Higher Power Removed the Last Person Who Loved Me Unconditionally and That Was the Thing That Saved My Life – Tom M.

So, now I'm going to ask you to give a warm welcome, and I'm not inventing this, this is written here, okay, to our opening guest speaker, and I just want to say that he's a very special person for me. When nine years ago I was just over a year sober, and I got the chance to go from France to America, and I run into this first meeting, and there he was, sitting there, and they said I was really excited, and I saw him and said, like, I want what he's got. I don't know how he got it, but this is exactly, and he's still, he's my fancy American sponsor, so I love that, and he's a really dear friend, and I'm really, really happy. He's here tonight, so welcome to Tom from Florida. Well, my name's Tom, I'm an alcoholic. And, hola. I mean, I love that word, hola. When I first came here to this convention ten years ago, and I started hearing people saying, hola. I say it all the time now. You know, hola means to me like happy, joyous, and free in Spanish somehow, you know. Hola means my home group in Europe. Hola means so much to me since I heard that word ten years ago. You know, it just feels so good to say it all the time, you know. I love being sober. I just love being sober. And, you know, like somebody said, I've just been nominated to the committee, and I guess this is my initiation. Anybody else want to join? You know, but, like, and I don't really know where to start either, because I have a good, quiet mind tonight for a change, and it's not always like that. But I think I will start in 2011. On a Sunday night, on the layover night in this building, I did a share. And Tim asked me that night. And I said, after I finish, would I please open on a Wednesday night at the convention? And I said, sure. He goes, okay, 2013. Gave me two years to think about this. You know, so you can imagine some really good stuff has gone through my mind. And I can't remember any of it. You know, what I try to do is like, you know, the psychologists say to visualize, visualize, you know. So I'm visualizing success. You know, like the football player has to visualize kicking the ball, and it goes in the net. And the golfer visualizes the perfect shot, you know. And so I've been visualizing this for two years. Unfortunately, none of you look like I pictured you. It's like, you know, I always thought I was going to be addressing a room full of alcoholics. Look at this group. You know what I mean? None of the stereotypes are here, you know. There's nobody that looks like this. They're full flight from reality here. You know? Oh, there's an outright mental defective. You know, and that's what the doctor's opinion, that's what it calls us. We're full flight from reality. We're outright mental defectives, you know. And I come here to address a group like that, and my job is to impress you and to make you like me. So what's the matter with me? You know what I mean? I'm in this room full of outright mental defectives. My goal is to just make you like me. You know, but that's like the story of my alcoholism. That's how I always was, you know. That's how I was. I was just feeling less than and trying to make you like me and always wondering what you thought about me. And my fear was all about self-centered fear, being self-conscious, you know. And it just used to drive me crazy. And, uh... You know, I, uh... I had, like I say, a lot of things I was going to say. But I think I'll just start with, you know, I was born in Massachusetts. A little town north of Boston. Irish Catholic, raised Irish Catholic. I know today, having gone through those steps, especially step four, that, you know, I had difficulties before I picked up a drink. And I know that my relationship with a higher power, I really didn't have. I didn't have that as much as I was in church as a child. I had a relationship with an institution. There was no God behind that thing. You know, like I was always in church. I was always going to church. I was always serving mass. You know, I loved the Latin and the incense and the singing and the vestments. And I loved all that stuff. But I didn't have a relationship with anything beyond that. If that makes sense to anybody, you know. Because I was always in church. And my mother, every night, she'd be ironing the cap. And I'd be wearing a cassock and surplus, you know, putting the pleats in that surplus. And everywhere I went until I was about 13 years old, I had a cassock and surplus on a coat hanger, blowing in the wind behind me. Always going to church. And, you know, I know today that the only reason I was there was because I was trying to make you think I was a good kid. I wasn't there to serve God or to have a relationship with a power greater than myself. I was there to make you think that Tommy Murphy was a good kid. You know? And, man, I was really good at altar boying. I was, like, probably the best altar boy that's ever been. I mean, I have altar boy trophies. You know? Cardinal Cushing, he was like the Pope of America at the time. He used to come pick me up in this Lincoln. We'd drive around and dedicate things, you know. We'd do statues, you know. Oh, there's one. Let's get this one. And, you know, we'd confirm other little soldiers of Christ. And we were always, you know, we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to church. And we'd get hold of another little soldier of Christ. And we're always going around doing, you know, and that's the way it was. And I thought it was the greatest thing ever. You know? Because I got out of school, and I'd have to ride around with Dick Cushing, or Cardinal Cushing. And what happened, though, is at 13 years old, I picked up a drink. And it's almost a direct line from that day. I've got a lot of this in my memory. There's a lot out there. I just, you know... to this where I'm standing right here. But I picked up a drink when I was 13 years old, and that was the end of the cassock and surplus and the cardinal and the limo and church and everything else. That was it, you know. And I'd had eight years with the Sisters of St. Joseph, you know, when you'd sit there and you'd, you know, the Sisters of St. Joseph, you know, you're sitting there saying, geez, I wonder if she's got hair. You know those, you know them sisters? Them's the ones we had. And I had eight years with them, and then I finished the eighth grade, and I was going to go to high school, and I went to Lawrence Central Catholic, and I had Marist Brothers for that first year. But it was in between the nuns and the brothers that I picked up a drink at 13 years old. And since I picked up a drink, my life has just been totally different. Because, you know, what happened is when I picked up a drink the first time, I blacked out, I threw up, I laughed, I talked to girls, had the best time in my whole life, you know, and I couldn't wait to do it again. And each time that I could find booze on a Friday and Saturday night when I was 13, 14, 15 years old, I would drink. And I'd wake up Sunday morning, and, you know, all I could think about is, where am I going to get the booze next Friday? 14 years old, 15 years old. Who's going to buy it? Who am I going to drink it with? Where are we going to go? Who cares? You know, I just know I wanted the booze. And the way I drank is like, you know, I'm going to drink yours, then I'm going to drink mine. That's the way I drank. And I know today that I had an obsession. Immediately. Immediately. I had an obsession, because I couldn't think about anything except next Friday night. Where am I going to get the booze? You know, and once I picked up that drink, I had the compulsion, because I had no idea where we were going to go after that. I was just going to drink it until it was gone. And that was immediately followed by a spiritual loss of values, because I'd lie, cheat, and steal to get the next drink. Man, I had three-fold illness as a kid. I had alcoholism, you know. I didn't have a chance. I had alcoholism. And if you have that, I'm so glad you're here, you know. And I lasted a year with those Marist brothers, and at the end of that year, they said, well, we really don't want you around here anymore. And I didn't really want to be with them, which was fine with me. So I went to public school. And public school in America was like spitting a bit. You know what I mean? All restraints were off now. I was out running free. And I was 14, 15 years old. I'd drink as much as I could whenever I could. I loved being a legend. I was a legend, because you know what? People said, you see how much he drank last night? And I'd say, yeah. You know, I mean, I thought it was a skill. You know, I can drink better than you. Watch me now, you know. And what did I know? You know, what did I know? And I just drank, and I drank, and I drank. And like I say, I was the smart kid, you know, the Irish Catholic kid, the Cardinal's favorite, you know, a great parochial school education. So I get to public school, and I was way ahead of the rest of them people. In fact, it was this kid, Andy, that I picked up a drink the first, the first time I drank. He was a Protestant. And sometimes I think if I'd never met a Protestant, I'd probably never would have drank. I mean, I had sort of a sheltered life, you know what I mean? It was very, very parochial. And that's what happened. And so I'm drinking and drinking and drinking, and I don't want to go to school. I didn't care for school anymore. So I didn't go much. I just didn't go. And at the end of my senior year in high school, I was just barely passing, you know, the smart kid that came in on the college courses, with all this potential and ready to go, you know. By now, it's like, whoa, I'm taking typing to get the last credits to get my diploma, just to get out the door. And so I finally, I graduated high school, and it was 1967. I don't mind dating myself. It's 1967. I was 17 years old. And I've been watching this little war on TV for like five years, you know, in black and white. And every night, the television, the news show, would tell us about how many people we killed, and how many of us they killed. And this war was going on and on and on. And I'm thinking, well, you know, by the time I'm old enough, that war will be over. But it wasn't over, you know. It was 1967. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have an idea about how to avoid this situation. There were ways around it, but I hadn't smartened up enough to do anything about it. So I, in a hurry, found this little school that took me in. And... I got a little deferment from the draft, because we had a draft in America at the time. And I got a little deferment, and I went to this college, and I made it three semesters in this school. And in February of 1969, at the end of my third semester, I had a sparkling grade point average of 1.79. But I didn't go to college much either. So I got a letter from them and said that I was expelled. They threw me out after three semesters, because I needed a 1.8. I had a 1.79. That was February of 1969. In May, I got a letter from Richard Nixon. Remember him? Greetings, Tom. We request your presence. I got drafted, you know. August of 1969, I was in Fort Dix, New Jersey. There's a little thing going on up the road called Woodstock. And that's put my life in context, you know. And in April of 1970, I woke up with the 101st Airborne Infantry in a place called Phu Bai in South Vietnam. And I'm wondering, how did I get here? What am I doing with these people? You know? How I got there was I picked up a drink when I was 13 years old. I know all this today. When I picked up that first drink, I had no choice after that. I had to drink. I'm an alcoholic. You know, every decision I made after 13 years old was based on the next drink. It was all based on alcohol. I made decisions about schools, obviously. Jobs. Dating. Most people made decisions about that besides me. I mean, who the hell would go out with me? You know what I mean? That's the way it was. And, uh... But my whole life was all about booze. And booze was calling all the shots. All the shots. Everything. So here I end up in war. I'm in a war because I picked up a drink at 13. That was a scary place, you know. And I did a year over there, and I came home. And now I'm really different. You know? I'm back in America. And it seemed like America had changed. And, you know, there's a woman named Gertrude Stein, I think her name was, and she was an author. She used to be on the Algonquin table in New York. And Gertrude was from Seattle, and she'd sit around New York, and people would say, Gertrude, you should go to Seattle and see what it's like in your hometown now. So she did. Finally, she went to Seattle, and she came back to New York, and they said, Hey, Gertrude, what's it like in Seattle now? And she goes, Well, there's no there there. When I came back from that war, there was no here here. That's what it felt like. But what I knew was that if I drank, I'd be okay. I needed to drink now. Now I needed to drink more than ever. I couldn't drink enough. I couldn't drink fast enough. I couldn't get it in me. I just couldn't, you know. And all I wanted to do, I was 21 years old, I wanted to be a 21-year-old guy, I wanted to get a girlfriend, and I wanted to go to college, and I wanted to get a job. I had plenty of jobs. Couldn't hold them. Couldn't keep them. Went back to college, but that wasn't going too good. I did get a girlfriend. Her name was Tina, and I was with her for seven years. And I tell you, she still holds the record. But that record's in jeopardy, I'm glad to tell you. And, you know, I was with her for those seven years, and I was getting worse. It was just getting worse and worse and worse. And this is the 1970s now, and they're rolling on, rolling on, rolling on. By 1977, she and I are living together, and I'm driving a 1962 Chevy. I don't have a job. I can't hardly come out of my room, you know. Like, the car's 15 years old, and all of a sudden, she decided to throw me out. And I know to this day that she just didn't understand my potential. But I left there from her with a broken heart, you know, like everybody does. And I took my 1962 Chevy, and I put everything I owned into it. And I had $20 that day, and I went. I had to go to court. I'd been arrested, so I had to go to see the judge. And I take my $20 and my 1962 Chevy. The reason I was going to court is because I was arrested for driving an unregistered, uninsured car. So I took my unregistered, uninsured car to court, and I went to see the judge. And the cop that arrested me didn't show up, so the judge said, okay, $10 court costs and let me go. So I left. I got $5 worth of gasoline in my 1962 Chevy, and I drove down to Cape Cod, and I got on a ferry, and I went to Nantucket, which is 30 miles offshore. Beautiful little island out there. And in those days, it was like, you know, there was 60 liquor licenses and maybe two or three policemen. And it was like, you know, it was the, when they talk about it, it was the tiny little drinking village with the fishing problem. You know? Because it was the most beautiful place, you know, because it was just like drinking fish, drinking fish. Every day, drinking fish, drinking fish, drinking fish. And some days we didn't fish. You know, it was like the, oh, God, it was lovely out there. And there was a lot of people just like me doing just what I was doing, and we were having a ball. And we had this incredible paradise to ourselves 10 months out of the year because the people that owned the land and everything, they would only come over for two months from Fourth of July to Labor Day. So we lived in this little paradise doing what we wanted to do whenever we wanted to do it every day. And it was great. And I was just having a ball. You know, I was tending bar all the time and driving a truck and, I don't know, doing carpentry, whatever I could, you know. And in spite of myself, like, the island is building up around me. These huge homes are being built by the Wall Street people. And in spite of myself, I started to get successful. I became a trash man. I started a company. I started a company. I started a rubbish company. Because they're building these big houses and I got some trucks and what I do is I go haul the debris away. And I was making money like hand over fist. Because they're building these rooms, these houses of 15,000, 20,000 square feet. Huge. You know, they got movie theaters in them and game rooms and, you know, 12 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms. And that's what they're building out there. And I'm hauling the debris away, right? And I've started with a rental truck and 12 customers. And a few years later, I had three trucks and 10 guys working for me and 450 customers. And I'm so drunk I can't go out of the house in the morning. I can't, I'm shaking so bad in the morning that I can't work anymore and I can't drive. You know, because I got to a place in my drinking where I could only go three hours without a drink. And if I went more than three hours, the same thing would happen each time, you know. My eyes would start to water and then they'd get all red. And I'd get that clammy feeling like I need a shower, I've got to have a shower, you know. Then I'd start to shake. Then the dry heaves would come and then the diarrhea. And I needed to put booze in my body. If I didn't drink, I thought I was going to die, you know. But I was that smart kid, the Irish Catholic kid, you know. I had a plan. I knew that if every night before I went to bed, I went to the liquor store and got a bottle of whiskey. I like Jameson's Irish whiskey. I'd get a bottle of whiskey, I'd bring it home and put it beside the bed. So that when I passed out in the morning, I'd wake up and I'd have something to drink. But see, you know what I did is I passed out at 9 o'clock. I woke up at midnight. I drank the booze beside the bed, passed out again and woke up at 4 o'clock. And at 4 o'clock, there's nothing to drink and the store doesn't open until 8. So here we go again. Watery eyes, get all red. Oh, that clammy feeling, you know. Oh, the shakes come. The dry heaves, the diarrhea. Oh, I needed to put booze in my body. So I'd run down to the liquor store. And I'd slide in the soda. And I'd go to the side door five minutes to 8 just before they opened. And I'd get three nips of little airplane bottles of Jameson's Irish whiskey. And I'd sit out in my rubbish truck. And I'd try and get the tops off. And I couldn't get the top off the bottles, you know. I couldn't get the tops off. Finally, I'd get the thing ripped off and I'd throw the booze down my throat. And I'd puke out my nose at the same time. I was a social drinker. But that's what it looked like. That's what drinking looked like. So here we go again. You know, the smart kid, the Irish Catholic kid, the Cardinal's favorite, the decorated veteran, the successful businessman. I know what I'm going to do. I'm getting off this island. Must be the island. You know? What else could it be? So I'm 41 years old. I moved to New York. Back in with my mother. 41-year-old Irish guy right on time, you know. Hey, ma'am, home. God, was she glad to see me. And you know, this is like 1991 by now. My first meeting is in 1979. My first time I came in at AA on a DUI scholarship in 1979. I didn't like the looks of you all. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to. I just had nothing to do. I see God, God, God, God. No way. No way. You know? So here is 1991. I'd been into some rehabs and some detoxes. And you know, I've been into the ones with the wall-to-wall carpeting. By the time I got sober, I was in the ones with the cement floor and the drain in there, coming with a fire hose to clean it in the morning. You know? But that's my drinking career. So I'm back with my mother. Instead of being a 24-7 drinker, I'm cleaning up my act, you know. And I become a periodic. And it gets worse. It gets worse. It gets worse. You try to go a couple weeks without drinking, and all you can think about is drinking. And you pick up a drink, and you have no idea where you're going to end up. You know? And you do it again. And you get a month. And then you get two months. And then you pick up a drink. And then you end up in four-point restraint. Time after time after time. I wake up, and I go to move in the morning. I can't move. I'm tied to a bed. Again. Not again. What do I do this time? And the doctor comes in. And he goes, I'm going to take a breath. How are you today? So I'm great on time. I said, well, we've got to have a little chat. He said, you were up on the Mystic River Bridge last night. You're going to jump off. You're suicidal. We were talking about that. Are you still suicidal? I said, no, I'm all right. I said, I didn't want to be dead long. You know, that second step, you know, it talks about insanity. My best thinking said to me that if I just kill myself for a few days, I'll be okay. And I had trouble with that second step. I had trouble trying to. I did. I had trouble with that. So, you know, this just goes on and on and on. It's just the same thing over and over. In 1994, my mother, I'm still living with my mother. And I've been with her like three years or something. It's February. And she has, she goes into, end of January, I guess. She has congestive heart failure, you know. So the ambulance comes. And we take her to the hospital. And she goes into the hospital. And the doctor says, well, she's going to be okay. But we're going to keep her for five days. We'll call you. You come back. We'll get her. It's like on a Monday. Come get her on Friday. It's okay, you know. So I'm going home. And I'm thinking, is nobody home? I think I'll get a six pack. That's a Monday. I get the six pack. The next thing I know, it's Friday. The phone's ringing. I don't know. That's how I drank. You know what I mean? If I think I got an appointment on Friday, I'll drink Monday and Tuesday, sober up Wednesday and Thursday. And Friday, I'll be fine. Uh-uh. Pick up a drink on Monday. The phone rings on Friday. It's like that. I don't know where it goes. It just goes. That's what it's like. So I went and picked her up. She says, what are you going to do? Are you drunk? I said, yeah, yeah, I'm drunk. I'm going to go into the Manchester VA hospital, because that's where I went. The Veterans Administration hospital is at the end. And I went in there on the 4th of March, 3rd of March, 1994. I came out on the 5th, and I haven't had a drink since. I don't know really what happened, because I did this 20, 30, 40, 50 times. And I walked out of this place, and I haven't had a drink since. I can tell you, 26 days later, my mother died, and I didn't drink. I can say to you that I think that the last source of unconditional love had to be removed from my life, because if somebody was still there that loved me, I would have stayed there and used it. I would have taken advantage of it. I'd still be drinking. God saw fit. That was how he got me. So there's a reading in the little 24-hour book, and it's on the 5th of July, and it's in the meditation. It says, you cannot forever prolong God's... plan for your life. You cannot forever avoid God's plan for your life, something like that. Even if you choose the paths of destruction or evil, God's going to grab you. He's going to pluck you, and he's going to put you where he wants you. And I'm here to tell you I've been plucked. Because there's no other reason. You know what I mean? I can't... Well, pluck me. But anyways... Because there's no other reason. Then I'm here. There's no... You know, I can't really... It just kills me, you know? I haven't had a drink since then. And I had nowhere to go, you know, after my mother died, and I went up to White River Junction in Vermont, which is this little hospital, VA hospital up there, and I spent a couple of months in there, and I came out. It was the 4th of July. I was still sober, and I had nowhere to go. Independence Day in America. And I went down to Boston, and I checked into New England Shelter for homeless veterans. I'm not... I'm not an Irish Catholic kid, you know? The world-famous altar boy. The Cardinal's favorite. The decorated veteran. The successful businessman. What am I doing in this homeless shelter? I'm in that homeless shelter because I picked up a drink when I was 13 years old. The theme here. You know? I can't avoid that thing. If I drink, this is what happens to me. It took so long for me to understand that. And I'm in that shelter, and I meet this woman. Her name is Brenda Smith. She's a big, tall, beanpole blonde from Iowa. Skinny? Jesus, is she skinny. But she says to me, Tom, I'm going to be your homelessness counselor. I said, well, geez, Brenda, I don't think I need much more counseling. I'm already homeless. Yeah, but Brenda was like, she's the woman that saved my life, because whenever I needed her, I'd call her. She'd answer the phone. She'd call me right back, you know? She was just the best. And she says, you know, we're going to... She was like my... She said everything in the beginning to me. She said, we're going to go through the 12 steps, and we're going through the 12 steps, and I'm doing a fourth and fifth step with her, you know? And she used to say to me, Tom! She'd yell at me, because it was hard to get my attention. And she'd say, Tom, Tom! I'd say, yes, Brenda? And she'd say, what do you want out of life, Tom? I'd say, well, geez, Brenda, I just want to be happy. And she'd say, Tom, could you be a little more specific? I said, no. No! I have no idea what will make me happy. But you know what I found in Alcoholics Anonymous? If you go through those steps, especially four through nine, the things that make you unhappy get removed from your life. And you know what's left? Happy! Who knew that? Really. So this is a program for me. It's not addition. It's a program of subtraction. I don't say, God, give me courage. I say, God, take this fear. Take this from me, God, please. And this is how it works. So, you know... I came into AA right after that. I was in Newburyport, Massachusetts. And that was the first meeting I really liked. I got out of the homeless shelters. I got a Section 8 voucher where the government helped me. You know what I mean? And I was so mocus. You know the word mocus over here? Mocus was like, you know, what it's like when you first come in. That's mocus. There's no other word for it. And I couldn't figure out, like, I couldn't figure out which side to put the gas in the car or where the pump was. And I couldn't do that. I was like, I'd park over here and I'd walk over and I'd go, oh, okay. And I'd go back and get the car and come back and put the gas. This is what it's like. I couldn't go to the grocery store. I was afraid to go to the grocery store. You know, so I had to have guerrilla shopping rules I had. And the rule was get there five minutes to eight when it first opened. Be the first one in there. Get a carry basket. Never get more than eight things. Start at the day-old bread section. I mean, these are my rules. This is how I'm... I don't know about you, but this is what it's like coming back, you know? I started doing a job I had. Somebody gave me a sledgehammer and I went into this old... It was a crack house, but they'd been taken over by the veterans and they were going to turn it into a halfway house. And so I go in there in the daytime with a flashlight and a sledgehammer and this place was full of pipes and human whatever, you know what I mean? Stuff. And I'd go in there with a flashlight and a sledgehammer and take the walls down. And I got rid of some of that energy that I had because I had incredible anger. Incredible. I was mad. Somebody gave me a lawnmower. And I thought, well, I must be a gardener. I'd just go around cutting grass, you know? Especially the grass around the statues. Remember the statues? But you don't want to leave any grass laying around. You like to cut it and send your bill. And then somebody gave me a computer. And the next thing I know, I was the information services manager for this guy's company. And then the next thing you know, I'm the executive assistant to the CEO of a company in New Jersey. You know, I bought a house. My life turned around totally. But I kept coming to AA. And it's just the most remarkable thing to me that I can be standing here tonight. Happy, joyous, and free. Incredibly grateful. And so delighted to have the power greater than myself that I have today. Because remember when I was going over there to Vietnam? We were leaving McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. And we get on the plane and we go to Alaska. And we go from Alaska, we go to Osaka, Japan. And we're in Osaka, Japan, and we had to get off so they could refuel the plane. So we're off and we're sitting there, we're waiting for the plane to get refueled. Hour and a half, two hours. We get back on the plane, take off. We're going across the South China Sea in the middle of the night. And we're going into Benoit. And everybody, you know. This is shaky time. We're going to war. We're going to war. And the lights go down on the plane. And everybody's, you know, like making believe they're sleeping. Nobody's sleeping. Because everybody's too afraid. You can smell it. You know, you can smell it. And I had this little notebook. And I'm writing in the notebook. And I have this thing. It's like, okay, God, after all I've done for you, look what you're doing to me. Ah, look at step two. You'll see my picture there. I'm the bewildered guy, the belligerent guy. You know, I'm that guy. You know, I said before, I was like, when I came into AA, nobody said, oh, here comes Tom, the open-minded guy. They weren't saying that, you know. I come in here completely shut down, adamantly opposed to the existence of God. Mad. And today I can tell you that the most important part of my life is the presence of God in my life. It took forever. I mean, I was stuck in that first step. My life was unmanned. I was unmanageable. I was powerless over alcohol. But I couldn't move forward. I couldn't go on. I was in and out of AA, in and out, in and out, in and out, like the tide. You know, people say, what are you doing here? I say, well, you know, I'm kind of new. And I introduce myself. My name's Tom. I'm a chronic relapser. And this guy said to me one day, kid, you've never been sober long enough to relapse. You know, I mean, these are the things that happened. You know, I got a sponsor named Ronnie. Ronnie was a little tiny guy. He was a tunnel rat in Vietnam. And somebody had taken off half his chin. He took some shrapnel hair. And he became my sponsor. And he used to yell at me, you know, because I always wanted to make up for all the lost time. And I wanted this and I wanted that. And I was . He used to yell at me, don't just do something. Stand there. You know, I don't know how sponsors always know how to tell you the right thing. They just knew. This guy knew. And I met gentlemen who took me along. Because when I came into AA, it was, oh, we want you, we love you, we need you. You know, it was like, sit over there, don't hurt anybody. That's what I came in like, you know. It was different. And who knew? Who knew? You know. I guess I just want to say that, you know, I believe that I was born absolutely perfect. I was perfect for almost 10 seconds. The doctors slapped my ass. I got a little bit of a shock. I got a little bit of fear. And I got fear. You know. Do you ever wonder where it all comes from? You know, can you find the starting point? You know, when you're driving around, why am I an alcoholic? What line did I cross? How come I'm here? What's this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you got like two bowling balls and a dump truck here. And it's like, ah. That's all I can think of. I mean, to me, it seems like it's always been there. So I believe having, I don't believe I'm born with it. I think I was born perfectly. The doctor slapped my ass. I got fear. And I had to develop a strategy to deal with that fear. And that fear for me, the way I dealt with it is I came right into your face. And I stood in front of you in my cassock and surplice. And I tried to make you like me. And when I turned 13, I got a new strategy. And that strategy involved alcohol. And I did the best I could for as long as I could with what I had. You know. And today, I'm telling you, I'm so grateful to be here. It just kills me, you know. Because one of that first rehabs. I was in this place called Bedford VA Hospital. And this little guy came in. You know how we go in now and we bring meetings and we feel so good by doing that, you know. When I was a patient there, I didn't understand what this little guy was doing when he came in. And he's just this little guy from South Boston. He's like a little leprechaun, a little Irish guy. His name was Patrick. And the way he said it, this is the way I heard it. My name's Patrick and I'm an alcoholic. . My super irony is my most precious possession. That's the way I heard it. And I'm looking at Patrick and I'm going, you poor bastard. You know. Get a life, you know. But today it's like, you know. Today it's like, my name's Tom. I'm an alcoholic. I mean, that's the way I introduce myself. But I'd like to tell you if you're new here, hang on a minute. But my name's Tom. I'm from the fourth dimension. . You know, so if you're new, don't get nervous. But the fourth dimension is a really lovely place. And I've been here for quite a while. And I have this other friend and his name's Ron. And Ron says, you know, if you come to AA and you stay here long enough, you'll become the person you couldn't stand when you walked in. . So I'm like Patrick. I'm an alcoholic. And he's my most precious possession. And I just want to thank you all for being here tonight. I had a great time. I hope you did too. Thank you. .