Meeting-Based Sobriety as the Slow Delivery of the Promises in Reverse — Matt K.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I couldn't ever remember. I was like, but I know, I remember that it was like, I had like 14 places. It was like two years. And I had like 14 or 15 places I lived. I had like 30 jobs, right? Like, and that's all I could do is make this little narrow outline, but it was enough. They were like, oh, okay, we're getting it, right? Because what I would do is I would go, I lived in Vail and they were building Beaver Creek, right? So on Tuesday, never Monday, just like the guy at the auto dealership, right? On Tuesday, I would hitchhike to Beaver Creek. I'd get a job. I'd work till Thursday. And then I'd be like, hey, can I get an advance? I don't have any money. And they'd give me an advance and I'd just never go back. And then I'd let that run go as far as it would. And then I'd do the same thing again out there. I could have been, I could have been an electrician. I could have been a plumber. I could have been an HVAC guy. I could have been, because I got a new job every couple of weeks, like for four days. So the way I like to kind of convey like, I ended up, I actually had convinced somebody to let me live in their house. I don't know how I did that. I had been living behind the Vail library. That's when I didn't have any place to hide my bottles. You didn't really need to hide behind the Vail library. It's pretty down there on the river. There's lots of moss on the rocks and stuff. I was camping, camping. So I had lived, so this was the last place where I ended up, my very bottom. I was at this place and I had taken, there was a two twin beds. Up in this loft. So first thing I did is I took the two twin beds and I squished them together and I tied them together because I thought that was way sexier, right? Because I'd have this big bed. Well, nobody was getting in any bed with me ever, right? But in my mind, I was like, I'm going to fancy this up, you know? So I fancied it up, but it had this, around the loft, it had like, I think it was supposed to be a bookshelf, right? And it kind of went around my head and around the side of the bed. It was supposed to be this bookshelf. There were no books on the bookshelf, right? It was all bottles. It was all cans and it was all bottles and they were all stuffed full of cigarette butts and they all stunk and I never cleaned them. And that was what I woke up to every morning. But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was the feelings when I woke up in the morning. I was never, I wasn't suicidal, but I would wake up every, every single morning, like for weeks on end. And I would have that sunk down from the tip, top of my head to the tip of my feet. Like, fuck, I did. I woke up again. Right? I just prayed for that not to happen. I didn't know I was praying because I'd ever, I didn't know what prayer was, right? I mean, I had done it as a kid. My parents were church people and shit, you know? But I didn't know I was praying for it, but I was. I was praying that I wouldn't wake up every single time, right? When I, and I say wake up, came to, right? When I came to, I was, you know, I was like, I was all of those things, you know? And people talk about their feelings of the drink, right? I don't know if it's because I'm old and it's too long, but I'm a long ago, right? But when people talk about the feeling of the drink, I don't really feel that. But as soon as people talk about hopeless and demoralized, man, I feel that. I know that feeling. I know, I mean, the deep down lowest of the low, you know? I know how it feels. And, you know, in sobriety, I've gotten to the point where I want to kill myself. It still doesn't feel like that. It still doesn't feel like those feelings when my eyes came open in the morning and I thought to myself, I got to do it again. I got to fight this fucking fight. And I don't have a fight in me. I didn't have any fight left. And yet I'd go and do the fight, you know? Find the stuff and do the stuff. Hitchhike to a job. I had no okay, right? My okay was below zero. I had negative okay, you know what I mean? I could not even come close. I couldn't even find okay, you know? I couldn't even, I could, you could tell me all day, well, think this, do this, blah, blah, you know what I mean? See it on the TV. Dr. Phil or whatever. Was that around back then? I don't even know. Like I had a TV. But I called, I called, I called home. And I hadn't done that in a couple, two, three years. I called once when I got arrested, like three or four years before that. They bailed me out, but that was it. Because I didn't ask for anything else because I wasn't planning on going back. So, I called my dad. And, and that was that magic moment. And I don't know why, I don't know what kind of Al-Anon, but I don't know why I don't know why I don't know why I don't know why I don't know why Al-Anon Black Belt Ninja helped him, right? He wasn't that much of a giver anyway, so I don't think that Al-Anon Black Belt had to really go that far. But I said, Dad, I need some money. I'm hungry. And that was the truth, right? I wasn't just making that up. I was hungry. Like I was, I would like gather whatever change and get some donuts out of a vending machine or something. But that was it. I hate to admit this because it gives away my weight, but I was half the man I am today. When I got to treatment, I weighed 120 pounds. A hundred and a half of me. So, y'all filled me up. So, I called my dad and he said, I said, Dad, I'm hungry. He said, well, they'll feed you in jail and they'll feed you in a treatment center. And I'd been to jail, so I decided I would try the treatment center. And that got those wheels moving. But what really matters was for some reason, and anybody that has made it in here has heard this thing. And I don't know what he said. I don't remember his words. But I heard, and I'm sure other people had said this to me a lot of times, but what I heard was, it doesn't have to be like this anymore, right? And I didn't even plan on getting sober. But when he said, you can do this or you can do that, and I said, okay, somewhere in his voice or in his, I heard it doesn't have to be like this anymore. And it sunk in somewhere, deep down, because it wasn't on the surface, that's for sure. So I packed up my backpack full of whatever crap I had, which Seth talks about batteries and flashlights and shit from the dumpster. It was basically that, some old crap. But the funny thing about my backpack was, I was a thief and I would steal everything that was not tied down or glued to the floor, right? And so I needed some garlic for something I was cooking. Who knows what that was, right? But I worked at a restaurant, so I stole the whole giant thing of garlic. And I put it in my backpack, right? So then I was walking home and obviously I was, I'm assuming I was drunk. And I had to walk up this hill, this like steep, rocky hill. And I fell over and busted that garlic, but that was my backpack. So being the honorable drunk I was, I shook it out, put my stuff in there, and I hitchhiked to Denver. And these, I say kids, they weren't kids, they were my age at the time. These 20-somethings picked me up in their little car. At least they were smart enough they put the backpack in their trunk. I mean, I think they were probably pretty disappointed. And we'll pick him up. And then I was probably not that nice looking either, really. But so I took my stinky backpack and I got in this car and I made it to the airport. And I got on a plane and I ended up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. And I had an aunt and uncle there. They had rescued me from home. I left my home the day after graduation. I graduated high school and I planned on going windsurfing that night. And they made me go to the stupid party they threw for me. And that's how I got here. I'm fucking selfish. I'm like, you know, these poor people, they had to work so hard to get me to grad. They dropped me out of chemistry and put me in cooking class so that I could graduate. Because I was not going to pass the chemistry class, mostly because of my chemistry. So I graduated high school with that. But I left the next day. And I went to see this aunt and uncle. And they actually had, they were running some alcohol classes or something like that. So they kind of understood. Not on a deep level like we all do in here. But they were running some alcohol classes here. But they understood enough that they wanted to rescue me from that. And then I went back there to go to treatment. That's how I ended up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky doing treatment. And I went to the treatment program. I had no intention of getting sober in the treatment center. My intention was I would get everybody to start giving me what everybody else was getting. Because I didn't think the problem was the alcohol and drugs. The problem was everybody knew I did alcohol and drugs. And that's why I wasn't getting the jobs and the girls and the cars and all the stuff that everybody else was like working for. But I didn't know that. I just thought that was the problem. But somewhere I just sat. We'd have those ditto, like worksheets, right? I just almost dated myself, right? I said ditto. We had these Xerox ones. And we would look at the Xerox sheet. But I would sit in class. I took a lot of LSD. So I would do this. You know what I mean? I just sat there doing that. Like when is this? Is this going to go? It has gone away. I don't know when. Right? But it was definitely real. So I just sat there. I would say to myself, if it wasn't for me doing what I was doing, I would not have given me any chance of being sober at all. But here's what. It was Alcoholics Anonymous. It was an Alcoholics Anonymous treatment center. And they made me do the fifth step when I was in there. Right? But the other thing was they had a van. And the van took me to my first AA meeting. And that's what I think did it. Right? So I go to this meeting. It's a great, fun story. So I walk into this meeting. It's smoking days. Right? And it's in the middle of the night. And I'm like, a full high school gym. It's their birthday meeting. Right? So there's like 300 people. It wasn't that big a town. I don't know where all the 300 people came. But there was 300 people in there. They're having their birthdays. It's thick with smoke. And all the stamped aluminum ashtrays colored, like Jamaica colored, are all around the room. Right? So there I am. I walk in this room. The first thing I see, Native American guy, cowboy hat, oxygen, Paul Malls. Straight up. Right? I was like, that's style. Right? And it wasn't like your fancy Sunday go to church cowboy hat either. It was a beater. It was glorious. And then I was this hippie guy. Right? So I had straight hair down here, zipper right down the middle. And I had a little fanny pack because I couldn't buy a fanny pack. But fanny packs were in. So I had a top of a backpack that I had cut off. It was pink and blue. And I had a little fanny pack. And I had a little fanny pack. And I ran this old webbing belt through it. And that was my little fanny pack. I had my smokes in there and stuff. Camel lights. That was my jam. Right? I had my smokes in there. Whatever else. Phones. It was long before phones. So lighter probably. They probably didn't even let me have a lighter. Cut off shorts. Cut off denim shorts. Right? Rocking. Little white. Homemade tie-dye. And if y'all have ever seen a homemade tie-dye after a while, it looks like a dirty t-shirt. Right? I got pretty good at it. But no good. So anyways, I show up and I look around this room in Elizabethtown, Kentucky in 1988. And I go, I don't want to sit with those people. I don't understand who those people are. But I saw some bikers. And I was like, I don't believe this now. But at the time I was like, well they're probably pretty outcast too. Right? They're probably pretty oddballs. I went and sat with them. And AA had a thing. I don't know if it still exists. I think it does. Right? The 5th chapter. It was an AA motorcycle. It was an AA motorcycle group. So cool. And these guys were the perfect guys. Because I was not a guy that needed to be loved into Alcoholics Anonymous until I loved myself. I love myself plenty. I still do, by the way. Look at me. Right? The shy don't do this job. So I hang with those guys. And the meeting end. Well, there was a big impression on me, though, that it stuck with me. To this day. There was a guy that rolled in there. And he had light blue, polyester suit, vest, matching pants, white shoes, white belt, double stitched, full like funny tuxedo looking outfit. Right? Grass stains on his knees, puke all down the front of him. And I watched the AA men go up to him and ask him how it was going. You know, like we do. And I saw his face. I saw. And it stuck with me. I never relapsed. And I think that's a big part of it. And I know that's not what works for everybody. Just watching somebody. You know, and I'm not saying I got off on his crisis because I felt for him. But I saw what it looked like to drink again in Alcoholics Anonymous. To be the kind of man I, boy I was. And drink again. And I'll never forget that. I can see his face. 34 years later. You know, it made such a big impression on me. So when the biker guys, the meeting ended. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, man, you know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? The meeting ends. The biker guys go, stand over the trash can. We'll bring you these ashtrays. You wipe the shit in the can. I was like, well, all right. Right? But people that I don't know are coming up to me and talking to me. Right? And that's what really made me stick. It was the way people talk to each other. The interactions of the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. Right? I watched the way they talked to each other. I'm sorry. I have notes because otherwise every story is going to end up with, and then I met this girl. And then we broke up. And then I was sad. And then I got better at Alcoholics Anonymous. Right? They were funny and real with each other. Right? And we're still doing that today. We just, we're doing it right now. Right? We're funny with each other, but we're real. We mean real stuff. And I don't like to say the interactions had depth and weight. I think the interactions had depth and light. Right? Because here's this guy with grass stains on his super nice suit and puked on the front of him. And they're coming up to him in a real human way and going, saying, welcome back. We're glad you're here. Right? I was like, well, if they're glad that guy's here, you've got to be ecstatic. I'm here. Not really. Not really. I found a higher power there, though. You know what I mean? I found a higher power there. And... So I got out of the treatment center. And I went to this AA club in this town called Radcliffe, Kentucky. And it's halfway between the town I got sober in and Fort Knox. So it's not exactly a fancy York Street club. It was just a basement. It was just a basement with linoleum and fluorescents. And it was upstairs. And the upstairs was really cool. It had stinky furniture. And it had a bar, like a real backwoods southern bar. And there was always some old-timer guy tending bar. Now, I didn't know that was a respectable thing. I just figured, oh, look at the old guy tending the bar. But you could get a Coke and some pickled eggs and buy cigarettes. You know what I mean? Like, it was real. And I would go. And I wasn't social, man. I would just go. I'd go early. I had nothing to do. I had some shitty mall, like a mall. Like, I ran all three of the restaurants in a row in the mall during the day. Like, for four hours and made, like, $9 the whole time. And, but I'd go to the club, you know, and I'd sit there. And I'd go to the meetings. And that was my whole thing was I was, like, fellowship and meeting-based sobriety for the longest time. But I had made, I got forced to do that fifth step in treatment. And I did find a higher power in those meetings. Now, I believe 100%. If you're only going to meetings, you are trying to stay sober on people's opinions about the big book. And it will not work in long term. Right? It worked for me short term, but it will not work long term. You need to read it yourself. You need to read it with somebody and get that knowledge yourself. Because then those opinions become valuable. But if you're just listening to people's opinions about the big book, you might be picking the wrong ones. And there's a lot of wrong ones. Right? We've all been to a noon meeting before. One of the big changes was I was out, I was, it was like 88. So I had a freestyle, like a flatland freestyle BMX bike. Where you kind of like boogie around on the frame and do these little tricks and stuff. And I was out at this parking lot riding that. And an N.A. convention guy came and got me. And I'm sorry to mention the enemy. But he said, he said, he said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm riding this bike. And he goes, get in the truck. You know, the best sentence that anyone can say to you in this whole program. Just get in the truck. So I threw the bike in the back. I mean, it was worth 12 bucks. I threw it in the back of the truck. Right? Jumped in there and they took me to this convention. And two really cool things happened. One, the other fellowship took care of me. Right? I didn't have a thing. And they fed me and they let me stay in a room. I don't even remember. I don't remember whose room it was. I'm sure it was dudes. Or women were having any of that nonsense. I go and I get in and I stay in this room. But I went to this, I couldn't sleep. Imagine that. Right? I probably, there was, it was before Red Bull and stuff. So I probably drank like 50 Cokes or whatever. And I couldn't sleep. So in the old days, I don't know how you all are doing in here. But in the old days, marathon meeting meant they lit a candle and started at the beginning of the conference and ended at the end. So these marathon, so I go to this late night marathon meeting. And there's, it was the 80s. So if you, people around us were dying of AIDS, especially in the program. Right? With our lifestyle choices, you can see that that would happen. So you would go to, you'd go to birthdays and get cakes, but you'd also occasionally go to a funeral. So I was in this meeting, late night, it's dark, one candle in the middle of a big room like this. And this girl has a baby and the baby has like a big birthmark. It's kind of, I mean, I, I used to tell it and people would laugh and I don't mean to laugh, but it looked like a horn, like growing. And this girl was probably whatever, 18, 19. And she was sharing about how she had gotten diagnosed with AIDS and she was going to die. And the only thing she wanted to do was stay sober till then for that kid. Man, and I, it hit me like a bus. I, two things. One, I was like, there's no reservation big enough for me to get out of here. Right? If that girl, because I always assumed, like if I got diagnosed with something, even if it was 15 years down the road, I was like, well there, I'm out. Right? I'm out of here. Woo! Right? But I saw that and I saw her desire and you could feel that it was palpable that she wanted that so bad. And I was like, there's no excuse. There's no excuse. Right? I have got to stay sober. If that girl wants, you know, just in honor of this, if nothing else. Right? So I did. But there was a lot went into it between now and then. Right? But there's the drift. Right? Now everybody knows what I'm talking about. The drift. Right? You get the drift. And there's kind of, only had a fellowship meeting based sobriety anyways. Right? Then I moved. Right? And I got the drift. And I went to a few meetings and then the thing, and the thing, and the thing. Pretty soon, I'm going to one meeting a week. Then I'm going, I'm missing that because of the thing and the thing, and the thing, right? And then I got one meeting a month. And then the thing, and the thing, and then there's no meetings for several months in a row. Right? Well, I heard a guy, this isn't my thing, so I'm going to kind of read it off my own. I heard a guy, the promise is in reverse. Right? And that's what I was getting. I was getting the promise is in reverse. I don't know what that says, but like fear of people and economic insecurity returned. Right? Self-seeking, self-centeredness returned. Right? All of those things that I had already kind of gotten from this fellowship and this meeting-based sobriety and a small knowledge of the book from other people's opinions, I was giving it all back. And it did not go well. You know what I mean? I didn't drink, but man, I was unhappy. And I can't even imagine because it takes a strong 10th step for me to be civil right now. Right? I mean, my belief about the 10th step is the 10th step is how is it for other people to experience me. Right? How was it for you guys? Right? Because the rest of that was all about me. And then all of a sudden we get to this 10th step and I'm like, okay, now how is it for you? Right? And I was definitely not doing that. I didn't even know what that was. I thought it was a nightly thing that I wrote down or some shit. I don't know. But I looked around my 10th birthday party. I got a bunch of guys. I like hockey. And I got a bunch of guys who played hockey. Then we had this picnic barbecue thing. And I looked around there and there was two guys I knew from AA that weren't going to AA either and a bunch of other guys from hockey. There was no actual AA people there at all, including myself. And it hit and I was like, man, this is not how it's supposed to be. This is supposed to be my 10th AA sober anniversary and I'm here with a bunch of hockey clowns serving a fucking bathtub full of beer to them. Right? Which I don't serve beer or not serve beer, but the fact that that's the people that I'm celebrating that with. I wasn't celebrating a win in a tournament. Who cares, right? But I'm celebrating an AA thing but not AA people. And it sunk in. And then I tried for a while to go to meetings and I had to do like a full newcomer thing. I called my friend. His name was Ken K. Or Ken C. And Ken C. I said, Ken, I said, man, I want to make it back but I need somebody. I got to get like a newcomer. I need a ride to the meeting because left to my own devices the thing right? So he did. He gave me a ride to the meeting. I went to the meeting and then I went to one meeting a week because I could do it during my work shift and get paid and I went to this one meeting and I kept my mouth shut and I sat there and I just went to that fucking meeting. Like my life depended on it because I knew it did. Right? And I didn't miss that meeting. I didn't do the thing and the thing. I actually went to it. And I didn't share because I knew if I opened my mouth my ego was going to go, I got 11 years. Here I am. Right? But you all know that don't matter at that point. I have to share my opinion about the big book with you at the nooner. Right? So I got going though and I mean I was trying to keep my mouth shut and people, newcomers would come up to me and they'd be like, you should really share. It would really help you. I was like man, but it wouldn't help you. But eventually I got back in and I was like, you know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? And I got good at it. And I got, I was sharing and I was being a part. I was a member in good standing. Right? I was being asked to speak sometimes at the little half hour or little 10 minute shares and stuff. And that was going and going and it was going good but it was still meeting based. It was still fellowship based. You know? And I saw Seth. He looked at it. Is it time? I'm not out of time. No. So it was all meeting based, fellowship based and, I was starting to get miserable again. You know? So I asked this guy to sponsor me. He didn't know much about the steps and stuff either. But we went to this guy that I disliked so much. Right? His name was Charles. I'm not gonna say his last initial. I thought he was a dick. I didn't like anything he said. But he did, he was taking a group through the Joe and Charlie tapes and I'm not endorsing that. Right? But those guys brought the big book alive for me. Right? Because I was hearing all these people say, I don't know man. I've been to the Nooner. Nobody, the answers don't seem like they're in there. Right? Right? But they, but they are in the book. Right? But I didn't know that. And this, the Joe and Charlie and the way they presented that information just gave me a craving for the big book knowledge. Like the real deal. Right? And so I, I was listening to speaker tapes. I found these speakers like Chris R. and stuff. Those guys are on fire about Alcoholics Anonymous. About the message. Not a message. The message. If you showed up at their house without your big book to do step work, you went home. On foot. Because they weren't going to give you a ride. Right? And that, and that got, I was like that. I, I started craving that. I loved it man. And I sought it out and I, God couldn't with it if you were, if, if you sought, I sought the shit out of that. And I got it. Even without any strong sponsorship. Right? I read the book and I talked to guys and I talked to guys and I got recovered. Right? I got recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body that I had suffered from at Alcoholics Anonymous for 15 years. Right? I got a 15, my book holds a 15 year chip. Right? Because that was the year that I got recovered from this bullshit that I had been putting myself through and other people through for all that time. Right? I was a good enough guy. I showed up kind of on time most of the time that I said I would be there. You know? But, you know what I mean? I did bare minimum guy. I have a great life. I've had a great life even during that time. Life has been great. Right? I got great girlfriends. I've had good long relationships that were fulfilling. Right? My sponsor had to tell me that. I didn't know it. I thought I'd failed a whole bunch. Right? I had cool cars. Cooler than I ever thought. Right? I had good jobs that I thought were cool. I went to college for a while. I've played some, done some sports stuff. I played lacrosse at levels I never thought I would get to. Especially being an old fart. Right? Lots of gratification. Lots of stuff like that. But, what's really important is, oh, this is funny. Every once in a while, some, one of those girls, aforementioned ladies, would ask me to draw out my 10-year plan on a piece of paper. So, I'd write out the 10-year plan. Here you go. Right? Every single time I would find that a couple years later in my big book, I had understood I undersold myself. Because with the help of this program and the people in here and the deal that we do, I was, I couldn't even imagine in a fantasy that was just trying to get this girl to like me still, I still sold myself short of what actually happened. I was so, I was shooting so low and so off target. Right? For what, the stuff that really matters. And, when, when I think about the first step now right, this is not a newcomer thing so, earmuffs. I think about the, they talk, it talks about the allergy and the allergy is an abnormal reaction. Right? I have an abnormal reaction to alcohol. When I put alcohol in my body no matter what's going on I want more. But, also an abnormal reaction, I have an abnormal reaction to almost everything that happens. Right? But if I don't pursue, if I don't take it anywhere, then I don't create a lot of unmanageability. Right? Because when I have the abnormal reaction to alcohol, I drink a lot of alcohol and I cause a lot of unmanageability. Right? When I get emotional reaction and I take some action based on that emotional reaction, I cause unmanageability. Right? And that's the biggest thing, man. When I got recovered through that step, through the big book stuff, I didn't have, I didn't create a lot of unmanageability. Enough, but not a lot. You know? And it gets better all the time now. And, like all that okay that was missing, all the negative okay, like, I'm not okay now. I'm okay. I'm okay, I'm okay enough to be up here. Right? I'm okay. Right? I, I am not organically okay. Right? I did not come equipped with a great deal of okay. I had no okay. And now you guys, I'm okay. I'm loving and I'm lovable. I'm trusting and I'm trustworthy. Right? All those things were not a part of it. I was the opposite of those things. I have a job, the guy that stole the garlic and fell down the hill, I have a job where I am accounted to billions of dollars worth of shit. That's my job. I, I got my job through AA. It was totally God shit. Right? I walk, I'm, I was building bicycles to pay for a bicycle. I used to ride bicycles. Right? So I'm, I'm building these, assembling these bikes in the back of the bike shop. My buddy that did property management for a living comes in the back shop and he goes, what, almost 20 years ago? He comes in, he said, you want to help me move this deck furniture around? I got to put this party together. And I was like, no man, I got to, I just got here. I got to build these bikes. He said, I'll give you $35 an hour. I said, let me grab my backpack. That's my 15 year career, 20 year career. Right? That's just how it goes, man. Just stuff just happens. Right? I didn't have, I had no plan to do that. I, a guy that couldn't leave anything unbolted or unglued and now I take care of these big houses and they're cool and the people like me and they trust me with big dollars, you know? I didn't even have, I didn't, I lived behind the Vail Library. Right? And that, but that's, like I don't want to say that's the most important thing, but that's a great side effect of the deal. All right? Sponsorship. It's the best fucking part. I didn't know. I thought the goal, I spent all those years trying to be happy, joyous, and free. I thought the goal was I did, I did this stuff and I got happy, joyous, and free. Right? And it, it wasn't really coming. I had a delusion that that was happening. Right? I mean I was somewhat, I was okay. Right? I just said I'm okay. Right? But it turns out that once I started like have, doing the service on whatever levels I can find, and that's what I encourage you to do from here. Right? Whatever level you're doing service at, whether it's zero or putting away your chair, right? That is some knowing ass laughter right there. Right? Putting away your chair, right? Put away one more chair. Wipe one more ashtray. We had that thing. Everybody, all the young people give me shit for saying this. They think I'm trying to sound like, oh, back in the day. Back in the day, we had the ABCs and all the newcomers you were driven in that. You were ABC. Ashtrays, right? Those little stamped ashtrays. Sit down, cigarette butts like Drew just talked about, right? Picking up those fucking butts and putting away the chairs. You were forced to. Right? I mean, I can't say it any other way. You were voluntold, right, if you want to put it better, to do that stuff. And I was told to do that stuff and it's connection. If I get in a situation where I'm uncomfortable, like I have to go to some stupid party I don't want to be at because I never want to be at the party until halfway through, and I meet somebody and I meet people and I get conversations started and I get, you know, I get to have that, you know, all because of just a little bit of service when those biker guys told me to wipe off the stupid ashtrays. I was a smoker so one of them was mine, you know, I don't know. It's like putting away one chair, but I just encourage you like just do that little tiny bit more. Nobody's asking you to go from the newcomer putting away their chair to the guy with 12 sponsees, right? They're just saying, hey, maybe talk to the new guy. I got to yell at a sponsee one day, a guy, I love this guy. His name is JD. JD, I was at this meeting and I go, go talk to that guy. I was talking to this guy. He goes, well, that guy looks horrible. I was like, that's the guy. That's the guy, the horrible looking guy. I go, well, you're not going to talk to him and who's going to talk to him? We're the only ones that aren't scared, right? My job is to talk to that guy, right? And he got it and it was a beautiful moment. So, anyways, I got, I did all that work and I learned about the big book and I got properly armed with the fact about myself. I got, I busted out some teeth so I can't say facts very well. Facts about myself and then I could, and then I could start taking guys through steps in a meaningful way that, you know, and I felt confident about it, you know, and I really like to clarify. I can do this out of the book and blah, blah, blah, right? It's a very specific framework that I'm talking about, right? But everybody has a deeply personal reaction or like a deeply personal experience within that framework. The framework is set up to have your own personal experience within that thing. So, when we're, all the old guys are going, you got to do the steps like out of the book. We're just saying this is your best chance. This is your best chance to have your deeply personal experience that's going to change the ways you can't fucking imagine. You can leave that F-bomb in there. Powerful orator. Question your message no matter how much time you have, right? How much time you have, question your message. Am I carrying the message in a way that the newcomer of today is going to hear it, right? And I'm not saying take God out of it. It says right in the book, right? But, like just ask yourself, am I doing the best job I can do to carry this message in the meetings I'm going to, in the situations I'm in, you know what I mean? Because I can settle in. I can get complacent, man. And then what am I, you know what I mean? Like I got to keep growing. I got to keep seeking still, right? Because I didn't know when I said I started seeking through those speaker tapes and stuff that it was going to make this happen, right? I just thought I was going to stop feeling shitty again, right? And yet now, countless others. Like that's not a joke. That's a real thing. Countless others. It says countless others. And now countless others are being helped, right? Like I went, I had, this isn't even a humble brag. This is a straight brag. I had 15 minutes in a meeting I made during the Zoom time with nine generations of sponsorship, right? My, my 91-year-old grand sponsor found a way to get the internet up long enough for 10 minutes to be in this fucking Zoom meeting and we had nine generations, man. So cool. So cool. Right? I'm just a small part of that machine, you know? I said it the other day in one of my favorite groups up there, up valley, or whatever you call it when you're here. The machine of Alcoholics Anonymous is complex and working awesome. It's a well-functioning, complicated machine that works every time. Right? I don't know why we had to change it to rarely have we seen a person, right? Because anybody that really does this deal, never have we seen a person who does the actual deal fall out. And even if they do fall out, they come right back and then they get it, you know what I mean? Because it's like, whoa, that was horrible. All right, so I'm sorry about this. I've got to do the page turn again. I feel like in the third, am I running out? Okay, five minutes, all right. I can do it. I feel like the third step, it says, if I draw close to my higher power and do his works well, I will be provided what I needed, right? I think I need a hot girlfriend that's incredibly cool for how hot she is, and a Range Rover. I have not gotten those things yet. Well, I had a couple Range Rovers, but they were old. Right? But what I need is all this stuff I've been talking about. It says before that, it says all sorts of remarkable things were happening, right? That's what I've been doing. I'm just remarking, right? These are worthy of remark. These occurrences in my life are remarkable, right? They're worthy of remark, right? I can function normally, right? In almost all situations, right? I can put others in front of me if their thing seems more intense than mine, right? When my buddies call and they're like, I'm like, oh. And in my head, I'm like, well, I got, but I just shut the fuck up, right? And that's the other thing. The hardest lesson I've learned, and I've only recently learned it to some degree through a lot of work, is don't do anything, right? I can not do anything a lot of times, right? I can not send that stupid text or that stupid email or make that call when I'm pissed, right? I can wait, and I can make that call when I'm just moderately bummed or upset. What a difference that is, right? You know, the level of bullshit goes dramatically down if you don't come at shit in a fever, right? I can handle shit like an adult. And the biggest thing is I can function normally even when my world feels like it's falling apart. I can go to my job and do a decent job and be friendly and accommodating because that's most of my job, right? And handle it, right? And then I can go home on the way home and call Jim like, whoa! This is what's on my head, right? And then he goes, yeah, it's on my head, too. Most of the time. The cool thing about getting some time is when you call your sponsor, you're usually just going, you're not going, I don't know! I'm going, here's what's going on. This is how I'm looking at it. What do you think? You know, and it's tweaks. And, you know, I used to go to these meetings early on and I'd go to the meeting, right? And then I'd leave the meeting and go, my God, that meeting was exactly what I needed to hear today. What I realized months and months later was what didn't I need to hear? Of course it was about what I needed to hear. I needed to hear it all! But the biggest deal is that I can truly connect to the people and moments in my life on a level I didn't even know was possible. Right? The people and moments, I'm there for it. Like, I'm there for the hurts. I'm there for the tears when Jim says nice stuff about me. Right? I'm there for this. I'm there for this. I'm there for your faces. I'm there for your laughter. Right? I'm there to see that maybe just a little bit is getting, you know, spreading out there. You know? And it's such a great feeling. I've always ended my talks with this one thing that I read once. There's a definition in the dictionary of the word recovery. And one of the definitions in the word recovery is extracting something precious from that which appears to have no value. And that's what you all have done for me. That's what's happened to me in this program. Thank you very much. Love you all. Thanks for listening.