Had to Forgive the Unforgivable and Learned They Just Didn’t Have the Information – Sean A.

If I'm in a suicidal depression, I'm a little different from you. As long as I can describe myself in dramatic terms, I can't get to the problem. So we start getting real specific about what the thing is. And that's the out loud honesty. I've got to be willing to tell you what is going on with me, as precisely as I know. The open-mindedness. And that's the first step, the honesty step. You know, admitted. Admitted. Admitted means the mouth's moving. I mean, admitted is not decided, not thought about, but admitted. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I am powerless over alcohol, and my life has become unmanageable. Now, the first day, that's a real easy step to take. I mean, the first day I was sober, my life was dribbling down my sleeve. I mean, it was real unmanageable. No problem about that. Once you kind of get it together, then it gets to be less urgent, I have found. However, what I have found is that I've got to keep going back to that, because the first step is critical. The first step is critical because what it is the step that deals with is the crushing of the ego. The crushing. Of the ego. It is a necessary function in Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're new, allow it to happen very, very early. Allow it to happen very early. Because if you don't, you will suffer something that I suffered in my fifth year. And what happened was I was now taking credit for my sobriety. I was talking about how I work my program. You know? The ego had transformed itself. Into newly acceptable terms. I had couched it in kind of spiritual gobbledygook and kind of alcohol anonymous ease. And what it was was this giant ego was growing again. You know? And it must be smashed so that a new one can... Because if it doesn't, I've seen... You know? One of my deadly fears in Alcoholics Anonymous is I'm going to turn into those guys that I've seen at meetings. You know? The ones who need to drink but won't. You know? You know? The lunatic fringe. The ones who are so hideously uncomfortable with being sober. But by God, they're going to stay sober. And I don't want to live like that. I can't live like that. I can't live with that kind of turmoil in my life. So my life is unmanageable. I can make it happen. I just can't make it work. And that's the operative thing for me. That makes it easy for me to continue to take that. The idea of remaining teachable and not teaching. So I just show up for life. That's the first step for me. I mean, I got goals and I got places I'd like to be and things I'd like to do. And I move toward those things. But if they work out, that's terrific. And if they don't, I've got to accept that perhaps I need to do something else. And that makes it easy for me. That's the first step for me. The honesty step. The open-mindedness is I've got to be willing to listen to your sober experience. I can pass on your religious dogma or your psychological theories. But I've got to listen. I've got to listen to your sober experience. Because that is the only thing of any value that saves lives in Alcoholics Anonymous. See, the old-timers in Alcoholics Anonymous do not just get old. The old-timers in Alcoholics Anonymous acquire an incredibly precious commodity. And that is sober experience. That doesn't mean they don't make mistakes. That doesn't mean they don't do foolish things. But they live through them sober and they're very valuable. They're the things that I need to know. How do you get through that sober? How do you destroy your marriage? How do you destroy your marriage? How do you destroy your marriage? And get through it sober? How do you do that? And they tell me. You know? And we've got some problems with unity in Alcoholics Anonymous now. That seriously is affecting the second step. The open-mindedness part. And that is that there are some old-timers in Alcoholics Anonymous who are withholding their sober experience because they don't approve of the way that some of us got here. And that is a very, very dangerous thing to do. That is a very dangerous thing to do. And if you're one of those old-timers in one of those situations, I would like to pose a question to you. If you're concerned about those of us who tried to turn ourselves into toxic chemical waste dumps, I would like to ask you to consider, in the matter of drugs, if you were given the same opportunities and the same peer group pressure that we had, would you have said, no, no, no? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I prefer to kill myself on cooking sherry. Come on. Give me a break. You know, I've never known a drunk. It wasn't a pig. If you could have gotten away with it, like we thought we could have, you'd have done it too. You know, so we're stumbling into this thing. You know, 80 to 90% of the people who are coming into Alcoholics Anonymous now are duly addicted, cross-addicted, poly addicted. They got all kinds of medical turns for us. just drunks for God's sake. You know? Nobody wants to be a real alcoholic. Let's not forget that. Hands up. Who wanted to be a real alcoholic? Come on, you know? The way you get to not be a real alcoholic today is call yourself an addict. I mean, that's much spiffier. Let's face it. You know? Let's not get nervous. That's not... You know, in our group, it's really funny. I live in Hollywood. I mean, we get everything in the world in a... You know? Come on. What they do is they tip the continent a little and everything kind of slides into Hollywood. So we've developed this kind of tolerant attitude toward it. It's real interesting. You know? You know, we get a guy... It's amazing to watch the transition. A guy will come in and... I'm an addict. Terrific. You know? Come to our open meetings. Sit down. Shut up. Listen. You know? Bore us to death with your drug alarm. Dog. Convince us you're more badass and different than we are. But shut up and listen. Come to our open meetings. You know? And what happens is they do that. If nobody gets hysterical and starts, you know, setting up membership committees. You know? They just can't participate. They can visit. You know? That's fine. You know? They come. They sit. They listen. What happens is they start listening. They start listening to the causes and conditions and they start listening to the feelings. In a week or two, maybe a month or so, they suddenly become addict alcoholics. Yeah? Then they start going to closed meetings. They get to read chapter five. They get to, you know, make some coffee. Get to participate a little. They get themselves a sponsor. And maybe they start working the steps and they get a little honest and they start revealing their deadly secret. They actually drank. Then they become alcoholic addicts. Then they get involved in central service, intergroup. You know, they get involved in general service and they start getting involved with their traditions. You know? And then they start to find out about, about anonymity. You know, what anonymity is, is a spiritual principle. Alcoholics, anonymous. Anonymous is very important. Anonymity is a spiritual principle. Then the principle is the practice. If you're an alcoholic, then you have humility. And what it is, is that I give up my need to distinguish myself. Either within this fellowship or out there. I give up my need to let you know that my case is different. And that allows them to become alcoholics. It just takes them a little longer these days. You know, that's all. It ain't any big deal. I had a friend of mine. My favorite, my favorite ones are cocaine addicts. First of all, well, the nice thing about cocaine addicts is they tell their drunk a lot real fast. You know, so you get it out of the way. You know, and, and, and, and what we're doing, cocaine addicts, what we're dealing with is alcoholism as an economic issue. That's what we're dealing with. You know? And a friend of mine called me, Larry, I'd known him for years, and he said, you know, I've been, I've been, I've been an alcoholic synonymous for six months. Let's have lunch. I said, terrific. So we went and had lunch. And he said, you know, I feel like a fraud in alcoholic synonymous. And I said, oh, why is that, Larry? And he said, well, see, cocaine was really my problem. Terrific, you know. So then he does his drug a lot. Oh, God. It's very hard to listen to those things, you know. You've got to be a chemist, first of all, to listen to them. You know, and all the measurements, all the grams and the kilos. I mean, my God, just trying to figure out what it looked like and how much it weighed is just, you know, Jesus, you know. You know, what a half pint. You know what that is, you know. Yeah, yeah. And they were all dealing. They never bought anything. They were all selling. I don't know who the hell was buying this stuff, you know. God. So anyway. So anyway, he told me, and in the middle of all this, he said, you know, and then in the morning I would get up and I would put a tumbler full of scotch in the microwave and then I'd take a shower and then I'd get it down and then I'd go, and I said, hold it, hold it, hold it. Hold on. You did what? I said, go back to the tumbler full of scotch. He said, oh yeah. What I would do in the morning is I would take a tumbler full of scotch and I would put it in the microwave and warm it up and if it was warm, it would stay down. And I said, Larry. Larry. I was a falling down, blackout drinking, pants pissing drunk. And I never did anything like that. I said, if that was the only thing you did that would qualify for you this program, cut the cocaine crap and join Alcoholics Anonymous and he didn't need a secretary and he's fine. But one of the responsibilities for recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous is that I've got to stop telling you that my case is different. I've got to stop doing that. If you want to tap into the only resource that will save your life, which is sober experience, you've got to let those old dudes know you're the same as they are. So stop doubling up. Stop double identifying. It's nonsense. It is nonsense. There's no such thing as an alcoholic addict. That's what we all are. It's a redundant term. And what it is is a little term saying I'm slightly different than you old dudes. My case is a little different and it'll kill you. It'll kill you. If you want to tap into the resource, you better start becoming the same as we are. It's a lot easier. Let me tell you. It's a hell of a lot easier. Join the fellowship of the spirit. Join the fellowship of the spirit. The second step, the open-mindedness, is came to believe that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity. My arrogance told me that the only power greater than me was God. There's me and then there's God. I'd like to thank you for your input. But I'm talking to God today. And what I found out is that somebody with 20 minutes more sobriety than me is a power greater than me. The big book is a power greater than me. My sponsor is a power greater than me. This room is a power greater than me. And all you powers are designed to lead me to the power that I can find, that I need to find, that is necessary for me to find. And could restore me to sanity now. I am a nice upper middle class drunk. We don't go to funny farms. We don't go to those messy county facilities. We don't go nuts. We go to therapists and talk about stress. We take Valium. Or whatever it is these days. So I had a little trouble with insanity, you know, because I didn't qualify. I mean, you guys were talking about people who, you know, ate their own eyeballs. I mean, that's insanity, you know. Yeah. I was about a week sober and I was taking my friend Rich and I were going to Rodeo. Rodeo is a very spiffy meeting. It's in Beverly Hills. And he had thin hair, so it used to take him a long time to get ready. You know. So, uh, so while he was getting ready, I was looking through a great big old medical dictionary that he had on his desk and I looked up a definition of insanity and it was a great big long definition of it and out of it popped a phrase. Medical definition of insanity. Quote, a seeming inability to learn from one's mistakes. Close quote. Sociopathy. It is the repetition of the same thing over and over and over again. I'm utterly convinced that this time the results will be different. I took the second step right there and right then, clearly qualified. And then I went on to the third step. Now, my sponsor had told me something real bad and if you knew, brace yourself. There's no spiritual side to this program. This is a spiritual program. The entire thing is a spiritual program. In order to maintain sobriety for any length of time, you and I have to live our lives on a spiritual basis. The 12 steps are spiritual principles. Now, it's not a religion. It's a religious program. You get to believe any way you want about God. And you get to call God anything you want. You know, higher power, third love, thermal dynamics, force of nature. You know, we don't give a damn. It doesn't matter to us. It doesn't matter to God either. You know. So I've got to live some kind of spiritual life. My sponsor told me the first day that I was sober, he said, you've got to search for God on a daily basis. You will probably never find God, but you've got to search. So I said, now I've got to tell you my background. See, I was raised an Irish Catholic as opposed to a Roman Catholic. And I, and by the time I was 24, I had broken every one of the Ten Commandments, which is a biggie for a former altar boy, you know. And since I didn't have a religion, I didn't have a God. So I became an agnostic. I love agnostics. I had become an agnostic out of convenience, not out of conviction. I was an agnostic because I was in deep shit. I was in deep shit with God. So I decided to demand further proof of his existence. Simple. I had learned those two alcoholic prayers. The first one is, got to say this real sincerely, just a minute, let me get this up. Dear God, get me out of this and I will never do it again. The second alcoholic prayer is, whew. So anyway, my sponsor told me I had to pray and I said, how do you do that? I mean, come on. He said, you got to do it on your knees because you're one of the arrogant ones. It's difficult to give God orders while you're kneeling. So he told me how to do it and I did it. I mean, see, I did these steps before I understood him. I'll tell you something. If you wait until you understand him, you'll probably drink first. So I did them because I was scared of him. That's basically why I did it. So he told me what to do. I'd get up in the morning, I'd go in the bathroom, I'd lock the bathroom door, I'd get down on my knees and I'd say, okay, God, keep me sober and let me know what you want me to do today. I'd get up, unlock the bathroom door and walk out. Then at night I would get down, lock the bathroom door, get down on my knees and say, thank you, God, for keeping me sober. Unlock the bathroom door and walk out. I left the bathroom door open when I puked, but I locked it when I prayed. And nothing happened. Nothing happened. My life was a disaster. My wife had gone, I had gone to Al-Anon. We didn't have anything to say to each other. I talked to my sponsor. I said, the most loving thing that I can do is to divorce my wife. And he said, you're not going to make any emotional decisions in your first year of sobriety. And I said, what the hell does that mean? And he said, that means you're not going to divorce your wife. You're not going to fall in love with anybody else. You're not going to move. You're not going to get a new apartment. You're not going to change jobs. You're not going to buy a new car. You're not going to lose 35 pounds. You're not going to quit smoking. You're not going to start jogging 10 miles a day. You're going to put your entire life on hold and you're going to work the 12 steps and you're going to get sober and that takes about a year. And I said, but you don't understand. I'm not sure that I love her. And he said, I don't give a damn about love. Work on good manners. Now she told, I found this out years later too, she told exactly the same thing to her sponsor in Al-Anon and she said, don't make any emotional decisions in your first six months of Al-Anon. Now, I don't know why they didn't make any emotional decisions because they get a six month sentence and we get a year. And thank God. Thank God for that direction and thank God I took it. Because on the 16th of this month we will celebrate this, our 16th wedding anniversary. And I'm so grateful to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I told him what was going on. He said, oh, don't worry about it. It happens to most guys. Four to six months sober. Don't worry about it. It goes away. If anybody here is four to six months, it goes away. I said, but what about my wife? He said, she's probably relieved. Six months sober, I was crazier than I'd ever been in my entire life. I was bananas. You know, most psychiatrists who have ever been in my entire life any ethics at all and know anything about alcoholism will not touch us with a ten foot pole in our first year of sobriety. It is impossible to double diagnose an alcoholic in his first year of sobriety because he manifests every psychological disorder there is. You take away the anesthetic from a drunk and you've got a lunatic on your hands. Especially at six months. Six months I had been working the steps. I was going to meetings on a daily basis and talking to my sponsor. I was... I mean, if a shrink had gotten a hold of me I was clearly manic depressive. I was... You know. Or sobbing in a corner. You know. I was paranoid. I knew everybody was talking about me. I was a social psychopath. I had an eating disorder. I knew that. You know. I had gained 35 pounds in my first year of sobriety. Mainly because I was consuming gallons of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. You know. When you stop drinking quarts of vodka you need to replace the sugar. You know. Real simple. Data psychological disorder is just being a pig. That's all. But I was driving... Most afternoons you could see me driving up and down the Hollywood Freeway. In my car in a three-piece suit screaming at the top of my lungs. And when I wasn't doing that I was taking naps. Now I don't know about you but I tried as best I could to sleep through my entire first year of sobriety. Because if I couldn't get loaded I was going to get out somehow. So I was trying to take a nap and I couldn't. I was lying there I was furious. And I had what is my first spiritual awakening. I didn't know it at the time. I don't know anything at the time. You know. I just want you to know that. All these insights are hindsights. I don't know how I feel standing here at this podium. Ask me a week from now I'll tell you exactly how I felt. But I don't know what's going on. It's gotten less interesting too. I mean I don't really give a damn. The other thing too is I got to tell you this is really important if you're just enchanted with my chanted talk here. I just really want you to know that I talk a slightly better program than I work. Please don't make the mistake in Alcoholics Anonymous of confusing the message with the messenger. Please don't do that. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous will never fail you. The messenger frequently will. You know. So anyway I was six months over and I couldn't take a nap. I was furious. I looked up at the ceiling and I said I don't believe in you and I think you're a jerk. I cleaned it up because it's a night a meeting. Then it occurred to me if I didn't believe who was I yelling at? And then being a good ex-Catholic I waited for three weeks to find out if I was going to get punished for calling him a jerk. And I didn't. As a matter of fact some things got better. It broke a very old idea of God. I had an idea of a God that was out there and up there. And what started to form was the idea that perhaps I was carrying around some little microchip of God within me. That something was going on in here. And I'd also been raised in a tradition that if it wasn't lords it wasn't a miracle. So I decided to lower my standards on miracles and I started listening in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to you talking about taking quantum leaps as human beings. Things that were impossible to do and I would gather them as a miracle. Like a squirrel gathering nuts to shore up this non-belief. And what happened was I gathered up enough miracles that I could take the risk of believing. And what happened is after I started to believe a while later a long while later I started to trust because I started to accumulate enough of my own sober experience. And then later years later I became interested in God. And that's a great place to be. Interested in God. And what I've come to find out is that God doesn't care whether I'm drunk or sober and God doesn't care whether I'm good or bad. God just cares. With no conditions. There's been an unconditional resource of hope and love and trust for me all my life and all I've got to do is tap into it. God doesn't love me because I'm good but because God's good. You know? And it gets easier. It gets easier. That becomes easier, that idea. I continue to work the 12 steps and have done so over and over and over again. I also got involved in service. I became a general service rep and eventually became an alternate delegate for Southern California Area Assembly. What an incredible honor. And I got involved in the traditions. And it taught me that while sobriety is the central issue of my life, your sobriety collectively is more important than mine is. You staying sober is more important than me. Because without you as a resource I can't do it. And so it is very critical that I understand that we must be unified. That we must find out what is the same about each other and stop celebrating our differences because it will destroy us. We mustn't do that. Tomorrow is Mother's Day. And I want to let... I just want to share that the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous has worked in my family. My father was an alcoholic. That's not the reason I'm an alcoholic. The reason I'm an alcoholic is I drank like a pig. That's the reason I'm an alcoholic. I probably was, you know, physically predisposed to the disease. I'm Irish Catholic. I mean, you know, come on, you know. Any northern European country sets you up for being a drunk, you know, physically. Except my brother isn't. We lived under the same circumstances. My father was an alcoholic. He never suggested to me that I drink a quart of scotch a day. He didn't think it was a great idea for him to drink a quart of scotch a day. He certainly didn't think it was a great idea for me to drink a quart of scotch a day. But when I got to this fellowship, it was their fault. It was their upbringing. It was my untreated Al-Anon mother. It was my falling down alcoholic father that had made me the way that I am and that's a lie. That is a lie. And they came up in my fourth step in my resentment. Oh boy, did they come up. And you know one of the things that I had to do? That I was forced to do in this thing? Was that I was forced to make amends to them. I was forced to make amends to them for what they had done to me. Because one of the things that I have found out in Alcoholics Anonymous is that every relationship requires two parties. And while they were certainly the dominant ones in the relationship as a child, I participated in it too. I was secretive. I was manipulative. I was all kinds of things that contributed to that relationship. And the one thing that has come out in the working of the 12 steps and going to my father and my mother to make the amends was that they loved me to the best of their ability. They loved me to the best of their ability. They gave me everything that they had with the equipment that they had. If they had known a more spiritual way to live their lives, if they had any other insight into alcoholism or child abuse, child raising or anything, they would have applied it. They just didn't have the information. So they loved me to the best that they could. And you know what? Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me that I have no right to hand out mimeographed sheets with instructions on how to love me. That I got to accept what I get. And they did the best they could with the equipment that they had and I had to go make amends. I had to forgive them for what seemed to be unforgivable. You see, because what happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous was you told me that you were not going to love me. And you taught me that I don't need parents. I don't need to be parented. I don't need them. I love them. And I'm glad that they were in my life. But they don't need to guide and raise me anymore. I am an adult. I am an adult. And I cannot be an adult and a child at the same time I've got to make a choice. And the choice that I want to make today is I want to be grown up. I have been young far too long. I don't know what it's like to live through a world depression. I don't know what it's like to live through a world war when you don't know whether the person you love is ever going to come back. I don't know how to live through the kind of ignorance and the kind of things that were going on in their lives. I don't know what it means. You know? My mother taught me one day. One day I decided, one day I said to my mother, you know, the problem is that you have, you have not been emotionally available to me. And she said, honey, some people told us some things that were wrong. And I thought they were right. They told us we had to raise strong children. And we were afraid if we told you we loved you too much that you would be weak. And we were wrong. I never brought up that discussion again. It's real easy for me to go back. And tell them how they should have done it. But I can't do that anymore. I can't do it anymore. And thank God for that because in my eighth year of sobriety, my father went in for a minor operation and started to die. And they called me and they told me to come home. And I went home to tell him that I loved him, that I had always loved him. And that I knew that he loved me and that he had always loved me. I went home to tell him that I was okay. Bonnie was pregnant. She was about nine months pregnant so she couldn't come with me. She couldn't travel. I went to tell him that I was okay, that Bonnie was okay, the baby was fine, that I had a job and that if he didn't need to stay, he didn't have to. I released him of his responsibility to be my father. He was hanging on desperately to see the birth of that grandchild and I lied to him. I told him she had been born. And I told him that she was fine and she was beautiful. And that she had blue eyes. And that released him. And he could die. And he did. And I was free. Because I had made my amends to that man. And he had made his amends to me and we had worked out a relationship. He was not the father that I wanted. And I wasn't the son that he wanted. But we worked out something that was mutually acceptable. And we loved each other. We loved each other very, very much. And the wonderful thing about alcoholism is that it's not just about alcoholism. It's about the alcoholics anonymous. That the business can get finished. You know, those things can get finished. My mother is hysterical. My mother... Oh, God. My mother goes on and on and on. She is just the best. She's 76 years old. And she lives in Victoria, British Columbia. And I called her the other day. See, you know, there's worse things to be than the child of an alcoholic. There's a hell of a lot of worse things to be than the child of an alcoholic. You know, my father certainly taught me... I mean, there was certainly... There was certainly a lot of things to be. There was certainly a lot of things to be. There was certainly a lot of insecurity in our home. We didn't know how the bills were being paid at times. But I also learned a hell of a lot of stuff as a child of an alcoholic. I learned to be resilient. I learned to be creative. I learned a whole lot of stuff. My father was one of the most charming men in the world. He taught me charm. And I use it now to manipulate newcomers. He had a romance of the language. He loved the English language. He was a storyteller. And my... My pre-Al-Anon mother was a stickler for grammar. To this day, I'll be 45 years old in August. She corrects my grammar. And you know what? I'm a writer today. I earn my living as a writer. And the reason I am a writer, the reason I have been paid for two full-length movie scripts is because I am the child of an alcoholic. And I am deeply grateful. I am deeply grateful for what they taught me. And I am deeply grateful for what you taught me. Because really what I believe today, what I believe today is mostly yours. It's mostly what you've taught me. My life sings today. I love being sober. I love being... I love being sober more than I love being loaded. And I love being loaded. I mean, let's face it. The reason I'm here is I love getting blasted up. I love getting blasted up. I love getting blasted up. I love getting blasted up. I love getting blasted up. Whenever I could, man. And if it were better out there than it were in here, I'd be out there. I ain't stupid. I mean, if there was anything out there that made me feel like this, I'd be out there. But you know what? I feel today like I drank to feel like. I mean, I got a kind of ease with who I am and with who you are. I walk through life with... I mean, I have good days and bad days. I mean, you know. I don't want you to think this is true. I mean, let's face it. Some days I am a... I'm a great example of alcoholic snot. Really. I mean, you could introduce me to your mother. You know? I just shimmer with sobriety some days. Dazzling. Mom, here is a member of alcoholic snot. And other days, I don't drink. I just... Then there are those days. Those days when I'd like to check into the hospital and, you know, make a pair of moccasins. A lot of Thorazine and some little paper slippers. But I'm here. I've been stark staring sober for 13 years and I love it. I absolutely love it. Brace yourself. This is the most exciting life you'll ever live. God! I'm an honest-to-God movie producer. I mean, I can't believe it. I got a company. In Vancouver. They're going to produce a film that I wrote with a partner. And you know how that happened? I sponsored the guy. We were talking about our families and he said, we ought to write this. And I couldn't admit I was too scared to do it, so we wrote it. And somebody liked it. And here I am. Here I am. I got a wife. I got a wife who loves me and I love her. And I got a five-year-old daughter who was a product of this program. She loves Alcoholics Anonymous. She thinks alcoholics are people who go to meetings. She's been applying the principles since she was born. When she was two years old, I always say two years sober. When she was two years old, she and her mother were going through a store and she wanted something. She wanted a little doll and Bonnie said, no, you can't have that. And she said, you know, Mom, two years old, she said, you know, Mom, when you say no to me, it makes me angry. I was 40 years old before I could say anything like that. About a week ago, she said, no, it wasn't, it was a little while ago. She said, what's the matter, Daddy? And I said, oh, I'm just going insane. And she said, oh, don't go. Stay home. She, she goes to a little nursery school and the kids bring in their favorite books and to give to the nursery school. And she wants to, she wants to take in the Alateen book. She calls, she calls herself an Alateen and we haven't got the heart to tell her, you know. So she wanted to bring in the Alateen book. So Bonnie called the nursery school teacher and said, listen, Kate's going to bring in a book and, you know, I'm in Al-Anon. I've been in Al-Anon for 13 years and my husband has been sober for 13 years. And we just want you to know that's what's going on. And she said, oh, that's wonderful. She said, you know, I'm so glad that she's finally bringing in the book. She's been going around to all the other kids in the nursery school asking them if their fathers drink. My kid sponsors the, you know, his 12th step in the nursery school. One story. Let me tell you how good sobriety can get. Let me tell you how good sobriety can get. And I'm not unique. I'm not standing up here because I'm unique. I'm standing up here because I'm typical and don't forget that. But a couple of years ago, just before Kate was two, there was a conference in Hawaii and the speaker that they had got a better deal, I guess, and bombed out. So they called me and they said, can you substitute? And I said, oh, well, you know, God, Hawaii. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. So I happened to mention it at work. I was saying, oh, God, gee, I'm going to Hawaii. And he said, you know, my mother has a condominium in Hawaii and she's never there. You can have it for a week for free if you want. And I said, where is it? He said, I don't know. I'll find out. Turned out to be 500 yards away from where the conference was. So we have this free condo. Now, we didn't have any money, of course. And so I said, if only Bonnie could go. And a residual check came out of nowhere for something. I don't know where it was from for the exact amount for the plane fare. Now, Kate was going to fly, a day before she was two years old, so she flew for free and we went to Hawaii. So her second birthday was while we were in Hawaii. So Bonnie was in the condo making this little thing and I took Kate down to the beach. And I'm standing on the beach in Hawaii. On this deserted beach, there's miles of white sand in either direction with not another soul on it. And Kate and me, the water is this turquoise water lapping in. And it was just around sunset and my little Katie's got red hair and her hair was exactly the same color as the sun. And she was running in the water, out of the water naked, laughing and squealing like a little two-year-old would do. And I thought, my God, I'm living in the middle of a dream. I am living in the middle of a dream. And if I had tried, I couldn't have conceived of something like this when I was new. My first day sober, I couldn't have dreamed of anything like this. And even if I could have, even if I could have thought of something like that, I wouldn't dare to have dreamed it because it would have been pushing God's goodwill just too far. But what I did was I started picking up the ashtrays and I started folding up the chairs and I started shaking hands at doorways and meetings and I started mopping the floors and buying the literature and taking the seventh tradition and doing the stuff that you've asked me to do. And you have laid a life in my lap that is beyond anything of my comprehension and certainly more than anything that I deserve. I love you. I love you so much that I can't even, I can't even tell you. I'm a wordsmith and there ain't words for it. So keep coming back. I need you as much now as I needed then because, you know, in a lot of ways I'm more afraid now than I was then. I got more fears now because I got more of a commitment to life. There's more going on here. There's more excitement. There's more stuff that I want to do, you know. And God doesn't take away fear. This program is not like taking a giant Darvon, you know. What God does is give you courage, you know. We become courageous people. We become courageous people and miracle workers. You honor me with your society. God bless you. I want to thank you, Sean. Thank you.