Mike S. at the FOTS Colorado – 2025

My name is Mike Shane. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is April Fool's Day, 1975. It impresses the hell out of me. but don't be impressed with me be impressed with what this program does that's what this is all about you know this is sort of a oh I was going to say this and I hope I don't piss off too many people but if you know me I don' t care my wife who you met last night she was the 10 minute speaker I told her she didn't acknowledge who she was married to, however. And I met her in California, and she is a gift. She is a gifted. But there's a buddy of mine for quite a long time named Gary Kluxdahl. And Gary, he doesn't mind me using his last name, and I'm going to use a lot of last names because the people that started this were my crew, right? So this is sort of that full circle moment that I'm having here. And Gary Kluxdahl used to – we did a lot of speaking in different places and stuff like that, and he'd come back and he would say to me, you know something, Mike, I figured it out. And I said, what's that? You notice how I'm putting it off on him, right. And he said, I realize that everything in Alcoholics Anonymous that's bad started in California. And we'd laugh about that, but you know, that's not true. I actually heard of some people when I first started doing this, I was invited to speak. I was like the Saturday morning speaker or something like that at the Iowa State Convention. I had about seven years of sobriety, and the Saturday night speaker was Clancy and the Friday night speaker Was Johnny Harris. So when you mentioned Johnny, I got a big smile because Johnny and I actually became pretty good friends. And so my introduction to Clancy was come sit down. how long are you sober I said seven years he says well you're in that seven year what did he call it that's another thing about old guys we forget stuff he said a lot of people go out between seven and ten years and that's the only time he ever talked to me I said thank you. I used to do a lot of this and then after a period of time I was whining to, at that time my sponsor became Gary Brown. He was not my first sponsor, he was my friend. Very close. But I was sober quite a long time, and I was doing a fifth step with him. And I'm whining about my business not taking off. And he looked at me and he said, you know, Mike, maybe, just maybe, it's a good idea for a realtor not to be out of town 20 weekends a year. And it hit me. You know, what we've got to come to here is a balanced life. you know, because that's where God wants me. But I am really happy to be here. And this brings back so many memories. And I will tell you that the man sitting here with 50 years of sobriety today and the man that walked in the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous are two totally different human beings. And what I'm here to explain to you and what the speaker last night said and every speaker I've heard is god transforms us if we do this deal you know i haven't seen mickey in quite some time but i'll tell you a story about mickey and i we were sitting on the front porch of york street 50 something 50 years ago talking about the benefits of suicide we were seriously depressed and i gotta be honest with you uh i kept i didn't have any i came in off the streets and i but i had a gun and my options after i was sober for five or six months and i was still fighting alcohol, it wasn't, am I going to go back and drink? It wasn't. Okay. Even though alcohol had been my medicine for so long, it was either this thing's got to work or we're just going to end this thing. And I remember this speaker, they had a meeting in Denver at that time called Wyatt's cafeteria and they would fly in circuit speakers or people from all over the country to speak and there was you can find this on online um this guy named jack brennan flew in and i said i'm i'm living in a little buffet apartment down by york street I had restraining orders out against me. I couldn't see my kid. I had warrants from California out for me. I'm sober three or four months, and I'm going, dear God, this just can't work. But I'm gonna go to the speaker meeting tonight, and if I still want to blow my brains out afterward, I'm wanna come home and do it. And I'm a Vietnam vet, guys, and I'm going to tell you something about that is blowing your brains out is not a drama it's not a dramatical thing it's just a fact and I went to this meeting and this man stood up and he was me and 29 years at that time he had 29 years sobriety, he wasn't me anymore and what he had done is in our third step what does it say it says remove our difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power thy love and way of life may I do thy will always that's what he did and that's What I try to do here is this you see God sends angels and I haven't met a pure angel yet but God sends angels to me and the people who started this thing were some of my angels and Bob Olson and I were best friends for like 49 years you know I don't want to talk about my drinking too much but I got to qualify myself I came from a you know I've heard some phenomenal talks tonight And they all have some of the same things in common. They have loss, which you're going to hear from me. But see, I don't think people that die sober is a loss. I don'T look at that as a loss, I might miss the heck out of them. Right? And I do. But the other one is trauma. A lot of trauma we put ourselves through. Some of us volunteer for the trauma and some of us don't. I grew up in an alcoholic home, and I'm going to tell you that my father was a very, very, very mean drunk. And I'm gonna give you an example of that kind of meanness. That kind of meanness comes out like this. You're five years old, and you're in bed. And he's drunk, and he pulls you out of bed, and he brings you down to where he does his drinking. and sits there and tells you for half an hour that you're no good and you're never going to amount to a damn thing. That's what alcoholism does, right? When I was seven years old, I tried to stand between him and my mom as he was beating my mom. Those things, folks, take a toll. And we can get past them in Alcoholics Anonymous, but they do take a toe. but I'm going to tell you what that taught me was after I got to Alcoholics Anonymous I'd hear people in AA say I'm sober, that's enough and I would look at them and I'd say, you're a fool because if you're alcoholic you hurt everybody around you right? I put the boys home when I was 15 years old I grew up, I lifted weights I learned how to fight and I learned I was pretty good at it and I came out of that and there was a thing called Vietnam going on and I got a football scholarship but I drank my way out of it out of the bat in like three months and I was in the military and got discharged general under honorable because I just wouldn't come back. I came back from Vietnam, and they had us stationed over at the Oakland Alameda Army Terminal, and I only had two months to do to get an honorable discharge, but I went to San Francisco to see what Haight-Ashbury was all about because from what I was told, Haight Ashbury had absolutely everything I wanted. And so I'd go to Haight-Ashbury, and oh, they loved me because, see, I had that short hair, so they knew you were military. And then they'd try to turn you into something. And so, I just wouldn't come back. And after a couple of those, I ended up spending some time in the brig, but thank God I got out under honorable conditions and I headed straight for Haight Ashbury. And what happened real quickly was I wasn't making any money there, so I went up to North Beach where the strip clubs were and became a bouncer and then a bartender. And I became what we called hustlers. I became What's Called a Rounder. We called ourselves rounders. And we did everything illegal there was, and I collected loans for the people that owned those clubs. I did a lot of things that to this day people that I have never been able to find and never would be able to find it wakes me up and I am ashamed and you can't always clear that up you know I wish you could anyway to make a long story short I beat up a cop And and no, he wasn't in uniform and all that. He was undercover. I didn't know that kind of stuff. So I was wanted on some felonies. And I met the head stripper in my club and she was from Denver. And so naturally we thought this would be a good idea to move to Denver, Colorado. And we did. And back in those days, if you were wanted in California, they didn't always know you were want here, right? You see, we're talking a whole different era. And so we came here. Now I'm going to say this and I'll say it once. Some people have this idea that if you're in an AA meeting, you're not supposed to talk about drugs. Why not? What kind of rule is that? I mean, there are some rules in Alcoholics Anonymous that I take issue with. Right? But I found out that I could 10 bar and party if I just did a whole bunch of meth and drank. I really found that to be true. Right? but when I ended up coming to Denver on a $100,000 bus I didn't have those connections and this is interesting I just quit doing drugs but my drinking took off and I was unemployable by the time I was 27 years old I'd get bartending jobs and they'd find me at 3 o'clock in the morning passed out in the booth and this woman that I was with got pregnant and I remember saying to myself I don't want to be a father like I had and I'm not going to go into the whole thing it was ugly she was alcoholic also she ended up dying in a trailer in Alabama nothing wrong with trailers I like some of them, but she never got sober, and she installed this into the family and the hatred and all this and all that. But we ended up separating is a good word for it because I came home drunk one night, and we had no money, and I came Home just bombed about 2 o'clock in the morning, and she said do you have the rent and I said oh I don't have any more money and she beat the shit out of me with a rolling pin they had these big pine rolling pins and I'm laying on the ground and I am bleeding all over the place and God did a funny thing I got this picture of me as a little kid that had all the aspirations of a little kid. I wanted to be a ball player. Then I had this picture of me where I was, and then there was this vivid color, man. It was cool. But then I had these pictures of me on Skid Row, but I couldn't die for a long time. And see, that's the problem. if you'd have told me you keep drinking you go out there you're dead in a month I'd have kept drinking death did not scare me sobriety not having my medicine petrified me I didn't know to what extent how broken I really and truly was when I got here to Alcoholics Anonymous so anyway she had beaten me up pretty good And I'm laying there, and somehow the cops came over. I have no idea why. And this cop said, Why don't you go to Alcoholics Anonymous? You're mm-hmm drunk. Right? And I remember belligerently saying, I don't need AlcoholicsAnonymous. Now, here's something you need to know. And I realize, you know, this is an old guy talking. Okay, we're talking about the old guys here. I sobered up at a different time. Now, today, Alcoholics Anonymous is a place everybody wants to be. In 1974, nobody wanted to be here. And I actually think that helped us. Because we have gotten very popular. And people will lie to us to get in here. It's not much to come up with a good drunk-a-log. People can sit there online and listen to it. I think it's easier to talk a non-alcoholic into being an alcoholic than to talk to a real alcoholic and tell them about the truth. and so there was this meeting I called Alcoholics Anonymous and Mabel answered the phone I got to know Mabel she's a little sweet little old lady and she said honey would you like a couple people to come over and see you and I said no because I honestly thought Nobody knew what AA was back then. I honestly thought it would be a couple old guys like I am now with AA t-shirts on, probably a trench coat or two, and they'd hang out with you so you didn't drink. I thought that's what Alcoholics Anonymous was. Right? I thought it was a sobriety contest. Oh, I got six months. Oh, I'm better than you. I got a year, right? Now I'm a miserable son of a gun, right, but. So there was this meeting called Happy Way, which had to be the worst name for a meeting I've ever heard of. And this is before Bob Olson went in there and turned that whole thing around. And I went to this meeting, and these people, I weighed 340 pounds. I had two black eyes, a busted nose, and 16 stitches in my head. And I hadn't changed my clothes in three days. And I walked into this suburban meeting and everybody got up and moved over to the other side of the room. Right? And this little lady walked up to me and said, put the plug in the jug. And turned around and walked away. And I'm going, what? Insanity. Anyway, this group stayed sober on fellowship. And I am going to tell you something I have learned. AA groups like the one Kyle was talking about. My home group is a beautiful name. 11 a.m. Sunday Parker. Right. Groups that work the steps are not afraid of drunks. People that are socializing and don't want anything to do with new drunks are petrified of us because they don't have any kind of answer. Right. And another thing I'm going to tell you, I found out. is if you've got a home group, which I've always had one. I was told I had to have one. The home group is as much of a sponsor to the new people as you are. Because what do the new People do? You get somebody that's got 10 years of sobriety. I don't even talk to new people anymore. They go, how long are you sober? 50 years. Yeah, right. You know. But what did I do? I got a sponsor, and I'll tell you how I got him. but when I was sobering up I didn't talk to him hardly at all I didn' t want to talk to him I'd go over here to this guy over here or go over to Mickey or go over to Bob or go over to somebody that had a was much closer to me and say how did you put together another day I still at five months want to kill myself I can't do this anymore and i developed this prayer and i said god don't let me die until i've lived i knew i had not lived see this 50 years that i've got today is really the only life i've ever had this is it everything before wasn't there so anyway i ended up going out and i got some money somehow and i went on a three-week bender and and and there was a guy at this happy way meeting that said there's a place down 1311 york street for people like you and i crawled into 1311 York Street in the same shape 340 pounds hadn't changed hadn't bathed in about a week um was not looking good at all um and i walked in there at about 10 o'clock in the morning and nobody was there and so the gal at the front desk she sat me down and there was these tables around York Street and in walks this guy and he's about 6 foot 8 he weighs about 350 more pounds he's got a palm all we all smoked back then guys ok he had a palm oil hanging out of his mouth he had plumber butt his pants were and he looked at me and he just was coming right at me and now I didn't want to talk to anybody but I'd been around AA long enough to know that you drunks love talking to really hurting drunks because it makes you feel better right and I'm going oh god here it comes and he comes up i i i promised chandra i wouldn't swear so i'm not going to say exactly what he said but you're going to get the justice of this okay he comes up to the table i'm saying i'm shaking right and he goes like this he puts his elbow on the table and he stares at me and just looked at me. And he says, you're screwed. And he got up and he left. And if I could have stood up, I would have hit him. and then here's what he did back then they had a kitchen that was open all the time and he came back and he had this orange juice and honey and he put it down in front of me but here's what he said here's how he did he put a straw in it and he moved it toward me because he knew I could not pick that up and get it to my mouth and that told me he knew exactly what I was going through see nobody had ever told me or showed me that they knew how I was feeling nobody I sobered up on his couch his name was Big Frank he had a reputation for being tough he was never tough with me he was always kind to me always 100% and i sobered up on his couch i went in dt's he had a home group he'd have his sponsees come and sit with me for two hours at a time yeah that's the way we did it back then guys and people would say oh you better take him down denver cares and and frank would go no sobering up is not supposed to be easy damn it after i was sobered up for a couple weeks i knew that it was either life or death for me and and i asked him to be my sponsor and he was he told me he said we get sober and stay sober out of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he explained every step to me, and he said, this is what you're going to do. And if you want to do that, come with me, and we'll go to hell and back to get you sober. He cared. And I started to work with this man. And getting sober for me was not easy at all. and then in 1975 the international convention came to Denver Colorado and I again I am a very anti-social guy right I don't want anybody around me there's 20,000 alcoholics oh hi how are you what's your name and I was not going to go down to the convention center and on Saturday Don Pritz walks up to me And he goes, come on, man. Come with us. And we went down to the convention center and I got to hear Lois Wilson talk. But I got to hear this guy named Mac Cheater. Mac Cheator came out of a group up in Canada called the Golden Slippers. And the reason they called it the GoldenSlippers is because everybody was getting drunk all the time. And I hate the term slip. I also hate the terms relapse, if you want to know the truth. What I do when I go back out is I get drunk. And Mac Cheater said we have this group up here in Canada and everybody's getting drunk and so what we decided to do is get into a brand new big book and sit down and read word for word. And when it said to pray, we prayed. When it said write inventory, we wrote inventory. When it says to make amends, we made amends. And we went all the way through the big book and then we'd start right back on the first page and I'll go do it again because if you're alcoholic, your ego's going to rebuild and you're going to think you're some hot shit after a while, right? And it transformed Denver AA. Right after that, and I don't know how long after that They formed a men's step workshop Don put it together Mickey was there Gary, Bob, Jay Levy Great guy And we did that And I'm going to tell you That 50 years later Only one guy out of the 15 guys ever drank again to this point. And Frank was still my sponsor and I was going through the steps with him and these truths started to come to me because they wouldn't give me any wiggle room. They kept telling me what's written in the book was written by a power much bigger than you and you do not take any kind of liberty with the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous And if you want to do this, great, you're going to do it this way. And if You don't want to Do it, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. You want to know the beauty of being talked like that too? Is that the responsibility for Mike Shane's sobriety is on Mike Shane. It's not on my sponsor. It's Not on AA. I hear people say to me, I've tried AA and it doesn't work. i always say to them what step did you go back out drinking on and they will always say well i wasn't working steps what was the name of your sponsor you know i just need to say this and this is my point of view sometimes people think new is better I think we have the perfect program handed to us by God in 1939 there are interests out there financial interests that would like to change Alcoholics Anonymous into other things see group therapy is not going to transform me i'm not against therapy not not in any way shape or form but when i go and i get a sponsor that has been where i have been and work the steps exactly as it's laid out in the big book of alcoholics anonymous something transforms we do not at least i don't okay i can't say we I did not change because I knew how to change. I needed real power. I need to access real power, and we did this deal, and we wrote inventory, and we made amends, and I had these felony warrants in San Francisco. I had impregnated a woman which I had walked I had no idea where she was and I had stolen money from the people I was working for up on North Beach and I'm going to tell you right now it's called the mob okay and Frank said you got to go clear all this up and I said what i could understand the warrants i mean there's just no way i mean every time i'd see a cop behind me i knew i was going to jail i mean you you got to get this cleaned up but he told me i had to pay those guys back and i'm going yeah right and so i went out to california to find this woman couldn't find her she had moved out of state and I turned myself into the San Francisco Police Department and I walked into the precinct house in the Tenderloin District because that's where I was living at the time and there was a death sergeant there and I mean, I'm petrified, folks. You know, I hear people say fear and faith can't exist in the same place. I don't think you've ever made an amend faith is an act it's not a feeling and while I'm there I'm old so I may ask you to put me back where I was but I'm going to tell you something else I found out that having to feel good all the time is a very immature way to live and i cannot in any way shape or form think i know god because i'm feeling good and when i don't feel good there's no god that's not true god's there at all times god loves every single one of you he loves me as much as you as much is that drunk dying on the street but what the difference between me maybe me and the guy dying on the street is I signed up. So anyway, I think I'm going back to where I came from. The precinct. Thanks, Tom. Good to see you. I haven't said hi to you. And I swear to God, it's just like, you know, you see on New York and they got a desk and this guy He's up there, gruff old cop. I said, my name is Mike Shane and you got warrants for me and I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I am here to turn myself in. And he just stared at me and he goes, oh no, not another one of you. You know, we think we are all important. I went to my grandma after I was sober about two years. And, you know, I was a big shot. I had two years of sobriety. And I told her that. She says, honey, I've been sober 92 years. Anyway, they put me in this room and they bring the detectives in and they do this and they did that. I'm in there for five hours and they're coming back. and they finally came back and they said, Mike, you went to court on this. No, I did not. Yeah, you did. You're clean. I'm expected to go to prison. I walked out of there so high that the idea of making amends to the people that own those bars up in North Beach, I said, I'm going to try. Guess what I learned in step nine? I don't have to protect myself anymore. I've always lived my life protecting myself and that's where there's trauma as a kid. You got to start looking at that, folks. You can get past it. Absolutely. but that stuff takes its toll and what ends up happening is you're fighting everybody because you're always defending yourself right I love my wife to death one of the greatest things that her and I we met later on in life we both had a whole lot of sobriety this was not a treatment center thing and I hadn't dated an AA in like 25 years right But what I love about her is we can have adult conversations without the other person going, oh, did I do something wrong? No. We can talk, right? I walked out of the precinct about as high as you could get. And there was a phone number I had for the Broadway Association, it's what they called themselves. And I called the number. And they weren't going to be there, right. and who picks up the phone but the head honcho and I said Gino yeah oh and they had Fat Pauly too and I said Gino and he goes who's this and I told him by the way I went by an alias out there so you know I was just a slithering little con and he says we haven't seen you in a while and I said yeah I know I got some things I'd like to talk to you about and he said I'll be here for another hour come on up so I go up and it's everything out of the Sopranos is true it's up behind a strip club up on North Beach and they got a guy in there named Fat Pauly and Fat PAULY was huge and what they do is they hug you. See, what they do is they don't come up and frisk you if you're there for, you know, if they like you, I guess. But what they doing is hug you and then they frisked you, you know? And I went into Gino and I am absolutely petrified. I'm not expecting to walk out of it. But here's what I found out. I was sitting in the middle of my ninth step amend and I do not know how to explain this to you. I don't think we can explain spiritual experiences I was calm and I wasn't afraid and I knew that this God that I did not believe in was in that room with me I absolutely positively you know it and I told the whole thing to Gino. And he said, how much did you steal? I said, I don't know. I was stealing $100 out of the register, you know, 200 here if I needed to go drink. You know, I did whatever I had to do. And He said, Mikey, people don't do this to us. I said what, steal? He said no. come back and tell us and he said we're even buddy but you got to stay sober and if I ever hear of you talking about this and letting anybody know I'd let you off the hook and I have spoken to thousands I have continuously worked steps on a regular basis since I came into AA now why is this well I'm going to tell you something I found out my first couple years was in a group that would start inventory on the same day every year. It was regimented. It was military, and I needed that, okay? You can sit there and go, I would have drank. No, you wouldn't have. You weren't that desperate then, right? I was. And here's what I found out. I went through the steps the first time, and the second time, I got a job, and this guy who was in AA, a banker, loaned me enough money to get a little car and I had a little buffet apartment down by York Street and I'm going, I don't need to go back through the steps. Everything's wonderful. Yes, you do. So I started going back through The Steps and I am sitting in the middle of my fifth step and I m wondering how come I m not drunk. I'm lying. I'm cheating. I'm not doing anything I said I would do. My sponsors, see, I never saw any virtue in honesty. I really didn't when I got here. I've got to be honest with you. I thought if I was honest with me, if I wasn't honest with them, you could come back at me. You would have more ammunition. And my sponsor's definition of honesty was I will do what I say and say what I do, which means I will become a man. Right? And by the way, I got to tell you, I use this also. And he was great. When I asked him to be my sponsor, he said to me, he says, you will do the steps as we tell you. You will have a home group. Do you have a kid? I said, yeah. He says, do you owe child support? I said, yes. He said, you'll have that child support in on the first day of every single month and you will never miss a time to be with her right and this is a little girl that i did not want to be a drunken father for and so what i came to find out was i'm not the best judge of how i'm doing and i remember my hero my hero gary at 20 years sober came clean and the man got free at 20 years sober you see we carry this message to the alcoholic who still suffers but I'm going to tell you something right now folks I Mike Shane's opinion I do not believe that the only people suffering are active alcoholics I think there are many alcoholics sitting in the rooms with a lot of years of sobriety that are suffering just as bad because that's who comes to me how am I doing on time there's a time keeper am I alright alright I might be old but I can still punch everything in this program has transformed me with god's power and the and the end the and the right people come to my into my life when i need them at 10 years of sobriety i ran away from colorado uh a woman yes um and i moved down to um well boca raton florida I lived on the poor side with this woman, and it didn't work out. But I didn't find good AA down there until I went to some people, and I said, where are the step-Nazis? And they said, well, there's this group that Wesley Perry started down in Pompano. and I went down there and I'm sitting in the meeting and I am tearing up because man I am back in AA you see so much of AA is group therapy I have been to meetings I was at a meeting in Chicago one time and this guy with 25 years of sobriety came walking in sat down and what they talked about was the problem of the day to me that's not an AA meeting AA meetings have the solution out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous right and he's 25 years sober and his daughter didn't call him that morning so he wanted a drink if that's the type of sobriety you're putting up with for yourself you're selling yourself very short this is a whole different world so people like Bob and people like Gary and people Like Don and people like Frank and these people that were truth tellers and I started seeing things after I was sober for a while you don't see everything when you're new it takes time to start to see things right here's one of the things that I found out after I was over quite a few years is that I always had this thing in the back of my mind I'm not good enough always I'm not good enough well I'm going to tell you from experience because this was told to me also how to get over that the reason if any of you out there I'm sure I'm the only one in the room that ever thought that but if any of you out there are sitting there and you're sober a while thinking I'm not good enough what it means is you don't want to be responsible whoa swallowing some chunks of truth about myself right I had to learn how to become a father I had to learn that my word meant something and God shows me these things I respect myself today I have put myself in so many situations that today I would never even think about now I'm going to tell you a quick story and I know you've heard this before my daughter she went to prison she sold and I love this actually she sold 9 pounds of heroin to a DEA undercover agent two weeks after she was 18. And when I found out about it and talked to her, and I got custody of her at 13 by the way. She says, well, at least I did it big. That was her attitude. And she got sentenced to two and a half years in federal. And I ended up in Arizona and I endedup going down there and her roommate was Heidi Fleiss. I don't know if any of you know her, but I was just absolutely thrilled to meet her. And she found Alcoholics Anonymous there because she got beat up by some girls, and I told her find an AA meeting and start going and get a sponsor. And she got this sponsor, about a 300-pound gal who wore overhauls every day and tatted all up. I'm tatted up and down too, so that had never, you know. And I got to meet her sponsor. And I said, what are you in here for? She says, oh, I killed my husband. And my daughter got sober for nine and a half years. It was the best nine and half years my daughter and I ever have had. And for some reason, she went back out. And to this day, I couldn't tell you what it was or why. And there was a 12-year spiral down. And then finally, one morning at 8 o'clock, I got a phone call from her partner who said, Chena's dead and she died of a fentanyl overdose. Now, I'm going to tell you now, I can say this today I went through every emotion there possibly humanly could be but I will say this too I never one time thought about picking up a drink and that is Alcoholics Anonymous and that's the power of God and I've had to deal with this and I have had to work it out and there is that girl that I told you about I got impregnated I went on Facebook seven years ago and found her she's gone down a hard road too but we talk we're friends we meet up I'm able to help her in some ways I have a home group I love Alcoholics Anonymous and if you're struggling if you are new if you've been around for a while give yourself a real shot at this thing because this will be the best life if you're like me this could be the best life you have ever had now again I don't talk about people dying who died sober as tragedy Bob Olson and I were best friends and I spoke at his memorial Bob and I, I was in his the facility he was in and we were talking and he said do you think I've done enough and he couldn't walk and he was what 90 pounds 100 pounds and I looked at him and I said you know Bob I think what it really comes down to at the very end is this nobody's going to ask how big a car you drove how many houses you've had they're going to ask one question. They're going to ask this question. Did you put more into this world or did you take? And Bob you put so much in. You know I met my wife and I think I met my wife, I have this story that she went to two of my workshops so I say she stalked me. Now Now, Kyle pointed this out to me that look at her, look at me. You're not going to believe that shit. She's been a real gift and she's been there for me. And it's because deep down inside, see I'm a believer that God installs certain wants and desires way down deep in here. And when you're ready they will come about. and it took me until my 60s for this to come about and I truly believe that I wish to God he would have told me where I'd end up and eliminated all this worry that I've had wouldn't it be interesting after we die if you find out that all the worry that you put yourself through was useless right we are not victims we are responsible for ourselves my reaction to you is my responsibility I have to become a responsible man and I have to seek this on a daily basis and I am so thrilled that I got asked to speak at this Bob used to say oh they're going to call you years ago took 33 years But hey, then I see Tom and guys like Gary and all this. But there's a prayer and I wish I had it memorized and I'm going to end with it. Because when you have an old guy as your final speaker, trust me, my bladder will make sure I'm done in an hour. As you could see earlier. But see, nowadays I'm not embarrassed by any of that stuff. Cancel. Here's where this prayer came from. I was watching 60 Minutes. I think 76. I think I was a year sober. And there was a guy, they had a segment on this guy who was a Vietnam vet. and he had been in a napalm explosion and he'd burned like 90% of his body. He had no ears. He was all, you've seen people like this, right? Just totally frayed up there. No hair, couldn't grow hair. Burned 90 some percent of his life. Burned his body and he has become the head of the Veterans Administration. See that's cool. We sit around here and whine about little things that bother us and we can't get what we want. Nah, that's not true. God will give us everything we want when he's ready. Just like my wife to me. Anyway, at the end of this segment on this guy, he's in a wheelchair. He lost his legs. I mean, he was a very, very messed up dude. They said, what have you learned? and he said this prayer and I do not know where it comes from but it is my life. I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I may learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do great things. I was given infirmity, alcoholism, that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I Might be happy. I was Given poverty that I May be wise. I asked For power that I may have the praises of men. I was given weakness so that I might know whoops I might feel the need of God I asked for all things that I mind enjoy life I was giving life that I mine enjoy all things and here is what happened to me right here I got nothing I asked for but everything I hoped for almost despite myself my own unspoken prayers were answered I am among men most richly blessed thank you