Kenny D. at the 12-step spiritual retreat – 2006

I wish I could do this in my own life, and it'd sure be great. But there's a lady named Marianne Williamson, and some of you may have heard of her, but she's really an amazing writer. I mean, she just has this way with writing words in a beautiful way that brings about... You know, you'll well up with emotions reading her writing. It's so beautiful. And Darlene was a big Marianne Wilson person, and Marianne Williams also does a lot of tapes, meditation tapes like these ones we've been doing if you're interested and uh she has this voice that is like angelic when she when she's speaking on one of these tapes she does all types of things you can get a tape on relationship or on breaking up in a relationship or getting into a relationship or you know fear and love i mean she's got all these tapes and darlene had boxes of tapes they were always just flying out of her house and and she just loved marianne williamson and there's was a book called Illuminata, which is just a book of prayers that Marianne Williamson wrote. And it kind of got me writing my own prayers. And so sometimes I will have people write their own third step prayer because it says, you know, we said something like this. And I think that's actually step seven, but it says we said Something Like This. You know, those prayers are there, but you can write your own third-step prayer and your own seventh-step pray, your own prayer when you retreat. And we're going to have a return prayer here. And, I got that from Marianne Williams, and that was something that Darlene turned me on to this woman and and she just just loved Marianne and uh um and when Darlene was dying in the hospital and all those people were there I just thought uh well what the heck I'll give it a try because Darlena listened to those Marianne Williamson tapes she had them in her hospital room and and it was that that you know that crystal clear voice and I just felt well what the hell so I got on the internet and I found out that she belongs to this church that's back in Minneapolis Minnesota and and that's where she lived and I kind of got you know in and did all the stuff I could to get the furthest into a contact deal for her and I found a contact phone number for this place and I left a message you know this message is for Marianne Williamson and I explained the whole situation this woman and I also found out that Marianne Williams was and I'm sure probably still is she was very big in the fundraising effort for HIV and AIDS research and raised a lot of money. And so I knew this was kind of a deal, so I called and I just left this message saying what the situation was. This woman helped all these addicts in Seattle and now she's dying and would you consider giving her a call and talking to her? And it wasn't like maybe the next day I got a phone call. Yeah, hi, this is Marianne Williamson and I got your message and thank you very much for calling and what's the situation? And I explained that Darlene was probably going to die within a few days. But she was cognizant. She could talk. And she said, okay, well, here's what we'll do. This time you go to the hospital and I'll call your cell phone. So I went to the hospital and told a few people, oh, you're not going to believe this. Wait until you see Darlane's face. And the phone call came and I answered the phone. And hello. Oh, hi, Marianne, this is Kenny Down. and thank you, and yeah, this is blah, blah, blah, she said, Kenny, let me talk to Darlene. And I went in the room and I said, hey, Darlena, there's somebody on the phone for you. And it was that angelic voice, you know, and she just knew immediately she started bawling. It was just such a great deal. And I had said it that earlier that I would tell you a little bit about this written prayer deal and where it came from. And that's kind of the bigger story of that deal. And it was just the most beautiful thing to watch her get that call and to hear Marianne Williamson talk to her about death and dying. You know, this is a woman that knows a lot about how to help somebody make this kind of a transition. It was just a great deal. Marianne Williamson stayed on the phone for as long as Darlene wanted to talk and finally Darlane was tired. And I think she died probably just a few days after that. With that, I think we will stop recording and we will take a break. We'll come back in. We'll do a prayer and we'll do it again. We'll go a little more on the 12th step and we're going to be done for the weekend. Thank you everybody. Okay, everybody. Welcome back. My name's Kenny. I'm an alcoholic. And this is going to be our last session for the weekend. So there's just a few things that maybe I'll touch on. And again, thank you all for having me here this week, this weekend. It's been really, really a great experience for me. And I can just tell you from sitting in this seat and also we have a retreat in Seattle that I helped put together and I did kind of the business end of that retreat for 10 years and now I've passed it on to some other people. But one thing I hear from all the people that come through is these retreats have as much impact on the person doing the retreat as people coming, maybe more. You know, I mean, I have really just been completely and totally filled and my batteries are charged and I just feel so very grateful to be here and to be with you all. So these retreat's kind of serve sometimes, I think they serve as a wake-up call a little bit and sometimes it might be a bit much. and it might be maybe a lot of information. It seems kind of overwhelming and it takes a long time to sometimes digest this stuff and you probably can't digest all of it, you know, and you just kind of take a little bit that you remember from the retreats and hopefully you can put some of this into your spiritual practice. But these do serve as a wake-up call and it is pretty intense and the real reason for that, I think, is that for me, you know to have had a spiritual awakening kind of required that I was spiritually asleep first. And there is kind of an analogy in that, that I had to be drunk before I could get sober. And I had to be spiritually asleep before I could have a spiritual awakening. And the further, there's kind of an analogy that says the deeper the slumber, the louder the awakening needs to be. And I was a guy that really needed a good, you know, shaking and a good loud wake-up call. And I really believe that's what we have here. You know, this method that we're talking about, this hardcore kind of a big book message with the steps and stuff, it's a loud wake up call. It's meant for people that are maybe further to sleep or maybe they're just not as intelligent as the average bear. I don't know which way it goes. But a good friend of mine, Frank, used to call this Special Education AA. And Frank's been sick for quite a while now and I don't see him around meetings hardly at all anymore. But I really loved him for that because he would always say, oh yeah, Kenny, you're going to need the special ed deal. And what that meant was that somebody was going to have to read the book to me word by word and explain the whole thing. I just wasn't going to get it on my own. And so hopefully this has done those things that we talked about in the beginning. It's encouraged the people here to think honestly, to search diligently within themselves. I'll talk about the 12th step just a little bit more and then I'll talked about this prayer that I've written up here a little bet and then we'll have time for a few more questions and comments. We don't have really much of a time restriction but we do got a little of a bit of time restriction here so we will stay to the time that we have and get as much in as we can. So there's an idea that, you know, you just heard the story about Darlene and I just love to tell that story because it tells you about spiritual potential. And what that means is that that spiritual potential that was within Darlane when she came into that retreat, you know all of those things that she did were really within her at that moment. You know, that spiritual potential was there and it's there within every one of us and it' s there within within every person. You know when I was back behind the McDonald's there you know that spiritual potentiall to be here in New Mexico with you for this weekend was already there. It wasn't something that was dropped in at some other time. you know, that spiritual potential was there. Probably it was a little hard to see and I think that's part of the spiritual practice is to try to see that spiritual potential in everybody that comes into the rooms and to realize that we don't know who the next Darlene is that's going to come in and we don'T know who the next great AA sponsor is going to be that comes in. You know, I was drunk and I was loaded when I came into my first AA meeting. I was completely inappropriate. I said some stuff that was, you know, very inappropriate. Uh, I was, you know emotionally a basket case. All of those kinds of things but that spiritual potential was there and I try to really remember that. You know when we're reaching our hand out to the still suffering alcoholic it's really not about getting them sober. It's always going to be about the A number three. I've had a chance to work and sponsor with a lot of people and in the light of what we started out the last session with this idea that I would tell you there's been the 12 step work I guess I would say it this way, 12 step work is not in my experience for the faint of heart and what that means is that the big book does describe to us in the family afterward about the sensitivity being a handicap you know that sometimes we're over sensitive and and uh you know this is you know if you put yourself on the firing lines in alcoholics anonymous you know you will see all of those things that dr silkworth talked about the despairing lives and the the blameless children sad lives of these parents and and spouses that are affected to out by alcoholism a lot of the people that you sponsor are going to die of alcoholism I think this is a disease still even with all of what we've done in AA and all of the other 12 step programs I think it's still a disease that statistically kills most of the population so you know I've had I've been through a lot of tragedies because it seems like that a lot or the people are attracted to my message are these last Gaspers and these people that have been in and out and in and out for a long time. And at one time, and I don't even know why I did, maybe it was a little morbid, but I kind of started the little RIP list, you know, these people that I'd worked with that had died. And I quit keeping count. I mean, I really cannot keep count. But I had a guy that I was working with that jumped out the window and committed suicide in front of his children. Bill Wilson had somebody hang himself in his house you know the founder of our program this stuff happens all the time i mean it in any home group you know these tragedies if you go back over any considerable period of time you're going to find that these tragedys are are commonplace among us and it doesn't always work out as a story with dark like like darlene's you know those are the the heartwarming things and the things that really keep us going knowing that that spiritual potential is there but it's equally as heartbreaking when it doesn't. And I do need to be spiritually awake when I'm sponsoring people. And I have made mistakes. I talked a little bit about this guy that I'd sponsored that I made a mistake with. Somebody asked about making the graveside amends and I commented, well yeah, there was a few and I told you I would come back to him in step 12 and I will. His name was Gary and he was a guy that I sponsored. He was just a great guy and he was a car salesman with the huge, you know, the big diamond pinky ring and he had the accent and all of the moves and everything. And everybody just loved Gary because he was one of those guys that was so full of BS that you just loved him. I mean, he just had these, you know everything, you knew that he wasn't quite sincere, you knew he was great guy but you didn't want to like set your wallet down or anything. He was just, he was, he was just one of the guys and you know Gary wouldn't mind me saying this because we always teased him. He was just one of these really, and he was in and out, in and outer of the program and he had a great sense of humor. He was a good looking guy and everybody around the hall and stuff loved him but he struggled so mightily with sobriety and he just could not get sober and he finally asked me if I'd sponsor him and I told him I would take him through the book and I started reading the book to him and he came over and I travel sometimes for my business and I was going up to Alaska I was only going to be gone a few days, but I was going up to Alaska. But I was gonna miss my next appointment with him. So I told him, well, Gary, I'll miss my last appointment. But I'll call you as soon as I get back. And he was telling me, Kenny, man, I'm freaking out here. You know, I need something more than this. I gave him the set-aside prayer and the circle and triangle. Tell him to read, do all this stuff and build a story. And he Was just like, still it wasn't enough. He was like, I don't know, man. It just seems pretty shaky and I am going out of my mind here. I need some. And I hadn't been loaning tapes out because I loaned tapes and books to alcoholics and they don't ever bring them back. Even the ones that have been sober for years and years and years, it's just an unwritten rule if somebody loans you a tape or a CD or a book or something in AA, you don't bring it back. And so this was kind of the mindset I was in. and so, but I had a set of Joe and Charlie tapes on my table and Gary asked me, he said hey, could I take those Joe and Charley tapes and I'll listen to some of those while you're gone in Alaska and I said well listen Gary I don't like to loan my stuff out because it will disappear and I won't get it back but I'll tell you when you come back when I come back I'll burn all those for you I'll record all those tapes and I'm going to give them to you when you're back and I left for Alaska and I came back from Alaska and I thought, I was thinking about Gary when I was gone. I called him up when I get back and I had left a message and Gary had already died when I left the message and I didn't know it and he died when I, when I went to the hospital and when I got home and when we left he tore his apartment up, broke all the furniture in his apartment. The police were called. The police broke his door down and he came out of his bathroom projectile vomiting and hit the floor dead and, you know, died of a massive heart attack. He was sitting shooting coke or, you know, doing something. And, you know, I tell that story just so, you know. You got to be a little, you know, this is one of the things that kind of woke me up to this. I need to be a little more unselfish and a little more. And it's the reason I made the amends to Gary. Because I'll tell you what, when I went home after I found out that Gary had died and I saw those tapes on my table they would have liked to have choked me I didn't want to touch those tapes I didn'y want to look at those tapes and you know the thing about it was I'd already listened to those tapes I didn''t really even need those tapes so you know I mean I don't hold back much when people are around and you now oh hey that's pretty nice oh yeah here you go you know here's a couple more tapes here's book that you'll like take this stuff And I just realized that, you know, when I loan something, it'd be nice if you'd bring it back and then I can give it to somebody else. But maybe you'll find somebody and you'll give it to them and pass it on. And, you Know, I did make those amends at his service. I went to his service and I had written the amends letter and I just wrote that amends that, man, that was very selfish of me and I would have loved to have gave you those tapes and I hope that wouldn't have made the difference between your living and dying. And I got a clear message back from Gary that he was in a good place and I ended up sponsoring his girlfriend. His girlfriend, when I sponsored her, she was actually the girl that I told, I want you to have a woman in the fifth step with you and Darlene came and sat in that fifth step. That was Gary's girlfriend. After he died, she asked me to sponsor her. So I feel like I've made amends with Gary but still it's one of those things I like to talk about in the 12th step and I could go on and on. and I really could with the number of people that, you know, I've got calls that, hey, we just found Felix and he's dead out in his van. You know, I've had a lot, a lot of those kind of experiences in AA. And I've heard a lot about, you name it, I've seen a lot a lot people stay sober too. I mean, an awful lot of folks have got sobriety. When I'm working with somebody in the 12-step, Now, the, you know, kind of what we do is we, and I tell people up front from the very beginning this is how it's going to work. But once we're through the page 164, you know I want them out there looking for that face of hopelessness and finding somebody to sponsor and I say so now if we have a Tuesday 7 o'clock appointment when we're done reading we read 164 or the next Tuesday at 7 o'. We don't meet anymore. You know I don't want to meet anymore but I want you to take that time and give that time now to somebody else And we stay in touch by seeing each other at meetings and by phone or by email. If they have problems, they call. If they've got inventory to write, they'll write inventory and make an appointment, come over and read it to me. So I stay in contact with a large group of these people, but I don't meet with them every week. And I had one particular guy that I sponsor, and I took him up to page 164. I said, okay, well now, he's a little bit younger guy and my wife was cooking too. That was one of the things that made it a little difficult was that he was coming over for dinner every night. My wife said, well, why don't you just have Brendan come over for diner on Tuesday nights? And Brendan doesn't mind me telling the story. He actually likes it and we talk about it all the time. He knows that I share this story quite a bit but he would, you know, my wife would cook for him so it was like a night for him. You know, he'd come over, he get the home cooked meal, He'd get to sit with my family and be in my house. And then we'd go in the room, and we'd do our work for an hour, hour and a half. And we got him all the way through the steps. And I explained to him, okay, well, now you've got to go kind of give this message away, and we won't be meeting once a week anymore. Oh, I'm going to miss those dinners. I'm gonna miss coming over here. Oh, yeah. A couple days would go by, and I'd get a call. He'd say, hey, I got a real big problem. He says, I need to come see you. I needto come seeyou. So can I come over? this okay well I yeah come on over and the next Tuesday be there again he called my wife while I was at work oh I'm gonna come over on Tuesday and just want to let you know okay well why don't you come for dinner yeah and uh and he'd come over and then the next tuesday to be the same thing and the nxt tuesday be oh I got a problem can I come see you and and uh it's got a little kind of frustrated hey this guy's got to get out there and be working he actually was already working with others. But I wanted him to take that time and give it to somebody else. And it was around June, I got this card in the mail and I opened this card up and it was a Father's Day card from Brendan. And it just said, you know, if I think of you as a father and you've helped me out in my life and I love you, I love your family and stuff. And he'd written a sing and it just kind of pierced my heart. It was one of those things that Don talked about the Zorro, you know, that the blade is so sharp you can stick it in and pull it out without drawing any blood. Oh, it was just one of those great things. And I really realized that these people that we sponsor they love us. They end up loving us. And we do become family to some of them. And you know Brendan ended up moving in as a, you known, he ended up moving closer to the house and moved in like a mile and a half away. Today Today, he has a key to my house and he comes anytime he wants. He calls me. Sometimes I don't even know. He just calls and invites himself to dinner. I'll come home from work and Brendan will be there and we'll have dinner. He doesn't really even have anything on his mind. He's just kind of hanging out. He doesn'T have a particular reason. I was like, well, did you need to talk or anything? Oh, no, no. I'm heading out. See you later. He just wanted to come for the food and kind of be with the family and talk. It's just great. and we got a number of those kind of guys, these people. And women too. My wife sponsors and I was talking to Tom and Juanita about this. She had a period where she was sponsoring a lot of people but none of them, they'd get up to amends or they'd balk in inventory. She wasn't really getting these people to this place where they were actually all working with others and then just something just kind of changed. You know, the universe just kind of changed a little bit and all of a sudden she just got like six of these women right in a row and she couldn't believe it. She was just telling me, you know what, they're doing everything I'm telling them. She would say, yeah, go make your amends and they'd be calling, okay, I did that, what's next? She was, excuse me, you know, you know that? And so now we've got these women and they're all sponsoring other people and we just got this really, really great thing going and it's just, the book describes this as a way of life that is not to be missed and I think it's 11 o'clock we will have some time for some more comments or questions I think if we want to end with that but you know I really feel like I've given what I came to give this weekend you know there's probably many more things I could say but I'm just kind of feeling pretty complete for a retreat this weekend and I'm going to offer you this last little thing and that's that another, one more little deal and then we'll open it up for questions or comments for the weekend. But it kind of brings everything full circle that one of my, and I noticed there was a couple of Yankees fans here and that is okay with me. I guess you can stay. So I think there was like three of them. I actually kept count. I know you had a Yankeese hat on. Somebody else had a Yankese hat. There we go. Yeah. But anyways, I'm a big Seattle Mariners fan and the Yankees just have had this habit of destroying the Mariners. But I'm a Seattle MarinERS guy and it's something I got into in sobriety. I never was into sports at all when I was drinking and I got into it in sobpriety. A sober guy took me to a game. I really liked it and I started going to more games with him and then pretty soon I kind of, I've gone, I'm kind of coming out the other end. I got real obsessive for a while and was going to way too many games, but just something I really love. I love going. I love taking somebody I love with me and baseball is a very slow game. It's kind of meditative for me. You know, there's lots of time between every pitch and I sit and talk like Tom and I could go to a game. We'd have a great time because we can talk and tell stories and do things and then you know, if you happen to catch some, you know the crowd will kind of let you know when you need to look. But it's one of my favorite things. My favorite person in the whole world to be with is my wife shannon and and i was with shannon i'm at the ballpark doing my favorite thing it was a sunny day so the roof was was off where it's a day game we're watching the you know my team and we're just you know it's just a great great day happening and i am irritable and restless and discontent for some reason and i've looked back on this this this and i really don't remember but i think the mariners must have been losing and uh but i was just not in that great of a mood. Here I am in this, you know, I have this beautiful life. I'm with the person that I love and that I want to be with the most. And I'm doing my very favorite thing and I'm just pissed off at the world and I're not being very nice to my wife. And, you Know, I'm not talking. I'm Just kind of like, I don't know. We should leave. But the game got over. We were driving home and my wife said, Hey, let's go down to the beach. Let's just take a drive down to the water. On Puget Sound, there's lots of beautiful beaches and stuff. She said, let's take a walk down to the beach and just take a walk in the sand. It was a day game that started at 1 o'clock. Go down there and let's watch the sunset and just kind of walk in the beach. I said, well, I don't know. Let's go to the hall. She said no, going to the hall isn't what I have in mind right now. I didn't have in my mind going to the AA hall. Let's go down to the beach so she won and we got off the freeway got off the free way i'm still feeling a little irritated that now i got to do something that i don't want to do i've been doing what i want to be all day long now i gotta do something i don't wanna do so we're gonna go down on the beach and be romantic and walk in the sand and and i i get off the the free away and we're going down and uh and i just we were going by this place and i had this thought and and my wife had never been back to the McDonald's and seen my little spot. And I pulled off the freeway. Actually, my wife was driving, which is common. You know, I sniffed glue in the sixth grade, so sometimes my driving skills are not just point right on. So my wife actually does a lot of driving. She was driving that day, and I told her, oh, turn off here, turn off there. And she said, where are we going? I said, well, I'll show you. Turn off here. We pulled in behind the McDonalds in this parking lot, And she said, oh my God, this is the spot, isn't it? And I said, yeah, this is it. That was right back in there between those little buildings. That's where I used to hang out and that was my spot and of course I was just filled with emotion back there looking at that spot and right at that moment a guy walks out between the buildings. Homeless guy walked out and our car was parked right there and he looked into the car and I made eye contact with this guy and he kind of walked off and I was just shocked. You know, it was like looking back into the eyes of my own soul and, you know, Shannon in the way that she does said, hey, Kenny, you got to go talk to this guy and I'm like, no, no. And I was like, no, I'm not going to go talk to his guy. I just wanted to show you the spot. No, no you should just go see if you can catch him. Just go talk with him and tell him that you used to hang out back here. and okay, so I got out of the car and I kind of walked up to this guy and I talked to him and it was a rough conversation at first. It was really tough. He was an African-American guy and I said, hey, I noticed you were buying that deal and I'm all dressed in nice clothes and everything coming from the baseball game and just as white as you can be in my nice little car with my wife and he'd seen us and I get out. Oh, I said hi, how are you doing? I saw you come from that little spot back there and I said, you know, I used to do a lot of drugs and so he was kind of immediately defensive. Oh, is that what you think that we all are just a bunch of drug addicts? He just took this seat and I was like, no dude, it ain't about that at all. I used sit back there and do speed balls for hours and hours and hours on end and I couldn't get out of there and I left there and I've been in AA and I'd been sober this many years and he kind of lightened up a little bit and he sat down at a bus stop and I found out he'd just come in on the train and I could tell him well, you can go down here and you can get a meal. I told them you can go down to Fisherman's Terminal and they've got free showers down there. And you can get showers and talk to the guy for a while. And, you know, I don't know what ever happened to him. I don' t know what every happened to the guys. He wasn't really interested in getting clean and sober. I tried to tell him about, you know he could come to a meeting and where I would be in the next couple of nights and that kind of thing. And he was like, no, no, that wasn't my problem. You know, I got screwed over on this job in Philadelphia and this and that. And, and you know we had a lot of, a lot game left. and so I just, you know, I didn't really try to preach to him or anything. It just was a nice deal and I actually sat and talked with this guy for like 45 minutes and I noticed that my life had changed an awful lot and I didn' t say this part but when I walked into the Fremont Hall that night I didn''t have my shoes on. I had shoes but they were in a bag and the reason I didn ''t have them on is because I'd been shooting drugs in my feet and my feet were swelled up and hurt it was painful to put my shoes on and here I had this brand new pair of Nikes on and I had been to the Nike outlet deal that somebody told me about and I got a couple brand new pair of Nikes that I hadn't even worn and I kept them on my shelf in my garage just for the next time I needed a brand new pair of shoes and life was pretty good and I'm sitting here with this guy and I notice that his shoes are just tattered and torn and I asked him what size shoes do you wear dude and I said, I got a couple, I just got some brand new Nikes here, man. And I got more at home and I took my shoes off and gave them to this guy. And he cried and I gave him what money I had in my pocket and told him about where he could find some help for different things and left. And I was like, and I got back to the car and my wife was, how was it? What did he say? And what was it like? And where in the hell are your shoes? so we went and walked barefoot in the sand you know but it just the thing that gets me about that story is God how quickly we forget you know I mean I can be two hours out of one of these retreats and pissed off at somebody in traffic or upset with my kid just totally lose sight or I have to mow the lawn now instead of I get to mOW the lawn or I get help my neighbors or I get to go to work or those kind of things. So, I'm going to leave you all with that and do we want a question and answer time? Is there questions and comments that we'd want to get? I think we still have probably about five minutes. Oh, we got some time on the CD. We're just going to end this session so it fits on the CDs. here, so. So I think that I am done talking, so I'm going to leave it to the microphone for questions and answers now if anybody has any, and we'll just see if there's anything that anybody would like to add, and we'll go from there. Hi, my name's Dave, and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Dave. I don't have any questions or answers. I just have a comment. First, thank you. You've made me see that I want what you have, and I am one of those hopeless ones, and you've given me hope this weekend. Thank you from the depths of my soul. you're welcome thank you for being here yeah I think we put this retreat on for Dave I've thought that from the beginning yeah yeah I'm just happy that Dave's here it's funny Dave and I met the very first I think Dave might have been one of the first people I met when I walked up here to the Glorietta Retreat Center and found out he had a couple months sober so I was interested and and then we walked over found out we're in the same building together but then Dave said oh, no, I must be in the wrong building. And he turned around and walked away. It turned out he was in the room right next door to me. And he came back, so we've been kind of roommates and it's just been great. So you're very welcome and I think my guess is that NAA group is going to take good care of you. I'm an alcoholic and thank you for being here and for everybody else too. I just moved back here about six months ago from Olympia, and I'm grateful that I got to meet you here, even though I never heard of you there. And, you know, I wish I had come to your home group. Oh, I assure you I'm quite famous. I believe it. But I just, oh, I know. I am not a sports fan, but my home group in Olympia, the Gold Harbor Friday night meeting, And at least once every season, they do a group trip. They buy a block of tickets to see a Mariners game together. And so I did that just to be part of it. They use the money out of the basket to buy those tickets? No, I'm kidding. Well, we would get a cheaper ticket, like $20 tickets or $10 tickets because I bought three for my daughter and her boyfriend and myself. We all went to, actually two of her friends went to a Mariners game, which I had never done before, but to be part of the group. And so that was fun to remember. And I wanted to thank you for the, especially for the guided meditation because I don't know how many years ago I did a similar meditation with somebody else And I don't remember when or where, but it had the lake and meeting the spiritual guide. And as soon as you said the word lake, the image of the guide came into my mind. I had totally forgotten about her. And so it was like meeting an old friend again. So I just wanted to thank you for bringing back that memory and getting to learn that again. and I just wrote down some key words for myself so I could remember how to do it again. I'm Michelle, I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Michelle. I just have a little something to say and that is that I think this weekend what you've brought to my heart is something so dear and that was that is I was able to remember where I came from And it's been a long time since I've really, really felt the hopelessness and remembered the devastation of where I came from. And for a longtime, I've been like, well, how can I help somebody else? You know, and da-da-da. And you have lit that fire inside of me. And the candle now is so much brighter than it ever was. and I'm going to carry this message because I know without what was so freely given to me I would never ever be here today. And I'm so grateful. Thank you. You know, I realize that I left something out and I guess Linda had a comment too but I'm gonna just pick this up why we still got time on the CD. I don't know how I forgot this, but this return prayer, and I won't spend more than just a couple minutes on this, but you can read this. And what this return pray that I wrote on the board says is this. It says, God, as we come forth, as we return to our proper place in the world, our right thinking, our right attitude, our right knowledge, we give thanks for this weekend, this place of privacy, this placeof safety. We give thanks for our deepened awareness of your love for us, our love for our fellows and a renewed commitment to live the spiritual life and it ends with the amen and the idea of this is that we have retreated we did that retreat prayer and we retreated on Friday night and now here Sunday afternoon we are going to return to our right place and what that means is that our right place in the spiritual life is not here at the Glorietta Retreat Center You know, our right place. It says we keep our feet firmly planted on earth because of that's where our fellow travelers are. That's where these drunks are that we're going to help. They're not here. So we return to our right space and oftentimes in the history there's been many, many groups that have tried to create this type of an atmosphere and then they try to keep it going as a way of life and it rarely works. Usually some problems develop up we had a group in seattle for many years called the love family and they bought houses up on queen anne hill and they were very big and they kind of came out of the 60s and 70s but they bought up all this property in a really uh exclusive area town and and had a bakery and a store and they all lived together and it was just you know the the big love family everything was about peace and love and stuff and it wasn't a big deal but eventually people kind of started getting a little pissed off because brother love uh all this property was in his name and and he was uh the father of children through a whole bunch of different wives and people started kind of turning on him in their jealousy and eventually you know now there is no love family in seattle you know and that's what would happen here you guys would would say well how come kenny gets a room by himself over there and you know this is and things would start to develop probably for this group of alcoholics the the love family took about 20 years to be completely wiped out but this would we'd we'd be lucky if we made it three or four more days before people so we got to go to our right place you know our right places is this was a retreat and now we return to our Right Place but we're going to bring with us all these things this right attitude our right thinking uh thinking clearly about what our our vision of God's will is for us in all these days activities and with this uh as Michelle so eloquently said you know this renewed commitment to live the spiritual life. So I wanted to get that in as to why I wrote that up here. And you can all write your own return prayer too. You can retreat and return anytime you want just by writing a prayer, retreat for a few hours, and then return. Thanks. it's been a good weekend for me i'm linda um i um came here um at a place in my step work where i'm well into my ninth step now and uh getting ready to study 10 and 11 and 12 in the big book my sponsor, and I'm getting this restless feeling of needing to give it away. But I've had a lot of self-doubt. I'm older than most everybody who's new, it seems, feeling like, well, who would want to work with me? And my sponsor keeps telling me that's not true, but I still came with those feelings. And this has been really powerful for me because your stories have helped me understand that I do have something to give away. And I can think about people like my brother who died of alcoholism just two years ago and other people that I've known that still suffer. And I know how much they need someone, and maybe I'm not the one for them, but I'll be the one for someone. And when you talked about reaching out to people I'll have more courage to do that after this weekend. I tend to sort of hang back and I won't do that as much. I can feel a real change in myself and I want to thank you for that and everyone who's contributed to that for me this weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, shall we circle up and close? Oh, yeah, there's announcements, you bet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Devin. Yes, thank you.