Mike F. at the Freedom From Bondage Group of AA – 1st Annual Speaker Fest – 2023

is this going thank you if somebody asked me if I was nervous I'm not I feel a little bit like a mosquito in a nudist camp though I know what to do I just don't know where to start heart. A number of years ago, some of you can probably identify with this, I woke up in the morning and I had a concern. And I laid in bed for a minute and I thought about my concern and it became a problem. The only thing that changed was I thought about it. And I was laying there thinking about my new problem for another minute or two and it became a crisis. So it went from a concern to a crisis in about three minutes. Nothing changed other than I was thinking about it so I got out of bed I called my sponsor and I didn't ask him if I could come over I just said I'm going to come and pick you up we're going to go to breakfast and I picked Howard up and we went to Denny's we were sitting in Denny'S in the booth having some breakfast and I decided I would share my crisis with him so I gave it to him and Howard looked across the booth at me and he said your life is in divine order unfolding into goodness and I thought clearly he did not understand the magnitude of the problem that I was dealing with at the time. And being a salesman, I kind of repositioned my presentation to him and gave it to him from a slightly different angle, this time expecting to get maybe some feedback that I could do something with. And he looked across the booth at me and he said, your life is in divine order, unfolding into goodness. Now I know there was depth to that message but it was not what I expected and I think he could tell at the time that I was having a little difficulty with it. So he said if you go back through your life as far back as you can go and you look at all the circumstances and events that have occurred, you'll notice that the times where you were most afraid, what you were afraid of, didn't happen. That when you wanted something really bad and you didn't get what you wanted, generally you ended up with something better than what you want and what you really wanted. And he said if you're honest about it, you'll see how God has pulled a golden thread through each and every one of these circumstances and events that have led you to this moment right now. So what I was able to do after i left howard is because i was able to go back and you know bill w in 12 and 12 and step 11 said that self-examination prayer and meditation when logically interwoven create an unshakable foundation for life and i thought wow you know this self- examination at this point in my sobriety I was sober 20 years. At this point in my sobriety, I was doing an inventory, but this new inventory was not to see my actions and my behaviors and my characteristics. It was to see how this God of my understanding had been working in my life through all these circumstances and events. And it was actually a really, really good exercise for me at that point in my sobriety. And Howard's words of your life is in divine order unfolding into goodness has really kind of become my mantra, kind of what I hang my hat on. That's how I try to live my life today with that understanding and that confidence that I can trust the next steps going forward. So this week, you know, just to get real with you, Today is my birthday, which is an anniversary, which is a milestone in my sobriety. And I'm so grateful to all the men and women that contributed to that, and so many today that expressed kind words to me and love and prayers. Last Sunday, I traveled a little bit. And I was in Las Vegas. and I was speaking the next night, well, I got a phone call that my brother had had an incident at dinner and they were putting him on life support. Unfortunately, two days later he passed away. So being able to be here today, you know, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to be of service because I know that when I'm in service, that my issues seem to calm quite a bit. I'm also grateful today that I can do some things to contribute to the family and actually be of service. And that's because of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's only because of alcoholics anonymous. 38 years ago, I left Buffalo, New York, and I didn't have anyone to call. I didn'T have anyone calling me I didn't have any place to stay and uh and today life is a lot different and what I want to share with you uh over the next few hours Alan's like no um is really some of what happened what it was like what it's like today you know and to start with you know with my brother's death was simply to move move through that so that I so that I hopefully can give a good talk today and not be too emotional with it because during this time, you're faced with the waves of that stuff. So thank you all for being here and thanks for understanding and for being part of this meeting today. This is going to be fantastic. We're going to have a great afternoon. I've really been looking forward to this And I appreciate Alan inviting me and the group inviting me and, you know, making this happen. And I hope that you'll be able to continue it because it's good. When we get together and celebrate recovery, it's Good. You know, it is something to be celebrated. It is somethingto be invited to. And it issomething to bring people to as well. So I grew up in a little town outside of Buffalo, New York, called East Aurora. My dad was an alcoholic. I do not remember his drinking. He got sober when I was very young. I remember a lot of AA in our house. That was, you know, we had an AA house. My mom was Al-Anon. She passed away with 49 years in Al-Anon, just short of her 50th Al-Anon birthday, and both my mom and dad were dedicated to their collective programs and their service to others, and they laid a great example for me and many, many others. That didn't keep me from my alcoholism and having AAs around the house all the time. My mom used to like to tell this story. We had seven kids in our family and one girl, my sister, and she's a few years younger than me but uh the new york state police would drop you know back in the 70s and 80s it was a little different than it is today and the police would actually drop people off and put them to bed on our sun porch and instead of giving them a dui and my dad would take them to meetings my mom would fix meals and they're always drunks in the house and all stages of recovery and some not even close, but it was always, you know, there was always donuts there. And, you Know, we'd come home from school and steal their cigarettes and eat their donuts. And yeah, that's what we did. You know, but AA was always good. There was nothing that I saw within Alcoholics Anonymous that wasn't attractive to me. We got to see families restored. We got to see what happens when people get sober. Well, I was beginning to tell you, my mom loved to tell this story about my sister. There was a drunk sitting at the table one morning and this poor guy was in a bad way. And he's just shaking his head and he's all remorseful and he whines. Oh, I feel so bad. Oh. I'm so ashamed of myself. Oh this is so terrible. And Finally, my sister, who was probably 10 at the time, turned to him and said, we've seen way worse than you. Perhaps a little ego deflation was helpful for that drunk. But, you know, there were a lot of events growing up and things. And, and my first drink was at my brother John's first communion. And they had some beer in the cooler and he and I took it and we went and hid and drank it. And then I went back when he was, when he didn't know. And I took more and I hid it in the woods so I could drink without him. And that was how I, that was kind of my introduction to drinking was I liked it so much I didn't want anyone to know. I took more and I hid it so I could plan for the next time. That's really about all you need to know about my drinking, okay? It got way worse than that, okay. It just continued to get worse and I drank at every opportunity I could. So if you invited me to your house, it would not be uncommon for me to inquire If your family might have some alcohol around that we could drink, you know, something like that. When we were playing sports in the backyard, basketball or baseball, I would get one of my older brother's friends to buy me some alcohol so I could drink it. You know, I'd put it in a white bottle so they wouldn't know what it was. You know this behavior continued and I just drank every opportunity I could. I wasn't a daily drinker. My first detox was in Children's Hospital in Buffalo, New York. Your story's not real macho when you're laying in Children'S Hospital for detox. They didn't have a detox ward at Children'S Hospitals. Then they had intensive care set up where I was across the hall from the nurse's station and they could keep an eye on me. and during the day the medical team would come in and every now and then they'd have a counselor or someone come in and talk to me and suggest that when I get out that I should go to counseling. And then my dad's AA crew, they would come in during the Day and they would visit me and bring me cigarettes and tell me that it was probably a good idea for me to go to AA when I got out of there. So when I was when I was released I really felt like they had given me those two conditions that I should go to AA and go to counseling and if I did those two things everybody would forgive me and everybody would love me and that was what I thought so I went to counseling and I really liked that because the counselor and I were smoking weed together and I would say to my parents is it Tuesday? I want to go to counselor long term solution that didn't work went to my first AA meeting and it was in the bottom of a police station Orchard Park, New York it was my dad's home group and I remember going down the stairs that night and the ceiling was low and I remembered the ceiling being low because the room was so full of smoke that you could hardly see and they had those old wooden tables and the donuts and the coffee over in the corner and I grabbed my coffee and my donut and I sat out. And I knew everybody in the room because they'd all been to my house. We had an active AA house. I thought they probably just figured that my old man was bringing one of the kids, just for, I don't know, education purposes or something. God knows where my thinking was at the time. Well, they go around the room And Bob says, I'm Bob and I'm an alcoholic. And Dan says, I'm Dan and I am an alcoholic and Dorothy says, I'm Dorothy and I' m an alcoholic and it came to me and I said, I'm Mike and I''m a problem drinker with alcoholic tendencies. And I did not want to be an alcoholic, okay? It took me some inventories honestly to wrap myself around why I responded that way and why I thought that. And what I was able to identify was I was 15 years old, I hadn't been on a date yet, I'd been to a concert or two, and I'm thinking, these people in AA, like, they stopped drinking forever. And I'm 15, and I'M thinking, Now, I know they don't tell you that they stopped drinking forever. But when you lived in my house and you saw these sober people, that was what I interpreted. That when you come to AA and you say you're an alcoholic, it is expected that you're going to stop drinking. That was how I felt. And the nice people in AA said things to me like, keep coming back. keep coming back. I did, you know. They said really silly things like, it's the first drink that gets you drunk. And I would fight with my dad. First drink? I've never gotten drunk on the first three. You guys are crazy. You call yourself an alcoholic. What are you talking about? And he'd say things to me like, well, if you were going to get killed by a train, would it be the engine that kills you or the caboose? And I'd be like, why am I on the train track? Because, you see, I needed more information before I could answer a question like that. And they would say things like, if you quack like a duck and look like a duck and waddle like a buck, you're probably a duck. I'd go home, I'd look in the mirror, do I have feathers? Why are they calling me a duck? I didn't get it. I just didn't got it. The only thing I really got was, you guys were smiling. and i couldn't i couldn t i just could not smile i found no joy in my life and when i stopped drinking i got worse i did not get better and i'm coming to aa and these people are getting better by not drinking and i m sitting in the meetings trying to figure out how i can kill myself And I would sit in those meetings over and over and try to think of how I could kill myself because every time I stopped drinking, things got so bad. I just could not stand it. I couldn't stand myself. I couldn'T stand you. I couldn'T stand anyone. And I was so scared. I was So full of fear that I didn't even know how to tell people that I was afraid. I didn'T even know what I was Afraid of. But I was afRAID of everything. and I thought I was different because I was young well story didn't end there for the next 10 years I came to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous on a regular basis when I say a regular base I came to AA meetings probably 2-3 times a week for the last 10 years and I never got 30 days of continuous sobriety I got to go to the places that some of the AA people had told me that they had been to in their experience, some of those psychiatric hospitals. I remember I was getting admitted into a psychiatric ward at Buffalo General Hospital, and the young lady was doing the intake, and she's asking me the typical intake questions. And while she's asked me the typically intake questions, she was probably three or four years older than me and kind of attractive, and I'm trying to explain to her that a life with me would be a good move on her part. Yeah. Step two. Yeah, I mean, you guys are laughing because you get it, you know? I mean you get that. That was where I was. That was the life that I was living, and it kept getting worse. It kept getting worst. it kept getting worse. And as it got worse, I just lowered the people that I was with. I just went to lower and lower. That made sense to me. And I don't think it was ever planned. Now, I never woke up in the morning and thought, well, I'm going to just take advantage of people, rip people off, hurt people, treat my parents like crap. Never. I don'T think anybody's ever been born and had better intentions than me. Always had great intentions. I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the power to do it. Probably the biggest event that occurred in my life prior to coming into Alcoholics Anonymous was I graduated high school. I did not deserve to graduate high school. You have to attend to do the work, and I didn't do that, and I was only in that school where I graduated for one year, and it was a master case of manipulation on my part. I got my dad involved and the principal involved when they put me in the school, and we put together this plan and how I could graduate and all this, and they lived up to their end of the deal and I just flat out didn't but you know when it came to the end for some reason they decided to graduate me so this particular day we're in the city of Buffalo we're inclined hands auditorium it's filled with people it's a afternoon it's kind of dark what the graduates are up on the stage and they're calling each one by name and then you walk across the stage and get your diploma, and everybody claps. Well, they announced my name, and one of the guys in the back of the room yelled out one of my nicknames. Now it's stone quiet. He yells out one OF MY NICKNAMES, DRUGS! Before I had the diploma in my hand, I knew I was nothing but a disappointment to my mom, my dad, my grandmother, and everybody else that was there. That is how I felt most of the time. Most of the time, I can tell you that I felt like a disappointment. I felt Like I was letting people down. I felt Like I could not live up to their expectations, whatever they were, stated or unstated. I did not have the ability to do that. Consequently, my self-image was bad. I was scared to death. I Was afraid of everybody and I Was sick and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I had several failed attempts at suicide and this particular day was April the 21st of 1985. And I broke into a house in Buffalo and I knew the guy that lived there and I know he had a gun and I went in there to get the gun. And I didn't find the gun It was one of those things, you know. And when Howard asked me to go back through my life and see how God pulled a golden thread, all these events and circumstances, I began to see that things were coming together. So I'm in this house and I can't find the gun and it's beginning to become daylight and I'm looking out the window and I see these three ladies walking down the street and they're wearing these funny church hats. And I remembered my grandmother when I was a youngster would come over on Sundays after church often with her friends and they would be wearing these funny Church hats. And I saw these, I don't know if it was a hallucination, but when I saw this I saw all these ladies coming down the street for some reason I got down on my knees in that room and I just said God help me. and you know it was a different prayer i probably said that prayer a hundred times in the previous 10 years but there was something different this time and i knew it i knew It I knew it right then the room didn't light up it I didn't have a spiritual awakening nothing I mean I drank all the rest of the day but when I said that Prayer I knew something was happening and so that night I made it to a bar and I called my dad because I didn't know who else to call and he answered the phone and asked where I was and I told him and he agreed to meet me the next day with another member of Alcoholics Anonymous. They came and did a 12-step call and we met in a diner, and we talked about my options. And I didn't have any. I was out of options. I was not good ideas. Okay? And it was strongly suggested that I go through detox because I needed that. And then they could maybe have a few days to figure out what to do with me. Well, we made the arrangements through the director of the National Council on Alcoholism in the city of Buffalo to get me into Erie County Medical Center. And my brother dropped me off and I walked in the front door and I was greeted by the admissions director. His name was Paul. And Paul put his hands up and he said, you can't come here. We can't help you. You've been here too many times. You need to leave. And I was more broken at that moment than I've ever been. I felt more hopeless than I'd ever been, and I really didn't know what to do at all, and I walked out of the hospital, and where my brother's truck was parked was a taxi cab, and I got in the taxi, and I said, Take me to a bar because that was the only solution I had, I knew it wasn't a solution, but I just had no other option at the time or couldn't bring one into my consciousness. And I ordered a drink and the door was open and a city bus pulled up and this lady was trying to get on the bus and she fell. And I walked out that door and I helped her get on the bus. The drink is probably sitting there. That was 38 years ago, probably right about now. And I've never had to go back for that drink. Now, I think the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous happened for me at that instant. And here's what I believe the miracle of Alcoholic Anonymous is for me. Abby T., who brought the message to Bill Wilson after he had given Bill the message that he had, he looked to Bill and he said, Bill, it's a new kind of giving. It's a giving without expectation. It is a giving without reward. It s a giving just to give because it's the right thing to do. Not looking for anything from it. And I really believe that that afternoon when I went out and helped that lady get on the bus was one of the first acts of kindness that I was able to do without thinking about what's in it for me, why I didn't kick that lady, take her purse and run. See, that was the kind of punk I had become. I didn' t have to do that. I really believe that the prayer I had said two days earlier began to manifest in my life right there. I didn''t notice that until years later. I was doing some writing about Bill Wilson''s life And I've had some opportunities to do some fun things, especially related to the history of AA and to the 12-step movement. And I love Bill W., and I loved his story. I love the power of his story, and the thing that I was probably most impressed with was his spiritual experience, his white light experience that he had in the hospital. and uh i'll share it with you ebby bill's sponsor came to visit him bill had they had met about a month earlier and bill had relapsed and ended up back in the hospital and he was laying in town's hospital he had been there i believe three days at the time and he said he was pretty clear of the alcohol, and the sedatives that they were giving him. And he said, Ebi showed up in the doorway. And he looked and he thought, why isn't he out looking for a job? They all needed jobs at the time. Everybody was broke. And that was his first thought. Then his second thought was, well, here's a guy who really practices what he preaches. Come on in, Evi. Ebby, what was that simple formula that you gave me when you were at my house a few weeks back? And Ebby looks at him and he says, Bill, you've got to be completely deflated. You've gotto be licked. You've gotta be done. You've Gotta Be Willing To Be Done. Then, you gotta believe in some sort of God, even if you try it as an experiment. Just any sort of God. Try it as an experiment, Bill. Then you need to write down and inventory the things you've done and the people you've donated to. And then have a confession. Then you needs to be willing to pay restitution and work with others. And those were kind of the six little steps that Ebi shared with Bill. And Bill took these steps in and he said, Ebi left the room and when Ebi left the room he said he fell into the darkest depression that he'd ever been in in his life and in the depth of that depression he cried out as a child if there's a God show himself and he said the whole room lit up a bright white light he felt like he was on a mountaintop he could feel the breeze of the spirit and he knew he had been released God when I heard that story I thought man that's what I want why did I get that here I'm looking back through my life and I'm like man I got ripped off I didn't get no burning bush or no white light or no breeze of the spirit then I remember grabbing that lady's hand and lifting her up and I thought Mike you had a profound spiritual experience and you missed it. It wasn't until 20 years later that I was able to recognize that. And I share that with you because I hope that you'll look at your experience. You'll look at the golden thread in your life and look how things happen and how the coincidences kind of line up and everything comes together. well they didn't really know what to do with me and my dad had a friend down in Texas and his name was John Carlton and John used to speak a lot on the circuit if you'll call it that and my dad called him and said John I got Mike here we don't know what to do with him and John said well send them down here. Send the kid down here for a couple weeks. We'll see if he wants the deal, okay? You know it's called AA the deal. And I went down there and I remember the day I arrived in Abilene they picked me up and they brought me to a meeting. On the way to the meeting Big John says to me, if they come to you tonight kid why don't you just give them your name and a sobriety date if you've got one and uh and leave it at that well believe me my vocabulary was not nearly as extensive as as it is today um i could get about a you know maybe six or seven word sentence out and three of them would start with f and that was about where i was at yeah so i was happy and it came to me i said i'm mike i'm an alcoholic and i made up a sobriety date and And, you know, that was where I was at. And, yeah, we went back to John's house. And John was a big guy, okay? He was 80 years old, okay. He got sober October 28th, 1951, okay, his sponsor was a guy named Dick Breen and Dick got sober in September of 41 and Dick's sponsor was Bill W. So John got through his sponsor, got to be pretty close with Bill W., they got to spend time together in Texas and a lot of time together when John would go up to New York. Well, this particular evening I'm there and John, the way I remember it, it seemed like he was pacing. And he looks down at me and he says, how long you been around the deal, kid? With as much ego as I still had left. Now, you've got to picture this. I weighed 90 pounds. everything I owned was in a cardboard box and I was wearing someone else's pants because I stole those and I look back at him and I say oh about 10 years and he looks at me and he says I don't know if you have the guts it takes to make it but if you do we can show you by living proof how you never have to live this way again and if you want to get sober I'll go to hell and back with you And if you want a drink You can go to Hell alone I was waiting for Welcome to Texas But you know The message was clear This dude meant business A few minutes after that I think I had a turning point Because he looked at me And he said You're nothing but a thief Maybe not the kind a thief they'd kick in a joint or steal from his mother's purse. You were worse than that because you stole from those you love the most their right to happiness. Wow, again the golden thread. What he did when he said that to me is he caused me to see the truth about myself and it was as if I was sitting in a cave in the dark because that's how I felt, and he grabbed me by the hand. And it was because he was an alcoholic that had a message of depth and weight. And he grabbed my by the hand and he was able to begin one step at a time to lead me toward the sunlight of the spirit out of the cave. And they didn't tell me how to do it by myself. They were with me every step. He met me there where I was at. He didn't make me come up to where he was at, he came down to where I was at, and he met me in my darkness. And he brought me out. And he made some suggestions. I love the suggestion. He had a friend, Bill O'Neill. And Bill was his best friend. Now Bill got sober October 21st, 1951. John got sober October 28th. So Bill had one week on John. Never let him forget it. Okay? I mean, it was so much fun watching these guys well bill went the first day we got he brought me over to midwest tape library to bill and arbutus o'neill's house and we got there and and he says this is the midwest tape library it's the biggest tape library in the world and i'm thinking okay so what um and then we meet bill okay now they all wore jackets okay like they casual like it's a monday that wore a jacket. You know, it wasn't like Sunday or... They wore jackets and Bill's standing there. He's got one eye and one arm. He lost his eye in an automobile accident and he lost his arm in another automobile accident. He may have had a driving problem too. When I met him, I nicknamed him Grumpy, okay? Now, he just looked grumpy. So I nicknamed him in my head. Like, there's no way I'm telling anybody that I'm judging people and nicknaming them. So we get in, and this is a massive archive, okay? There's books and letters and tapes, and these people knew, you know, Bill and Lois. they Arbutus sponsored Dr. Bob's son in Al-Anon, Smitty so there was Big John knew AA number 3 and a lot of the pioneers so when I would go over there and we would sit and drink instant coffee for the benefit of the younger ones that's like dirt in warm water but we'd sit there and we'd drink this instant coffee and they would talk AA. And now, they might have been talking about Sister Ignatia or Bill or Dr. Bob or how the steps were written or some of the conferences. And I'm listening, and this particular day as they're having their conversation, I somehow think it's my turn. So I join in the conversation and I say one of my sentences. And Bill glares at me with one of his eyes and starts banging one of his fingers down. And he says, the first thing we clean up in here, young man, is our mouth. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, I'm 25 years old and these crazy people are now going to start telling me how I got to talk. And I left there with John that afternoon. And when we got to the car, now, I had known him through my parents a little bit, so I was much, much more comfortable saying things to him. And I said, what's up with the grumpy here? You know, you guys aren't serious. Like, you're really going to tell me I've got to change the way I talk? And he didn't say that. He just said, you know, kid, he said this program saved our lives and it might save yours. And Bill and I and Norbutus know many of the men and women who suffered and who made this program possible for us. They led by example and they made it so that you'd have a place to come and be sober. He's not asking you to change. He's asking you to be respectful. He's asked you to understand that you might be the only big book, some new guy or some new girl gets to see for the first time. He wants you to be attractive and he wants you to be accurate. You know, I bought into it. I just thought, okay, I mean, it may, you know, when I got to that point, you know when you get to that part where you say I'll do anything, okay? I'll doing anything to have what you have. What that really means is that we'll do anything. That was just one of the things that I needed to do for me. They gave me assignments when I would go to the meeting, like my assignment, like, tonight you're going to be a door greeter. And when people come, I want you to shake their hand, I want your to look at them, and I want to tell them you're glad that they're here. I'll shake the hand. I'm not so sure about the glad you're here stuff, okay? So I'm door greeting. and this dude comes in one night, and his name's A.J., and A.G.'s got just a beautiful tan, silver white hair, spent way too much time on the golf course, and I said, how are you? And he looked at me, and he had a smile on his face, and I swear to you that it was the biggest smile I've ever seen in my life. It covered his entire face like ear to ear, and I saw nothing but teeth. And he said, I'm fantastic. And it just keeps getting better. I'm processing this. The first thing I think is he's on pills. The second thing is I'm like, do you really mean that, AJ? And he says, yes, and it keeps getting bigger. Now, I was one of these guys prior to that that would cheer up this room by leaving, okay? All right? You kind of get it. Like somebody licked all the red off my candy, okay. Like I was miserable with no reason, all right. And I was angry and resentful and, you know. There's people who tried to help me. I went back to John's that night. And I got to tell you, John had a one-bedroom apartment. And he invited me for two weeks and he gave me the bedroom. I stayed for two years. Okay? All right? So if I'm invited to speak in Pennsylvania or I have to go help with a funeral or whatever it is that's on my plate that might at times seem to be an inconvenience, it just takes me a minute to be conscious of the people who inconvenienced themselves so that I could be sober. And my gratitude is that I have to do these things because they're what keep me sober and that's why these guys took the time to invest in me and to give me the life that i have and i really believe that that's what they were doing and remember there's a lot of talk about this book alcoholics anonymous and and people you know in texas man that was big book country okay and they're all talking about reading a big book. And John traveled a lot and he had gone to Europe and he was gone for a couple of weeks. And while he was going, I devoured that book. It was like the first book I ever really read. And, you know, I did my best to get into that. I couldn't read very well, but man, I was going to do it. I mean, I had the willingness and I started going through that. And and John came home and I remember I was like a kid, you Know, and I'm like, I didn't. And he's like, what? I said, I read it. And he's like, what? I said, the big book. And he said, so what? I read Moby Dick and I don't remember a damn bit of it. You got to study the book. And we began to study the big book. We began to study the big book together. And I would read things in that book and I got to the beginning of the book, to the doctor's opinion. And I read somewhere in there and said something about a psychic change. Now I'm 25 years old and I'm thinking, man, that's what I need. I need a psychic change. And then I read a little bit more and it said that the guys were getting this program where the ones that were becoming sold on the ideas contained in the book. I hope there's at least one person out there feeling like maybe I'm selling you on the ideals contained in my book or the ideas contain in the books because that's the answer to my alcoholism today. There's no other answer for this alcoholic. Before I had the book, when I was going to meetings, I was sitting there thinking about how I could kill myself. When I had a sponsor and a book, all of a sudden I felt like I belonged. And I could easily greet people at the door or pick up the ashtrays or do what I needed to do. And I was able to do that, and it meant something. And as I mentioned earlier, John traveled a lot, and he would tell the committees, hey, I got the kid here, and I don't like to fly, so the kid's going to drive me, and he'd have me drive him to the AA conferences. I'll tell you, before we did this there was a ritual I didn't know about it he takes me to his clothiers and he takes me in and all of a sudden the tailor is measuring me I've never had a suit in my life and they're measuring me for a suit and he orders me two suits and we walk out and he looks at me and says kid, if you're going to hang with me, you're going to need to dress nice. And he said, and if you don't make it, your parents are going to needs something to bury you in. That was the kind of sponsorship. You know, I mean, gave up his bedroom. Somebody asked me, well, where did he sleep? I don't know if you remember what it was like your first two years, but I was so self-centered, I didn't care where he slept. I never even thought about it. I didn't care if he slept. It didn't matter. The things I would say to him, oh, you know, when I talk to you about, hang on, a guy that'd tear up a room by leaving, yeah, I would come out and I'd say, I hope you choke on that cigar and die. I don't even know why I would say it. He would say, kids are getting better. We're starting to go through the steps. And he'd say things like, you've got to get out of the debating society. And I'd spend four hours arguing with him that I'm not in the debating society. This didn't come, you know, that's the thing about sobriety. And if you're new, I want you to recognize that, you know, I'm here today celebrating 38 years, okay? But my sobriete is incremental. It was a little at a time. It wasn't like spoon-fed. There was, in the beginning it was a lot harder than it was as time went on. Things did begin to make sense. They did begin to get easier. I did begin feel more comfortable in my skin. I did began to be able to talk with people. And I got to a point where it was time for me to go on. You know, it's time for me to leave Big John. And we had traveled to Arizona and I met a friend of my dad's while I was in Arizona and I talked to him and I said, you know, I wouldn't mind moving to Arizona. And he's like, hey, if you want to come to Arizona, I'll get you a job. And you can even stay with us. And I'm like, really? And he said, yeah. And I said, okay, great. So they hired me. I was a laborer for a construction company. I moved there in July of 1987. And I am carrying drywall in 110 degree weather. And I was twig, man, you know. And so one day, head off and I go to the swimming pool at the apartment complex. And I'm sitting out there, and this girl dives in the water. And I dove in after her. And I told her, my name is Mike, and I'm an alcoholic. And she said, my named Joy. And I am thinking, I need more joy in my life. And I asked her out on a date. We went out on that date. and she got a fortune cookie and the cookie of the fortune read something like you can trust the man you're with his love is true. She lived in Michigan I lived in Arizona so when she got home I called her and we started writing letters we didn't have text and email and all that stuff you know we had to really write like I wrote her a letter every single day okay we were married four months after we met okay and she was in Michigan I was in Arizona don't I? It was crazy, okay? And a lot of people thought that that was probably not a good idea. Even my family thought maybe Mike was up to his old tricks and tried to suggest to her that maybe she wanted to rethink this. Anyway, this past January we celebrated 35 years of marriage. I got to tell you, man, I was a bum, okay. I mean, I could tell you all about relationships before i got sober in one word pathetic okay they were one-sided i was a taker and they were pathetic and they sucked and that was it okay and here you know i married this school teacher and we have a family and we start doing things and i have an opportunity to to really you know be in the program and learn how to how to do the deal and live and live with the challenges because life comes at us. Life continues to come at us, it doesn't matter where we are in our sobriety. Don't think that all of a sudden everything is just easy and you're just going to whistle down the street going, life is grand. Now I'm not saying that I don't feel that way most of the time because I really do feel thatway most ofthe time. But the last year and a half of my life has been a lot of challenges and difficulties. It's been very, very difficult. cold. And if I was here to tell you anything different, I'd be a liar. But I remember this one trip. I came back. I was down in Alabama and I came home and I was out in the garage and it was a Friday. And I remember I was like dusting shelves because they're going to put some books out there. And while I'm doing that, I got the garage door open. We're living in Chandler, Arizona at the time. And all of a sudden I hear some noise and I look and I can see people approaching my house rather quickly, okay? And I see one of them's got one of these, like a cannon that you're going to knock a door down with, okay, and they're yelling my son's name and I see that it's the police department. So I quickly opened the door and found myself laying in the hallway in handcuffs while they raided my house. And I was laying on the floor next to my wife in handcuffs and the first thought that comes through my head is your life is in divine order unfolding into goodness honest to god okay the next thought that came through my mind was so is his i was able to be his cheerleader i didn't have to be the coach, the captain, the director, the parent. I was able to be his cheerleader and he's sober today and has a beautiful family and is doing some wonderful, wonderful things. And I'm very grateful for my children. You know, I have three kids. My oldest son works with me. He's just great. He's got a beautiful wife and a beautiful baby and I just love being around them. my daughter has had chronic illness for the last 10 years unfortunately that hasn't gone real well that's been very very difficult on her and all of us and my youngest is the one who caused the most trouble but yet he's like doing so well I'm so proud of him and so happy for him you know things happen in your sobriety if you open yourself up to it. And I say that because you may be sitting there today with some dreams. You know, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had no dreams. They were gone. The alcoholism and my addiction had robbed me of my dreams. And I wasn't thinking about getting married and having homes and families. That was so far from my consciousness that it did not exist. And it was Alcoholics Anonymous that gave me back my dreams, because I got to see other people living my dreams. I got to see others doing what I want. That's why this program is attraction. The attraction oftentimes is right here in the room. Am I living a kind of program today that's going to be attractive to someone? Am I willing to inconvenience myself? Am I willing to give them encouragement? See, that's what got me. Big John used to say, kid, would you make me breakfast today? I'd make him a couple of eggs and he'd brag about it all the whole darn day. Oh, this kid's the greatest cook I've ever had. He made me the best breakfast I've ever eaten. One time he said, could you make spaghetti and meatballs? I grew up in Buffalo, man. I can make a snowball better than anybody in this room. So I went to the store, and I bought a loaf of bread because I remember my mom making meatballs, and I remember she used meat and bread and eggs. So I got a loaf de bread and a dozen eggs and a pound of hamburger, and I thought that would be fine. I put the bread in it, all of it, and all the eggs, and I didn't know. So I had a dozen egg, a pound de hamburger, and a loaf o' bread. I made these glistening white, okay, shiny. I mean they were so shiny and so gooey and I put them in the bacon grease that was still on the stove from the morning because I hadn't yet got to the point where you clean up after yourself. And then I got some ragu or prego or one of these things and I'd put it in a pan and Ied put the meatballs in there and cooked him some pasta. he would i got two weeks of compliments he would stop people on the street come on over here i want you to meet the kid this kid is a cook what was happening is he was giving me things to do that i could do then he was paying attention to the fact that i was doing them and then he was recognizing that do you think i wanted to be around him man i'll tell you i hope that i have that kind of determination with the men that I work with, that I'm willing to let them know what they're doing right. That I'm will to find what they are doing right and point it out to them because a lot of times they are the last ones to know. How many times people tell me, you're doing a good job kid, you are doing a great job kid. John always called me kid. He actually had two names for me and Howard my previous sponsor asked me not to share the other one from the podium so we're just staying with kid okay but i've been very very fortunate and very blessed to have many things happen in my life that have been so so wonderful my oldest brother got sick with cancer um back in 2012 he had just lost his wife to cancer, and he got it. And toward the end of his life, I agreed to go visit him. And he was looking forward to it. So I was going to spend time with my mother, so it was real close to me going there. And I had said to him, listen, I'm going to stay at mom's. And when I talked to him that night, I hung up the phone. I could tell that he wasn't doing well and he wasn'T hearing what he wanted to hear and I called him back. Again, AA, this is not... You guys have taught me to think. And I paused and I thought I didn't feel a reaction from him so I called them back and I said, hey man were you wanting things to be... He says, yeah, I was really, really looking forward to you staying with me. and I was looking forward to picking you up at the airport and yeah, I don't want to tell you how many drugs he was on but he picked me up atthe airport and I got to his house and I had gone to see Howard before I went to visit Jim and I told him I was going to see my brother for the last time and he said his life is in divine order unfolding into goodness i went back there and i didn't really know what to talk about and i said jim howard howard's given me this your life is in divine order unfolding into goodness and the instructions are for me to look back through my life at the circumstances and events to see how god has pulled a golden thread through each and every one of these and I said, would it be all right if we did that with you? We began to go through his life together. What we were able to notice is that the times where he personally sacrificed his desire to have his way, he was happy. You know, that's our first tradition. Our common welfare comes first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. What it's really asking us to do is sacrifice our desire to have our way so we can have unity within our groups. My brother passed away two weeks later. And I went back there and did the eulogy for his funeral, and my mom drove me to the airport, and she had a little bit of a cold. And two weeks after that, two weeks später they put her in the hospital. And her condition continued to decline. It was about 30 days after my brother's death. My mother woke up in the hospital and told my brother that she wanted to see me. I went to see Howard, and Howard said her life is in divine order unfolding into goodness. And I went back there, and I made it to the hospital room, and we had a visit. My mom was real Al-Anon, man, okay? And she was, you would have never known that this was the last night for her. She had me call Josh, my son, so she could talk to him and congratulate him on his sobriety. She hadme call my nephew Tim, and she was able to tell him how grateful she was that he was sober. The example she gave me was incredible. And I was a little confused because I thought she wanted me there for her, And I was on the telephone a day or two later, and I was sharing with someone that my mom asked me to be there, but I really didn't know why. And I got off the telephone, and my sister-in-law came to me, and she said, Mike, your mom didn't want you here for her. She wanted you here. She wanted to be here for us. I've got to tell you guys, when I left Buffalo 38 years ago, there was nobody who wanted me there for them to be restored to a person of decency and usefulness to be able to be a participating member of a family my own family my extended family to be able to being there for my mother and my brother was a beautiful thing and I thank Alcoholics Anonymous for that because if it wasn't for AA I wouldn't be the person I am and I know that and as I grow in sobriety my idea of God has changed some and I'm going to kind of wrap it up now and just tell you that that God for me is love it's love love and that's God for Me and what I look to today is love is demonstrated by acts of kindness so I'm constantly looking to see acts of goodness And everywhere I look, everywhere I look, I see acts of kindness. And that's my God showing his face to me. Every now and then, I'll do an act of kindness and I'll hear the voice say, that wasn't so hard now, was it? Because I can be present today and I can take those actions. Dr. Bob in his last talk said if you took Alcoholics Anonymous and you simmered it down to just two things those two things would be love and service now I believe that service is love in action a bell is not a belt until we ring it a song is not the end of the world a song until we sing it love isn't putting our hearts to stay Love is only love when we give it away. AA to me is only AA when I'm willing to give it away. I hope you'll do the same. Thank you.