Queens Big Book Study – Part 11 – Gary B. – 2008

What do I get from it? I don't get the emotional charges of that. And I love it when the new guy says, well, you know, I don't feel it when I'm praying anymore. You know, and I'll ask a stupid question. Feel what? Where were your hands? What the hell's going on? You know. Not necessarily meant to be funny like that, though. I'm simply saying, I'm simply saying, if that's what you're expecting, that's all you're doing. Okay? If you're looking for a charge in your feelings, you're in the wrong place. That isn't it. That's not what it's about. We love getting a charge with our feelings. We love, we love bright lights and loud noises, and we forget they damn near killed us. You know? That's what about wiped us out. I just recalled that we get 11th step morning meditation instructions long before we get to the 11th step in the book. On page 83, where we're nearing the end of the discussion on the amends, Bill's talking about the relationship with the family. And the paragraph before I'm going to start reading is after the tornado, he comes out of the cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. His wife remarks don't see anything the matter. Here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowing. All right? At the top of page 83, it talks about a long period of reconstruction ahead. And we must take the lead remorseful mumbling that we, mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill at all. We have to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them. Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are that our own actions are partly responsible. Bill is a master of understatement, I think. So we clean house as a family, asking each morning in meditation that the creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindness, kindness, and love. Now, Mickey and Marie and Julie and I and Tom and Juanita are pretty much aware that the long-term families that got through the initial sobriety and continued on in AA and Al-Anon are fairly few and far between. There's not many Tom and Jenny and fairly few and far between. But one of the reasons that we are still here and one of the reasons we're passionate about AA, about Al-Anon and about one another, about our families, all of our families and that sort of thing, is because we've taken this thing into our lives and we've worked our tails off at it. I've prayed for Julie probably more than anybody in my life. Sometimes you need to. I've been resentful of Julie probably more than anybody else in my life. At times. But you know, you deal with it. We've got to answer for it. The resentments are gone in seconds sometimes. And the prayer and the meditation is just a huge part of it. And I just thought I'd pass that on. We're instructed to do that long before the level of instructions come up in the book. As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. The wonderful young man that came out of our home group, who's now a pastor, who's now moved up by Chicago and is taking what we do on up there. His name is Matt. And he used to talk about the power of the pause. And I'm surprised I give him credit for it. There's such power in the pause that it's there. And trying to build it in our life. You know, we're trying to do this all through the day. Pause for the right thought or action. And we've had, we've had discussions in our home group about the pause. The pause can be going into their bathroom and shutting the door to the stall and just sitting there. And listening. Okay. Okay. Gary gave me that power of the pause thing. And again, it's the sound bite that helps me hang on to a thought. So it's like the power of the pause. The pause can be as fast as the sound bite, but when you're asked to pause, you're able to pause. And I make very intricate work in leather. And there are times when you get to a point, you think, how am I going to do this? I got a 1920s barber chair in my shop. And so I go and I sit in my barber chair and I just stop and I pause. And I asked God for the right thought or action or for an inspiration. So I'm sitting there with the exact same expectation that I have in prayer, which is zero. . And I'm not, And all of a sudden, man, if I do this, it'll work. And I've had that experience more than once. I get an answer, and you're going, oh, my God, there's somebody listening here. I'll talk about the stuff that I want to talk about after you finish reading that stuff. Yeah. As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful. And as to the right thorough action, we constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, thy will be done. We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, and foolish decisions. Now, that's worth meditating for. Now, we're here. A lot of lip action about the promises. I don't know of a better promise than this one. I don't have to run around reacting to my feelings. I have a way to go because it's been laid out for me. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly, as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves. We are not going to be caught up in the past. There are more opportunities for us to be like the old men. We are not going to be afraid of the future. We are not going to be afraid of the future. We are not going to be afraid of the future. We are not going to be afraid of the future. It works. It really does. We alcoholics are undisciplined, so we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined. And then it's going to go on and tell us about how to work with others. I just think that two paragraphs there at the end of page 88 are really important. And I overlooked them for years. And, you know, I thought, gee, what's life without excitement? It's free of a lot of pain. I'll tell you that's what it is. So anyway, that was. Just a couple of things. You know, I've had a couple of people call me in the last month, really almost ready to drop out of Al-Anon because they didn't feel this thing. You know, so they must be doing something wrong. Or Al-Anon doesn't work. You know, and they're assuming that it doesn't work if they're not blissed out. What a dangerous thing, you know. And to convince somebody and to really help them understand that this is not about, you know, a substitute drug. You know, it's not going to do that. Another thing that came up when I was listening to Gary Reed. I was talking about, you know, okay, and here the alcoholic stops drinking. And he says, isn't it great the wind stopped blowing. And there's a, I can't find it, but that's fine. There's a particular thing that a lot of Al-Anons go through. And that is that, you know, they understand the powerlessness that they have over the alcoholism and that they're not going to get this person to stop. And they stop drinking and, you know, they kind of detach from them. Then they go through that. And then the alcoholic stops drinking. And they go, okay, now I can expect this person to act like a normal person. And they, it's, now they're like expecting this model of, you know, temperance and self-love. And they're like, okay, now I can expect this person to act like a normal person. And they're like, okay, now I can expect this person to act like a normal person. And, you know, coming from this other person and, you know. Why are you looking at me? Oh, well. No reason. Even after 35 years, you know, you expect total sanity from the other person. And it may not happen. And, you know, I think that it's a dangerous thing to do that. There's the opposite side also. And that is that, now they've misbehaved, you know, for years. And now they're sober. And the opposite of that is when now the person is saying, well, so I can't, I can't say anything to this person about their behavior because they're sober and I should be so grateful. You know, there's both ways that people go. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yes. Right. Yes. Right. Exactly. Yes. Right. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. said to each other that, you know, we are in this relationship, but one of the things that we have to ask of the other one is that we do work a program. And so, you know, I am, you know, there is a contract of sorts between us that I work a program and that he works a program. And that, you know, he's not going to tell me how to work my program. Well, sometimes he does, but I don't tell him how to work a program, kind of. But, you know, we have the agreement between us that this is one of the things that we kind of expect of each other. And within that, you know, we have to be able to say to each other very honestly, you know, this is really, you know, this is really offensive. Or this has offended me. Or this has really hurt me. Or this is really something that we need to talk about. Because it's not like he's a totally independent person and I'm a totally independent person and we just kind of bang up against each other once in a while, you know, in the room. And, you know, we really affect each other. So we have a right to talk to each other about, you know, the behavior that happens between us. So, you know, there are a lot of people that I see who get in these rooms and they say, well, you know, they're totally independent. And I say, well, you know, I'm not going to talk to them. I'm totally over there separate from me and I don't have a right to say anything or ask of anything, ask anything of them or whatever. And that's not been our experience, you know. Our experience is that we are really, we are a unit that we have to keep talking about, the unit. And then, yes, we are totally individuals. But I think it's a mistake to go into this thing and say, I have no right to say anything. I have no right to say anything to you at all. You know, that's not been our experience. Comments? Questions? I have a question. Go ahead. I'm maybe more towards Marie than the other two. How do you deal with from the, or yourself, at least in my case, when I minimize the effects of a grief about COVID on myself? Great question. Yeah. Can you repeat the question? How do you deal with minimizing the effect of alcoholism on me, my family, me, the alcoholic? Mostly on herself. Mostly on herself. Well, what happens is if you minimize it, you get hit in the head with the reality of alcoholism. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to reevaluate. You know, I would love to think of our family as normal. And the truth is, is that it probably never will be. It's heightened. Everything is heightened. Everything is altered. But that's what God has given me. So I'm going to try to do that. Okay. Thank you. But that's what God has given me. So, you know, I would go to a catatonic state if I were given free reign, you know, because that's just where I go. And so having this heightened, you know, reflection on our actions and heightened reflections on emotions and heightened emotions and overreaction is probably exactly what God wants for me so that I stay awake. So, truly, I just, you know, living day to day, there's not a way I can consider us normal, you know, in all reality. So I work my program. That's what keeps me balanced in the midst of a family that is still alcoholic and will always be alcoholic. And, you know, that's what keeps me balanced. And, you know, I am not saying necessarily that Mickey is insane, but... Necessarily, you know. But he truly, he truly is different. Okay? I hate it when they tell the truth. But, you know... Okay. And he always will be different. But, you know, I have an appreciation for, you know, this life that God has given us is not, doesn't look like anybody else's life. And so it's no longer, you know, I mean, he has to live with a mentally ill person too. And so, you know, it's like, okay, that's what we're given. So go with it. But I mean, you know, if I wanted, you know, what everybody else had, you know, a big house and a fancy car and all that kind of stuff, you know, I'd be, I'd be miserable. So I better appreciate what I have. And I have so much. We are so rich. I mean, we have three children who are absolutely safe and loving and loved by their spouses and a Catholic priest and a, I mean, we have, we have more than most people should have. So, you know, if I keep my eyes only on the fact that we're a little whacked, you know, and weird, then, then I'm not going to appreciate the stuff that we really do have. So, you know, it all balances out. I'd like to say something. Okay. I'd like to say something real quickly before, before your question, if you please, Lucia. And that is, there is another practice that Maria and I have. If you want to call it a 12 or 11 step practice, I don't know if it really is. But here's what Marie used to do in Alateen with the Alateens to get them talking because, you know, they can be pretty silent in an Alateen meeting. And so what she would say is let's go around and tell one happy and one sad. Okay. So Maria and I, at the end of our days, many times we'll say, let's have, let's have three happies and three sads about this day. Again, not sophisticated. But what it does is it allows us to talk to each other about the things that have happened in our day. This is what I'm, and we do it like do a pair. Start with a sad. This is what I'm sad that happened today. And this is what I'm happy about. And then it passes to the other person and we go back and forth. So I offer that to you, you know, sophisticated as we are. I just offer this as something, believe me, and it will allow, if you're a couple, it'll allow you to be a little more sophisticated. It'll allow you to talk to each other. Because otherwise it's like, what do you want to talk about? I'd like to talk about pass the remote. No, there's a better way to do it. I'll give you a little bit of a hint. Before we are halfway through. Seriously, these are tools that are available to us. And sometimes the ninth step can be protracted. I mean, this thing is going on and on. And we can get these things. We can get these things. We can get these tools kicked in. Now, that's what I would, that's my experience and that's what I suggest to people that I work with. Don't look at me. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Oh, come on. Don't just ask one when he has the mic. Give me a break. I'm just teasing. There, oh, go ahead. All right. Should we move to whatever? Yeah. I want to start off the discussion. I want to start off the discussion about the 12th step. Seemingly a little backwards here, but not really. I've had some conversations with some people here who have found it going a little difficult recently. And I've asked them, how many people are you working with? Are you working with anybody? Have you found anybody to work with? And one of them I kind of got a little stubbornness with. And so I asked her to go find somebody and work with them. I could be right. Just try it and see what happens and test it out. I told you earlier that I actively seek out people to work with. When I go to meetings or I look around my meeting, is there somebody that maybe I can help, that I can tell it and I can see it right now? And I can see it right there. Ask what we can do for the no man each day in our morning meditation. That's the other one I missed. It shows up long before we get to the 11th step meditation. With that, and I do that. And my life is clear when I can do it. Now, I love working with the guys I call with. I love it when I hear from Tom or Peter or Mickey and Jack. Eh, most of the time. And, and, and. . . Wake up, Jack. . See, see, his mother is giving him sympathy over there. . But the truth is, is these are really low, low maintenance sponsees. Okay. And there is nothing that helps more in our lives. . Than sitting down and working with a new person. . . And getting to the book. . I think sponsorship is two things. But the primary thing with a new person is let's get them through the steps. . And let's do it in a manager where it's not bang, bang, thump, thump. . . Because I got to tell you something. . The magic is not in the steps. . . The steps are necessary and we got to do it. . . But the power comes from God. . . . . . . . . Whatever we do, there is a trick and I haven't necessarily found it yet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to share our experience with them. It is not to pound the piss out of them to get it. That's just what we've got to do. And then when you get the one that's going through it and catching on it and you're thinking of somebody who's really doing well in them and you're thinking, boy, this guy or this gal is sober. I mean, she's sober and really doing it and all that. That's when you've got to sit down and do that praying with them and all that and say, maybe we ought to meditate a little here. Let's go find out where the power is, where it's coming along. And so I did it. Now, everything I think the big book tells us about making the 12-step call and all that is true, but you're probably not going to find a script precisely like the seventh chapter is laid out now to make the 12-step call. Generally, we're getting them out of the jitter joints, out of the treatment centers. We may luck out and get one from the pre-treatment. We may get one from the priest that is aware of what we do and likes it or something like that. And it's important that we approach them and just offer to help with that. But we're going to have very few opportunities to make the 12-step call like the seventh chapter lays it out where we're going to be going in, got to deal with the family, let's get the family out of the room so we can find out what's going on without him being corrected or her. Because that's just the dynamic of the thing. So pray each day for what we can do for the new person. You notice I went asexual there. To the new person. And really put that in your morning meditation. This really does work when all else fails. If your program seems to be nearing the edge of the toilet, find a new person. Absolutely, sir. Put your time in. Now, you're going to go through. Own set of emotions dealing with the new person. I'll say, Julie, so-and-so I'm working with is a real pain in the butt. She's heard me say it probably last week. That's what you're going to think. And so you pray for him and you move on. But you're not thinking about yourself. Other than, boy, he's wasting my time. Now, that's crap. It's not our time. We're worried about it. You know. So just kind of want to throw that out. And I could sit here and share 12-step attempts with you over the years. And there's lots of them. I don't know how many I've hauled to treatment centers, to detoxes and that sort of thing. Truth is, is two-thirds or more of them beat me home when I dropped them off. Okay? Okay? Okay?, Okay? So the idea is you just keep going. Seek somebody out. You're going to be in a meeting. Maybe you need to go to a different meeting for a while. Maybe you have to pass when it's your turn to talk. Or better yet, you ought to go to a speaker meeting where you can listen. That's been my evangelical movement right now. Tom? Yeah, prisons and jails and jailbreak. That's right. That's right. That's right. I've had the good fortune of being doing it. In the last couple of years, I've helped the corrections chair at our intergroup in Indianapolis. We opened up five new jails in the metropolitan area. And there's only a million people in the whole metro area of Indianapolis. But we've gotten AA meetings into five new jails recently. And with the excitement of what this guy is doing and me helping him, I'm going to try to get him to come to a meeting. We've got that going. And we have a little green can function there where it provides literature to corrections facilities. And we've gone so fast that we're finding out that the appetite of AA in Indianapolis can't keep up with the appetite of carrying the message into correctional facilities. And we're giving away more literature to jails and things than the funding is coming in for. And that's backwards for what we've been doing before. But it's a treat. And I know Tom is in a prison every week. If you haven't done it, set aside and do it. You're just talking to alcoholics. And you have to learn that the AA meeting inside there is no different than the one outside. And when you leave, the best thing about going to a meeting and take a meeting into jails and prisons is when you leave and you're out the door and the door shuts behind you. Hit that. Now, it shuts behind you when you go into, and that's a different feeling. But that is a charge. And that is a meeting you do come out with feelings moving inside you. They're not going to last all night. But you come out of there knowing, man, I did something, and there's a need there. Maybe one of those guys is going to pick up on it. Now, over the last two years that we've been doing that, there are now guys who are going to say, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And they're not going to our meeting. They were invited, but they found a way in town and all that, and they'll come by and they'll give me a hug. And they just wanted to show you I'm doing okay. Or I'm the secretary now at such and such a group. Or I'm trying to get clearance to take meetings back into the jail. And that's kind of tricky, you know, if there's been a recent inmate there. There is more. There is immediate satisfaction from working with that than anything else I know of in AA. And for the immaturity, the difference between maturity and immaturity is the mature person has the ability to wait for satisfaction. I want it right now. And that's your best shot at getting some immediate satisfaction from having put what you have. I'm going to do that. I better quit. I'm going to get off my soapbox. I mentioned before that sometimes I'm a good, bad example. And so I come into Al-Anon. I'm totally powerless. I'm, you know, weak-willed. I'm timid. I'm all this kind of stuff. Now I'm going to start managing your life, you know. And so I started. I started sponsoring very early. And I sponsored really poorly because I thought that what it was was that I was going to love you enough that you'd stay around or you'd feel good about yourself if you were loved. And I'd pat you on the head. And I'd, you know, say there, there, it's all going to be okay. And, you know, I was, I guess maybe, I mean, I had kids. So I was able to be a mother. But I guess I wanted more kids. And I wanted to be more of a mother. And as I look at it now, I know it was really an ego trip. And one of the problems that I see, and, you know, I'm just saying there are a lot more things that you shouldn't do than you should. So I'll talk about the things you shouldn't do. One of the things you shouldn't do is become the power in that other person's life. Because they're not going to learn. They're going to learn to turn to God. If they don't learn to turn to God, you know, then they're dependent upon you. And your answers and your answers are limited. You don't even know their life truly. You know, you may know the, you know, some of the parts of their life. But you don't know what's good for them. And so when we train someone to be dependent upon us for the answers, you're not giving them anything. You're giving them, you know, just scraps. That's what I'm saying. That's why this book is, if you train them in using that book and using the steps and using the principles and finding the God of their understanding and being a companion to them. And sometimes, yeah, you have a lot more experience and you have experience in finding the truth of those steps and the truth of the concepts. Then they're going to have something, you know. You might get hit by a car. My sponsor got hit by a car. She was dead. And it was like, okay, now what do I do? But, you know, she had not trained me in depending upon her opinion. She had not said, okay, now, you know, you have to listen just to me. I mean, it's just, it's not the way to go. That is not what sponsorship is. It's not a substitute for your own powerlessness. You know, we have, this is supposed to be ego deflation at depth. And we don't get in and all of a sudden become the boss of, you know, 15 people so that we can feel important. That's just, you know, and I did learn the hard way. You know, I really did. And, you know, I felt so useless and so weak and so, you know. And then to have somebody, you know, come to me and say, oh, be my sponsor. And I go, whoa, aren't I cool? You know, it just is not the purpose of the thing. And, you know, I'm a servant. I'm in service, not in charge of. You know, I just think that's just a point that needs to be made. Thank you. Thank you, Marie. Thank you, Marie. So the 12th step. We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. And I'm sure you've heard this. If we have more affairs than principles, we got to look at that, too. If you were to ask some of us in this fellowship, what is your primary purpose? In other words, why did God make you? Oh, to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. And, you know, that's the primary. That's the primary purpose of the AA group. And if someone were to ask me what is my primary purpose, I would say to work my program. And the reason I say that is because one-twelfth of my program is to help other alcoholics. I've got 11 other steps that I need to incorporate into my life and into my soul. Or would somebody please tell me what message I'm carrying? And I think we get that two-step thing going on. In many cases, too often. Because what we do is we set that standard. God bless you. We set that standard in our group. And this guy who's the 12-stepping champion of 1985, you know, oh, God, that's it. The guy hasn't done an inventory since 1985 either. Do you understand what I'm saying? And there can be, this is called to me, life as moving target theory. If you stay in motion, it's harder. It's harder to get hit. I don't know if this is making any sense, but I need seriously from my heart to put this one on the table. You're absolutely free to disagree with me. But I'm telling you, if you don't have, if this thing's not working for you, don't sell it to me. Right? I mean, doesn't that make sense? So it's like, shouldn't we go into our lives and the privacy of our lives and work with our higher power and submit to our higher power? And when we come out to carry a message, my message is that if you will go, like Marie was saying, if you will go to God, your life can turn around. And we're blessed with specific directions out of the big book for how to put ourselves in the way of God. That's what the 12 steps do. I'm putting myself in the way of God, like laying down in the road and God's going to pass by and help me. So I want to offer that as a thought. Also, I had. I had the experience this weekend. Of this beautiful, loving, strong hand being placed in the middle of my back. And this happens to me quite frequently. And the hand in the middle of my back says, be with this man. Be with this man. Now, it's his choice. You understand, I'm not going over and volunteering myself because I think that takes away the power we need of going through that unbelievably vulnerable moment. But when we walk up to say to somebody, would you please help me? We need that right in our lives. But now here comes, you understand, 25 years in advertising. I'm doing commercials here. But again, this is our time together. Yes. And if I if I walk away from here and I haven't said it, I'm going to feel terrible. Maybe if I say it, you'll feel terrible. But I don't know. Please don't do this without a sponsor. Please don't have a program without a sponsor. It's a huge mistake. Did I not tell you that I did not have a sponsor for 15 years and laid down to take my life? This is a huge mistake. I understand maybe the last person that sponsored you drank. Maybe the last person that sponsored you was a four star jerk. But not everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous is a jerk. And we cannot walk this thing alone. And I was sharing with a man last night that my disease wants to kill me. But first it wants to get me alone. And you know what happens is we'll sit shoulder to shoulder in here with each other. And we're not going to tell each other, I don't have a sponsor. Right. It's the old shake and fake. And we're in there bluffing our way through this deal. Now, understand. Who are we in God? Who are you fully powered by your higher power? What potential do you have for touching another person's life? And incidentally, in that regard, we never know who we're working with. My sponsor, I told you, was three tours in Vietnam. What I didn't tell you is that my sponsor, if you talked with him, he is like right next to Chiquita Banana Gay. There's a spectrum of gay. You know what I mean? And this guy is like, you cannot miss gay on him. And this is what I, you know, I got for a sponsor. Thank you, God. It is not my persuasion. And I was a little frightened. But he was a gentleman with me. And he was a real survivor. It's not easy being gay. In any culture. So he's a war veteran and gay and I don't know. God bless him. And George told me something. I got together. George has me by about two years in sobriety. And he's still sober. We're not, we don't still work together. But in any event, I had lunch with George a few years ago, say three or four years ago. And he told me something. He said, now, you have to understand, when I got sober, here's what I thought. I'm a second class citizen because I'm an alcoholic. I have a college degree, but I would be lucky if I could get a job as a janitor. And there's nothing wrong with being a janitor. But when you have a college degree, odds are you might be able to do a little bit better. And I thought I would just, I mean, these are the pictures that were in my mind. I would live in my basement and I'm a second class citizen. But I was willing to do that. I was grateful to do that. But God had other plans. I was going to hide in my basement. And I went on the circuit when I was one year sober because of Don Pritz. And I got my first gig in Ulysses, Kansas, wherever the hell that is. But, but, and I've never, I mean, I've been on the circuit for 34 years. God had me, has me, is this my job? What George told me was, he said, Mickey, I've only sponsored one person in alcohol. It's anonymous and it's you. I want you to know that you're hearing George's voice. Understand what I'm saying? You want to know something? You see the student, that's one thing. But if you want to know something, you, you meet the teacher sometime. This is George's voice. At one time, I spoke at a meeting and there were 6,500 people in that meeting. Who are you sponsoring? And what is their potential in God? Do you know what I'm saying? We see them and they're all mocus and they're screwed up and everything going on like this. But, you know, they don't stay that way with God's help. So this is an exciting thing we're doing. And all we are is the pencil in God's hand. And I want to give you a little proof of that. I go in, Gary was talking about, well, we got sober and Gary has me by 10 years. But when I got sober also, there were not all these halfway houses and detox centers and all that stuff. What'd you got in Denver? You got three days at Denver Junk. You got Denver General Hospital. And then you hit the street. Okay? But so here I was, this is reality time. I'm cheating on Marie. I'm brand new sober. I don't want to die of alcoholism. So I show up at Denver General Hospital like a nightmare. And I would go in and then I'd talk to the head nurse and I'd say, who you got that's new? Mind you, I mean, I just have a few months sober. And she'd say, well, you know, room three. And I'd go in and I'd sit down next to the bed of this poor guy in room three. And I'd say, how long are you going to be here? He'd say, three days. I'd say, good. And for three days I sat by his bed because I didn't want to die. And I couldn't stop being who I was. And so here I am in. There's three guys to a room. And I got this guy cornered. . And I'm giving him my A game. And he goes out and gets drunk and the other two guys in the room get sober. Who carries the message? Who carries the message? See what I mean? We're the pencil in God's hand. All I got to do is go out and open my mouth. Please, God, what can I say? And it's scary sometimes. I had a 12-step call where I showed up and this guy is hanging his knitting from the third floor to the first floor. And we got streams of knitting going in here. I go in and this is a urine-soaked mattress. He's sleeping on the floor. This guy is Peter Marinelli. He's a nightmare, this guy. And I brought another man with me. And this was his first 12-step call. I don't think he made another 12-step call for about three years. But we're in there. You know what I mean? And what we do is we have that honor. We have that little light on inside of us that says when somebody reached out. And incidentally. Now this guy is making telephone calls to me saying he's going to kill me. And it goes on like, you know, this isn't smooth. I sure as hell didn't sign on for that. Right? But what's my alternative? So that hand in the back. And I have this desperation, Joel. It's like how do I approach that man that I still hate? It's like please, God, move the elephant off my chest. Don't go. Don't be without a sponsor. Guy did this and then I'm going to shut up. Guy did this for me. I met these, became our dear friends in Taos, New Mexico. And we were down there visiting them. And I'm talking to them. And I had been opening up. Because mind you, I don't have a sponsor. So, you know, what I'm doing is I'm opening up to whoever will listen, you know. And I'm talking to this friend and he's got many, many years less sobriety than me. Which is another thing I'd like to address in a moment real quickly. And he looks at me. And he says, I'm sorry. He looks at me and he said, Mickey, get a sponsor. Mickey, get a sponsor. Mickey, get a sponsor. I mean, like I'm cornered. And because he stayed in my face, I got a sponsor. And I've never been without a sponsor since. Thirty-five years sober. What does that make me, royalty? Forty-four years sober. Does that make Gary royalty? It makes us alcoholics who didn't die. Right? It makes us alcoholics who didn't die. But it does mean we have experience. I know that there are people in this room who are younger than 44. That means Gary's been working steps and having experience with this program since before you were born. So there is value to it. But what happens is this. And we've made reference to it before. If I wanted to kill myself at 23 years sober, please, can we not make the entire program of Alcoholics Anonymous outreach about the new person? Is it a possibility that that person who's sitting next to you with 12 years sober is having a rough time? Do we give a shit? Or are you on your own? Please, no. Please, no. At 23 years sober, I'm not. At 23 years sober, I had to come back in the rooms and I had to say, this is my book. These are my meetings. I have the disease of alcoholism and it just about killed me just now. And this is what we're talking about. So we are a family and we try to take each other's backs. And let's not leave anybody behind. Isn't that somebody's political program? Let's not leave anybody behind. Okay. So let's not leave each other behind. Let's be attentive to maybe Peter M. is going to come into his meeting and he's not going to be doing so well as suave and debonair and as articulate as he is. Maybe the disease just went for his throat that day. Let's not be afraid to walk up and say, how are you doing? And you know how we can ask each other how we're doing. We're looking in each other's eyes and saying, how are you doing? And it's not an idle question. So you know what I'm saying? I'm saying we flew. I'm tired, man. I'm tired. We've been traveling all year long. And the time came and I've been saying, is this the last one I have to do? And I'm telling people, this is the last one I have to do. This is maybe the best one I've done all year. You guys are just so wonderful. I mean, seriously. And you know the rap with New Yorkers, right? I don't have to explain it. I don't have to explain it to you. What a beautiful group of people you are. I'm dead serious. To be with and openhearted and inviting and it's just been fabulous. So my point is that I was reluctant to come. I didn't want to get on another one of those things and come here because it was going to be cold. Not cold outside only, but maybe cold inside. And we were going to have that. It's been warm. Thank you very much. Julie and I have a list of places we like to go and she said it last night. And New York is certainly one of them. We've not ever had a bad experience here of anything that I can recall at all. And it's such a privilege. To be able to do this. There's a little old lady, AA, named Clara in Indianapolis. She's tiny and hunched over and all that. And I mentioned I was tired of doing this one time. And I didn't want to do it for a long time. And she got in my face. She says, yes, look up like that to get in my face. And she says, bud, it's a privilege and don't you forget it. And I know. I think of Clara every time somebody asks me to do something in AA. And I thought, man, I don't want to put up with that again. But we love you here and we are so grateful to have been invited. This has been a wonderful weekend. I have learned from Mickey and from Marie and many of you. And I've been blessed and I know we have. So thank you very much. Can we pray this time when we break up? With the Lord's Prayer. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Let me say one more thing. I have my own commercial. And. I'm sorry. I don't know if you can hear me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've got to pray. And that is that when Mickey and I got in 34 and a half years ago, there was a unity between Al-Anon and AA. And I'm talking about Denver because, you know, I don't know what it was like in New York or anywhere else. But there was a unity and we knew that we were all in the shipwreck together. And then what happened? I don't know what happened actually. I don't know. actually, somewhere around 20 years ago, there became this kind of disconnect. And to the Al-Anons, the AAs were, like, bad. And to the AAs, the Al-Anons were bitchy, you know. And they started separating. Oh, they wanted to separate everything out, you know, and, you know, put them over there and put them over there. And, you know, this is a family disease. And we do well by holding each other's hands and walking this together. Someone said to me, you know, it helps to hear your story because I need to know what the other side has gone through. It's really important for us to hear your stories, to know that you're not just bad, you know, acting out, whatever. It is so important to. To allow these fellowships to help each other because that's what we can do. And, you know, I was kind of observing yesterday. I thought, you know, I don't even know who's Al-Anon in this room. I don't know who's AA in this room. I just know that we're all here together and that you all are loving. You know, I haven't felt, you know, like different because I'm not alcoholic. You all have embraced me just like you've embraced. You know, the rest of it. It's just this is a wonderful feel. This is what I try really hard to encourage at any conference that I go to, that this is a family thing. You know, please welcome each other and don't see the differences, you know. Thank you for being, you know, a wonderful example of what I really, my dream is for AA now. And I'm together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.