that I am willing to show when I can get out of myself long enough to do it. And I think that the things that we talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous that we can't talk about are things like gratitude, are things likes God, are things likethumility. And I don't think that we really talk about those and express them. I think there are actions that we take. I think as an end result of taking those actions, we feel the feeling which is undescribable. And it's something that's undescribal to me, indescribable by me. And I've listened to many people attempt, and they make a certain dent, but somehow or another it always misses for me. It always misses for me." I think that probably the times when I feel gratitude the most are after I go on a 12-step call. And, I can walk away whether the person is going to go to AA or not go to AA or whatever it happens to be. But as I walk away from that circumstance and that person, I think to myself, you know, your burdens are a little bit lighter. Not in comparing myself with him, but because I've shared my burdens with him. And Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of sharing. And we learn to share those things that are a piece and a part of us and give them away to somebody else, and it helps them. And it's strange. It's the strangest sort of thing that we can, as our book tells us, give away those secrets of our deep, dark past and give Them to Somebody Else, and It helps Them, but yet in turn, It helps Us. And It helps us because I believe we know we are in part helping somebody else. I think that feelings are something that we all have, and I think the feelings are something that you should all ignore. I can tell you this, every time something happens to me, everytime another car goes down the street or everytime her walks by, I get strange and different feelings, and The car is different from her, I'll tell you. And so my feelings and what I think and what are inside of me, and I am given to do that thinking occasionally, are disturbed by all and any outside elements. Even when I am thinking of good things, they can be disturbed, and I can be distracted, and I kan be easily distracted from those things. And Alcoholics Anonymous has told me that I need not worry about those things that I think about. I need to do something else. I need the right thing to do. I need a way to take some action to change so that I don't think about those things on a constant basis, so that I can clear my mind of things that are unimportant and perhaps spend some time and some understanding thinking about about things that are good, thinking about a life that's good. Thinking about a light that was given to me many years ago in AA of a beginning of understanding that I can have some sort of a relationship with a higher power, if you wish, or as God as I understand it. And it took me many years of struggling in Alcoholics Anonymous before I could come to some sort of a conclusion about that. I was afraid of God. I was worried that he might find out where I was if I prayed, and that would be the end of that. And I heard a man speak at a conference, and he talked about a remark that Bill Wilson had made. And he talked about Bill Wilson speaking of the living presence of God. And Bill talked about the living presences of God, saying that he felt that presence whenever he was with other people who thought like he did, who thought in a direction of good that he thought. And he said he felt it that way at any time that he was at a gathering with other AA members. He felt the magic. He felt the magic, and he felt the delight, and he built the uplifted feeling of the living presence of God. And I heard about that, and I thought, well, now I've heard other AA members talk about this, and da-da-da, da-да-da. And they talk about hearing about God through another human being. And I've read about that ever since I was a toddler. but I didn't hear the right thing. I didn' t hear the right thing at all. What I learned to find out is that there are well-meaning people in my life. There are well- meaning people in AA and there are well- meaning people outside of AA who have thoughts that are good towards me and I can listen to them and somehow or another I hear what I need to hear and that message that I hear is one of joy and one of comfort and one of understanding. I like to think that somehow or another that my life today is going through, and I'm passing along this way, putting a perhaps positive feeling, a positive attitude, a good attitude, a kind attitude in those people whose lives I touch because before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I was destruction and I destroyed and hurt and harmed every person that was close to me I know no person who was close to me who didn't cry because of the things that I did as a practicing alcoholic and I can tell you that AlcoholicsAnonymous has allowed me to live my life to the point where I have seen very few tears that I have caused since I've been sober And I think that there's something that's different about me. I think what's different has been given to me because I've had excellent sponsorship, because I have had good attitudes towards helping others, and because I'm able to accept the help that's been offered me. I would be remiss if I didn't say that I was a member of the Fox Hall group in Bellevue, Nebraska, I know that that means nothing to you. I'm also a member of the Pacific Group, and I gave my candle money to him several weeks ago, and I feel like I'm a member here. I feel Like I'm A Member because you all are like I am, and you feel an act in Alcoholics Anonymous like I feel an Act in Alcoholic Anonymous. And there's a camaraderie and a fellowship that I wouldn't want to miss, and I'm here, and i'm not missing it. And I'm a part of it, and you're a part of it. And it's good to be here. I want to thank Clancy for asking me to speak this evening. It's a privilege to speak at my other home group, and it's a pleasure to be with you. And happy birthday, sir. Thank you.