Steps 10 Through 12 Are Not Maintenance — Every Sober Year Needs New Brakes – Jeremy M.

have an AA meeting hi everybody my name is Misty and I'm an alcoholic welcome to the Monday night blue chip speakers meeting at the NAVA club where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one a year more of sobriety tells his or her story this reading is based on a passage from 29 of the big books of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God these give a fair cross section of our membership and clear-cut idea what has happened in their lives we hope that no one will consider these self-revealing accounts and bad taste our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aabluchitspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker and we believe that is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say yes I'm one of them too and I must have this thing tonight I get to you introduce not only is he wearing snazzy socks but he's the best dressed man in Atlanta tonight been sober since 2013 and hails I'm not going to tell you his whole story I'm going to introduce to you Jeremy M so my name is Jeremy I'm an alcoholic and I say that to respect the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous while I'm standing in an Alcoholics Anonymous room my personal belief system is that I'm a person that's in long-term recovery alcoholism is not who I am it is something that I have but I do respect the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and bottom line is is I have a desire not to drink today and I'm a member of AA and AA has saved my life my sobriety date is February 4th of 2013 so I just celebrated 10 years in recovery last month that is a pretty big deal for somebody like me who who never thought that I would even be able to buy a loaf of bread and I'm not going to or a gallon of milk out of a grocery store. I mean, to me, that's what looked normal. So to be sent in here with 10 years in recovery, speaking in front of all of you, is a pretty big miracle to me. I have taken the 12 steps with a competent sponsor, and I have also taken men through the 12 steps. I believe in the 12 steps, and I believe in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't believe that it's the only way that people get well. But I know that it was the best way for me to get well, and I don't think I would have made it any other way. The reason why I'm here tonight is because somebody from AA asked me to be here, and I was taught that you say yes to AA when asked, even if it's a long drive and even if it's past your bedtime. You say yes. So there's a couple of things that I want to read. I believe that if you start in the book and if you tell the truth in between and if you end in the book, you're probably not going to screw it up. So that's what I'm going to do this evening. So, in Bill Wilson's story on page 14, it says, My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all of my affairs. Particularly, was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me? Faith without works is dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work with... through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink. And if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us, it is just like that. So that was Evie Thatcher talking to Bill Wilson when Evie was two months sober. So that imperative need to work with others and share the message of AA has been passed on from that. The second thing that I'm going to read here is a quote from Bill Wilson. And it says, So, I've already expressed a little bit, but it is an honor to be here in front of all of you guys and have the opportunity to share the message of AA. And I'm going to read a quote from Bill Wilson. And I see that my mother has just joined us. And this is the first time that she will have ever been in a meeting with me or heard me speak. Love you, Mom. And my brother's on his way in. Amazing. So, my sponsor that worked the steps with me this time said to me many, many, many times, Sobriety and recovery is a gift that is denied so many. So we have to be grateful for it every single day. And I am. I have a list of 46 friends. I have a list of 46 friends in my phone. And I have them read every year during Awareness Month. I'm not going to read those to you today, but those are 46 people that didn't get to be here today. I also have a young man that I've been working with for several years who just picked up his one year in December. He planned on being here this evening, but his brother is in Emory dying from alcohol use disorder this evening. So this is real. I know a lot of speakers can be really funny, and I don't think I'm going to be really funny this evening. I don't think I'm going to make you guys laugh too much, but I'm going to do my very best to transmit the message of AA. I have these little index cards up here, but before I got in here this evening, I asked God, I invited God to steal the show. And he reminded me that we had had this conversation before, and that's why I was here. So I don't have to keep reminding him. I'm uncomfortable praying. I still am to this day. I use the prayers that are in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Those prayers say everything that I need to say, and it's how I was taught to pray. And when the sponsor that took me through the steps this time, when I told him I was still uncomfortable praying, he said, get on your knees and say, God help me. I don't know what I'm doing. So that's how I started. Today I say things to God like, above all else, your will be done, even if you have to drag me kicking and screaming. Because I know the likelihood of me not paying attention is pretty high. But that's my goal. And all of the prayers that are in the big book are prayers to be relieved of the bondage of self and prayers to be relieved of shortcomings. And all of them have one common theme, so that we can better be of service to God and to our fellows. And that's true for almost every one of them that I know of. So I think if I stick to those, I'll be okay. So a little bit about the story before. Tom, I love you very much. I hope that I can do this in a way that does not make anyone uncomfortable. But first of all, I had a genetic predisposition. This illness ran in my family. My father was afflicted by it very, very badly. And my earliest memory was when I was one and a half years old. And he was brutal. I didn't know how old I was until I told that story to a sister of mine. And she said, you were one and a half. And that's the day this happened. And that's the day this happened. But my biological father fought this disease. And I believe that it ended up eventually taking his life. So there's a genetic predisposition. As a child, I remember feeling very uncomfortable. I remember thinking everybody else's household was different than ours. Everybody else seemed to... have their stuff together and have a nice family. And they seemed to have money. And there was just all kinds of reasons why I thought I was different and I wasn't measuring up to other people. I experienced molestation at the age of three years old. I knew I was gay when I was five years old. So one thing piling up on top of another. I ended up to be a pretty confused kid. And that's... Then I started acting out. I would steal the neighbor's mail. I would get my brothers and sisters in trouble. I would destroy school property. I would break into the school. So underneath this very shy child that seemed to be very insecure... I was insecure. But underneath all of that, there was this deviance that started coming out. And I knew when I was really, really young, I had this really deviance. And I knew that I was going to be inside. And I would get in all kinds of trouble. And I would always get away with it. And so that continued on. But it was a way of me acting out the way that I was feeling inside. I became sexually promiscuous at a very young age. And at the age of 11 years old, there was a time that I was supposed to be doing the dishes in the kitchen. And I was hiding in a tree in the backyard. It was the same tree the fire department had had to come get me out of multiple times. But when I came back in, I had this defense mechanism when people would ask me... When I was in trouble, or I thought I was in trouble, I would look down in my lap and I would refuse to talk. So I did that because I was supposed to be doing the dishes and I was not doing the dishes. I was hiding in the tree. And somewhere during a conversation with my older sister Jessica and my mother, I figured out that there could be a story here that could get me a lot of attention. And that I could be a victim. And that story grew until I was in front of a police detective investigating what's supposed to have happened to me. That lie changed the trajectory of my entire family's life. We ended up getting taken away by the Department of Family and Children's Services. We can talk about it now, but Mom kidnapped us out of their custody and we traveled around the country. Running from the FBI, we were on the front page of a whole lot of papers. And my parents were not only Mormons, but they were hippies too. So if you can put those two things together. So we traveled around to rainbow gatherings, hiding from the FBI, wearing, you know, hats and jackets and things like that for people who wouldn't recognize us. Eventually we got caught and my parents had to fight the battle in court for kidnapping us from state court. And they were acquitted of those charges. But I think I took a lot away from my brothers and sisters. And that wasn't uncommon for me. When I was that age, I did that a lot. Like I would get them in trouble. I would tell a lot of lies. And that particular thing ate me up for a whole lot of years because once that story started, there was no taking it back. There was no taking it back. And it went on. And I remember my mother talking about it. And people would talk about it. What happened to Jeremy. And it ate me up every time. I always knew it was a total lie. There was nothing in that story that was true. Not one thing. So that was the beginning of the many, many, many, many, many, many secrets that I would come to and be terrified of ever coming out. So the first time I ever put a chemical in my body, I believe I was around the age of 13 years old. And with all of that, with everything culminating up to that 13 year old boy, I believe that the disease was fully developed in me before I put a chemical in my body. Because when I did, it was instantaneous and I could not stop. Once I found chemicals, it could not be stopped. It was an escape hatch for me. And it was all I wanted to do. And that's what I would continue to do and I don't think I would draw a sober breath until I was 18 years old. When one day I woke up and I decided I was going to go live with my grandmother and I was going to cut my hippie hair short and I was going to go get a GED because I hadn't gone to school past the, I think I started the sixth grade but came out of school. And that was part of that whole thing too. Oh, poor Jeremy and he's being bullied and he can't handle the school. Look at what's happening here. I'm like, oh, that was just part of that story. Looking back on it now, I don't know that I had the cognitive ability to make really good decisions at that point in my life, but it's still true. So I decided to go get a GED. I lived with my grandmother for three months. I went to adult education and I studied and I got that GED. And then I started smoking some pot with some guys at work and that was it, we were back out. So seven more years before I would have my official introduction to recovery. Being that we were hippies and we weren't really all that involved in the societal norms and really, I mean, it was just a different lifestyle. I didn't watch Star Wars until I was way into recovery. Like I didn't know who all the actors were you guys knew about. I didn't know, hard for me to have a conversation with normal people because I didn't know about all that stuff. I was in the woods. We were, I mean, we were doing all kinds of crazy stuff but we weren't, we weren't a part of all that. But in Athens, Georgia at the age of 25 years old, my beautiful little sister, Sanaria convinced me to go to Miles Street, which was a 28 day program. And she had actually bribed me over there. And once I got there, I decided I didn't want to go in but she told me they would come out and get me. I didn't know at the time that they would not come out and get me. So she said, if you don't go in, they're going to come out and get you because I've already told them you're coming. And she had, but I didn't know they wouldn't come out and get me or I wouldn't have went in, but I did go in. I did go in because I thought they would come out and get me. So I will never forget what it felt like to go into that place. I remember feeling relief the moment I walked to the doors. There was a pressure that kind of came off, even though I didn't want to go in, as soon as I went in, I was like, ugh, I don't have to fight here. And then I will never forget a woman that ran the place. Her name was Vida Farr. And she sat across the table from me and she had me sign paperwork to enter the 28 day program from the detox. And I lost it at that table. I was so flooded with emotions when I signed that paper because she had convinced me, she told me that they were very worried about me because at that point, I was using some pretty powerful forms of alcohol. You know, there's a lot of different types of alcohol that weren't around when this book was written, but my type of alcohol was all of them. And the way that I was using them was pretty dangerous and Vida was pretty worried about me living. So she convinced me to sign that paper and I started crying when I signed the paper. I felt the biggest relief signing that paper saying, I'm gonna go into this 28 day program. My very first 12 step meeting was at the Biscayne Room right next to Miles Street. I didn't know that anyone else had a problem like me. I was unaware. I thought I was the only one that did things the way I did them. I didn't know that there was like thousands, thousands of people that did that. And when I walked into that room and I sat through my first meeting, I came out and this guy named, this guy named Randy was driving the bus that took us back to the thing. And I told him I'd worked my first step and I was so, I was elated. I was like, oh my God, like, this is great. Like I was so excited. I was gonna be sober forever. That's not how it went. So anyway, my second meeting, I forget the name of this meeting and there's probably a reason for that. But the second meeting I introduced myself the wrong way. And the whole meeting was about defending the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I left out of there with a pretty bad taste in my mouth. So I make sure that when I'm in meetings today and when I share, I don't say things like that. I don't say things that are gonna run the newcomer off. In Bill's story, he says we meet regularly so that the newcomer can find the fellowship that they seek. And I don't know how many newcomers I have talked to in my 10 years in recovery that said they would never go back to AA because of something that was said to them when they went. And I also heard a lot of them say that they thought it was a religious program. And for anybody in here who thinks that it's a religious program, 100% is not. As a matter of fact, what sold Bill on Evie Thatcher's idea was when Evie Thatcher told Bill, why don't you choose your own conception of God. And at that moment, Bill had his moment. And he said, wow, all that is required is the willingness to believe. So this isn't a religious program. Bill Wilson said that he conceded the Jesus Christ thinking in his 20th, 18ia trillion at a time for people with disabilities or sleep like molestations or someone living in the United States, called me a major godQuebelleon. And the quotes took six weeks. While the Christ was a great man, not too closely followed by those who claimed him. When I heard that, I was like, heck yeah, man, I feel the same way. Like, that's me. Like, I've thought those thoughts myself. And I've later found that AA can be the same way. People can be in recovery for a really super long time, and when they say stuff to people coming in the door, you think, yeah, that's not really, that's not in the book, and that's not how AA is represented. So I want to be careful for myself, just to be clear. When I say God, it's my conception of God, and my conception of God is I don't understand God, and I don't have to. I know that there is a power in this universe that's been working in my life for a really long time, and it works really great when I stay out of the way, but I don't have a real definition for it. I don't understand it, and it's okay. Like, seeds turn into trees. The sun keeps burning for billions of years. Years, like, babies grow in wombs. Like, I don't have to understand all that. That's really big. Like, it's really huge. Like, there's really big stuff there, and I don't have to get it. There are a couple of reasons why I chose AA, because there would, some people would say that I belonged in another fellowship, but I disagreed with them. I believed I belonged in AA. And there were a couple of things that really sold me, and one of them was in the doctor's opinion when the allergy was explained. That made sense to me. Because I had gone my entire life not knowing what in the heck was going on with me. And that made sense. It made sense. Something happened in me when I put chemicals in my body that didn't happen to other people, and I couldn't stop. It affected me differently. And I'm 100% sold. The other thing was on page 23, when it said that if you ask him why he does it, he may come up with one of a hundred alibis that may sound plausible to him at the time. He might get irritable, frustrated. But every once in a while, he'll be honest. And he'll tell you that he has no more idea than you do, why he does it. And I don't know how many times I sat with partners and family sitting around me. I heard, don't you love me? Just stop. I heard everything was going so good. Like you were doing so good. Why'd you do it? And again, I would look in my lap. I had no answer. I really didn't understand why I did it. So that made really, really, really good sense to me. And then, one of my sponsors that was sponsoring me around the time I was coming to this clubhouse back in 2006, I was arrested twice within four months on Chamblee Tucker Road. I had never heard this read out of the book before, but in the downstairs of the Triangle Club, my sponsor, Carl, had me read this. And it says, We found that God does not make too hard of terms. with those who seek him. To us, the realm of the Spirit is broad, roomy, all-inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. But that resonated with my spirit of discernment. That made sense to me. I don't know about you guys, but I've always had this spirit of discernment that made me know when something seemed right or when something didn't seem right. And that sounded right to me. And it definitely contradicted a lot of things that I had heard before that made me think that God wasn't for me and that the spiritual realm wasn't for me. I had no problem believing that there was something bigger than me, but I did have some issues with feeling like it wanted anything to do with me. So that was another thing that let me know that I belonged in AA. Like I said, in the back of that van, I told Randy, Get step one. I'm ready to do this thing. I'm on fire. I'm going to be in recovery forever. The next 11 years would be, could be characterized by chronic setbacks. One after the other, after the other, after the other. I'd go into sober living. I would stay six months. One time I stayed even two years. But then as soon as I would get out, I would have a setback. And it was the fourth and the fifth step that terrified me. Those were the two steps I was not going to do. And every time I thought I had mustered up the guts to do it, I would get a sponsor and he'd say, Do you know you're powerless? I would say, Well, give it away. He'd say, Do you believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity? And I would be like, Well, obviously. A lot of other people have gotten better. And he would have me get on my knees and say the third step prayer. And then he would tell me to go home and write my fourth set and get it ready. All this stuff. We would go through that and I'd be like, Oh, God. I don't know this person. I don't trust this person. No, not doing it. So that's how my sponsorship went. For a long, long, long, long time. And I don't know what it is about sponsorship up here back then, but that's what happened almost every single time. They did one, two, say your prayer, go home and write your fourth step. And I don't know this guy. So I used what's on page 74. It says that there might be no suitable person available. I was like, That's true. That's true. I ignored what it said on page 75 that we must not use this as a mere excuse. I had selective hearing. Another thing happened to me. I had a really good friend up in North Georgia and we were mountain biking one day. And he was saying, Man, you got to do that fourth and fifth step. You got to do the fourth and fifth step. And I said, Man, I just don't think I can do it. And he said, Well, unless I've done this or this, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Guess what was on my fourth step? This and this. I told him how helpful he was later. I ended up going to jail a few times in 2006. I mentioned that. I ended up in a lot of psychiatric hospitals. I ended up in the North Georgia hospital system many, many, many, many times. I had some really bad experiences with nurses there. And I was one of those that had to be suicidal every time I went in or else I couldn't get services. But it was rough. It got really, really, really ugly and rough. I don't want to tell a whole bunch of details because I think that everybody in this room knows where those dark places go. And the things that we do and the places that we end up. It's really scary. It's really dark. It's really not cool. But the bottom line is that before recovery, I was a shattered shell of a man. There was no life in my eyes. I still look at a mugshot that I have from 2006. And I don't see anything behind those eyes. Those eyes were dead. There was one thing that I had my mind on. And that was the only life that I knew. I lived in constant fear. I wished for death. I thought that the only way to escape the fear that I was feeling was to die. I didn't find any value in my life. I was a liability to society. My conduct was considered reckless at best. I was hopeless. And I had accepted that I would die a tragic death. And I welcomed it. When I was 10 months sober in a halfway house in Florida. When I did not go to get sober. Did not attend on staying sober. And I'm really running out of time here. At 10 months sober, I was on the side of my bed in the halfway house. And I was listening to Jesus music. And I was crying my eyes out. And I was really super angry with everybody there. And I had all this discomfort. And I was planning on going to use. I was trying to make it work. I was trying to figure out how I was going to do it. I had my little dog, Maya, there. And for the first time in my entire life, I could not figure out a way to make it work. Every time I thought about it, I was like, Nope, this is going to happen. This is going to happen. This is going to happen. I'm going to be right back here. Nope, that's not going to happen. It's hot outside. You're going to run out of gas. You're going to sell your phone. Maya is with you. She doesn't deserve that. Like, everything turned back to, No, you can't make it work. I knew the way that I felt wasn't acceptable. And I knew that that wasn't ever going to work. And I didn't want to repeat the cycle and end up right back where I was and had been doing for 11 years. So the only other choice was, what? To do what I had not done. And I was going to get a sponsor. And I was going to work the steps. And so I made that commitment to myself in that very moment. And I knew right then I had worked step one. I had not just thought about it, but I had internalized it. And I was honest about the fact that no matter what I did, it was not going to work. And that the only answer for me in that moment was to choose recovery because I couldn't stand the way that things were right then. I had been attending the same meeting for 10 months. It was every Sunday morning at 10 o'clock. It was a men's meeting. I thought all week about who I was going to choose to be my sponsor. By the time I got to the meeting, I had no idea, but I was like, I'm going out of there with one. And when I got to the meeting, I sat down and in walked this 6'5 marine looking guy. He actually was an ex-marine. But he had a leather-bound big book. And when he opened it up, the pages fell out on the floor. And I said, that's him. He had never been to that meeting before ever. And I said, that's him. And I made a comment to him during the meeting. I said, your pages are really falling apart there. And he said, I was really sick. And after the meeting, I told him I was really sick. And that I needed him to be my sponsor. And that my fourth and fifth step were going to be heinous. And that I really didn't care what he thought about it, but I was ready to get well. And he said, okay. So, that's how God works in my life. He brings people when it's time. So, we met outside of that meeting every single Sunday at the picnic table. We started from the very front of the book. And we read the four words, paragraph by paragraph. I learned about the history of AA. I learned about all that, which I had never read that before. I never read Bill's story before. I thought that was the dumbest thing ever. The story of a stockbroker? Like, I don't relate to that at all. He made me underline everything I related to in the first eight pages. And then we read the second eight pages together. And this guy was on fire when he was reading those second eight pages. He was to the moon. And I was like, this isn't real. It really isn't that exciting. I understand why he was so excited now. We continued on. Step two, I worked at the Biscayne room. When I walked in there from Miles Street, I never had to work another step two again. I saw a room full of people who had gotten well. And something got them well. And they were doing good. So, step two was done. I never took that back. I never had to question it again. That's just the way step two went. So, step three was a little bit bigger of a challenge. And before we did step three, my sponsor told me to go home and write everything about my life from the time I started drinking up until then. And I thought, boy, this is my chance. I'm going to tell him how awful I was and how many awful things and where it took me and all that stuff. And when I got back to him the next Sunday, he didn't let me read it. I said, well, why did you have me write it? And he said, write the Jeremy show on the top of it. That was the Jeremy show. And what happens, the show doesn't come off very well. He said, so that is your life on self-will. So, the book says that we have to be convinced that a life run on self-will can hardly be a success, right? And there's my proof. I've got the Jeremy show on paper in black and white in front of me. He doesn't want to hear it. He just said, write that. That's how that happened. A lot of people will argue that the first step is the most important. The first step is the most important step in the program. The book says that step three is the keystone of the triumphant arch through which we pass to freedom. And the keystone is the stone that holds all the other ones in place. That tells me that it's pretty important. So, I start practicing step three. In the beginning, you know, it's just about surrendering alcohol. I'm not going to drink anymore. I'm going to surrender it. I'm going to surrender it. And over time, that step has taken on a whole new meaning. It is surrender everything. When I took this job four years ago with the Georgia Council for Recovery, they said, where do you see yourself in five years? And I said, I don't do that. I just don't. I don't do that anymore. It doesn't do any good. Where I'm at in five years is wherever God's going to want me to be. And here's a quote by Elizabeth Gilbert that I love. It says, you are afraid to surrender because you don't want to lose control. But you never had control. All you had was anxiety. When I give up control, I have less anxiety. I don't have to make things happen the way that I think they do. So, step four and step five, the steps that I was the most terrified of. When we got to those steps, because we started at the beginning of the book, I knew Tim. And Tim knew me. And he broke that step down into sections. He sent me home with my resentments. And we came back the next Sunday and did it. He sent me home with each section. Fears, sex, all of it. One week at a time. And before we got, we just did it. And I didn't feel anything happening at the time. But my fifth set of promises were realized later. Six and seven, we'll brush over this. Six and seven are a lifetime. You know, at first it's about not drinking. Then it becomes about picking up your cigarette butts. Then it might become about picking up your dog poop. Then it might come about recycling. Then it might come be faithful. You know, whatever problems are most glaring in my life present themselves. And they become a big deal right then. And then I work on them little bit, little bit, little bit at a time. Steps eight and nine. So, if we get to steps eight and nine, we're going to have a list of people that we need to make amends to that we've already forgiven. Because in step four, we realized that everybody was doing the best they could with what they knew at that time. And we're going to want the same forgiveness that we... We're going to want to afford them the same forgiveness that we would ask for ourselves. So, we're going to have a list of people that we already realized, you know, hey, they're people too. I'm a person too. And we're going to go to it. And I was able to go to my mother and tell her about that awful lie. And her response was, if it wasn't for that lie, we wouldn't have met all those really cool people that we met while we were traveling. That was her response. She said, I wouldn't take it back. We learned a lot. Love you, Mom. Steps 10, 11, and 12 oftentimes are referred to as the maintenance steps. And there is no maintenance in recovery. If you maintain a car, you're putting a new radiator, new tires, new brakes. You have to continue to put new stuff on it. So, around year six, I started referring to my recovery as recovery 6.0, recovery 7.0, recovery 8.0. So, every year, there has to be some growth. And there has to be... There has to be something added to it because we have to stay busy with recovery. Bill Wilson said that the principles in this program are enough to keep a person busy for the rest of their lives. And he wasn't lying. And in step 10, it says that our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetimes. So, there is no finish. There's just more work. They say this program is altruistic. But when Bill went to that phone, he was not being altruistic. He was trying to save his own butt, not to drink. And I... When I took a man through this book for the first time and it came alive, it wasn't altruistic for me anymore either. Because I was getting way more out of it than he was. And, like, my sponsor was on fire. Like, I started reading it that way. And I was like, whoa, listen to you. So, we will go. And this is how we're going to end. I said we're going to start in a book. And we're going to end in a book. And we're going to end in a book. That way we can't mess it up. On page 164, it says, We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who's still sick. The answers will come. If your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right. Whatever him looks like to you. And great events will come to pass. For you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Get freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit. And you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. God bless you.