Russell S. – Defects – The Central Fact of a Higher Power-Centered Life – 2025

My name is Russell Spatz. I'm an alcoholic, and I haven't found necessarily to drink or have a drink or that kind of deal since January 20—January—hold on. Give me a second here. January—Sheldon, when did I have my last drink? Does anybody remember? It was 1981. January, I think it was January 25th, not 25th 1980. Yes. Thank you very much. You know, the fact that I can't remember my sobriety day does not bode well for you guys. It really doesn't. It's unfortunate that you find yourself in this situation. But for whatever reason they asked me to share, I'm going to be okay because I'm old. it doesn't matter anymore for me. It's over for me, save yourselves. So I'm going to do the best I can with this deal. So, uh, I've been sober, I guess, for, I'm in my 45th year of sobriety. And, uh、 this morning I just got back from a cruise. I went through like five time zones and back again to the other side of the United States and then flew back. And, and, uh، so I'm just sort of adjusting to whatever it is to be not on a boat for 15 days. And, and I think I got up early today, like at around four o'clock in the morning. And every Saturday we do a three hour workshop every Saturday, three hours. So I, I got out of a three-hour workshop from 10 to one today, this morning, and I was hoping to catch a little sleep. And that didn't work out. So I'm operating on two cylinders, which is okay. I'm going to do the best I can with what I've got going here. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about step six. Now, unfortunately, and I have to apologize to you. There was a time when I was actually intelligent. And And I could think well, but I'm pretty much... I told my wife the other day, I was, thank God, I'm now emotionally sober. And she said, no, you're just suffering from dementia. So whether I'm emotionally sober or suffering from dementia, it doesn't feel so bad. You understand? I used to be very intelligent. You're going to have to trust me on this. I was going for my PhD in algebraic topology and I went to law school, and I have all sorts of accolades and degrees that attest to my intelligence. But as my first sponsor told me when I pointed out all my 20 degrees hanging on the wall, he said, well, you know, Russ, rectal thermometers have degrees. You know what they do with those. So I'm not too intelligent anymore. I keep it really simple. You know, it's like Dr. Bob's last words to Bill Wilson before he passed away. he said, Bill, let's not screw this thing up. Let's keep it simple. So I have to keep it as simple as possible on the sixth step. And I'm a very, very simple man, let me tell you. I don't like complicating things. And the truth of the matter is, even though I've been sober quite a while and I've sponsored hundreds of men and worked with hundreds of people and I think I've been to over 40,000 meetings. The truth of the matter is that I'm... And I've read all the literature and I did all the other stuff you're supposed to do in order not to drink and be wonderful. I run a very simple deal. And apparently, and I warn you on this because I feel I ought to give you like a little caveat, a little warning. Apparently, most of the stuff I say is incorrect. So if you hear anything I say that you don't like, let me assure you, you're probably right and I'm probably wrong. I have a tendency to say things and then afterwards I say, why did I say THAT? And then I change my mind. It's the dementia thing, it's not my fault. So I'm just going to lay out some simple stuff. Now, I think I'm going to talk about the six steps. It's one of my favorite steps. Six and seven are my favorite steps, to be honest with you. To me, those are the real deal because those are the steps, the six step primarily, that separate the men from the boys. And now what I've noticed with myself i mean i've besides sponsoring a lot of people i've done a bunch of service work i was on relay eight years in day county and whenever anybody called up aa for eight years between nine o'clock on a friday night and nine o'lock the next morning they got to speak to me which is why nobody got sober during that period of time uh i'm always getting things wrong you know even today, I know you'll find this hard to believe. I have people that call me up and they tell me about a problem they have. And they have five years and they have 10 years and they have 15, they have 20 years. Even people with 30 years call me. They call me and tell me what's going on in their problems. I think they think because I have time that I'll be able to help them. So I try to help everybody. I mean, I really do. So they call me out when they tell me some problem they're having. And and after they share the problem, I really I love people. I have a compassion for them, most of them. And but after they show their problem and I give them the best answer I can give them based upon my experience, they inevitably say they inevitably tell me I'm wrong and that I don't understand. You know, the odds are, I would think, the law of averages says that I should be right once in a while, don't you think? But it seems every time I try to give somebody the answer, they explain to me that I'm wrong. so uh i'm not sure whether i can answer any questions i but if i do answer questions and you think i'm wrong i probably am i i don't like arguing you know what i mean every once in a while i when i'm talking to somebody and all and they have a problem i'll say to them to sort of avoid the problem i'll say i say now listen fred you have five years and i have 44 years i'm not pulling right now but i want to get our relationship straight i have 44 years and you have 5 years whose brain do you want to use on this and invariably they say i think i want to use your brain and uh so i'll give them the answer and then they start arguing with me i said whoa i thought we were using my brain not your brain because i want avoid arguing with people you know i try to do the best i can i don't know why that i asked myself why did you call me why did she call me should have called somebody else so let's start off with the sixth step the step that separates the men from the boys you guys ever look at that deal you know in the 12 and 12 there's a line somewhere in the 12 and12 have you guys never read this line where it says as most psychiatrists have found that they found that alcoholics have childlike emotions and are emotionally sensitive. Did you ever read that in the 12 and 12? It says, it says that alcoholists have child like or childish emotions, and are emotionally sensitive, like children, that we're like children. I'm not, of course, talking about you guys. I can sort of by just being around you guys and looking at you, I can tell that you are the more spiritual, mature alcoholics. You know, I'm Not Talking About You. I'M TALKING ABOUT MOST OF THE GUYS i run into that we are childish and have childlike emotions you know we we we uh we get depressed we get anxious we become thumb-sucking crybabies we like to complain about things we complain about the world and how we're treated you know we're selfish all we do is think about ourselves we don't really care about other people you know it's we're focused always on the worldly clamors in the world around us you know where we're basically we have a lot of surface sobriety nothing really deep or anything like that and i can attest to that uh because i'm one of those guys i'd like to think i'm a little bit better now after 44 years i'm a little but but i felt i went through my thumb sucking cry baby years my childish alcohol tears and i think i started to come out of it um somewhere around 25 or 30 years sobriety yeah that's what i would have to say i i don't remember a lot but i'd have to say about 25 30 years you know and i don'T KNOW WHETHER THAT'S GOING TO BE THE SAME FOR YOU I'M JUST TALKING ABOUT MYSELF BUT UH EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE SOMEBODY WILL COME UP TO ME AND THEY'LL HAVE LIKE you know, 10 years and they'll tell me about a problem they're having in their lives. It'll be about money, property or romance or prestige. And they'll be all concerned about it. They'll be a little worried about it because they're not feeling good. And so they want to know what the answer is. And I said, well, listen, you only have 15 years. I said I went through the same thing. You'll be okay in another 15, 20 years. You're going to be fine. It's all going to work out. But alcoholics, I don't know if you ever notice this. They're like children. You ever notice that? I'm not talking about you guys. This has nothing to do with you. You ever noticed that alcoholics sometimes are very impatient? You know, the great thing about booze, the Great Thing About Alcohol, the reason I drank alcohol, And I know this is cocaine, and I used cocaine too, but it wasn't my deal. The reason why I used alcohol is because no woman, no car, no amount of money, no nothing worked just as good and just as fast as a couple of shots of scotch or something like that. I mean, it just works so quickly and so fast. Now all the other stuff works, of course. The women work, the romance works, the sex works, the money works all the other things this world they work but if you want to have if you want to feel real good real fast real in charge man you take a couple of zocks of that deal probably the same thing with cocaine and you got you got immediate wonderfulness you know so the bottom line is is that's why i used it but you know sobriety, emotional sobrietry doesn't work that way. You know, because what we say in AA, I don't know about CA, but I'm pretty sure it's the same deal. What we say an AA, what they say in the big book, it says the alcohol is but a symptom of the disease. It's not even the disease, the way we drink alcohol is a symptom of the disease of alcoholism. The real disease centers in my mind, not my body. And after I get rid of the alcohol and the cocaine and the drugs and the masculine and the weed and all that crap, after I got rid of it, the problem is, is I, of course, feel wonderful because coming from a place where I thought I'd never be able to stop drinking, but it's only the first miracle for me. Because the real problem is not the alcohol and the real promise, not the drugs. And the real prom is not to cocaine. And the real prompt is not spending money. I don't have to buy things. I don't need to impress people. I don't like. And the real problem is not the greed and not the feeling sorry for myself. The real problem isn't the fear, but the real, the real problem is that there's the insanity that centers in my mind, not my body. And the REAL major stuff that I'm in bondage to, that I am not free, is something that's going on in my MIND that has nothing to do with smoking or chewing or eating or anything like that. It has to do with things I've thought about myself and who I am and what I am in my attitudes that I've, I've had ever since I was three years old, I have had for a much longer time than the alcohol. I used alcohol to anesthetize all that other stuff, you know what I mean? And so the truth is the alcohol and my life and the drugs and all that stuff went pretty, pretty quickly, but the other stuff that I didn't even realize I had a problem with was eating my liver after 10 years. That's one of the reasons why I see so many people never make it to 15, 20 years. When I first came into fellowship, I would go, I think I've been to five internationals and I'd see 50,000 60,000 people and they're all sober and I see all these people that are sober and they'd have all these birthday parties and everything I said man this thing really works but you know what the problem is the problem is is you know now looking back you know you know they say hindsight is 2020 And I look back and I see a lot of people with one year and five years and 10 years and, you know, 15 years, 20 years. But I look Back at how many people I see at meetings that have 30, 40 years and things like that. And it's let me tell you something about as rare as hence to you. There's like nobody around. I was once told, I don't know whether this is true or not, but it seems to match what I've seen, that only one half of 1% of the people that come into AA stay sober more than 20 years. You know what that means? That means one in 200 stay sober for more than 20 years, that means statistically, if I can go to a room and I'm speaking to 200 people, 20 years from now, there'll be only one of those guys that'll be sober. and and the interesting thing is uh the interesting thing about that deal is i get many calls from people that i've worked with 20 years and they're not happy with their sobriety we have a line in the big book where it says here and there once in a while a former drinker says they feel better they feel better are better not even thinking about drinking it says we laugh at such sally Soon he'll play the old game again because he's not happy with his sobriety. So soon he'll know loneliness is few do. He'll be at the jumping off place. There's many, many, many people that come to AA and get sober for a year, two years, five years, 20 years, and then end up drinking again. There's so many people to come into Alcoholics Anonymous or come into recovery any type of recovery and stay sober and are relatively okay relatively okay for a long period of time and then all of a sudden they're not okay and i'm not talking about people that are not okay that stop going to meetings i mean i know people that go to meetings and sponsor people and do step series and down the road they end up drinking and drugging again they just because for some reason for some reason they either and they stop going it's a lot of them stop going to meetings but many of them don't and the real question is we used to think that the reason people drink was because they stopped going to meetings that's one component but the real question is why do people stop going into meetings and the people stop go into meetings well why did bill wilson at uh 19 years start using lsd to feel better that happens a lot in AA and NA and different places. I had a very good friend who had 11 years and he started not feeling well. He got a little depressed and he went to a psychiatrist. He started using Xanax. XanaX was the miracle drug at that time. And within two or three years, he was drinking again. I don't know what the miracle drunk is now. I didn't know if it was what the drug is. Alkies and dope fiends use in order to feel better now. I don't know if it was Xanax or some other drug they've dreamed up, big pharma's dreamed up. But what you find out down the road is that people end up drinking and drugging and things like that because there's something else going on because they're not dealing with the true disease, the real disease. And I went through my period of time. I think I was 10 years sober, and I was going to three meetings a day. This is before Zoom. I was going to three meetings a day and I was sponsoring everything that moved And I knew all the literature and all that stuff And I got to a point in time where I was unsteady I was not a steady camper I mean, I knew how to put on a facade You know, when you get double-digit sobriety You get 10 or 15, 20 years sobrietry You pretty much know how to putting on a façade so that you look sober but deep down inside at 3 a.m in the morning you're still worried about what people think about you you're just still worried that you're still in fear you're so you know there's this great promise in the big book at least it says you will lose fear of people and of economic security you will loose fear of people in economic insecurity. I was 10 years sober. I was always worried about money. I was 10 years sober, I was always worried about what other people were going to think about me. You know, at one point in time, my house was in foreclosure, it never actually went through but it was in foreclosures. And the interesting thing is, I wasn't worried so much about the forecloser whether it was foreclosed on I was more worried about what people would think about me if they knew I was broke i mean this this nagging feeling that you know you want everybody to love you want everybody to look up to you you want you want people to like you and this other obsession that you somehow feel that people are always looking at you and thinking about you that's that's the worst part of alcoholism i mean to not drink and not go and to be to not drink and constantly be worried about what people are thinking about you of course alcoholics have this little twist they do this delusionary twist where they tell themselves they lie we lie to each other we don't know the truth from the false our alcoholic thinking seems the only normal one you know many times i tell myself uh i don't give a crap what other people think about me you know i almost braggadociously i'd sometimes say it out loud i don'T GIVE A CRAP WHAT THEY THINK about i don't give a crap you know and what you ultimately realize is that people that tell themselves that they don't gave a crap what other people think about them all they do is think about what other People might be thinking about them because people that really don't care What other people Think about them never say i don t care what other People say they say things like pass the sugar but they don t say that stuff and so what happens is after you stop drinking there's a period of time where you may feel relatively okay and of course grateful and happy about the fact that you're not drinking but unless you deal with the serious part in the root cause of the deal what the problem is eventually it catches up to you it always catches upto you you get complacent you get elated you start feeling like you've got control you start playing god you start relying on your own feelings you know first of all we gotta stop playing god and the next thing that happens is you're resting on your laurels and the big book says that you're heading for trouble if you do because alcohol is a cunning foe you know we are not cured and that's the deal you just sort of take the foot off the metal, pedal off the metal, whatever it is, and you just stop moving forward in the sixth step. And so the real question becomes and we don't really analyze this stuff unless we have a damn good sponsor that doesn't worry about what we think about them. They're just going to be honest with you. Andso we don' t really look into the sixth step or understand the sixthstep which I think is probably the most important step. The most important step. You know, I know people say the third step is that. I took the third step. I know the third steps. You get down on your knees and you say the third step prayer like Bill Wilson. Then you get off your knees, and then you check your bank account. You say the Third Step Prayer, you get down on your knees. And then you get up off your knees and you go looking for a date. I know the third step prayer. You get down on your knees, you say the prayer, you get off your knees and then you start looking for a new job. The truth of the matter is that God's got to be the central factor of your life. God is everything or he's nothing. He's the one, the bottom line is your real reliance has to be on God. You know, he's the ones who will give you whatever you need and it'll even show you how to create the fellowship you crave. And the truth of the matter is, is after we get sober, most people in Outlaw's Anonymous, including myself, spend 12 hours a day thinking about how to be successful, thinking about how to make more money, thinking about how to get another job, thinking about how to get laid, thinking about pleasures, seeking the pleasures of life, thinking about the things of life, thinking about the worldly clamors. You know what Bill Wilson said? He said he needed and he wanted God, and God came. But soon, worldly clamores, mostly within himself, blotted out the presence of God. And then he says how blind I had been. Most people are blind to the fact that they have no relationship with God. They don't even know who God is. It's like a punchline. They got an imaginary God. They have imaginary sobriety. As a matter of fact, they go to meetings if somebody talks about God, they don't want to hear it. They don' t want to here about that God thing. You know, Sandy Beach and Chuck Chamberlain said every problem that an alcoholic has is because of separation from God and every solution to every problem you might have is connection with god and the one thing you can be sure that you're not going to hear a lot of at an aa meeting is about god and relationship with god you'll even have people come up to you and tell you we don't talk about that stuff you're scaring away newcomers but in the old days the first four years of outpost synonymous. The whole thing was just about God. So the sixth step, at least in the 12 and 12 if you read it, if that's one of the books you read, it not only says this is the step that separates the men from the boys, it doesn't say that about the third step. It doesn't say that about the 11th step or the fourth step. It says in the sixth step, this is the step that separates the men from the boys. And then it says this, the man or the woman who is actually seriously trying to work on the sixth step is trying to grow in the image and likeness of God. And so the problem is, you know, think about that. What does that mean? The image and liking of God? I mean, I have a lot of people say they believe in God. Oh, I believe in God. And I said, well, you believe in the concept of God. You believe there's some God out there, right? You believe in the concept of God and I'll say, but do you believe God? Do you believe God? And they look at me and they say, I don't understand. What's the question? I said the question is simple. You say you believe in God, you believe in the concept of God, you believe there's a God, you're not an atheist. Okay, I got that. but do you believe God? And they'll look at me quizzically and they'll say, I don't understand what you're talking about. Well, if you have a relationship with God and you believe God, then you should believe God. So do you believe him? And he said, I don't know. And I said, the reason why you can't tell me you believe God is because you know nothing about God, because you don't really have, God. You know, you have like some sort of thing, some sort of nebulous sort of things out there. It's like to have a relationship. Like I have a relationship with, let's see, I have a relation with Ryan and I have relationship with Chrissy. I have relationships with Cindy. I have the relationship with Judy, David, I have relations with all these Bassey, I've relationship with a lot of these people here. You Know why? because I know that. If you tell me something about Cindy, I say, that's not the Cindy I know. I'm telling you, that'S not Cindy. I don't know who told you that'S NOT Cindy. I know Cindy. I know Cindy. I have a relationship with Cindy. I hang out with Cindy I've been talking to Cindy I have a real relationship with Cindy I know how she talks I know how she feels I know what she's about and everything That's not Cindy because I have a relationship with Cindy. I don't have a relationship with my F, with my Ford truck. I have a relationship with, you know, my TV set. I have to have a relation with a real person, with a personality, a person I know how they feel, I know what they want me to do, because my big book says the one thing I have to do is I haveto give my life over to God. I didn't worry about the will part. The will part, that just waters it down. What it says is you make a decision to give your life to God. It says when you wake up in the morning, when you ask God to direct your thinking. You don't want to be thinking with your brain. You ask God To direct your thing. As a matter of fact, if you ask God to correct your thinking over and over again and you have a true relationship with God and you know who God is and what he wants you to do, you know what happens? Not only do you ask him to direct your thinking, but you end up knowing exactly what he wants you do because you have a relationship with God. Like I have a relation with Cindy. It's not a mystery. You're not walking around. Because if what God, if what who God is, if what God is, and you have a relationship with God and that's the truth, you have that you're not walking around blind trying to figure it out you're no walking around God blind trying to find out trying to figure it out so how do you find out that's the deal it says so how you know what it says as a matter of fact I can tell you this if I can even find this in the big book of alcohol synonymous there's this great line in the big book right here. I was just looking at it the other day. He knows so little, it's unbelievable. I was just Looking at this line the other Day. It's on. You guys have seen this a million times. Have you ever thought about this? Here's what the line says. Let me find this sucker. It is right after the. Here you go. This is on page 60 of The Big Book. When in doubt, open up the material. This is under the A, Bs and Cs. You know, the A is that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. That probably no human power could relieve their alcoholism that God couldn't would if he was sought. You know what it says right after that? That's an interesting line. It says being convinced of that we are, we were at step three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood him. And then it says this, just what do we mean by that? And just what does God want us to do? What do we do? Just what do you mean by the and just what did we do question mark being convinced of those three things on step three, we decided to turn our will and our lives over to God, not even the care, over to God as we understood him. Just what do we mean by that and just what do мы do? So that's a good question to ask yourself. What do you think they mean by that. What do you think they mean by that? Turn your life over to God. What does that mean and what do we do? If you don't know what that means or you haven't done it, then you haven'T done it. And what I realized is I didn't really turn my will and my life over to God seriously, so that I had a God-centered life. You know, it says in my fellowship, in AA, it says that we can be rocketed in the fourth dimension of existence and experience much of heaven and no peace. The only thing we have to be sure of is something called the great fact. And the great factor is this and nothing less than this, nothing less than this that god must become the central fact of our lives that means our whole life is about focusing on god not on the woman not on the man not on sex not on money not on dress not on macy's not on cars that god's got to be the central factor of our life number one and be convinced that he lives in our hearts and minds in a way which is indeed miraculous. There's a lot of stuff about God in my literature. There's, there's a statement that says on the last page of the big book, it says, it says your real reliance must be on God. He will even show you how to create the fellowship you crave. And that means I have to create a fellowship, a godly fellowship where people are talking about God all the time. You know, the meetings I go to now, we don't talk about alcohol. We don't talked about drugs. We don' t talk about what you're using. We don''t talk about, you know what we talk about? We talk about God. You know I'm asked to speak at different meetings and conventions and stuff. You know what I talk about. I'll spend five or ten minutes on the alcohol you know what I talk about God all my sponsors talked about why would I spend time talking about stuff that I'm not involved in anymore why would I spent time talking incessantly about drinking or drugging or things like that oh there's plenty of meetings you can go to if that's what you want to do I want to talk about the thing that's going to free me from being concerned about the judgment of other people. I want to talk about the thing that's gonna free me, from the anxiety of worrying about financial insecurity. I don't know, what would your life be like if you didn't worry, if you had no fear, you stopped worrying about people and economic insecurity? You know, one of the things that's said in the big book, it says we never apologize for God. All men and women of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize to God. Instead, we let him demonstrate in our lives what he has done for us, and once we begin to outgrow fear. How would you like to outgrowth fear? That three o'clock in the morning fear, that fear of not having enough money, that fear of not getting what you think you need. How would you like to stop waking up in the morning and say, if I only had this, I'd be okay? If I only Had That, I'd Be Okay? How would you like to stop worrying about what people are thinking about doing AA and out of AA and how would you like to be your own man? How would you like to have courage? You know, all men of faith have courage. Are you a man or a woman of faith? Are you a man and a woman that has courage or you just have a facade of courage, just walk around telling yourself you don't care what other people think about you. Now I've got to tell you this, I'm talking about stuff that's actually happened to me but the truth of the matter is if I was really honest with you, I would tell you as I didn't start realizing all these other promises, let me tell you something, if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict or cocaine addict or whatever it is, and you don't deal with what I'm talking about because I can tell you over a period of time, this world will never stop coming at you. Even if you're the most innocent, nicest guy in the world, you're going to suck from health problems, you got to suck for money problems, going to suffer from all sorts of problems in your life, not because you necessarily caused them, because of your drinking, your drugging, because that's life. We're not in the Garden of Eden here. The bills are still going to come in, the people are still gonna betray you, people are Still gonna die, bad stuff is gonna happen. And over a period of time, you're gonna be tested and tested and I'm still tested. I'm gonna be 76 tomorrow and I'll still tested and you're going to be tested. And while you're being tested and those repeated humiliations and those crushings of your self-sufficiency, while you're being tested, you are going to get a really good, clear glimpse of what this disease is really like. You know, I'm not going to have to tell you what this desease is like. Let me tell you, five years sober, you're going to Get a Whole Different Idea of the Disease of Alcoholism. Ten years sober, you're going to get a whole different idea of the disease of alcoholism. 20 years sober, let me tell you something, you are going to have a whole spoonful, a shovel full of what this disease looks like and you're gonna be sitting there saying, I don't understand it. I'm going to meetings, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do and I'm getting hammered and you are gonna find out that you need in order to get emotionally sober like Bill Wilson needed, you start taking LSD, you're going to be running around to all the skull jockeys in town saying, what's wrong with me? They're going prescribe all their medications for you. They're gonna say you've got bad brain chemistry or something like that. But the bottom line is, is what you have is you don't have any God in your life. You just have a superficial facade of God, but basically you are God. You make your own decisions about your own life and you don't have anybody or anything in your life that is guiding you so that you have your own relationship with God. And that's the bottom line. And you don'T have to believe what I'm saying. We'll come back if I'm still alive 10 or 15 years from now, and you'll tell me what you experienced and you'LL know the deal when they come up to you and you're doing all. And all of a sudden they tell you, you've got cancer, you'VE got breast cancer, you got prostate cancer you have to go into chemotherapy you got to go for an operation you know something and you ask somebody in a or ca what to and they say we'll just do another four-step that ain't going to cut it sweetheart the fourth step ain't gonna cut the cancer deal when you're sitting there in your hospital bed or you're standing there and somebody else that you love is dying there's nothing you can do the fourth stop ain't gunna cut it for you And just that ain't going to cut it for you. You're going to need something else to fall back on. And if you don't have a relationship with God, if you haven't utterly abandoned yourself to God, you're going find out that this is a disease that demands that you go in the direction that you don' t want to go. And the reason you don''t want to do it is because you've been going to meetings where people aren't talking about God. So you're gonna have to find... Somebody asked me, well, how do I do this thing? I said, you better learn how to find the people that are talking about this stuff, you know, because you need to find the people that are talkin' about the central fact stuff. See to it that that's it. God is everything and he worries nothing. Half measures of L is nothing. We stood at the turning point. The bottom line is we don't start, if we don'T pay attention to what they talk about in the book, you get rid of old ideas or the result was nil, nothing, unless you let go absolutely. This disease will lull you into a sense of complacency. You'll pick up all those medallions. They'll have birthday parties to you. They'll pat you on the back and you'll say, look at this. I've got 10 years. My worries are over. I'm doing great until all of a sudden one day you wake up and the monster's back again. And all the fear and all the worry is back again and you're running around trying to figure out what you can do in order not blow your brains out. And you might not drink but I'll tell you, suicide is looking a little bit better. You know what I mean? You'll be depressed. You'll be like Bill Wilson. And of course I could be wrong. I probably am. The only thing I have going for me is something called experience. My sponsor told me when a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with experience will walk away with the money and the man With the money will walk way with an experience. The one thing I guess I have is I have the hindsight of seeing what happens to most people in Alcoholics Anonymous that don't get serious about this thing. Well, I've spoken for about 50 minutes. I think I said something. And I don't know what I said. Don't ask me to repeat it. So I basically fulfilled my obligation to CAA and to the Fellowship at Large, and I'm done. That's it for me. It's over. Thank you.