He Accepted the Disease Concept as an Excuse – Tom F.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tom Flynn. I'm an alcoholic. I want to thank the committee, and particularly Pete, my friend, for the fine job you all have done. I'm sober, through the grace of God, in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And to the love of you people who love me, do I love the book? And do I gotta love myself and find a God who loves me? It's that simple for me. And I keep it very simple. It's nice to be here on a Friday morning and I don't drink on Fridays. That's it for me If it gets much more complicated I will get into Dr. Bob's warning area you know Freudian ideas and stuff like that so I stay away from that kind of stuff. You know, I'm simply not qualified. We're many and varied. And I was born and raised in Baltimore City, down around the dock area. And the major employers down there were Bethlehem Steel, Key Highway, Procter & Gamble, Domino's Sugar. Had a lot of longshoremen in the area, you know. A lot of Irish, Polish, German, some Jews, and some black people. You know. It was like Smorgasbord. That kind of neighborhood it was. It reminded me a little bit of when Linda was talking about Pittsburgh. It was that kind of an area. It was a very industrial area, you know? And as long as you worked, you could do pretty much what you wanted, you know, as long As you worked. It was all right. My mother had nine kids. I was the second oldest of nine kids, and we didn't have a lot of money. My father worked for the post office, and I do remember some of the things that Linda touched on. I remember I was raised Catholic, and you were supposed to go to communion if you were in the state of grace or something like that. And I used to have a lot of holes in my shoes. I didn't like to kneel down on the altar with holes in my shoes, it was humiliating. You know? I can remember that kind of stuff. And sometimes I wouldn't go to communion, you know. Because I just didn't want to be humiliated. I remember those kind of things. And I said, well, when I get older and I'm in charge of my life, things will be different. You know. I was in pursuit of money, property, and prestige. our chase was on and I was a runner yeah that's what happened now I hear people say that I picked up a drink and I wasn't instant alcoholic you know no I had a lot of fun drinking before it became a problem for me you know and to become an instant alcoholic to me is almost like getting impregnate without having sex. That's how it struck me. I enjoy drinking. I was a barroom drunk, loved barrooms and I moved a lot. Now you don't have to explain to an alcoholic the logistics of moving a lot, we intuitively know one of those things. We know, we know, you know, We have a built-in thermostat that tells us when the heat is rising. We know. Now, I was kind of a fellow that went into a bar room. I wouldn't say anything until I had two drinks. After two drinks, I'm talking to the guy next to me. Damn right, man. I was going to impress that dude. After four drinks, I was talking to The Girl Two Stools Down. Six drinks, I was a singer. Not good, but a singer. Eight drinks, I was a dancer. And ten drinks, I was the man for all seasons. Now, I specialized in all season work. Law, theology, international finance, philosophy, you know, fly swatters, voodoo, sports, you know and various other things. When I had ten drinks it seemed to me I became semi-celestial in nature and I swear sometimes I could really feel depressed if Angel Feathers once in a while I was that high with booze that's the reason it drank it took me to a better place and it worked it worked it was miraculous you know yeah, what's up there? I didn't know where my car was or I didn' t know I was supposed to be home in time for dinner for a point in time but then us semi-celestial drunks really don't deem to venture much into the mundane like the parking of vehicles. And that's where booze took me. And I went back regular to make sure I didn't miss none. That's how I drank. I drank every day and it worked. I loved it. I didn' t like it but I loved it. I love bar rooms. Like Linda said I didn''t trust people who didn'' t drink so I'm wrong and those kind of people. I don't want to be around them. You know, they probably voted Republican and had money in the bank. So wrong with them people. That's how I was. I don' t know why I was that way. I ain't that smart. I ain' t figured it out yet. You know? It doesn' t make any difference. It don' T make any difference at all. I was married and I made some money. A lot of us knew how to make a living but a guy like me didn't know how to live it's not the same I know how to make a living and I did well with the bucks and the prestige and I had seven pair of shoes and none of them had holes in them and I could write a check for a new car and those type of things you know yeah now at the end of my drinking career, I stopped making those celestial trips. You know? I was still showing up to buy the ticket, but I wasn't going nowhere. And see, that's the level of my insanity. I was buying the ticket and it wasn't going nowhere and I would come back tomorrow and buy another ticket. And guess what? It went the same place. Nowhere. And that's where I went. Nowwhere. My wife, I was married for 25 years and she got tired of it. And we became separated and we got separated first, became divorced later. And I had a lot of guilt about that divorce. I was the first Irish Catholic guy in my family ever divorced. You know, there was a lot of personal guilt about that. But the ninth step took care of that, and I'll share that with you, what happened with me. And the company I started off with in 1950, in 1979, you know, and then I found the company. Twenty-nine years later, fired me. That's hard to do that. You know? I did it. and I wound up in an apartment I live in a pre-indulgent which is acceptable part of Baltimore city socially acceptable you know for people with seven pairs of shoes with no holes in them who have arrived it's acceptable see that's how it was for me and so I wound up in an apartment by myself at the separation now I can drink the way I want to nobody will bother me right and I thought I was drinking and I was resting hell, I wasn't resting I was passing out and when the booze got low I'd go about three hours I'd wake up I'd have a little recreational drinking and then I'd rest some more in a passed out position that's how it was it took me to the point that I was grown men from industrial cities really aren't taught to share feelings, you know. More or less, we were shared the John Wayne syndrome, you know, horses and all that crap. And I remember at the end of my drinking career, drinking around the clock in an apartment by myself, you know? I remember the feelings, the fear, fear of the unknown. And with me it's no fruiting idea, It was experience, and that's what we share in Alcoholics Anonymous, my experience. I remember the official-looking envelope with my name on it. I didn't know what the hell was in the damn envelope, but I didn' t want to open it. I know that much. And I know the phone call, and I didn''t want to answer the phone unless I could find out who was on the other end. And a knock on the door. I hadn' t broken the law recently. I still didn' T want to enter the door, andI wish to hell they'd go away. left to me was the fear of the unknown and grown men guilt, shame I knew there were people who loved me I knew that and I was tired of promising people who I knew loved me that it would be different this time that I would change you know I would change and if you made such a promise I believe you because I meant it if I meant it you meant it I believe you I believe you not with your faith but with mine and I break the promise did you ever start an argument instead he had to that too. And I felt so low and so guilty about breaking these promises. Did you ever make the quiet promise to yourself that no one else would know about? And if you broke it one more time, only you would know? Well, I did that number too. I made such a promise and surely I broke it and now you know about that one too. Hopelessness. I was raised to believe that you gather enough information, put enough effort into any project, you can overcome it. And I tried that in making a living and it worked. And i tried it with stopped drinking and it did not work and I felt hopeless. All I knew did not work with this drinking proposition. So at the end of my drinking where it took me was this stop the world let me off and you people go on with this madness i don't care where it takes you and let my eternity be anathema total hopelessness and that's where booze took the man for all seasons and that was low enough for me the one friend i had left said you call this lady if she's a lady psychologist is a no-nonsense woman And she says, Bozo, if you want to help, you make the first move. And I was desperate enough to make the first move and I went up to, I thought it was a detox center and I'd never been detoxed before. Boy, that word sounded good to me. You know, it has a nice clip to it. Detox. Real sharp. Yeah, I like that. So I went upstairs to this hospital and I thought it was a detox. And I've been back there since taking the meeting in. And, you know, they didn't have any knobs on them doors. And, you know what? They had them funny screens on the windows. You wouldn't keep out any flies, maybe a buffalo. And they had people in this isolated area of this hospital who had mental and emotional problems other than alcohol. It was like mixed nuts. and they had the cashews and the pistachios all in there you know and I was there four days before I figured out I was not an observer that's arrogance observer could you imagine that I didn't know I was one of them nuts I didn' t know I didn''t know you know I got in here on a Friday afternoon I'm sitting on the side of bed with IV going in me I got there Friday afternoon, right? And I'm looking at this blasty bag and I'm saying, don't this stuff come out of here any faster than this? I just got there. I'm not going anywhere. The place is locked up. I'm with the nuts. I didn't want to know. I had a pressing engagement or something. I wanted to know where. But I was in a hurry. I don't know why I'm an alcoholic, you know. That's what happens. a guy walks up to me and says I'll tell you what I felt like I felt like a misplaced executive inside I felt like a four year old kid that had a bowel movement in his diapers that's what I felt like and some dude walks up to me and says hey you're the new guy ain't ya yeah he says this is your first time in a detox I thought to myself god this happened to somebody more than once he says yeah me four times so i said boy this is something other than measles i got here that guy got my attention yeah he really more so than anything else that guy he got my attention i didn't know yet you know that was the sharing i didnít know why he got my attention more than the doctors or anybody else. He had been where I was about to go. I didn't know that yet. So I left the nut house and I had papers. Well, at least I knew what the problem was. I was nuts, you know. And they put chronic alcoholism on there, you now. I felt like a mongrel dog that had not been certified by American Kennel Club. I have papers, you know. I mean, she's a wuss. Crazy. And I went to a dry and out joint in Philadelphia. Now, I told you I moved a lot here. That's where I wound up. It was a no-nonsense place too, thank goodness. And what happened there for me is I was able to, for the wrong reasons except the disease concept of alcoholism, I accepted it initially as an excuse for my behavior. That was my motivation. And I was dry 30 days when I got to you folks at Aquahawks Anonymous. And I got you folks on August 14, 1980. I'm a first-nighter only because I used up my second night before I got here. See, I used up everything. When I got here, I was running on E, and E don't mean enough. That's what I was runnin' on, and that's how I got there. Now, there should have been some indication of unmanageability when I got to you folks. After all, I fired, broke, divorced, and nuts! Outside of that, I was doing good, doing good. I was managing well, you know? I just wish you people would leave me alone and let me straighten my affairs out. What affairs? I didn't have any affairs. That was it, you now? Practicing these principles in all my affairs? hell I could have practiced in a telephone booth man but that's what it took for me to get my attention that's who it took it took total desperation I heard it said around that necessity is the mother of invention I believe that and I believe in my particular case desperation is the father of willingness in my case that's when I needed I had to be desperate enough to listen to someone else you know I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I walked looked around for a home group and I found a group how I found the group was it was a group of people it's called the Magothy 12 and 12 I joined 11 years ago and I'm still there and there were men in the group and women there were some younger and believe it or not some older than me there were some dumber some smarter and just like some kind of pee I fit right in the middle of the pot pop right in there that's how I knew that was my home group I fit in the middle of a pot that was it I was not exceptional anymore I had been de-unique I was just a pea in the middle of the pot that was okay there was a pea on one side of me there was a pea on the other side and if I'm a pea it's okay we're okay we're doing proud in this pot that's how it was for me okay now I did also when I got there I learned about this disease enough for me to learn something as dangerous I had this disease concept and I got to this group and these people can you imagine they were standing around the coffee party, these people with this killer fatal disease. And they were laughing and I was gonna go over and tell them about how serious the disease was. They said no thanks, keep coming back. I didn't know what they meant, but I showed up anyway. That's what happened. I found the joyful, happy people on about my third night in AA and they were around the coffee pot and they Were talking about taking a meeting to a jail and to a nut house and one of the guys was sick. They're going to take a meeting into his house and those were the people that God put in my path, the people I needed, the joyful, happy people, the people with the shiny eyes. You know? I first saw them in Philadelphia from the AA people that came in to rehab. If you're going into nuthouses, oh my God, keep on doing it because guys like me appreciate it and I need it. You know, keep one doing it. I do it now. I do what I do. I can't pay back but boy it's fun trying it's a fun time for me so and they were happy and I found out that they were involved with a higher power of their understanding there was no dogma no creed a higher powerful power of their understanding their understanding and they were involved in recovery and they told me their experience with recovery was outlined in the suggested steps you know it was not this So two couches, no waiting. And you'll find out whether you're dysfunctional or who your parents were and all that kind of stuff. I heard Sandy Beetz say that it says it best. Every time he got drunk, it was the direct result of drinking. And so it is with me. My thing was drinking. It had nothing to do with lineage or stuff like that. It may have, but there ain't nothing I could do about that. So I may as well let go of that, even though it may be true. There ain't nothing I can do about it, you know? Now, if you have something that you can do about it or some suggestions, I'm open-minded and I'll be perfectly willing to listen. So that's how it was. So then the happy people were always in action, always in act. So I would start to get to the meeting and I was standing around a coffee pot and anyhow we're always bumping into each other and every time we bump into somebody We spilled coffee. Hot coffee on our hands, you know that. Well, I was creating hot hand syndromes for these guys. Well, see, they're standing around a coffee pot and they're turning around. And I'm standing right behind them because I want to hear what the heck they're doing, say. So what they did, they invited me to go with them just how to protect themselves. So I went. You know, I didn't know. He says, you go. So he took me to my first institution meeting. The guy took me. He was four years sober. I had six weeks in the program. We wind up in one of these state-run rehab centers. But anyway, I'd never been to a meeting like this, you know, sober as a member of AA. And I walk, I've been to other AA meetings. I've been to like maybe 50 meetings or so and four where it was, and I saw all these guys with these bathrobes on, you know, and these John Wayne bracelets. You know them hospital bracelets? I call them John Wayne Bracelets. I could do it myself, you know. Yeah, that's a John Wayne bracelet. I see them walking around. This guy Bill took me up I says, Bill, what is this? He said, this is a meeting. I said, these guys are just funny. Oh, he said, this is drying out joint. Oh, that's good. I says Bill, do these guys share? He says, I don't think so. I said Bill, who shares? He says me and you. Is that a fact? That's a fact. The inevitable. Bill, who goes first? He says the guy with the least sobriety. That was me. Bill hooked me on institutions that night. and I've been going from two to four times a month every month since and I cannot pay back but as I said it's such fun trying I was told to get a sponsor I was looking around for a guy as smart as me and I couldn't find anybody so then I started looking for a guy who had serenity I didn't have any serenity and I found this guy with the real calm blue eyes nothing shook him nothing and I heard this guy Jeremy and I took the A course in theology now I know Augustine and Aquinas and Ambrose and Anselm I know those guys and I heard this truck driver share about God like he had lunch with him and that blew me back three feet in the chair like that the search was over and I knew it I hadn't sorted it out yet but it was over and I know it now I thought well maybe I just caught this dude on a good night you know I knew this guy was going to be my sponsor, but maybe I just caught him on a good night. So being a good alcoholic, you know what I did? I stalked him. Everywhere that he went, I sat in the back and said, I'm going to catch this guy when he's just like me. He wasn't just like me. He used to be just like me, but he wasn't then. He wasn' t then. And he never deviated. And do you ever have that feeling when you're both happy and scared simultaneously? That's the feeling I had when I realized this guy was for real. I had that feeling. I knew I was not only going to have to stop drinking, I was going to having to let go of some of my other related disorders too if I asked this guy to sponsor me. I knew it. that's the part I was scared about you know the part I was most happy about here was a man who lived by principles in an unprincipled world there was the cross the bridge you know between the physical and spiritual with the spiritual being in charge I said yeah it can be done this dude does it so I asked him to be my sponsor and he says I can use a guy like you in my life he can use me that's the wrong this guy so you know we did a normal thing you know I went to meet and sweat him you know he said you sit next to me and I did if he went to the men's room I don't care the condition of my bladder. I went to the men's room, too. Now I understand women going to the ladies' rooms. I never understood that until I had a sponsor. He turned left. I turned left, if it didn't make any difference. And after a while, I started calming down. And I wasn't as smart as I used to be. and I was calmer stuff like that you know and I started praying and my prayer was this God I know I call you in emergencies but it's me, Tom a drunk I'm doing what Wally's doing not nearly as well or not hardly as long but would you mind giving me some of the stuff that you're giving Wally not a whole lot just something to start with thanks I haven't found it necessary to improve on that much it was a prayer of gratitude from the heart and I still feel that gratitude to my bones my sponsor suggested that I become involved with the steps now he tricked me how could such a serene principled man trick a drunk we did this drunk and I needed it he said to me I didn't want to do the steps I heard people in these rooms saying well I'm studying this step God, that sounds scarily. That appealed to me. I could study anything as long as I studied. I didn't have to do nothing, right? I could postpone action as long I'm studying. Don't you know? That's what I want. I wanted to study. Then I heard the other one. I'm not comfortable with this step. I like that. Well, I am not comfortable with this steps. Sound good, didn't it? I don't know if I say it. I thought, well, I'll try that. Well, old Wally, he wasn't buying it. He tricked me. He says, Tom, what do you think the program of recovery is? Do you think it's the steps? And I wanted to impress my sponsor with my knowledge of the program. I says, of course, the steps are the program for recovery. Wally? He said, in fact. I said, yeah. He said, well, why the hell would you want to postpone your recovery? And before I could think of another lie, he had me. He equated to postponing the steps was to postpon my recovery. And he had made the nerve of him a principled man. That's what he did. he did a lecture he walked beside me through the steps all the steps you know all the stairs and I changed and I met so many people because my sponsor is an active man and I change what changed my whole way of thinking my whole attitude and outlook on life was action and that's what you people told me action was the magic word and I'm going to share some of that action in sobriety with you even though i'm insane now one of the things was aside from being nuts fired divorced and broke you know uh i wasn't sure i was an alcoholic you know now i don't have how much evidence it takes you know social stigmas attached to being certified nuts by a psychiatrist i mean you don't take adds out the paper bragging about it you know but there are certain subtle advantages for instance i didn't tarry long on the second step i went to my sponsor he says tom then you have two opinions don't you from the side i said yeah he said how many do you want let's get home with it so he has you know started to assert the subtle advantages of being nuts and I don't know whether I'm sane or not it really doesn't bother me it used to bother me for a while particularly when I was drinking I really had to appear sane that was a hard job but and I had to appears sober too when I'm drunk that's hard everybody talk out of the side of your mouth somebody can't smell your breath and that ain't easy you know that's self-imposed you know pizza in front of me so but I've met people and they told me and I believe because they told me that they're saying you know I'm glad he told me and I did notice by those who claim to be the most sane there seemed to be a very high degree of tenseness you know not a lot of shortcomings but being intense ain't one of them and I can afford to be on tense because I am NOT in charge I am not in charge when I was in charge my conclusion was stop this world let me off that's where my management took me I'm not in church that's right got the new manager yeah I borrowed while he's got now my sponsor says tom you got a lot of guilt and boy did he put his finger on him oh man i must have went to school with the women say our lady of perpetual guilt that's where i'm going to show here and uh he said now what i think it is tom if you're like me he says that your idea of what you've done and your guilt is about like six feet high, and your idea of God is only about three feet high. An idea of god three feet high cannot manage an idea of guilt six feet high. Well I even understood that. I said well what do I do Wally? He says you need a bigger idea of God to handle this guilt. I said, where did I get this bigger idea of Christ? And I love what he said. He didn't say it should be, it might be, or it could be. He says, you can borrow mine for a while. I am certain he's big enough for both of us. And I loved the idea because while he'd been sober 16 years at that time and his guy was already broke in with drunks, so I think I will. I wouldn't have to do too much, you know, whereas here in the fours with this guy, you know. I just leveled with him because he was used to drunks, you know. And I stopped praying and I started sharing with God. And God got bigger, his idea. And my guilt went down. It shrunk. I don't know where the hell it went. I don't know who cares I'm not in pursuit of lost guilt who knows thank God for sponsorship and that's one of the reasons that Linda so touched me talking about Hazel you know and the reason it lives so touched me do you know I was very nervous coming up here until I heard both these ladies yesterday and I was not nervous this morning because of them when Liz demonstrated with 39 years of sobriety that a human being an alcoholic can live through anything successfully provided you do certain basic simple things and she walked through it for 39 years you know I'm grateful to her to Linda and to you I live without you and my solution to the pain of living was death and I lived amongst you and your solution to the painful pain of life is life so when I came to be amongst you you allowed me to step up to be an alcoholic is a step up And that's what happened. I had a lot of guilt, and it went. Once in a while, in sobriety, I get involved in what I call an intellectual seizure. Now, the steps render me down to spasm level, but I do get these seizures, you know. And one guy shared that he had gotten drunk on vanilla extract, and I had a urination problem about that. I was pissed off. i missed something and it was too late i was sober i mean i know i missed it i missed you forever the nerve of him you know he got drunk on something i never made you know never him but i didn't notice something in my seizure i was eating a lot of vanilla ice cream oh yeah maybe just maybe with this vanilla ice cream there's something alcoholic in there you know that i'm you know the alcoholic mind is and i just blew that all out of proportion and i went to a meeting and i talked to some guys your long-term sobriety after the meeting say and this is aa the simplicity of aa that liz talked about i'm talking this guy for eight minutes, all about vanilla extract, vanilla ice cream. And he's standing there drinking a coffee. He's not batting an eye. I got all finished, you know? I said, what do you think, Mike? He takes a sip of coffee. She says, switch to chocolate. Solution. Switch to see I have to come to you guys give more perspective told my sponsor one night I was sponsoring a guy and this guy was not doing the program the right way which now translates out to my way that's the honest translation my way so I told my sponsor now I'm going to meet Joe over there at the Rock Creek group and I want to straighten him out Wally oh is that so he said yeah he said what time are you going to get over there I said I'm gonna get over here about quarter of eight he says well maybe I'll go over and help you oh that's good bring the heavy artillery right He says, by the way, Tom, he says, have you got all your character defects and shortcomings worked out yet? I said, no, Wally, no. I'm still working on that, as Doug will tell you. Oh, he said, I thought you had them worked out. He said, well, when you get all yours worked out, I appreciate you getting with me and helping me get mine worked out then us two perfect guys will go over and straighten this guy out. I say, Wally, that ain't never going to happen. He says, you're catching on. It ain't ever going to happen. Not to this drunk. It ain' t going to happen. It's that simple, you know. I didn't want to make amends to the ex-wife. That's what I had a lot of guilt about. Did not want to make amends we're married 25 years and like I told you and while they say well you have to make amens it's not up to you if you wish to have a spiritual awakening it's the shared experience of most alcoholics this is what they did and if you want what they have it suggested you do what they didn't so he suggested I make an appointment, since it wasn't real social, at a public place, a restaurant or something like that and share with her. And I did. It took five trips. Five. And I'm here to share with you what happened. In those five trips, for the first time I listened to her. I become a trained listener by you you people had trained me to listen how to listen and when she was speaking I was not thinking of a response I was listening to her words and I learned that from you and I listened and I found out that in the time of our separation and divorce and me getting drunk and getting sober and me doing this men, some growth had occurred in that lady's life. And I examined myself that night with a tenth step and some growth that occurred in my life. And at that point I had to make a decision. I lived by a value system and she lived by a value system a plural value system should I try to convert her to my value system manipulation should I pretend to adopt her value system dishonesty could I look it straight in the eye for what it was two different value systems not a system better than one or worse than one only different then only different and at that point I could see that somewhere in our lives we had hit a fork in the road and her paths have progressed in an ever widening why not in a superior or inferior manner only in a different manner and with that acceptance you know one way the guilt about the divorce I now look at my divorce as a form of spiritual surgery that was necessary for this trunk I don't advocate it for others I'm always sharing my experience you know how you feel about things is your business that is not my business that's your business the guilt left with that you know in sobriety things happen I heard a gal Sharon and God she was a miserable person and it made me glad to be single She was just a poor mother, and I felt sorry for her. But I was new, and I thought to myself, is this what you get after six years? And I ain't so sure I want to belong in this cotton-picking outfit. You know the feeling, yeah? And that night I went to a meeting. There was a guy there with 27 years of sobriety. His name was Hal. He died sober. He had about 38 years when he died. Happy sobriete. I asked if I could talk to him. He asked me one question. Do you have a desire to stop drinking? I said, yeah. He said, I'll talk to you. That's all he asked me. I told him what happened. He says, you're on a pink cloud? I says, yeah, I'm on a Pink Cloud. He goes, are you afraid you'll come crashing down off a Pink cloud and get drunk and dead? He put his finger right on it. It's like a surgeon. Bang! Hit the spot. I said yeah, how? He said well Tom, coming down off a pink cloud, he says to me, it's a lot like waiting for a bus. I've been waiting for that bus for 27 years. He said, why don't you stand next to me in this bus stop and we'll wait together? I'd been in that bus stop for 11 years, and Hal was in the bus stop. He died when he was 37 years sober, but he ain't left the bus stop. He's still there because I remember what he told me and the deal he made for me. He's alive to me. That's what happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous. What time is it? Oh, it's pretty good. I ain't doing bad. Anyway. I mean, before I drown. You know. Are these spiritual tools things that I have to work every day, work with in my life every day? Yeah. They are for me. I made a career change after 38 years and I was able to do it successfully because of Alcoholics Anonymous. In my eighth year of sobriety, I had to spend a week in Baltimore City Jail as a prisoner. There's no bail. And I was in sub-block G and I was the only pale face in sub block G. And I'm here to tell you that the serenity prayer truly works. That's my experience. Serenity Prayer works. I know that it's no longer a theory with me it truly works um I share with some newer people some alcoholics and my sponsor says Tom Alcoholics Anonymous is like a giant smorgasbord and uh we have stuff in here like like shrivel up hot dogs all the way over to pheasant under glass and everything in between. And that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is like. And you can have anything you want in here. So I'm out there, I think I'm a bounty hunter. You get so much for getting the guy sober? That's how I was. And none of these guys are getting sober. And a couple of them did finally get sober in spite of me. But they were hanging around this room full of hot dogs. You know what I mean? They were hanging in there. Hanging in there, hanging in their. I said, what do I do? While they're hanging around the shriveled up hot dogs, he's passing the mustard. You can't fix nobody. Everybody's going to eat what they want to eat. That's that simple. That was his way of saying, let go, let God. That's all. That's what we do. We pass in the mustard." What's wrong with that? Might improve the flavor. Prayer works for me. I don't think that prayer changes what's going to happen to me on any given day. I don' t believe it does. It changes how I see it. That's what happens to me. It changes who I see. And the purpose of prayer is not for me to remind God of what I need. He already knows. the purpose of prayer is to remind tom of who the source is you see tom's the guy with the forgetter and god's the guys with the memory once i get that straight it's pretty easy for me to understand the purpose a prayer for me. I've got to be reminded God doesn't. My life has changed. I'm grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous, to God, to you people. I just want to close with a little bit about what happens and how I see that my prayers are answered. And it comes from a guy named Al Growl. It's not original. I have no original ideas. The only original idea I ever had was let's go get a drink. It's the only original idea I ever heard. It comes from Al Growle who was sober in AA for many years. I prayed for wisdom and there were problems in my life the solution to which produced wisdom and I prayed for courage and there was danger in my mind in my heart standing still for produced courage I prayed for material things and God gave me brains and brawn to work for it I pray for favors and I got opportunities so ladies and gentlemen for Tom this drunk the bottom line is without him I cannot and without me he will not thank you Thank you for watching!