Making Amends Without Taking a Beating – Gary B.

there's a there was something that was brought up here and that was the difference between harm and hurt feelings and here's an example of that I I had a business partner, and I was the senior partner. And he found out when he got in that business that he was afraid to do what he had to do, which was to go out and find new business and basically do a lot of selling. and so I wound up doing about 90% of the business and he felt really bad about it and spent most of his time apologizing to me for not being able to do what he needed to do to make the business successful and then he would go out and have lunch with his friends and talk about how much money he was making. And that went on for some time, and he wouldn't let it go, so I fired him. And then his brother talked him into suing me for four and a half million bucks. Yeah, I didn't think that was very nice. and for the longest time I felt like I owed him an amend for firing him because when I did fire him he really felt bad and I thought well I caused that and so I must have some culpability in the middle of this and I kept trying to find some way to make that right. And I kept going, I probably went to three or four different people and said tell me what the harm is in that. I know there's some harm, I just don't know how to get to it. And they said you didn't harm him. You just took him away from something he didn't want to do. And the fact that you fired him just meant that as a pure business decision, he had no business working there. And I said, well, apparently he thinks differently because the son of a bitch sued me for four and a half million bucks. And then I'll tell you one other thing about that, and that is a line in the book that says we avoid retaliation and argument. and so I had a good friend in fact it was Lisa's husband and I would not defend myself against this lawsuit because it says we avoid retaliation and argument and so I just was kind of letting it go along and I was really worried about it and Lisa's husband came up and said the best defense is a good offense and he was running a large law firm in Denver at the time and he said I have a litigator over here that can stop this in its tracks in the first 15 minutes and I said great and a week later I wasn't being sued anymore so So you have to be clear about the harm anyway. That's the point of this, in that don't be spending your time running around thinking you were a Genghis Khan or that you harmed everyone that you'd ever met in your life or whatever. Be real clear about what the harm is and then go try and balance it. And most of the time what you want to do is have some idea about how you can balance that before you ever get there. Now, one other thing that I should mention, and that is that if you have the courage, what you may want to do on the end of your amend is to say, have I harmed you in any manner that I'm unaware of? then hang on to your hat. When I did that with my first wife, it isn't like I've been married a lot of times, but I've done it a lot. But I've never been married twice. And with my First Wife, I said, is there any way that I've harmed you that I'm unaware of? And she said, now that you mention it. and went on for about the next hour and a half and she wasn't done I had some sort of appointment that I had to get to and I said I'll give you a call and we'll find a time and you can tell me whatever it is that you haven't had the opportunity to yet and I called Don and I said, let me tell you what's going on with this. And he said, okay. And I said I think it's a little abusive. Well only because she was really angry at me and it was about let me show you what I'm going to do to you. And at some point it sort of lost something in the translation because it was just pure anger after a period of time. So he said, call her up and tell her, give her an appointment and tell her you'll sit down with her for an hour and that she ought to consider anything that she hasn't told you so far and figure out some way to pack that into the next hour and then you go listen to it. So that's what I did. And at the end of that, everything was done. So sometimes you can run into some people who are really angry at whatever you did to them and just be reasonable about what you're willing to listen to and if it goes past the business of amends and gets to abuse, stop. Making amends is not taking a beating. it's balancing the books so that woman I said is there anything else I can do to make this right and she said yeah marry me again Lord protect us you just so most of my amends these days are they're important but it's about little almost embarrassingly pedestrian things it just I had to make amends to my kids were after I was divorced the last time and I thought now here's how your ego works okay my my ex-wife or was then my wife we were going to get a divorce and she said you need to move out and I the only reason why I hadn't moved out before that was because I didn't want to damage my kids any more than they already were damaged. They weren't damaged that badly, but I mean it. And so she said you need to move and I seemed to be slow in moving So she went and got a boyfriend, and that cut it. Goddamn. So I moved out, and as soon as I moved out, here's what my ego told me. I had started a new business, and I wasn't making a lot of money, and all of a sudden I thought I was going to be living under a bridge. And so I went and rented or leased a two-bedroom townhouse, and I got three kids. And I thought these kids are going to hate me. My business is going to fail. I'm going to be living under a bridge. I'm going to be broke for the rest of my life. You hear my ego? It's all lies, okay? So I rented this townhouse, and I got up and went to work every day, and the business wound up being the largest of its type in the state and I went from being almost flat broke to being financially secure. And it was anyway I had to make amends to my sons and the amend that I had to make to them was that I was so obsessed with my dislike of their mother that I wasn't giving them the attention that they deserved. That's my fault. And so my amend to them was I'm going to be absolutely the best father that I can be to you and I'm gonna do everything I can to enhance your life every day of my life. and my two youngest I have I have twin boy I have five sons but the two youngest are seniors in high school this year 163 and 230 the other one's 64 and 240 and the six three one is has been the starting nose tackle on the Arapahoe high school football team for the last three years ever since he was a sophomore because he's a sweet kid but he gets on a football field and everybody better duck and he played the nose tackle on defense and this year when they were honoring all the seniors you go out on the football field with him and they introduced the player and he has his parents on both sides and my ex-wife and I were standing on both side of them and they said this is Alex Olson and he's an honor student he's been the starting nose tackle for the last three years he is going to Colorado State University and the most influential person in his life is his dad I didn't know they were going to say that Jesus you could have pushed me over with a feather right in the middle of that football field but I found something out and that is that they didn't have to grow up hearing what I grew up with and what I grew up with is you're stupid you're clumsy you're going to wind up in a prison or an institution you'll never amount to anything you can't you'll be a success at anything that's what I grow up with and see I don't talk to my kids that way because every time every time you say something to a kid it's like planting a seed and because you are an authority figure they're going to take that seed and they're gonna fertilize it and theyre gonna water it and their gonna protect it even though its the worst god damn lie that they ever heard so when you talk to children what you tell them is your handsome your smart you have the whole world in front of you. Don't let anyone tell you that you're less than you are. You are a bright and successful young person who has the whole world in front of you, and they believe it. My 21-year-old son is graduating in May from Southern Methodist University with a straight A average in engineering. He took the LSATs which is the precursor for law and scored a 99.9 he's now being pursued by Harvard Law School with a full scholarship and a stipend to live on while he's there plus about 20 other major universities and all that kid ever heard when he was growing up was you're smart, you're handsome, you're successful, you can be anything you want to be and all you got to do is go out there and risk, take the chances, don't be afraid of anything. You can do it. Okay? Thank God I don't have to make amends to my kids for telling them that they couldn't do stuff. Tell kids, if you're going to talk to them, that they can do anything and they're going to believe you because you're their parent. It makes a huge difference. The other thing is, and it was true in my case and I think that ... And it was true in Gary's case and that is if you own a men make it right don't wait the time you make amends is now and and then maybe you don't have to be sitting by some headstone trying to talk to someone that's already passed so thank you any Any other questions? Comment? Shelley? How do you go about making amends to someone who's dead? I know of two instances, and they seem to have been both helpful. Remember Bill Boone? Number of years ago, a friend of ours in Denver had a friend who had been instrumental in the death of his baby and was asking how to make the amends and how to go about it. and a lot of prayer many of us were asked none of us knew and somebody told him to go and write that child a letter and tell him everything he ever wanted to tell him and put a lot apparent thought into it and to do this and he did. And he wrote the letter and then he went back to the sponsor and he said, now what I do, he said I want you to put it in an envelope and address it to yourself and drop it in the mailbox. And, uh, he did that. And when he got the letter back, he was told some of the words had been changed in the letter. Believe it or not, it sure worked for them. One of my better friends in Indianapolis, a fellow named Earl, and Earl and his drinking had been thrown out of the house, and he had not been a nice husband. I don't think he he'd ever been violent, but he could beat you to death with words and they're living separated. And when one day he got a call from his wife, of course she had the kids. She said, come over to the house, I need to talk to you. And so when he went up on the steps and he rang the doorbell, heard a boom and she'd blown her brains out. Oh, there was hell to pay for that. He was never arrested, but he was certainly thought bad of about maybe he'd killed her. First time I'd ever had a sponsee that was dealing with stuff like that after he came in. I must to listen to half a dozen inventories about him, and he was writing about her. And his resentment was because she'd had an affair with his best friend. He went over that and over that, and we would discuss it. And finally one day, after a meeting, I cornered him, I fired him. And I said, I can't help you. You won't listen to me. I said you owe that girl an amend and you need to get it made. And uh, and uh, I'm done. I can help you." And I left and about three days later, I got a call from him and he said, can I come on And I said, yeah. And he came over and he sat down and he said, I went to the graveyard and I found her grave and I sat down at the stone and I must have talked to her for four or five hours. He says, I didn't stop crying for two days. And he made them in. And it would've been fine since. I don't know what else you could do in either one of those instances with that. The guy that told me the story about the baby is a guy I believe, a very believable guy. He was not necessarily one of our gang, but he was as solid a person as you could ever meet. I know what Earl told me, sir. Earl and I talk on the phone. He lives down in Mexico now, but we talk every day. Part of my reviewing, everyone, I go through the steps as a whole is I review my amends and I review the people out there with that that I might have owed them one. And I look at my parents and they've both been long gone. But I reconsider all of that stuff. And I'd like to be at a point with my amends and that sort of thing. If somehow I should know that I'm going to be gone in the next 30 minutes, I'm absolutely ready. Don't know anybody? Nothing. Don' want to leave anybody out there if I can be of help to them. It's not that I want to go. That isn't it. But I'd love to know, okay, if God's ready, I I'm ready. And that's what it is. And that is one reason to keep looking and keep trying to find out. Let me give you an example of that. Five years ago I went out like I walk a lot so I went down in the morning and walked five miles and then I thought well I am going to go play golf so I played nine holes of golf and carried the bag and then I had a doctor's appointment And so I went to the doctor. He said, how's everything going? And I said, I have indigestion, which seems to happen more often now. And he said, you need a treadmill. And I asked, why? And he says, because many times angina masquerades as indigestion. and I said I don't have any heart disease in my family and I did all this stuff this morning and I'm still standing here and he said I want you to take a treadmill anyway so I did and I took this thing called a thallium treadmill where they shoot you up with a radioactive isotope oh swell and you think you're going to start glowing in the dark and I went over and I take this treadmill and the guy that was watching it said there's something wrong here and I said well I don't feel like it's wrong and he so we had this doctor look at it and the doctor said we need to do angiogram on you where they stick this thing in your groin and then they look at your heart go up with through some sort of vein or whatever and they did that right and run like right away and there was this little oriental lady that was a cardiologist I was doing it and and then I was watching it and fell asleep because I thought it was boring as hell so when I woke up there was a different cardiologist standing next to me and he said can I be candid with you that's not a good way to start a conversation with cardiologist and I said sure and he said you have one artery that's completely blocked one that's 95% blocked in one that 85% blocked and you're having a triple bypass at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning oh and he said he said is that is that a scary proposition for you and I told him no and I was perfectly candid they said no it's not and he said well I don't hear that very often and he said why not and I said because I don t have a lot of unfinished business here which is exactly what Gary just said you know I go today I'd like to watch my kids go to college at the very least yeah I'd liked to see him get married and have children, do all that stuff. I probably won't be around for all of that, but I don't have any unfinished business here. I've made my amends. I'm living a life that I think is productive and I think that all things considered that it's been a positive experience for both me and the world. Now that's an awful thing to say but I worked very hard at doing that. So, you know, when I was 58, I think, I'd come down with diabetes and I was floating in and out of a coma and that's what I thought about is my life made an ounce of difference. See, and at some point you may have to ask yourself the same question and I'll tell you that's a hell of a motivator to start doing something positive with your life and start trying to make someone else's life better. And we're going to talk about this in a moment, but you know in the 11th step there's a plan for the day? Two of the things that are on my plan for today every day. Number one is be happy because I have to work at that. Isn't that awful? I thought you ought to just do that naturally and I have to get up and work at being happy and so I do and the other thing that's always on that list is try to make someone else's life better every day because that's our real purpose here so I think you and i talked on the phone while you're on the gurney waiting to go into that bypass we may very well hit yeah remember i was kind of surprised when you told me that's where you're at right step 10 i guess many years ago back in Denver, Don and Mickey and I were having a conversation about the 10th step. And we decided we were going to do it precisely like it says. We're just right down to the gnat's eyebrow, we were gonna get this thing and just do it perfectly. And so we were at that point in time one of the few times where all three of us were available to be on the telephones during the day or any other time and so we thought we would just we would just do that and I can give you a couple examples how that I had a partner back then in the business that could just, she'd drive me nuts. Just crazy. And she had been away from the business for a year recovering from breast cancer. And when she came back, some things hadn't been run in the office well. I had spent—I'd used the company credit card to buy some personal things for myself, and that seemed to irritate her, and I hadn't been hard enough on some of the employees on her side of the business. they should have sold more and done more work, and just about on and on and it never quit. I made all those things right and did my best with it and it just never could have. And so I just had my days and I remember a day I called Don and I said, I'm gonna kill T.J. I said, I'm going to kill T.J. And Don says, really? He says, yeah. He says... So where have you been selfish in this? Well, when you're that angry, that's what you don't want to talk about. I'll guarantee you that's not what you want to think about. And so you've got to stop all this ranting and raving long enough to figure out what it is. And in the middle of that anger, that's very difficult to do. and so I finally come up with an answer that seemed to satisfy him again and he says well where have you been dishonest oh I bet you go through it again and resentful and where was I afraid and so the time we get down and we get through that I was pretty well done with that and I discussed it and the only thing I don't remember him asking me if I had asked God to remove it, because the answer would have been, hell no, I haven't asked God. But we went at that day, and he said, you're an amend. And I said, yeah. And he says, what is it? And so I spelled it out. And then he had some intuition that I don't know many people that had it. He said, wait for me. I'll come down there when you go make it. And so he came out there to the office and sat outside T.J.'s door while I went in to make the amendment, and all that. You paid a price to go make an amendment with T. J., and I did, and I apparently did it properly. So that night we went up to Denver General Hospital, and we hustled drunks there on the detox ward. If you don't get the opportunity to do that these days, because they won't let you on the wards. Going on guys on the detox wards or ain't looking for a 12-step call is really a kick. It can be a great time. But he and Mickey and I started to do that, and we started this thing that Bob calls having 10-step buddies. That worked real well in the Forest War and it really did. and then when I moved to Indianapolis and all that fell apart and Mickey's situation had changed and Don was about my only 10th Step buddy for a long time, but we did it long distance for a very long time. And he went on to be trustee and I would get calls from some of the damnedest places to listen to his 10th step. But they're just so important and just take it literally. It's just not complicated. The key words, let me see that. This thought brings us to step 10. Why am I doing that? I can't see that. Which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to write any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We've entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. It's not an overnight matter to continue for our life. continue to watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear and when these crop up we ask God for the key words of the next two words at once okay okay to remove it we just get discussing with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone then we can reasonably turn our thoughts just someone we can help love and tolerance of others is our cool and and I see those as the key words and and I try to do that but I still write my tenth steps I just I have never learned to write inventory in it if we were taught to write inventoring and I've read this test step but I didn't see anything about that I don't have to write it anymore just because it's a tenth statement so I still right my inventory so I take a few minutes out out anymore to do that. You know, you've done that for a while, it's easy. You don't have to worry about the drama. You can get right down to the good stuff here. Get down to meet up and do it. But that's my tenth step thing very much most of the time. And most of my tenth step buddies are guys in Indianapolis that I hang around. Tom has met some of them. I don't know if you ever met Jim, and Earl, and these guys that we just do that with. Some of you know mine, but that's really important. And I've gone down the list to make sure I could catch one right away. It's not, well, I'm not gonna wait for Mike to get back in town, you know? I have a friend there. I'm gonna be out of step here just a little bit. I have a friend, a man I sponsor for about the whole time I've been in Indianapolis. His name is Jim and Jim is one of those sponsees that came in that was a fighter. And you told him that books said to do something, his answer was bullshit, eight out of 10. And I like those guys better than the guys who do that just sit and nod, okay? Because you'll never get them to do a damn thing. But the fighters, you're more likely to get them going. And we fought around the third step. And he's at the third step and we've been talking about God and he's denying the God angrily. He's got a resentment at God but we can't do it yet. He's gotta do that. And he drives his interstate 465 It's a 60-mile highway that circles Indianapolis. And he's screaming around that highway 90, 100 miles an hour, and he finally stops and goes home. He said, don't give me this stuff about this again. He says, I'm getting tired of it. I've been driving around the interstate like that, hollering at God, calling him a no good so-and-so and all that. And so I let him rant for me. Don't tell me there's any God. He said I know there is. I just went around and did that. And I said, well, who were you hollered at? He said God. I said, there must be a guy. He gave me a two-word answer and slammed the phone down. And then he finally gets it, and he moves on. And I don't know how many of his inventories I've listened to over the years. He's the one that caught on to four-column inventory right away and can be just as insightful. And Tom knows him. He's sitting over there nodding about him. He's one of these guys who can really get down to the meat and a tremendous sponsor and works with tons of people and very effective with the Vietnam vets who come back who are dealing with all the things they're dealing with. Jim's very effective because he can show them and he dealt with some horrible stuff just through our 12 steps. Well, he's 20-whatever it is, three or four years sober now and has died from a disease in multiple systems atrophy. And that just means that there's these automatic systems in your body that's running are atrophied. They're just shutting down. And he's been, for the last two years, going through that. He's horizontal most of the time now in a wheelchair or the bed. And he is on the phone eight, ten hours a day working with people still. And last Tuesday I went and instead of going to my home group, I went and sat with Jim. We had our own damn meeting. We didn't need them other guys. Had a great time. And I watch him go through this stuff. And He's spending most of his time looking at his 10th step and meditating. And he loves it when you come over and just want to sit and meditate with him. But we still are 10th-step buddies because he'll get some little resentment going anymore. It's pretty much a God, and maybe it's the people delivering the oxygen to him or whatever it is, but he's quick to do the 10th steps and to move on. I learned a part about sponsorship I didn't know here in these last couple of years. There's another guy named Dick Martin, he's 28 years sober that I close to him, and sponsored all this time and all that, and he's had major surgery on his brain a couple times. And I'm the one that's been given the power of attorney to make the calls when things aren't going well. And I didn't know that was going to be a part of sponsorship. But I got in, didn't I? But I'm glad to do it. And I just think it's part of this deal that God's lined up for us to do that. And only talking about that around the 10th step right now because I can't get Jim out of 10, 11, and 12. He's one of the most capable sponsors I've ever known and 12 steppers and tent snippers and all of that and it's just so much a part of his life he doesn't get out of bed necessarily to do it but he'll be just as clear as you can be with where he's being selfish, dishonest and sinful or frantic and go through that and I'd grab that well who can you help right now and because for mine and he's got a spot see we laugh about and all that. It's his biggest pain in the neck. He calls it his highest maintenance sponsee. So I guess I better call Elliot. And he does. But I think I gave 10, 11, 12 pretty poor attention for an awful big part of my life in AA. And it certainly does not replaced the regular inventory. And I can't remember who it was, but we were sitting in a meeting sometime in the past with Bob and somebody said, well, I just maintained my life now on 10, 11, and 12. And some woman in the group said, oh really? And I've never been able to do that. I still have more to do no matter how quickly I tried to see if to look at ten. The selfishness and the dishonesty and the resentment and the fear. Go ahead. The business about taking four steps regularly has to do with a line in the book that says a business that takes no regular inventory is sure to fail. And you can take your ten steps and you can work 10, 11, and 12, but unless you're perfect at it, and I've never met anyone like that, eventually it's going to really be helpful to write inventory. On the end of the 10th step, how many of you were at that meeting last night? Okay. At the end of the 10th step, it talks about carrying the vision of God's will into all our activities. And that's a wonderful exercise. And if you have enough presence of mind to do it, when you get up in the morning as part of your daily plan to make carrying the Vision of God and the Spirit of God is willing to all your activities, it really makes your day run easier because every time you change activities, if you say, God, please help me to take a vision of your will into this activity with me, that just seems to even out your day. And that helps you in the 11th step because the 11st step is about staying in a spiritual sense through the day. Now, the tenth step spiritually is about being here now. When it says continue to watch. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. And a great deal about the tenth steps is about being aware. About seeing what's going on around you. there are some great proponents of that Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle all those guys wrote books about be here now be in the present moment this is the only place you have to live don't live in the future, don't life in the past live inthe present moment and that's what the 10th step is about be here know and watch what's going on and be aware of what's happening around you That's what that's about. It's been invaluable to me to have 10-step buddies that I've asked permission to call and that I can call anytime I'm doing any of those things. I mentioned last night that probably 80% of what you're going to talk about in the 10th step is fear. Although it talks about selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, the thing that you're going to talk about most is fear and telling someone that you are afraid and then they are going to go through this exercise that Gary described and one of the things that it does is it lends perspective to what's going on with you so you may have this perspective where everything has gone to hell and you may not have any reason to believe that And so people, if they're an unaffected third party, are going to tell you, why would you ever believe that? That isn't what it looks like to me. And so a part of that whole process, other than sharing it with someone, has to do with gaining perspective about what's going on. There's an enormous amount of value. I also mentioned last night that most new people don't like to tense that. And the reason why most new people don't like the 10 step is that they're still protecting their ego. Which means I'm not going to let you see me because it's going to embarrass me and you're going to think that I'm not very good at this. You know, it's like being 36 years sober and expecting to be perfect. Ain't going to happen. Maybe at 45, but... You know, we need an outlet for that. And if you're too damn embarrassed to tell people what's going on for you, you're missing the point. Allow someone else to see you. There is a great spiritual benefit in allowing other people to see you. Drop your defenses and let somebody know what's going on. You know, one of the great benefits of this program is having some people around you that know who the hell you are. You know we all have this basic belief that we're not good enough nobody ever defines it because they say good enough for what? We just say we're not good now. That's an emotional trap. we all think we're not good enough and if we don't put some sort of facade up in front of us that people are not going to accept us because we have this basic belief that by ourselves why should they so we got to kind of put some window dressing out there we got a we got put a bow on it so we become acceptable that's bullshit you're just fine you know we're not who we can be but we are who we are today and we're a hell of a lot better than we were in the past so why are we embarrassed about who we are that all falls back on what we believe about ourselves you're just fine you know there's some work to be done but that's part of this deal so don't be embarrassed to be who you are you are one of God's children and God made you uniquely with these skills and abilities and for you to say I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you who I am it's like slapping God in the face why would you? you're just fine but let somebody know who you are and that's what the tenth step is about So I can kind of stay clean, but the problem is that my ego rebuilds itself. It becomes resurgent and over time it overcomes my 10th step. It overwhelms my 10 step. And all of a sudden I'm back into the bedevilments. And then I know it's time to take inventory. okay so you know that thing in the back by Herbert Spencer about thank you about contemporary investigation don't have that about the tenth step don't get it in your head well why the hell should I do that I'm just going to tell a bunch of embarrassing things to somebody that's going to think I'm stupid that isn't what they're going to think so don't have contemporary investigation about the tenth step just go out and do it and see if it makes a difference and you'll see how valuable a part of that is and then you're going do what I do which is tenth step almost every day so a guy asked me early on Actually, it was this guy named Mike Basinius that Gary had mentioned before. And he said, are you doing your 10-step? And I said, no. And he says, why are you settling for half a loaf? And I say, I don't know because I don' t want to do it. And he said, you don't know this, but you're really shortchanging yourself by not following the directions and there's enormous benefit in doing this even though you are uncomfortable doing it so he said you might want to consider following the direction so I did and it's made a big difference Gary? Yeah Tom go ahead we're getting high sign take a break here so go ahead Tom Okay. I wondered if you could speak a little, I heard you and Mike both talk about tent-stepping with newcomers, people who have a lot less sobriety than you have, and how helpful that can be to bring them into the group. Tom has heard stories from Mike and me about tent-Stepping with Newcomers, and I started doing that because nobody else was around. I was caught out in the middle of nowhere, and I had one of my matchbook inventories with me. It was important stuff, and I didn't want it to fester. And I knew Mike and a couple other guys were having lunch, so I muscled in on the lunch, and both guys were new. Both guys were in inventory. They'd always act a little squirmy when I'd be around, because I was such an old-timer and all that. We had lunch, and I said, listen, I need you guys' attention with this. And I knew Mike would pick up on it, because he's one of my buddies. So I went through the 10th step just like we talked about it with that, and got to the end of it. And Mike asked me a couple other questions. I'd done a pretty good job with it, but I still needed some coaching. And then when I got done with it I didn't think anything about it, and I really didn't. And one of the new guys a few weeks later was giving one of his first talks at a meeting and he said, I think I've got to do this shit the rest of my life. He says, I couldn't believe it. Gary came up and shared inventory with Steve, Mike, and I. I just did it because they were alcoholics and they were there. I really didn't think about them being new guys. But that's something I've done a lot. It's not just with those guys, it's just that they happened to be there with that. And it's always had good results. Now, if I think about it, I got way way too much sobriety and serenity and spirituality to let them know I'm such a jerk that I'm going to go up and share that stuff with them, and all that. And that's the lie that he's talking about that's going on in my ego's giving me. We better take a break. We'll see you in about 20 minutes.