Step 5 and the Honest and Thorough Inventory – Ryan C.

I'm Ryan. I am an alcoholic. I'm just, I'm eternally grateful to be here with you. Happy anniversary, guys! Come on! Oh man, I am telling you. What a, what an amazing gift. Let's give Alice another hand. What a beautiful, beautiful gift. As always, she sat down and was like, how do you follow that? I mean, come on. I am just truly, I'm truly blessed to be here today. And I want to really thank this primary purpose group for having us here. I want extend a great big thanks to that big lug that was up here and my dear friend Eugene that's somewhere in this room and all you home group members and everybody that came out today to support this and all your guys that I hope are putting the money in that donation can right there. She's holding, she's shaking it. There it is. She's passing it. I'm told that everything that comes in here today goes to the inner group, and how beautiful is that? Is there any inner group reps in here? Anybody? Look at that. Is anybody involved in service in here actively or home groups and all that? Well, congratulations to all you guys. Thank you for your service. I got a big book that's got so much stuff in it just falling out everywhere, so I'm going to set it aside. I have a sobriety date. Let me get cranking. I got sobriery date. It's June 10th of 2009. For that day, I'm eternally grateful. I have a sponsor. His name is David Chadwell. He wants me to give you his name, and I have his permission, and he wants you to know who he is because I am sponsored. And he is sponsored, and the men that I sponsor are sponsoring the men that they sponsor are sponsors, and that could spend the rest of the day having a talk saying that. That's how important this is. On the front of my big book is a coin that says 10 minutes. Before I found this book, but more importantly, let me set this stuff aside. But more importantly, before I found a man that was armed with the facts about himself and had a copy of this book, I couldn't do anything but drink. That was it. And I'm so grateful for men and women that are sitting in this room that carry this message. I want to read a little line out of this 12 and 12. Hi, I'm going to sneak you primary purpose, guys. It's the great paradox of AA that we know we can seldom keep the precious gift of sobriety unless we give it away. And that's in Tradition 5, the 12 and 12, and it's so true. We cannot keep this precious gift. Before I get cranky, I want to tell you that I am a member of the Pleasant Valley group, whoop, whoop! Alcoholics Anonymous. We're celebrating 79 years of Alcoholics Anonymous in the great town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, home of the Mothman. It's so funny. Get on Google. You'll Google it. You'll find a silver statue. you. And our home group is just right up the street from it. As Allison said, that's not why I'm an alcoholic, but I probably blamed that at one point because I blamed everybody from alcoholism but me. And so that's what it is. I truly belong to a spiritual entity or the long form of Tradition 5 says each group is about to be a spiritual identity of that of carrying its message to the alcoholic. You know, and I believe that wholeheartedly when I walked into this room today and seeing all these people in here and all thesepeople going to be in service and the smiles and the happiness and the beautiful boards of all the beautiful history. If you haven't had an opportunity to take pictures of that stuff, please do and pass it on. Wow, congratulations to you guys that do that, and it's phenomenal. But I do believe that you can feel it here. When you go to a group and you travel, we get to do this. We get to travel a lot just in our daily life, and we step into any random room, and you can tell right away if it's a spiritual entity. You can tell when somebody walks up to you with a smile on their face, hey, what's your name? And you can tells when you walk into rooms and you don't do that. they're just off in their own little world but it's not like that here and Allison was dead on the nails when she said there's some pockets of enthusiasm in Rochester New York area holy cow you guys have what I want you are the fellowship that I crave um I do want to I always like to start off with something light because I'm a train wreck but um but I do wanna start off with something like I'm gonna be really quick Allison made me promise to be quick with this many years ago I'm at an AA conference with a bunch of guys I sponsor And they're all saying, come on, Ryan. You know the new guys and all the energy. And we got just enough time not to be that new yet, you know? And I was like, no, we're not going to the midnight meeting. Are you crazy? We've been there. All the crazies are at the midnight meetings. And they were like, nah, we don't want to be there. We're going. And then about 12, I don't know, it was 11 to midnight. And about 12 o'clock, I get a phone call from a guy named Joel. Hi, I run into this guy, and I got in an argument with him. We argued for 20 minutes in the hallway, and he was saying surrender wasn't in the big book. And I'm like, what? What? Why are you going to that? What? So I get my big book out. I said, well, tell him. I don't know where it is. Just tell him he's an idiot. I can tell you two weeks later, that guy that was such a jerk drove all the way. It's hard for me to talk about. To Marriott, Ohio. To make direct amends to Joel for his behavior. That guy's name is Will. You see, it's the threads of recovery because that one act of him just following the directions of the book, realizing whether he was right or wrong, but knowing that he possibly harmed somebody, drove all the way to Marietta, Ohio to make direct amends. It made such an impression on him and all the guys with him. And you know what? Ever since that day, we can't get rid of Will. He's everywhere we go. And we've been following him around everywhere. and uh and really it was kind of like there's a lot of instances that happened in my life it's like the shot that's heard around the world and it was a threat of recovery that changed the course of alice and i and more importantly the people about us sobriety and from that led to something a little thing on zoom to a zoom primary purpose group some little guy asked me to speak there and and it's a guy that anyway it doesn't matter but i run into some other people one of my dearest friends, Ryan, sitting over here and his wife, Risa. And it's just opened our world up. So when you guys think that you're just having just an anniversary or you're just doing these little things like this and now it's a Saturday, you don't understand maybe, probably a lot of you do, but maybe you don'T understand the full weight and implication of what you're doing. And I hope that something I can say today will help you understand how much that means to us. And It means to US that we get to transmit it on to other people. And it means that God has us in Rochester, New York. I was telling the gentleman, somebody was in here. I sponsored a guy years ago and his name is Brent, a low bottom alcoholic. I mean, I don't have time to get into that story. I wish I did because it's amazing. But I heard this guy's fist step and he knows, I talk about it, he knows it. I'm not going to say stuff, but he lived in Rochester. And at the time I'm hearing all this stuff, I'm like, what? Where's Rochester? Is that like New York City? I mean I didn't know where it was. Little did I know that the God-found and Alcoholics Anonymous is so big that I would be here with you guys today sharing the good news, and I'd be following the woman of my dreams after she just gave an amazing talk. It doesn't happen to a guy like me. It never happened to a girl like me until I had a full and complete meltdown, surrender, and just say, God, please help me. And I'll get into that in just a second. You know, they call sobriety a precious gift, And to me it is. And this morning I hit the lottery. I was telling everybody here that I run into, man, I hit the lottery this morning. And everybody's looking at me like I'm crazy. Like you hit it again? How many times have you hit the lottery? Every day since June 10th of 2009 because that's my sobriety date. I got up this morning in a beautiful hotel with a woman of my dreams, friends all around me. I just got to go to one of my absolute best friend's house and be with her kids last night and eat some awesome pizza here. Are you kidding me? You guys got good pizza here? And my hand didn't madly search for a bottle. And prior to that day, that's all it ever did. I heard so many people, you see, the ripples of sobriety is amazing. I mean, I just gave you one little instance about an altercation, which we could have took inwardly and said, well, these people in Rochester, they stink, I hate them all because, you know, Will was mean. He wasn't mean. he just had a position and it was whatever. But no, you see, because we do what we're supposed to do and God puts us to where we're exposed to be. So if you're in this room right now, you're supposed to be here. And anytime you ever have an event like this with Alcoholics Anonymous, it's a spiritual experience because God is in there right here, right now. Never again will the same people be sitting in this room. So every opportunity that you have to be of service and you walk into a room of AlcoholicsAnonymous is a spiritual experience. And when I start looking at things like that this way, it don't sound like a bad idea to go to an airport, go to work at five in the morning, get on a plane, spend eight hours in an airport to be in Rochester because I get to. By the grace of God, I get too. And if I could ever tell you anything, if you're new in this room and you don't think that you have what it takes to stay sober, you do. And I want to thank my friend Don is sitting right in front of me because I got to meet him. I know why I came to Rochester now because I have to meet Don. Don's my man because Don's like me. And I know if you're sitting in this room, you're 12 steps away from the most amazing life you never thought you could be. Whether you have five days or 40 years and you think you're going to walk out of here and put a gun in your mouth today, you don't have to. It stops the day. Because if you are in this world, you are not in this realm. Hope is found here. Not out there. It's found right here. There's people in this room just constantly sharing the good news and people that, that I trust my life with. And, um, you know, I, uh, I'm so much time. Oh boy. All right. You know, I had to add, I had my first drink of alcohol when I was like five years old. Um, I was five years old, uh... My, my, my dad's a cheap guy. He had, he drank cheap beer and, and I bugged him. And I say this in every talk I give because it's very important. I bug them in for a drink. He He laughed at me like any dad would do, and he said, here, take that. And I took a belt with some black label or whatever it was, and I was like, whoo, like the Mr. Yuck sticker that was green, you know, the Poison Control Center sticker for those of you who don't know what that is. Not disclosing my age, but it was gross. Like how could you guys drink that stuff? But you know the crazy thing is he was watching 60 Minutes. It's etching my brain. Tick, tick, tick. I hated that. And it was etching in my brain, but he walked out of that room, guys, And the crazy thing is, I picked the can up and I finished it. I'm not going to sit up here and proclaim to you that I was an alcoholic from age five. But there was something in that can that had my attention. There was something that can did you guys did when I watched my uncles and brothers and everybody else do it. The heroes of my life as a child. You know, I didn't understand. I didn' see. I couldn't foresee the fact that all those heroes died of cirrhosis of the liver, car wrecks, bar fights, all those things. But that's what I wanted to see. That's what i wanted to do. And by the age of age 12, I had my first dose of, near fatal dose of alcohol poisoning. Homeless guy bought a half gallon of rum for us in the state of Delaware. I about died, long story. My sister kept me on my side, blah, blah. But I can tell you this, I swore to God for the first time in my life that I would never, ever, ever do this again. Have you guys ever done that? God get me through this. I promise you I'll never do this again. I swear to you, God. And the next week my sister gets married on this beach and every single picture was me standing by the keg with a red solo cup. You see, I didn't realize at the time that I'm powerless over alcohol. I didn' t realize that I was afflicted with this fatal allergy that's coupled with the phenomenon of craving and mental obsession that I cannot stop. I didn''t know that once I take the first drink, not the 150,000th drink, just the first drinking, I didn ''t realize that I didn'T have the power to make the decision of whether or not I was going to do that and follow through with it. We talk, this is a heavy big book hit and I love it. Red meat home group. You know, we have a lot of debates and we get a lot banners about the first step of recovery but there's somebody new in this room and I need you to understand this. The first step is simply this. I am powerless over alcohol. Check, I understood that. That my life is unmanageable. What's that mean? Well, I wrecked cars, my kids were taken from me. I mean, I could go on and on with the drama list that I have. That's not the unmanagability. The unmanageability is I can't make a conscious decision that I'm never going to put that poison in my body and follow through with it with sufficient force to never do it again because I tried to make that decision over and over and ever again, and I always failed. And it wasn't until I completely hit my knees after a near-suicide attempt and cried out to God for help that that changed. There's no way possible I could ever cram 16 years of beautiful sobriety into my talk today, but I want to fast forward to my end. For those of you that are real alcoholics in here, you understand what powerless is, and for those of us who don't, I mean, I can tell you it's not about the quantity you take or what you do, but what's in the book is page 21 to a real alcoholic. Next comes this, and next comes that. I'm a trash can. You know? I've done it all. Let's just say it snowed a lot in August and it wasn't snow. and uh and but anything that could make my drinking enhanced or go longer i did and that's just what i did i uh one night i laid down in my bed i could no longer drink i could no longer not drink i can no longer i didn't want to live and i made a conscious decision that i'm going to stop this today the pain is going to start i know what terror frustration and bewilderment, despair, and peace. If you're in this room and you have three days, you may not know what 16 plus years of sobriety looks like or feels like, but I guarantee you I know what three days of sobrietty feels like. And the other people in thisroom with time do too. So welcome home. I'm glad you're here. I went back to my bed and I laid down. I had this big blue bottle of pills. I believe in sinless and purpose, But I had anxiety. For those of you who did, know what that was. And I dumped them in my hand and I took a liter of Absolute Vodka and I drank until I couldn't drink anymore. And I sat down and I pulled the covers up to my neck. Said, you know, this is it. Somewhere I woke up, it was dark and black. I thought, is that what this is? Is this what this ist? And then my hand hit something, my hand hits something. And I found a light and turned it on. I'm like, whoa. I was in my bedroom and beside my head was a Coctin-Lock .40 caliber. I just simply decocked and grabbed that and tried it again. I woke up the next morning, and I knew what Bill Wilson said in his story. Quicksand had stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master. I could no longer get drunk. I could not longer get sober. I could never live, and I could die. I know the hideous four doors. For those of you that have met and felt that, I'm with you. Me too. And for those of you that haven't, you don't ever have to go there because I did it for you. I did for you, there's no chapter in this book called In the Scare, I promise you that. I promise ya there isn't. But there is one called There Is a Solution. And with that solution comes a beautiful life and a full and complete surrender of my life. On October 21st of 2009, my sobriety is June 10th of 2009 I was walking out the door to get a drink again because I got a phone call. A bad phone call from an attorney. And then, boom, I called five people. Something stopped me. I called 5 people and the fifth one answered. One of you crotchety old-timers. I can't stand. And you know what this old-timer told me? Ron, I'm sick of watching you die. You better hit your knees where you're standing right now and ask that God you don't believe in for help because that's the only thing that could help me. Your power was click. I did. And when I did, I asked God, I cried out in my heart, God, please help me, And I had a sudden, profound spiritual experience of which I cannot describe. But all of a sudden the compulsion of the drink left me. An overwhelming feeling of peace that it was going to be okay. I knew it was gonna be okay and the first four people I called, called me back in rapids due session and the last guy afforded my driveway. Said, hey, I just got your calls in town. You want to go to a meeting? Can't make it up. You see, from that day forward, the next day, that sponsor I had by name was sitting at my table and I finished an honest and thorough fourth and fifth step for the first time. From that day to this day, it's been a rocket ride into the fourth dimension of existence of which I cannot even describe. I come into alcoholism and I'm almost a broken man. I've lost my license for two and a half years. I didn't have a job. I didn'T have a relationship. I couldn'T even scratch hardly enough money to pay my mortgage. But you know what? God did. Because I can tell you today, if you just chop the wood and carry the water and do what this book says, God provides. Allison did a beautiful job by describing that. She did an amazing job by describing it. And slowly but surely, I just started sponsoring guys at a very early age. And then they started, and it just took off. And when Allison and I met a long time, we'll get into that in a minute, but we were just friends for a very long time guys. And I didn't come to egg looking for a relationship and eat her sheep. And I would never tell anybody to come to eggs looking for relationships. It's the sickest place on earth to find a relationship, don't do that. But we tell our old-timer friend in Delaware, his name is Eldon, and he always, when he met us early, he says, I want you all to know two sickies don't make one well. But today he says I guess you proved me wrong. Two sickies do make one will. And he's one of our dearest friends. And so a lot of things happen, and I've heard a lot of people, and I like to talk about that. Because I like to talk about dispel the rumors with people, and there's a lot of things that get said in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't debate any of it. Your sponsor says to do it, do it. I mean, I'm not here to debate it. I'm here to tell you that the book Alcoholics Anonymous works. I used to sit here and I was like, oh, here he goes. I'm going hold my big book up. I used to, you know, I don't do that anymore. It's a take it or leave it deal guys. Either you want it or you don't. You know, either you want her or you're not. The book says are you even considering or do you even want to stop drinking? If you don' t go get done. I used think that was so mean. These guys are new guys. Why do you want to tell somebody that? I want to save them. I can't save myself. How can I save you? I can' t. I'm just as powerless just today as I was the day that I surrendered. One drop of that poison, this, starts the insanity. And I won't make it back. I mean, I'm not God. I don't know. I don' t even want to think about it. But I can tell you today I've been placed in the position of neutrality, saving and protecting. I'm sitting in Buffalo, New York. I've had a second time in New York, be here again the third time in November just to visit. You can't make It up. You can' t make It Up. so we got quickly got to work and i and i quickly seen that that's that that when i started working with people i started learning the book you know we i found that just hiding in a basement all by myself i've done that uh and and studying and studying this the book is clear you cannot stay sober on the basis of self-knowledge and i mean i love the book alcoholics my wife said it i'm the big book nerd there's nobody loves that's why will and i are like we're like the big big big book nerds we'relikeand i've grown so much just by hanging around with guys like him and Eugene and my friend Ryan. And I see things from a different angle because you guys have different experiences than me. And you guys have different experiences. And the coolest thing about this spiritual experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's a prepackaged gift just for you. Your journey to God is a prepacked gift. You don't have to believe how I believe, but I hope that God today when I get done talking, you can at least believe that I believe. And on that simple cornerstone, a wonderful spiritual structure can be built. You know, when I teach prayer meditation to people, I teach them through the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. I just do it as simple as on a waking at night when we try at night and I swing them back to the sex conduct where it says we treat as we would any other problem. Take that first piece out of it. Any other problem? Where do you bring it? I bring it to will sometimes, but I bring up to God first. I bring him to God in person and usually that gets disclosed to me and I didn't mean to go down the rabbit hole prayer meditation for some reason I did. I started sponsoring guys, and that revolutionized everything for me because I began to see that this was not just real for me, but it was real for everyone that did it. I come from a place, and I'm not a victim of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I want to share that. But I come From a place in a rural town of Appalachia where the book Alcoholics Andonymous was not very popular, and that place was called the Pleasant Valley Group, where I'm still a home group member. it is there now but it wasn't then and i i was told things like i've seen guys like you fall off your pink cloud put those big books up there's a newcomer here you're going to run them off that's what i was called but i had this experience right i knew it was real i can tell you right now that pink clouds cause god's grace and please don't ever use that around me because we'll talk because you don't never have to come off that pink cloud it's pink and fluffy even one is bad, it's good. Even when your dad has dementia and you got to care for him. No matter what, it is good. You know, it was the men that I sponsored that walked me through that. You see, prior to Alcoholics Anonymous, my dad would come beating on my door every three days to see if I was still alive. And he would say, your mom sent me here and if you don't answer, I'm calling the police. And I'd open the door and I can't use the words that i did in his church what i say to him he dropped me at a treatment center my last run and walked off and said you're going to die son you better go back to aa but all i can tell you is after alcoholics anonymous and taking these steps a few short years his girlfriend had sent me this picture just just a newspaper clip in the mail with nothing said it was a picture of my dad in Beverly, Massachusetts. It was at a polar plunge. He was 70 plus years old. And it was the middle of January and the snow in Beverly. Will's been to New England. You guys live in New York. You know how cold it is. They were raising money for an alcoholic halfway house and he was the first man to jump in the ocean. And when the newspaper article reporter said, Mr. Corvo, why would you do such a thing at your age? You're the oldest one and the first one in. And his quote in the paper was, if alcoholics and autopsies did for your son what it did for mine, you'd jump him too. You see, that man now has dementia. That man now Has Dementia. He's had the best son for 16 years, and we've taken the best care every day until the day he had to go into memory care. I've been there. There was a lot of noise with other family members and all this carnage that comes along with that. None of that matters here today. But what matters is they appointed Ryan as guardian conservator. None ofthat matters because you know what? Today I take care of him and everything he has is safe and protected. Every week I'm there with him and he's got to see me at my best. He's seen me atmy worst. He's got, he has a sober son because of you. You see, it takes you and I to spell that word unity. Without you, there is no I. Our first tradition clearly says that our personal recovery depends on that. And that's unity with my family. at work with the lady i just met from the church right out here how are you doing man so good to see you it's that unity it's the unity of being a dad and being a mom with your kids you see i used to think it was it was just here in alfalex anomalous in the beginning of one because i only had you and i can tell you what guys if i only got you i'd have been overpaid because you are why i'm here i'm Here Only But For The Grace Of God And God Sent You and you are everywhere I look and everywhere I go. You are my best friend. You understand me. You understand us. You show up when your dad gets ready to go to delivery care. You get the phone call from your friend Will and say, buddy, I've been through that. When you get to that point, call me because I got that experience. I know when things go off the wheels. I know somebody has had that experience and I can call them. You see, you don't get that anywhere else but here. You see, I heard a lot of people in AA, and I love to talk about amends because I run across a lot of people, and let me get off my soapbox. Let me share my experience. You know, the nine-step promises we read, and people say, oh, somebody read the promises. There are all kinds of promises in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I've sat in a group that understands that. There's a lot of really bad promises in there too. It tells you you'll die, and you're going to drink, and all those other things. I pay really close attention to those, but the nine step promises, I used to call my sponsor and say, why didn't this happen? He'd ask me what page it was on and what page it was one. You old-time sponsors, I can't stand you. And I'm like, are you guys idiots? It's on page 88 or whatever it was. And he'd say, no, Ryan, what step is that? And I would say, well, that's the ninth step. He said, yeah, once you start your ninth step, you might experience some of those. I was like, well. What's that mean? I don't understand universal language about a new guy. I don't understand. What do you mean by that? We fully understand, and we know what you mean. We just don't like it. That's my experience. So some of the most powerful men I've ever had has not hit a harms list. But I want to just share one real quick one with, well, there are not many of them quick, but I heard a lot of people, and I want to share my mother and father because you know there's people sitting in here that have mother and fathers maybe they passed but um you know my mom I heard I don't talk about that a lot from here you see I lost my sister in 1993 the car wreck we were just real close together she was just one or two years older than me and and she was just like the most precious thing on god she was a hippie girl little hippie dippy love flower peace love fried chicken all that stuff You know, just she'd see a turtle on the road. She'd jump out of the car and go move it out of the way. You know that kind of a girl went harmlessly. And she had she had a car wrecking 30 miles an hour and just slid off a wet new pavement and hit a tree and a folded on her in 30 days. And we had to pull the plug and watching the hospital center when that line went. I turn my back on God. I said there is no God. God could never be because he would never take Linda. he is the most wretched thing ever. And that destroyed and fractured my family and my mother and all these things, and I made it all about me. And what I can tell you is when you guys have taught me through the inventory process that God does not take people. He receives them. God doesn't break your knees and legs like mine were broke. I had a sponsor say, what's wrong with you, Ryan? God don't break their legs. I told a guy, Joel, that he got in an argument with that my broken legs were because God wanted to slow me down because I was doing too much AA. And this is a guy's sponsor. He says, are you crazy? God don't break legs, Ryan, he heals them. Allison comes home from work and she says, you're tearing tonight. I said, I can't, honey, my legs hurt. And she says. I can tell you what hurts worse than two broken legs, Ryan, I said what's that? She said a fifth of vodka. Shut up, I'll help you in the car. And I went and shared my home for two hours. Never felt that pain one time. It's the miracle, life-restoring gift of Alcoholics Anonymous. My mother, when I made direct amends to her, she'd never give up on me. But she just said one thing. Ryan, please just stay in AA. Please just do what they say. Please just don't ever drink again. And gave me a hug. Now that sounds very simple, doesn't it? For a guy like me, it's not. Because I'm powerless to make that decision. but today for the last 16 plus years i've been able to keep that promise and make that amends today i take care of her today i took her to the hospital today i'm her her medical power of attorney today i care i do everything she needs when she needed firewood i cut it i brought it there i stacked it no pat on my back that's a pat on yours because you showed me to show others precisely how we recovered is the main purpose of this book i believe we are from the no matter what club and i always tell everybody including you and the people i sponsor watch my feet and not my mouth. Please watch my feet, not my mouth. Because you guys will see things in my feet that I don't. Because this disease of alcohol isn't subtle. The book says alcohol is a subtle foe. It's just a tick, tick, tacky disease. Tacky disease and suddenly an ounce of whiskey in my milk sounds like a good idea. I used to think that was the dumbest story in the big book but I fully understand it because I usedと do that. I'm not saying you have to but I'm just saying I did so you don't You know, so my dad, when I made a direct amends to him, the only thing he asked me was, this is my dad. My mom and dad got divorced in 82. The only thing, this Is my dad He says, Ryan, I just want you to take care of your mother and do what AA tells you to do. See, my dad was an alcohol rehab counselor back in the late 60s, early 70s, and he worked in an insane asylum. And he worked with an alcoholic doctor, and AA brought meetings in there. And he knew it worked. And he always told me to come back for you. And I always told him he was nuts because AA didn't work. AA works fine. I just didn't worth AA. If you do nothing here, you get nothing. Don't take AA's butt. Nothing but suggestions. I'm sure you guys have heard that in your lovely meetings around here. Oh, it's just a program of suggestions. But I agree because it's in the big book. But it's the only suggestion we have. If you don't want to do it, go do something else. It encourages you to. Well, I look at it like that. What do you mean by that? I don't understand. You see, there's a long thread of recovery here. And during that process, I heard a lot of people. And my son, Gage, is one of them. He told me one day, he says, either me or the bottle, Dad. And I said, get away from me. Go to your grandpa's house. And what that meant was walk across four lanes of busy traffic because I needed to drink. The next day, his mother came in and took him from me. You know what I just said? She didn't take him from you. She come in and got her son so he'd be safe. I used to say that statement from this podium. What I know today, that's not true. I couldn't differentiate the truth from the false until I met you. I can tell you when I made direct amends to that woman several times. and I can tell you that one time it was time for that boy to move back home with me because he was my best friend love that boy, love that today I'm the best dad ever could be with him, talked to him this morning tell him about you and it was time, I had all the lawyers lined up for him to move back from Virginia, he was there he was on board I was onboard, lawyers on board and Alcoholics Anonymous kicks in counsel with a sponsor, counsel with my wife. The first unselfish thing that I really truly did in Alcoholics Anonymous with a group conscious of my wife was, he's better off in Virginia with her. And I had to tell that boy when we talked to her. We talked to Her. The book talks about approaching the man you hate. I hated Her. Could not, I hated Her. That's an understatement. She knows. I could hate Her, hated Her. But the book tells us to do that. We counseled with Her and we made a decision to leave Him there with her and he didn't speak to me for a long time after that he was mad it was the best decision we ever made and it's only because of you he has a beautiful life today he's abundant he had a full page college everything for her she was doing very well when it come time to go to go see his graduation in virginia i also not come from humble beginnings and you guys may not understand that but it's an understatement to say that i had nothing but i had everything because I had you. We had everything because we had you, which we were happy and less stressed then than we are now. Well, nothing that we had, but my old sponsor and say, Hey, there's nowhere to go, but here up from here, buddy, you have nothing. You're all right. Nothing from nothing, still nothing. And so, but when, when it comes time for the graduation, I was out weeding around this car in my driveway. Many of you guys have been to my house and, and I was weeding me around and I looked up in the sky and I said, God, and we need $350 to stay at the hand and we didn't have it. Now, if you're sitting in this room and don't have it, you understand what I'm saying. But if you sit in this ring with a big pile of money, it's like, it says $350. That was like $3 million to us then. And I took these earplugs out and I said it out loud, God, why didn't I just sell this car to the junk man to stop by here? And I heard glug, glug. And his car pulls up, the big truck pulls up and says, hey buddy, you want to sell that car? I said, yeah, how about $350? He said, I'll be back this evening. And he did. He come back and we went to go see my son graduate you know where we went we went to his mother's home this big beautiful home and a big beautiful graduation everything crab cakes and the whole nine yards i'm like what and my son at the time would come walk up to me and alice and take her diet pepsi and think hey can i have a drink because still then he thought you see the disease of alcoholism is like throwing a rock in the pond it hits the water and the ripples come out from recovery from the disease and everybody i affect everybody everybody that come in contact with me was affected but today you take that same rock up and you hit the pond and all those ripples come out as all the people we get to positively affect. We get to be here with you sharing the good news and seeing you beautiful people in Rochester. I can tell you fast forward, we made it through that graduation and through the years this process of building this relationship back with his mother and my son and co-parenting and she and her, we got married, he got married and she shared the mother-son dance with her wife, Allison. She shared the mother's son dance at his big wedding that we got to be a part of with my son. Last year, we're sitting in Wilmington, North Carolina and I'm sitting at a diner's drive-in dive joint. We're sitting there and my son, am I turning 50? And my son says, Allison, are you going to tell Dad where he's going for his 50th birthday? I said, where's that? And he said, you're going to Hawaii. Now, if you guys know me, know that I'm cheap. I'm like, no, I'm not. No, we're not. And Allison's like, oh, we can afford it. No, but we can. And then he says, yes, you are, Dad, because she's very well off and they've done very well, her and her husband. And they bought a big, beautiful condo in Honolulu right over the water. she says no mom wants you to go for your 50th birthday i floored me and you know you taught me to say one thing thank you because i wanted to say oh no i don't you don't need to do that you don'T have to do THAT not me no no no because i'll give you the shirt off my back but don't you dare try to give me yours you taught me to SAY THANK YOU and we're coming back from a trip somewhere and she's on the phone with my listen to what i'm getting ready to tell you we're coming back from a trip somewhere, and my wife Allison, who you just heard talk, was on the phone with her, my ex-wife, and I could hear them talking. And she's saying, oh, you got to take Ryan to Pearl Harbor. You know how much he loves history? Oh yeah. And Allison's like, oh yeah, well, Ryan loves this, and you got go there, and they're talking back and forth. My wife and my ex wife. You see, I used to sit in rooms of our politics and see here guys like me behind a podium, and i'll be new, like my friend, and say that would never happen for me. it would never a is huge that i mean it does that for people but it would never happen for me and i hope to god i can be the god tell you today if you're thinking it can't happen for you i hope i can share the good news and tell you it can we spent over nine days in honolulu hawaii last year last february and we're going back again this year we flew not first class but to step down two guy and gal lived out of a food pantry over and back we got to do everything i got to go through a beautiful beautiful reef holding my wife's hand snorkeling holding her hand for 45 minutes and we have to look at the watch i get out of the water you can't make that up you know i was i was indignant and i was sitting there sucking my thumb like a cry baby because it was like the second to last day and we're sitting on a beach and i thought one thing i wanted to do in hawaii is go to an aa meeting and we couldn't she looks on the phone so there's one in 800 feet from us in like two 45 minutes so they go up there and look and he says supposed to be the blue tent in the state park the blue tent there there's nobody there and there's a guy two guys i was a guy talking to lifeguards and i walk over and said hey are you guys friends of bill and the lifeguard said what and this big hawaiian guy like huge no shirt on tattooed up said hey brah come here and he said my name's so-and-so i'm a friend of bill i got 30 plus 32 years and he says i don't know if they're having a meeting here today but that guy raking over there is getting ready for a meeting so we go over to that guy he's a little new guy right then say yeah we got a meeting at 80 o'clock man You've got to come back. You've Got to Come Back. I see a tent, and I said, Allison, could that be a meeting? We're exhausted. And Allison's like, no, we're done, Ryan. We're going. So we walk back, get the car, drive back by. We go by, and there was a tent there that says Alano Club, and they're having a meeting. And we couldn't get over because we were out in construction. So now I'm really sucking my thumb. So we get back to the condo, and we're sitting there, and I pull up on the meeting app, and it was 1 at 8 o'clock. It's a big book study. What? So we take our big books that flew with us to Hawaii, honestly, in our bags. And we go to this meeting and we get in. I don't know if you guys know it or not, but there's a ghetto in Hawaii. Very seedy place. I mean, you know, big high-rises, stuff hanging on like, whoa, where are we at? Don't know what we should be here kind of place. The book says you can go to the sortest places on Earth if you're there to carry God's work and do this deal. And we pull in and Alice is like, really not liking it. And we go across this parking lot, and Allison says, whoa, wait a minute. This is for prison men. I said, what do you mean? People deferment? She says, no, people coming out of prison going back into society. I'm like, oh, my people, let's go. And she's like, nope, nope. No. And then all of a sudden, we look up, and there's a sign that says AMU at 730. We walk in. We go down this hallway, and it's a beautiful chapel just like this beautiful church. Sorted places on earth, God will keep you safe and protected. What a gift. And we sat there, and it was surely about 10 minutes until this little guy come in. And listen, you guys have met me today. I'm coming at him like a spider monkey. I'm like, hey, what's up, big book? You know, we're just having a tale with this guy. Another guy comes in, and they're having a debate whether it's a speaker meeting or whether it'S a lead meeting. But none of that really matters. What matters is the guy from AA listened to you guys being of service with your commitments. The guy from EA didn't show up. Okay? so then the guy none of them there had any idea how to chair a meeting and the little guy that we talked to points at me and Allison and says I don't know guys but ask those two because they seem to know everything about AA and he said well you talk for us and I said come on Allison let's do it and she's like you do it Ryan it's all guys come on and uh and I'm like okay so I get up there and the funny thing is she's sitting in all these queues and they have people walk up to the front of the room to read and she'd like my wife says I'll just read from here I was like no ma'am does customary for this group you come up front and she walks up and reads how it works and those guys were the most kindest fellows more inappropriate in any way a mean guy sitting in the front row with his arms folded saying that you know he was saying that that that he don't read i said that's great we teach people how to read an aa read the nine step promises and we helped them i did page 17 very quickly i'll end with this i did paid 17 and find my story for a half hour into it a lot differently than I've done today and within 15 minutes of that talk those big hulk of looks like WWE wrestlers scary men many of them were crying in the room including the guy that would that almost refused to read and when they shared when they share there's a big guy in the back it was the scariest looking one he said my name is so-and-so I'm from the big island I guess that's the other island he just got out of prison he said I'd seen my family in three and a half years, but after I heard you today, I'll know that someday I will. He said, you guys share hope. I don't know where you come from, but we've never heard this stuff before. I tell you that story to tell you what you guys are doing here is so vitally important. Sometimes the gifts of sobriety can take the gift of sobrietty. The good is the enemy of the best, Bill Wilson says. We can't get so well that we forget from whence we came. We can't go to the most ordered places on earth to carry this message. It taught us a valuable lesson that in God's hands, we're safe and protected no matter what. And I got to share from that podium that day to them guys that of all the things I described to you, it was just a crumb of what Allison and I got to do. And I said, you guys live here. It's nothing to you. I was telling you guys that about Rochester. You guys don't think it's beautiful, but we do because you live here, right? But the most beautiful thing I got to do that whole trip, the most highlight of that whole trip was being there with those guys and being able to share the good news in Honolulu, Hawaii in the ghetto you might not be able to get your head around that maybe I hope you do but it was so powerful because we have a we have a priceless gift that must be given away anytime anywhere I want to end with telling you this about this whole relationship thing I made the statement about AA's being the dumbest place don't pay attention to all my antics I will tell you this I didn't think I was worthy of a relationship when I did this same sound sex ideal I looked at my conduct I looked at this right here and I said, oh my goodness. I don't ever, I want to be single the rest of my life. But I'll tell you this. I wrote out all these things. Long walks on the beach, hand in hand, monogamous relationship, best friend, love of God, love of alcoholics, anonymous. And I laughed and I folded it up. And that man looked at me and said, what are you laughing about? You're doubting the power of God again. I said how do you know Jim? He said because I have it at home. Her name is Jane. And she cares more about your life than you do right now. Because she has my supper in the oven. Because she don't even want you to drink again. If you do what this book says and you stay hand-in-hand with God, you'll have that and then something. And I can tell you guys, I only got what I wrote out of soul but self short because I have that. You just heard her give a talk. She's truly my best friend. And me and my best friends have been on this journey for the last 16 years hand-In-Hand. We stand at the door when you new guys come in with your kids holding them like this. I don't know what to do. Sit down, buddy. We'll teach you how to put them in the car seat. Sit down. We'll teach you how to, God's gifts and God's do-overs, the gifts of God. You know, I wasn't there for my kids and being able to teach them to ride a bike, but I got to teach your children how to ride the bike in front of my house. I get to see Ryan and Reese's kids run through my backyard and they're the most beautiful kids you've ever met. It puts joy in my heart any time I get to see them because they have beautiful parents. You guys are beautiful parents, Alcoholics Anonymous is a beautiful precious gift. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing us to be of service here today in Rochester New York. I hope someday that we somehow in some small form can repay that gift to you. I want to say thank you for your service today. I wanna say thank you to this group for doing the amazing job of carrying this message each and every week, and for those of you that are out there in the trenches, thank you. For those of either sitting across the table from the guy or a gal on their darkest day of their darkest life putting your hand on theirs and saying no buddy me too I know buddy, me too. There's a way out we can absolutely agree. We can join together in brotherly and harmonious action and that's an Alcoholics Anonymous right here in Rochester, New York. I love you guys. My name is Ryan Nalpasky.