Broke a Sweat at the Sight of My Own Shoelaces — Sponsor Said Have You Ever Thought of Loafers 🤦 – Casey C.

Oh, where are they? Cut, cut. They're all in. Sorry. It's okay. There we go. They're here. Thank you, Constance. Thank you. I'm Bruce, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Bruce. The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out. And twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. There we go. Obviously, it's the first time I've done this. Would Cheryl R. please read the Twelve Traditions? I am Cheryl R. Grateful. Al-Anon, from Colorado. I'm going to read the Twelve Traditions. One, our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. Two, for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God, as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern. Three, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. Four, each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. Five, each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Six, an AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, leaves problems of money, property, and prestige to divert us from our primary purpose. Seven, every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, defining outside contributions. Eight, alcoholics anonymous should remain for ever non professional but our service centers may employ special workers. Nine, AA as such ought never be organized but may create service boards, or committees, directly responsible to those they serve. Ten, alcoholics anonymous has no opinion on outside challenges. Ten, alcoholics anonymous is subscribed to your services and may working attending outside activities. Ten, AA as such should not be abused by outside members, such as intertwining contracts, psicotherapy, or fight or foley matches did. Ten, alcoholics anonymous has no opinion on outside участ mile dice cases, or elsewhereano communications or other sign language issues. issues. Hence, the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. Eleven, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. Twelve, anonymity is a spiritual foundation for all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. The format for tonight's meeting, I guess I speak for five minutes. I've never timed myself. Would somebody please tell me when five minutes are up? I guess I started, my name is Don, I'm an alcoholic. Thank you. I guess it all began when I was 15 years old. And like most 15 year olds, I wanted to escape. And I was at a Lake Marion ballroom near Hutchinson, Minnesota. And a friend of mine and myself, while all the parents were busy dancing the polka out on the floor, we ran around to various tables and chugged their drinks while they were out on the floor. And after a while, we found like a pint or a half pint, and we thought we struck gold. So we ran, we grabbed that and we ran outside and managed to drink that very quickly. And I hated the taste. I remember that. But I was looking for the high. I wanted to get that high that I'd seen, you know, the adults have. And so I wolfed that down along with my friend. And for a period of time, I was very happy. I was relieved. All the shame and guilt went away. I felt, I felt human. Thank you. Thank you. And then the physical part kicked in and pretty soon it all came right back up. And then we got the dry heaves. I was absolutely miserable. And I remember thinking, how can these people drink, you know? So that was my first experience. And also, I stayed over at my friends' house because I didn't dare go home and let my parents see me that way. So that's when the lies began. And from that point on, I knew I was good. I realized that I could do anything. And I on, even my next episode with alcohol, it was with beer, and I didn't like the taste of beer. But I drank it because I wanted to get that high. And that's sort of the story of my life. I knew the need was always there, and I tried to conceal it as much as I could throughout my life. Through high school, through college, after I was out of college, through my employment, and even once I started my own business. And I was constantly dodging and trying to make sure that I showed up to work in the morning, that I always did the right thing, and I tried to hide my drinking as much as possible. Everybody knew I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a drinker. I was a heavy drunk, or a heavy drinker, but nobody, I don't think, realized that I was as bad as I was. And to, at one point in the early 70s, my wife, my friends, my family, thought that I was in trouble. I thought I was doing just fine. So they had an intervention, and I acquiesced and decided to go. Went through treatment and managed to stay dry for eight years. And throughout that time period, I was doing, I was motivated primarily by my family, by my friends, by my employer, and eventually by my business partners. And I had to stay sober. And it was for them. I had to stay sober for them. And I never felt like I belonged in AA. I paid lip service to the whole program. Never got a good handle on the first steps. Never really connected with the higher power. It didn't register for me. So, after a couple of years, I was in AA. I was in AA for about a year and a half. And seven years or so, I stopped going to meetings. And after eight years of sobriety, I went back out. Stayed out for 19 years. And three years ago, during that period of using, I could, I was subconsciously, I'm convinced now, looking back in hindsight, that I was looking for ways to get rid of the AA. To get rid of all the responsibilities that I had in my life. All my connections with my family. And even my business partners. 1987, I burned out in business. And I bought a Harley and ran away. Took a year off work. My partners decided they didn't want me back. And I decided I didn't want to come back. So I sold out to them. There was one obstacle out of the way. Same time period, I got divorced. So there was another obstacle out of the way. My children were grown and through college or into college. And they were out of the house. So, slowly, I nipped away at all of these things that I had to stay sober for in the past. Or at least be respectable, I thought. And once I was all out of the way then, I could really start drinking. Which I did. I moved down to Texas. I wanted to get away from the snow. And I lived there for about eight years. And as time went by, and I was on my own, there was nobody to stop me. There was nothing to slow me down. So I started drinking heavier and heavier and heavier. Pretty soon, I started to isolate myself. Steve was talking the other day about ending up in his yellow rocking chair. Well, for me, it was a black leather recliner. And people would come to the door and say, Don, you've got to get out of here. You've got to go out. Couldn't budge me out of that chair. The only thing I went out for was my supply. And eventually, I had a sister that lived down in Houston. And they came, knocked on my door one day. And, uh... And, uh... They came up to see me. They came up to see me and saw how bad I was. I won't go into the details, but it was pretty embarrassing. And they called my daughters. My two daughters flew down from Minnesota, put me in the hospital. I was in the hospital for two or three weeks. I couldn't walk. I was incontinent. I couldn't keep food down. I didn't have any desire to eat. Then I joined the women's health system. And then I began to have surgery. And eventually, I was well enough to leave the hospital. And they put me into a mental institution where I was actually locked up. I couldn't leave the facility unless one of my family came and took me out. Uh... After about four months there, then I I went to... I started. My mine, my health started to coming back. Excuse me. And I, I went to a, uh...at the, uh... vet hospital. So, it could be three weeks. And I went to an assisted living facility with a lot of elderly people, which I'm not, of course. And so I had my own little room. I could sign out and come and go as I pleased. I was dieting when I was in the mental institution, so I lost a great deal of weight. And I would go walking every day. I could walk up to like two miles. Some days I walked as far as four miles. And I was starting to feel really good about myself. I could go up and down stairs, which I couldn't do before. When I was in the hospital, I couldn't even walk the length of a corridor without assistance. So feeling good, I convinced my daughters I should move out of there and get my own apartment. So I get my apartment, and things are going well. Well, it's the first thing I do. I go to the bar, start drinking all over again, get a DWI, and went through the whole legal business. And one of the requirements was I had to go to AA. So I went to AA, and again, played lip service. And through that process, I was drinking in between meetings. I was required to go one meeting a week. So I went to that one meeting. I didn't drink that day. But as soon as the meeting was over, I went to AA. And as soon as the meeting was over, I started. So I was cheating on the program. And then one day, my probation officer knocks on my door, and I failed the breathalyzer. He went all through my apartment, took all the booze in the house, and removed it and said, You're going to jail for a year. And that's the last thing. I thought that would kill me. And finally, they gave me the option to go to AA. And I said, I'm going to go to treatment instead. And so I convinced them I could handle all treatment, which I signed up for. So I made a conscious decision at that point that if I'm going to be under the scrutiny of the government, and they're going to be coming and knocking on my door and making sure that I'm not drinking, then I better stop. You know, I knew from my past experience that the only way that I could get out of here was if I didn't drink. So I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. I went to AA. And after that, I made a commitment to myself that if they're going to be coming and knocking on my door and making sure that I'm not drinking, then I better stop. I knew from my past experience that the only way that I could stop was to give it an honest, earnest effort. And I made a commitment to myself to do that very thing. So I got into treatment. And I made a commitment to go to 90 meetings in 90 days, which I came pretty darn close, in the 80s somewhere. And I worked very hard on that first step, and the second step, and the third step. And after a while, it started to take. And each day I prayed more and more, and pretty soon I started noticing that things started feeling better. And they said, just act as if, and I did. And I followed through with my daily prayers. I followed through with my daily readings. I was into a meeting every day. I went to the outpatient facility for two or three hours, three times a week. And I started to feel pretty good about myself. And after three, four months, I was noticing that I was much more comfortable with myself. Towards the end of my drinking, I was extremely lonely. I've been sort of a loner all my life, but I didn't... I'm grinding over, aren't I? I found by praying each day, and pretty soon I started talking to my higher power out loud, and pretty soon I had to go to bed. And I had a buddy. And the loneliness went away. I was absolutely amazed. And as a result, I've been able to stay sober for the last ten and a half months. For the first time in my life, I can honestly say that I have some serenity in my life, that I have some peace. And the biggest thing of all, I feel comfortable in my own skin for, I think, the first time in my life. And so I'm very optimistic that it's going to take. And I don't want to go back to where I was. So with that, I'll close. And now I'd like to introduce Casey. Hi, everybody. My name's Casey Crane. I'm an alcoholic. And what a story, huh? You know, sometimes it isn't what is said. It's the feeling in the room. And if you leave and you're glad to be sober and you're glad to be alive, that's all you need to get. When I'm leaving a meeting, I think, you know, I'm really proud to be part of this fellowship. I'm glad to be alive. I'm lucky to be alive. And I'm lucky to have the opportunities that I have today. And I've been, you know, even my friends that I play golf with say, you are the luckiest guy. You know. I'll hit a tree. It'll bounce on the green. I mean, you know. And my life is like that, too. And my life has been like that. And in a very short period of time, you're going to know me better than some of my blood relatives. And you're going to know exactly what I'm talking about. And it's not all that different from the stories that we've heard this week. It's not, you know, I've had the opportunity to go to meetings in a lot of different places now over the past 21 years. Twenty-one and a half. It's like a little kid. I'm not six. I'm six and a half, you know. Twenty-one and a half. And it's the same all over, you know. Sharon and I were last year in a country where the English is a second language. And we listened to a guy speak in Icelandic, which is based on Old Norse. It's a very guttural language, even more so than German. And I had somebody translating for me who was sitting right behind me. But after a few minutes, I didn't need the translator. I knew what he was saying, you know. And it's the feeling in the room. I want to thank Steve for asking me to come here and participate and for asking me and Sharon to come to this beautiful place. And any place out of L.A. lately is a real good deal, you know. Santa Barbara, Cabo San Lucas, La Jolla, it's all good. And I look around the room and I see all these cleaned up and bright and shining people. But after listening to the participation yesterday and the first day, I know that we've all been in some places where we didn't look so spiffy, you know. We looked like, as Johnny Ockerlund says, you know, I looked like the kind of person that would be spiffy. You know. It's like me stealing a half pint from a thrifty, you know. So I'm very grateful to be sober. I want to say it right up front and you'll see. You'll see also why Sharon and I seem to make a good set of bookends, a good match. I came from a good family. I grew up in Huntington, Long Island, New York. As my father's career progressed, we moved around to upstate New York and then to western Pennsylvania. And I went to college in Pennsylvania in high school. And in Huntington, I could swim before I could walk. We moved to upstate New York. Everything was going peachy. My parents were both college graduates. It wasn't crazy around our house. It was, you know, no screaming at midnight. Two weeks before my eighth birthday, I got polio. This was before the Salk vaccine. And for the next nine months, I was crippled. I got better a little bit at a time. But within a few days of having been diagnosed with polio, I couldn't wiggle my toes. My legs didn't work at all. And it was no big deal in a way, you know. I was, I kind of got to enjoy it. I learned how to be by myself and not need anybody but me. Of course, I was being weighted on hand and foot by everybody. I didn't even have a wheelchair. I was carried everywhere. Ah, the good old days, you know. And, you know, it even, but as self-centered as a person as I am, it didn't even occur to me until about five years ago that this must have been hell for my parents. You know, they had to travel to Syracuse to visit me in the hospital. I wasn't allowed in the same room as my younger brother and sister because it was infectious and I was, and it was incurable. And I was saved through a thing called the Sister Kenny method where nurses came in my hospital room every day and put boiling hot rags on my body with, everywhere except right on my eyes. And twice a day, every day, I tried not to cry. And twice a day, every day, I failed. But after that, you couldn't get me to cry, you know. That may not be a good thing, you know. It certainly is not. I became so divorced from my feelings. I became such a loner, weirdo, outlaw, Martian guy. Outlaw, Martian geek that I really succeeded beyond my wildest dreams because when I went back to third grade, it was almost the end of the year. The other kids were told, I'm sure, stay away from that kid that had polio. And so I was shunned and I was an outcast. And I thought, the hell with you. I don't need anybody but me anyway. I never liked you kids anyway, you know. And so I set out to escape. And the way that I did that was I retreated into a world of books. And I even kept a record of it from a Virgo, too, which I think might have something to do with it. From the time I was 10 until I was 17, I read at least one book every day that wasn't a school book cover to cover, at least one. And I started even before that, but I started writing it down and I kept all those little notebooks. And I lived in a world of books. And the only thing that kept me apart from being a complete loner and mute, was that I was grotesquely competitive. It turned out that when I got out of the hospital from the exercises they made me do, I was stronger and faster than the other kids. And by the time I was a senior in high school, I was captain of the track team and two other varsity sports, you know. But I never told anybody what I knew to be the truth. I was the crippled kid that had a 50-50 shot at ever walking again, and now I'm captain of the track team. Because we're the ultimate reverse psychology. You know, you tell us we're never going to do something again, get the hell out of the way, because we're going to do it in spades and we're going to just bomb right down the double yellow line. And that was my story. Now, by the time I was maybe 10 or 12, I could have used a double of something. But it took until I went off to Penn State. I was there a couple of weeks during orientation, and somebody shoved a can of beer in my hand. It was Shaffer's of Philadelphia, the beer to have if you're having more than one. Was there a little jingle back in those days? And I had two, which was all I needed to get rubber-legged drunk and stagger back to my dorm room and pass out. And when I woke up, I realized if I was ever going to fit into this world at all, I was going to have to learn how to drink. Now, I don't know where that thought came from, but something had happened in those few minutes in that dormitory room, one of those big bull sessions with, you know, 30 guys crammed in a room and several cases of beer, that I knew that this was going to be the magic elixir. So I got into training with alcohol like everything else I was ever any good at. And after drinking the 3-2 beer at frat parties and mixers and things like that, in the next couple of months, I learned how to hold down some of that watered-down beer, and life changed. It changed dramatically. I... I wasn't throwing up on myself or my dates. All of a sudden, I had a social life and alcohol had done it. And, you know, if you asked my parents, why is this kid in college, they'd say, so he can be self-supporting through his own contributions. If you asked me, I'd say, I'm here to run the mile. And because I was good at that. And that was the glory event at that time. And I even gave up golf for running the mile. You know, it was... Somebody should have counseled me there and say, you know, there's not a dime in running the mile. And... But anyway... So one day at practice, I ran a mile in 4 minutes and 7 seconds. And I was timed with a bunch of other kids. You know, I was one of a very talented group of freshmen that came into this program. We were second in the nation that year. I wasn't the best on the team. You know, there were other people that were older, that were proven distance runners and middle distance runners and so on. But the next day, a guy came up to me with a clipboard, one of the assistant coaches, and he said, Casey, at the rate you're going right now, by how much you've progressed from when you graduated, your best times from high school, and now what you're doing now, you will inevitably break the 4-minute mile within the next year and get ready for track season because, you know, attaboy, we're all with you. And I remember exactly what I thought when he said that. It's like I'm standing in front of him right now. I know I can do it. He knows I can do it. Everybody I run against knows I can do it. I don't have to do it. I'm done, you know. It's like the Catholic version of sin, I guess, you know. It's like you thought about it long enough and hard enough, you're going to burn in hell for it anyway. What the hell, let's do it, you know. But this is the reverse. I know that logically there's some omitted middle steps there, but that's all I needed. And I didn't ask anybody. I didn't go to a counselor or a professor or call my parents. I just thought it's happy hour down at the Rathskeller. Bring a sorority girl drink for free. Bingo. You know, who needs this running around in circles for it to be a footnote in a sports book somewhere? And that's it. I never ran competitively again. And that's the way things started to gradually shift. And, uh, one day somebody said, you know, you go to these football games, you ought to get some Southern Comfort and try taking it to the game. And I got myself a nice pint of Southern Comfort. I took it to the game. I remember I opened it up at half time because I didn't want to be, you know, there's 100,000 people in the stadium and I'm thinking, you know, somebody's going to notice me opening this bottle. I was such a shy, emotionally dwarfed introvert that I had no life. And this was going to be my key to life. And I bought two large Cokes, dumped out half of each one, dumped a half pint of Southern Comfort into each one of these babies. And in the next 10 minutes, I downed them both. Something good happened. I felt really warm and excellent inside. And I thought, I could run a four-minute flat right now. And I'd been invited to a party because I was started, you know, mixing it up with the other kids in the stands. And it was about a mile and a quarter away and I burned off a quick mile and a quarter getting to the party and I found out one of the laws of drinking. Vigorous physical exercise is contraindicated if you're drinking hard liquor. Because I'm sitting on the couch talking to a lovely young woman and the next minute I'm waking up packed in ice in the bathtub and nude. You know, you've been to parties where some moron's clogging up the bathroom, you know, for no apparent reason. Well, that was me on Southern Comfort. And so I never, ever, ever drank Southern Comfort again. You know, vanilla extract, okay. You know, maybe a little sterno. Never did. But I drank rubbing alcohol. But, you know, never Southern Comfort. You know, unless, of course, there was nothing available. One of those bendy rules. And, you know, where those lines keep sliding, you know. So that's my experience with that. But I was not a bourbon drinker. And before I left Penn State, before they heaved me out, I thought, you know, nobody that's really worthwhile is ever going to go to college anyway. And I tried a couple of more shots. At college, I wound up in Youngstown, Ohio. The dreaded 60s are going to kick off. The Vietnam War was underway. It was a good idea to have that 2S student deferment. I got in, drank Cutty Sark every day my first semester. I don't remember what classes I took, but I remember drinking Cutty Sark, you know. We got our priorities in the memory bank there. And I made the dean's list. And I thought, oh, yeah, well, this is more like it. You know, this will work fine. Something else about little old Youngstown, Ohio in those days, it was known as Bombtown or Little Chicago, which had nothing to do with little white bread Casey. But it was going to because somebody handed me a stick of boo or reefer, we called it back in those days. And possession of any amount was a felony. And I smoked that stuff with some friends of mine. And we thought it was the same as heroin. You know, this is like we're completely wet behind the ears. But we laughed and laughed. And the next day when I woke up, I didn't have a hangover. I didn't hurt anywhere except for my cheeks from cramping up from laughing so hard, you know, on that old giggle weed. And probably smoked it every day for the next decade. No big deal. But, you know, if this felony is not so bad, what about some of these other felonies? You know, there's a whole pile of them out there. I've been reading all these books. And what alcohol really allowed me to do was walk into my own fictional world where I had all the qualities of a hero of a book. I was heroic. I was saintly. I was always right. Just ask me. I was bulletproof. I couldn't be attached to any responsibilities or the effects of my actions. And you don't need a whole heck of a lot more than that. You know, with that, bad things are likely to happen. But for me, it was like being in a Damon Runyon deal. You know, I'm here with guys and dolls and it's all happening. And, you know, I got a nickel bag for me. I sold the other one. Now I'm an unindicted felon. And I had, over the next several years, I lived there for half a dozen years, I had business arrangements. It turned out I was good with organizing things that really can't be organized. You can't be organized most of the time. Business arrangements with the Italian Mafia, the Lebanese Mafia, a variety of biker gangs, the Black Panthers, the Laguna Brotherhood. I'm in the middle of Ohio, you know. I know the Laguna Brotherhood guys and other people that would not normally mix. And it was all, you know, it's all good. I'm now into my sixth year of college. I wound up eventually with six years of college with two years' worth of 3.0. That's the point average credits. And maybe 116 credits with no discernible direction. And, you know, things progressed. Along with weed being a felony and with all these other associations, you know, the whole pharmacopoeia of the 60s opened up. And a bunch of us who used to look kind of Ivy League grew our hair down to our shoulders and raced through the open door and through the doors of that pharmacopoeia like it was supermarket sweepstakes and grabbed armloads of everything that we could do. And I was still a very competitive person, and I liked to see what the tolerance of a human being was. And so, you know, I started off with somebody, as somebody that tested high on achievement and IQ tests. And if you tested me now, I'd be sort of just barely humming along, you know. And so I need a lot of help. I really enjoyed what Earl had to say about all that and the humility that it takes for somebody that is obviously clearly brilliant as Earl is to say that. But I understand. I understand exactly what that means. And it's really a blessing in disguise. So a friend of mine, who was a $200-a-day heroin addict, came up to me one day, and this was back when $200, if you quit cold turkey, you would almost certainly die. And he was a real character. He was an outlaw biker that even the biker gangs wouldn't take in. And he came up to me. Of course, I collected people like that, and I still do in a way. You know, I'm just attracted to people that are really sort of one of a kind. And he came up to me and he said, Casey, man, your friends and I, we've been talking about you, man. We're worried about you, dude. You're a juicer. You're an alky. You're a grape. You're going to ruin your liver. What are you going to do with yourself? And I said, let me get this straight, Stoney. You want me to start running that white powder like you do and you're what, a two-time loser on your, you know, you're strung out and what? And he said, well, yeah, you know, you're going to grow up to be like our parents. And I thought, they're not such bad people, you know. I mean, this guy had three teeth left, and he's my age. And I had a girlfriend at this time who was, you know, she was out there, too. She was, you know, I probably knew 50 girls over the years named Sunshine, and she was one of them. She was of the Sunshine mold, and, yeah. I convinced her. I convinced her to give up that advanced degree and their school teaching job and run off to Timbuktu or wherever we went, but it's another story. Anyway, she said, you know, when you die, and it probably won't be long, I'm going to have you cremated and sell your ashes for 50 bucks a spoon because you're probably worth more dead than alive. And I think she was angry and trying to make a point, but I took it as kind of a compliment, really. I mean, 50 bucks was quite a bit for a spoon of anything. I thought, yeah, it's a noble goal. And, you know, people that are hanging out over the edge, people that are not working in the field or have some vested interest in a better world, they're coming up to me and volunteering bravely, volunteering this information that there is something wrong with the way that I drink. And it was very annoying to me that people would notice that because if they had any idea how important it was to me that life on earth was untenable without fresh alcohol in my system frequently, they wouldn't say that. Or would they? But my solution to that was, you're excommunicated. You are, you know, you're down the road, man, because you've noticed the big secret. You know, one of the big secrets anyway, which is I'm self-medicating myself and my medicine of choice is alcohol. And all those other glorious things that, you know, in story and song of the 60s was fabulous condiments around the edge of my main universe. You know, the sun in my solar system was fresh alcohol in any form. And I drank Dago Red and White Lightning. Not too many car batteries in it, the guy said, you know. And everything in between. So, but it was, I'd read about it. It was, I'd read the beatniks and it was time to go on the road. I loaded a bunch of people in a car. We went to the left coast and bang, we hit the ocean. We had no place left to go. So we move in with a friend of mine who lives on North Vermont Avenue. It's the border between Hollywood and Los Angeles, for those of you that care. And this friend of mine lived in a $75 a month roach farm there. And now there's four people living in this little hovel. And what the heck? You know, we're hardly ever there anyway. We're down at Barney's Beanery in the rain check room and all those funky dives there where Holloway runs down from the Strip down to Santa Monica Boulevard. And life is good until the guy that owned the roach farm got stabbed in the heart by his hooker girlfriend. And, yeah, we had slipped a little from being these, you know, upper mid, white, middle class guys that, you know, now life is different. And, you know, things like this are happening. And I went over. I thought, you know, I was in the room or the next room when this happened. And so he looked pretty silly there with a white plastic steak knife sticking out of his chest. So I went over and pulled it out for him, which was kind of a big mistake because it turns out there's a lot of blood in a person. And this was the first time I saw somebody bleed almost all the way out. He actually survived, you know, so I don't, you know, gross you out too bad here. But he lives up there. He lives up on the side of Mount Hood and won't come down. You know, civilization was mean to him. And but this was my best friend. And this was a guy who, for years and years, I had a lot in common with. You know, we had written songs together. He was a musician. We wrote a book that never got published together, you know. And my feeling was of course it never got published, you know. What would we be writing about? Laughter. working title was, I've never said this, if you can draw it through cotton, we'll shoot it. Gee. A chapter of it did get published, though, in the Partisan Review, I've got to tell you, the highfalutin literary magazine, you know. So anyway, in a brilliant alcoholic move, I moved in with the Stabbers' two best girlfriends, who were semi-professional party girls, and we got a beautiful Spanish-style home, just off the Sunset Strip, with no visible means of support whatsoever, and we were having a really good time. I ran into some mob guys from the East Coast, they had a number of different kinds of contraband that they needed to get rid of, and they didn't know where to go, and I did, and voila, I'm a middleman, and now it's a party about 20 hours a day. And one of my... One of my clientele was a mailman who's boosting major credit cards out of the mail and giving them right to me, before the person who's going to get a bill in 30 days knows about it, and I'm pretty sure there's a rule against that now. But at the time, it seemed like, you know, the rationale is, you know, we can rationalize and justify anything, but we're liberating, we're not stealing anything, we're not stealing goods and services, we're liberating all of that. And so, you know, I had a lot of that, you know, in the dark, in the back, in the booth at midnight in Barney's, I was vending my rationale, you know, my rhetoric, and, again, things were going a little too far, and this went on for months and months. We'd go on these lines, we'd go on these lines, we'd go on these lines, we'd go on these lines, lightning fast shopping sprees and rent cars and then not return the cars because they're not in our names anyway. So I have another problem, which is I have this fleet of overdue rent-a-cars sitting out in front of my house, and so if any of you came to my house for a party, which is possible if you were in that neck of the woods at that time, I'd give you your very own car if you were, just get it the hell out of here, you know. Especially if you were so rubber-legged you shouldn't be wearing a car. You shouldn't be walking, you should be driving, you know. Now, you know, I haven't had a lobotomy, you know. This isn't creative writing or something, you know. I'm, this is the way that I lived, and when I look at it now, after 21 years of drinking and 21 years of sobriety, I think, how did I get away with it? How did I get on down the line with all of this? But I had friends. I loved the people that I knew then. I loved them as much as the people that I love in Alcoholics Anonymous, because we were like-minded individuals. And the vast majority of all of those people that I've mentioned peripherally are dead. And one of those two women, Sharon, knew. And, you know, it's funny how we, our paths almost crossed when we were out there, but didn't. And one of them, the younger one, died of an overdose of alcohol, an overdose of rat poison from being unable to detox from Quaaludes 30 a day. And the other one didn't make it to age 36 behind liver and pancreas failure because of alcoholism. And they deserve to be here or in some room of Alcoholics Anonymous just as much as me, and it's not for me to figure out. But that's, and I'm sure that every person in this room that drank with other people like that or that drank with other people like that, I'm sure you have one or two who have drank. But we're lucky if we remain drank like you did, can name a list of people that didn't get to be here. And we are the lucky survivors. I, I had a friend who'd been overseas, and he came back overseas. He found out where I was living. He came over one day, I wasn't in Ohio. I went to California. And he comes to California, and he goes to Barney's Beanery, the rottenest dive and Santa Monica Boulevard. . And they said, Yeah, he's over there. And so he comes over home but he doesn't. He stays there. But you got yourshields, just wondering about it, because it's like a Self-Service stuff. Got it. Seaths. Got a Cloth Hand. Got a net. You got some salt, which is good. And you're over, knocks on the door, and comes in, and he said, geez, Case, who are all these people, man? This looks like rejects from the Manson family, you know. We got to get you out of here. I've never seen you so skinny and pale. What's going on? And I said, Dennis, these are my patients. Don't insult these people, you know. They call me doctor. Like Dr. Schweitzer, I'm bringing culture to the natives. And he said, oh, now I get it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, listen, I've got a better idea, and I need you as part of this plan. We're going to join the Merchant Marine, and we're going to smuggle jewels and drugs from the South Sea Islands, and then we're going to retire to Costa Rica and live like kings. What do you think? I said, you know, that is a better idea. You know, who the hell are all these snaggletooth junkies in my living room anyway? You know, let's blow on out of here. And so we just... We did, and we went up to San Francisco and Portland and Seattle and tried to get into the Merchant Marine, but apparently they were full up with skinny, pale smuggler guys with eyes going like this. So, you know, they said no. You know, they saw we had a plan, you know. It's like, I've got a secret. But it was a pretty bald experience. And at any rate, so we leave and go back to San Francisco. And now we're going to... my days as a little league big shotter over, and I'm selling my blood for five bucks a pint, and I'm eating at the Mission, and life has changed dramatically. And San Francisco wasn't any good, so we got one of those you drive it cars, you put gas in it and drop it off in Joplin, Missouri. And I remember going 140 miles an hour in that car. It was a purple Plymouth GTX with a Ram Air thing on the hood, you know, one of those muscle cars. And I learned to do a lot of fancy driving when I didn't care if, you know, if I lived or died or anybody I was with lived or died, which came in handy later. At any rate, so I wound up in Chicago living in an abandoned train station, and now I'm drinking the screw top wine every day, mostly Ripple, but Mad Dog's okay, a little Richard's Wild Irish Rose. You know, the... The wine with integrity. That 20% low-rent wine, that 79-cent-a-quart stuff. And I lived in the old LaSalle Street train station, and if somebody would have come up to me and said, you know, Casey, you have a chronic, progressive, and fatal disease, and unless you do something about it and do it fast, you're going to break, you're going to die. You're going to die slowly and miserably. And you're going to break everybody's heart that still gives any care about you at all. And I would have said, no, you don't get it. I'm too smart. I'm too hip. I'm too cool. The rules do not apply to me. The rules of God and man and nature do not apply to me. And I'm not a bum. I'm a Dharma bum, man, because I read Kerouac, you know. I'm not a fool. I'm a holy fool. And I'm a... You know, I'm standing on the Dan Ryan Expressway in the rain, looking at the cars going by underneath, and I'm thinking, look at those fools. You know, I'm free. And the prognosis wasn't good. I went back to Youngstown, Ohio, spent a little more time there, came back to the West Coast, and started getting arrested for drunk driving. And drunk driving introduced me to the court system and court-ordered Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and diversion programs. And each time I would get involved with one of these programs, I would get a little bit of a kick. would go out, drink again, get busted again. So three different times I carried a court card that was supposed to last for a year. Three different times I failed to do that. And I had narrowed it down now pretty much to cheap vodka. All the other little condiments that were spinning around that wheel of choices were pretty much gone. But I still had come from this good family, you know. It's weird. I remembered a party I was invited to. My sister was in town from New York, and she was part of the literary mafia. And so my aunt in Brentwood invited my mother and sister and me during one of those brief periods of recovery, you know, soon to be followed that night by a still worse relapse, to her wonderful home. It's the holidays. My cousin and his friend are home from law school. The recently retired number three man from the FBI behind Hoover and Tolson is there with his wife, the soon-to-be attorney general of the state of California, and his wife, whose name sounds like pork and beans, they were there. And my cousin, the liberal law school student, and his friend started taking little friendly jabs at the FBI man. And I was sneaking out to the liquor cabinet in the other room and gulping down. Some warm vodka. Even though my wine glass is upside down on the table, I'm now beginning to feel it. And I thought, let's take off the kid gloves and rip into this guy. And I did. And this was a bad idea. It was a bad idea for me because for them it was just humiliating and embarrassing, I'm sure. And eventually I saw everybody looking at their hands in their lap. And I stood up. And the chair shot out behind me. And I said, I've got to split. And I left. And I ran into a woman some years later who was at that party. And she said, that was really something else. Do you remember what your sister said on your way out? She said, you did it again, black cloud. And that's where I had gone. So in my whole process of the beginning of recovery to when I began this sobriety, after the quarantine, I went through 14 different detoxes and five live-in rehabilitation programs. And I'm not going to drag you through all of that, but you know what that means. I was trying to reinvent the wheel. I was using my big book as a coaster. I was writing a critique of the big book because it was that stultifying turn-of-the-century style. I was trying to bring it up to date while I'm drinking Kamchatka. And the arrogance. And the ego of somebody that would do that. And I know I'm not alone because I've heard other people talk about doing very much the same thing. And the words meant nothing to me except as a critic. And on my way into my last detox, God-willing last detox, I was gulping down the last of this little bit of pop-off vodka out of a pint bottle and something occurred to me. I knew that I... This wasn't going to help either. That seven days in this detox wasn't going to do a bit for me. That I knew how to do detox. I'd been in detoxes and programs before that after three or four days, they've got me, you know, chairing staff meetings between this people and that people while I'm shaking like a leaf because I look like I ought to be chairing a staff meeting, I guess. I don't know why. Maybe they thought it was good for me. That, you know, all of the greats, Clancy and Chuck, or whoever else is the great carrier of the message, they could come and stand at the foot of my bed and give me their best stuff. And, you know, I knew how to put words together. It wasn't going to do any good. And that I was going to die drunk and there was nothing that anybody could do about it, including me. And that was the shocker and that was the clincher. And when I realized that, I felt like I'd been cut in half with a machete and everything just fell out on the ground and I was still moving around. But... That feeling stayed with me for a long, long time. And that's what it took. I needed to be surrendered by alcohol. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, any terms you want to use. But I was surrendered enough by alcohol to come to those meetings where I'd been court-ordered before and start listening with the ears of a dying man. And my sponsor had me reading the big book every night. And it turned out I was having a hard time reading. It wasn't that I was dyslexic, exactly, but I understand from other new people that I've talked to that it's not uncommon to be unable to read for a while. It's not uncommon to be able to do the simplest things, like think or make coffee or what have you. And so, I had to train myself all over again. I'll just tell you briefly, I got the LA Times one day. I actually got it every day, but I got the sports page and I was trying to read the sports page because I was having a hard time. I was trying to read the sports page because I was having a hard time. I was trying to read the sports page because I was having a hard time. I was trying to read the sports page because I was having a hard time. I was trying to read the sports page because I was having a hard time reading the big book or anything else. I could not read and make any sense of what I was reading. And so, I started in the upper left and I read a sentence. And I looked away and then I looked back and I tried to remember what I read. And I read the whole first paragraph. And I looked away and tried to remember what it was that I had read. And I did that for eight hours one day with the front page of the sports section of the LA Times. And during that day, I was training myself to read again, but I couldn't read. And it took me a couple of years. I was unable to drink a cup of coffee for the first year of my sobriety. Now, I had done lots of all of those things that keep you awake and lots and lots and lots. But now, a half a cup of coffee would keep me up until 5 o'clock in the morning. So, I didn't even bother drinking decaf. It just wouldn't work. And I got a sponsor. Because they all insisted I get a sponsor. And people handed me their phone numbers and cards and things. And I took them home and spread them out on the floor. And I looked at the cards. And one of them was a planner for that Mattel Corporation, that little toy company in Hawthorne, California, that makes the Barbie doll and the Malibu can and all of that. And my thinking was I was in a good mood. And I started to laugh because I thought if I asked this planner to be my sponsor and tell them who I am, maybe they'll make a little crazy Casey doll and I'll be immortalized in plastic. And even though in a few months I have to go out and I have to drink myself to death, but I'll be immortalized in plastic. And that was my reason for asking this guy to be my sponsor. It turned out, you know, motives don't count. And so, it was a great thing to do because he had 13 months and he was going to meetings almost every day. He was working with new people. And, uh... And I had a lot of bizarre things that I was running by him. I told him that, you know, I had had, I was afraid of my shoelaces for one thing. I had had grand mal seizures, and the last one I ever had, I was tying my shoe and I almost chewed my tongue off. So now when I looked at my shoelaces and was tying them, I would look at them and then I'd kind of look at it sideways like that. And he said, have you ever thought of loafers? And I got over that phobia, but I had a real live phobia where I would break a sweat when I saw shoelaces on my own foot. And that's really an AA answer because you've got a problem over here, and here's the solution over here, but you can't get from here to there without going through the problem. Well, yes, you can. You do an end run around the problem, the hell with the problem, go straight to the solution. And I had a lot of problems like that where all I had to do was, all I had to do, I had horrible bad dreams. I had hallucinations that were going on all the time that I thought were because I was such a lyrically creative and amazing person that all trees looked like they were waving at me and telling me that I could swim to Hawaii if only I'd give it a try. The fronts and backs of cars looked like faces, and houses looked like faces. And I gave them names, and I mean, I was a busy guy there. And at about five and a half, six months, all of a sudden that stopped, and I realized it was just trees and, you know, that I'd been like entertaining myself. And I shared that in a meeting, and a couple of old-timers came up laughing, and they said, you know what happened? And I said, no. And they said, you just stopped hallucinating, man. You've been out there for so long. You know, that psychiatrist that told you that you would always need to be on some form of medication because you had done irreparable harm to your central nervous system, you know, and this is what they're talking about. And I said, but I'm not on anything. And they said, yeah, obviously. You know, you're shaking like a leaf. You're having all these bad dreams. You know, you can't do all these things. Nothing makes sense. But hang in there, man. Keep coming back because, you know, you're shaking it out in meetings just like we did, just like the old-timers did. And that was a good thing because I learned a lot of things. And I learned not to take the easy way out for me, you know. Because if I walked into any doctor's office today and said, you know, I'm restless, irritable, discontent. You got anything for that? I certainly would have qualified. And I don't suppose I qualify anymore. But, you know, I'm lucky that somebody said, give this program a try. And if that doesn't work out, there's plenty of time for that other later. And so I've been one of the lucky ones in that area too. And my sponsor wanted me to get a job, and I did. I got a job tarring a roof. And I got as much tar on me as I got on the roof. But, you know, I got paid in American money. And then I got a job painting hallways in this apartment building that was being rehabilitated. And, you know, painting hallways sounds pretty easy. You've got the paint and the roller and the ladder. But not for me because too much is going on. And my mind is racing like an engine with a broken flywheel. And I'm just going faster and faster and faster until the engine seizes. So I'm painting on the wall. I'm writing in giant letters. Many are called, but few accept the charges. I figure I'm going to paint over it all later anyway. And it was easily as long as this room. And the guy that hired me said, you know, that isn't what I wanted, what I wanted you to do. And he starts showing me what to do. And I'm thinking, go get him Tom Sawyer, you know, and show me what to do. But he gave me three days to try to catch on. And at the end of three days, he said, you know, here's your money. I got to, you know, you're not good at this. You're, you know, he said, I don't want to say you're incompetent. But, you know, if you can't do this, I don't know what's going to happen to you. And that wasn't good. And about ten and a half months of sobriety, some guys had typed up a resume, one of those brutally honest resumes with all of the nut houses and treatment centers I'd been in, on paper. I was about age two. People would laugh. You know, I thought, you know, we're rigorously honest. And it was a little too rigorously honest. It was many years before I could get health insurance. At any rate, some sales guys, by now I could make two sentences in a row actually hook up and mean the same, you know, continuing thought. And they said, you know, you're full of the old blarney. Why don't you come into the sales organization we work for. We'll set it up for you. And I go into the room. I go into the sales manager. I throw my resume, unrevised, on his desk. And I said, don't read page two. It's a history of alcohol and drug abuse. And he gave me this funny squinty-eyed little look. And he said, you know, guys like you, you got more balls than brains. You're exactly what we're looking for. And there's your desk over there. Go get them, tiger. And I think it was maybe early in the days of telemarketing because there were lots of people that I would call up that actually didn't know they needed what I was selling until I told them they did. And they had checkbooks. They didn't have to run and steal the money and bring it to me or anything like that. And within a very short period of time, I was making money hand over fist. And life got good. And I had used my real name and real social security number, so little red flags are popping up in various places. You know, I hadn't been in touch with the IRS in 20 years. And, uh. Things like that. So they wanted, uh. I called them up and we arranged a payment plan. And that was a good thing because they said, aha, there you are. We've been wondering about that. Now you work for this company, such and such. And yes, I do. And so we set up a payment plan and I started to be a little bit of a reliable human being because, you know, they wanted their money. And the National Student Defense Loan people that were lending me money for college over 20 years previous or 20 years previous. Uh, the interest in penalties had started accruing as soon as I lost touch with them. And when I called them up, they gave me a number and I had made some big commission checks and I was able to be free and clear of that very quickly. And, you know, you don't realize that you're lugging around all this weight until the weight is being pulled off you, a few slabs and iron bars at a time. But, uh, my life started to get lighter. And I started feeling that, uh, I could be part of the human race again. You know, sobriety's been a good thing. I've changed a lot of the things that I've done. I've changed what I've done for a living. Uh, I, uh, I've moved around several times in Los Angeles. Uh, I've had, uh, I've had a lot of material things. I've had a little bit of material things. Uh, I, uh, I've gotten to sponsor people. And see, uh, the light come on in their eyes. Uh, I sponsored a guy who, uh, he was in the incorrigible youth in the Nuthouse when I was sentenced by a court to go to the Camarillo State Hospital. And we used to play softball against each other. The, uh, the alcoholics versus the incorrigible youth. And I wound up being his sponsor for a while. And, uh, and, uh, he didn't, he didn't make it. And another guy after his, he celebrated his 90 day chip by going and stealing a car and, uh, going to the hospital. And I got caught for it. And, uh, you know, it seemed like I could sponsor people up to 90 days. And then they would do something really wacky. And, uh, but I was getting the real bent fenders because they identified with me. And, uh, and that was a good thing. Because, uh, I got to be, for me, starting to, to carry the message. And to be able to pass it on. And, uh, and to do the things that, uh, that made me feel like I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. My first commitments in Alcoholics Anonymous were sweeping up the cigarette butts outside of meetings. Everybody smoked then in meetings and outside meetings. And I'd be out there in the dark the first year or two that I was new outside of, uh, all of these meetings where, uh, we go on the west side of Los Angeles. And, uh, and I'd be sweeping up cigarette butts. And people would walk by in the dark and say, good night, Casey. And all I'd have to know how to say is good night. And I was being of service to the meeting. I was part of the meeting. Because I had a commitment. I had a commitment that nobody wanted. And I didn't have to know anything. I didn't have to be able to recite the steps or the traditions. I, uh, I got to, little by little, take on only the things that I could handle. And little by little, become a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. Even though I was going to meetings every day. And, uh, you know, things have, things have changed a lot over, over the years, obviously. Uh, I'll just tell you a couple of things. We'll, uh, we'll finish up. Because, uh, in the process of making amends, I was able to make, uh, financial amends. And, and in doing that, I was, uh, in touch with my family again. And I'm back in touch with my family. And, uh, my brother and sister wanted little or nothing to do with me. And my brother has a master's and is, uh, uh, an executive, uh, who lives in, outside of Chicago, north of Chicago. And my sister has a Ph.D. and published her first book a couple of years ago. And, uh. And they were having a, a little discussion about my case one time when I had come to Chicago. And, uh, she happened to be there, too. And, and she said, you know, in my experience, uh, what has happened to you in your life because of Alcoholics Anonymous fits the dictionary description of a miracle better than anything else that I've ever run into. And she's not the kind of person that throw, that throws words around like miracle at all. And, uh, my brother piped up. And said, well, at least there's one less nut out there, you know, and, uh, and they're both right. You know, they're both, uh, they're both right in their own way. Uh, uh, before I, uh, before I got sober, my mother passed away. And, uh, and I was just breathing cheap vodka on her as she was passing away. And, uh, and now because of the, uh, the people that were ahead of me in my home group. I. I take a bucket and a sponge and a brush and clippers to her grave site a couple of times a year. And I keep that grave site clean. And I, uh, at my sponsor's request, uh, wrote a letter to her, a letter of amends. And I had him read it. And he had me, uh, amend the amends letter until it, uh, was the way that it would, should be for somebody that's, uh, gonna be a, a long time member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I took it to her grave site and read it to her. And, uh, and a lot of that was, uh, it was a good. Cleansing for me. My father, uh, died, uh, when was it, six years ago in January. And, uh, he drank a bit. And when he retired, uh, he drank maybe a little bit more. And, uh, little by little, he, uh, alienated his friends. And he alienated, uh, the other people around him. And, uh, he even alienated my younger brother and sister, who he wanted to be in touch with. But I wouldn't let that go. And I wanted to be in touch with him. So. On Sunday, I would call him, usually after the, uh, golf tournament was finished on television. I knew that he would be still, uh, sober enough to have a conversation. And he would have saved questions from Jeopardy from the week. The real stumpers to try to stump me on the, on the phone. And, uh, and if I missed a week, he'd say, God damn it, can't you, you know. So he was really brutal to try to talk to. But I wouldn't let that, you know, you get one mom and one dad. And I wasn't going to let his cantankerous. And this stopped me from having a relationship with him because I knew he was getting living a smaller and smaller world. And, uh, and I was determined to be a part of that. And a few months before he passed away, uh, he said, you know, uh, I know that alcoholics anonymous is your, your mode of transportation is the thing that you needed all along. He said, I thought if you could make it to noon and drink Ballantines with a sandwich or something, you'd be okay. But obviously. Uh, AA is the thing that works for you. And he said, I'm probably an alcoholic too, but, uh, you know, there's no point in me sobering up now. And I like to have my drinks in the evening and, uh, I know what it's all about. And, uh, and, uh, he ended it by saying, you know, you're probably my best friend in the whole world. And in a way I felt sad for him, not because it was me, but because, you know, why wouldn't he have a friend of his own generation, but it was a compliment to alcoholics anonymous that he would say that to me. And, uh, and when he died, you know, he was, uh, I always thought I would see him again because he was strong. He was invincible, you know, the way, uh, the way parents are. But, uh, that's part of the whole amends process. And that's part of what I've been trying to do for years, which is, uh, to be able to be of service and to carry the message and to live a life. Basically. Based on the principles of alcoholics anonymous, uh, Sharon started, uh, bugging me a few years ago about, uh, you know, all that running you did at Penn state. Did you ever win a letter? And, uh, if you don't have a letter, you probably didn't really do it. And, uh, and I thought, well, yes, I won the letter, but I was done at the Rathskeller. I didn't bother going to pick it up. And then a guy who actually had graduated, gave me this, uh, some list of phone numbers from rec hall at Penn state. And I called him up one day with nothing better to do. And, uh, and I talked to. Somebody and I said, you know, I went to school there and it occurred to me when 30 years ago, by the way, and, uh, feeling a little sheepish now because I'm asking for this childish thing. And I said, I want a letter and I never picked it up. And I guess, you know, you probably can't help me. And he said, yeah, you're right. I can't help you, but I bet I know somebody that can. And he pushed a button and I talked to half a dozen people and I worked my way up through the, uh, athletic department structure until I'm talking to a woman who'd been there for 27 years. And she said, uh, I think I've been waiting for you to call and I'll tell you why. Uh, she said, I've been here for 27 years. We don't give letters anymore. We haven't given letters for 15 years. We give, uh, Nittany lion patches and stadium blankets and windbreakers. I said, well, don't people want that letter? You know, that was why we did that stuff sort of. And she said, no, we don't give those anymore. But when I walked into my office this morning, there was the eight inch. Chanel block S letter. She said, I have never seen one of those in at least a dozen years. I don't know how it got on my desk. And I had no idea what I was going to do with it until right now. She said, I think I'm supposed to send it to you. I said, you betcha. And before I got off the phone, she said, uh, a little out of the blue, it seemed like do a lot of little miracles happen in your life. And I said, yeah, you got about an hour. I, uh, I can tell you this story. Uh, and, uh, she sent me the letter and in it, there was a typewritten letter that says, uh, that I saved. It says, uh, you'll be the last person anywhere to get a letter from the Pennsylvania state university. Congratulations. Uh, you know, I could tell you about the benefits of the program, the love that an alcoholic has for another based on that. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Um, uh, uh, uh, uh. Understanding that we have that nobody else really can comprehend, you know, that why we're able to walk into a meeting here with, uh, people that we don't go to regular meetings with, but we're all here together. And the feeling that I've had over the last few days of being connected to people, I was on a little golfing excursion with Steve at Scottsdale in October. And there were maybe 15 people there and, uh, Boy, for, you know, after five days, I felt like I'd known these people all my life. And that's it. We don't have to explain things to each other, but we love to anyway. Alcoholics Anonymous has given me a life, a direction, a purpose, a chance to be with Sharon, the love of my life. I'm a lucky guy. I'm lucky to be sober. I'm lucky to be alive. And I want to thank you for listening. Thank you.