Taking Everyone’s Moral Inventory but My Own Was My Version of Step 4 – Don

Melbourne AA Steps Weekend 2006 This is our Friday night guest speaker, Don. Thank you very much. Well, I'm Don and I'm an alcoholic. I hope you can see me down there because I'm a little bit short one end and I remember they gave me a very flowery reception one time and introduced me and the chairperson said, Don, would you please stand up? I said, I am standing up. Yeah, well, look, I haven't done this for a while. I'm a bit rusty. I feel a little bit like Elizabeth Tarler's fifth husband. I know what to do, but I'm not sure how to make it interesting. But I'll do my very best. Now, look, I never ever ran into anyone who set out to become an alcoholic. And I certainly didn't. I came from a family of non-drinkers, really, and they weren't wowsers. They just were not drinkers. My mother never smoked, never swore, never went to church or any of those things. But a good lady. I was very involved in sport. And I think I was about 14 and a half years of age. And there was a bike race from a place called Wagga Wagga where I lived to a little town some 30 mile away called Lockhart. And as we sprinted down the main street, there was a wheel separating first, second and third. And I'd run third. And I'd run third in this pretty big bike race. Won a few pounds. They were pounds in those days. And what better could I do than buy the boys a drink? Because my mates were drinkers. I always liked older company than myself. And I bought the boys a beer. And I discovered something that night. I got drunk for the very first time in my life. And having experienced that, I knew the feeling wasn't too good in the finish when I woke up in the morning and made a decision not to do that anymore. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly didn't. I certainly wouldn't stop drinking. But when I did next time, I just wouldn't drink so much. And it would be okay. Well, they were famous last words for me. In the bike game, I was a sprinter, not a stayer. And I was the same when it came to drinking. And I couldn't get it into me quick enough. I didn't stay with the beer very long because I graduated very quickly to stuff that would do the job a bit quicker. And I found myself at around 19 years of age. I'd had a half-hearted suicide attempt. I sat on the end of my bed with a loaded shotgun in my mouth and a bottle of brandy in one hand, a glass in the other. And I'm trying to pull the trigger with my big toe. I managed to kick my thong off, which wasn't easy. And I'm about to pull the trigger. I've got the shotgun in my mouth. And something says to me, you know, Don, if you pull that trigger, you've had your last drink. Oh, gee, I said, that's a bit serious. So I said, I'm going to have a drink. I said, I'm going to have a drink. So I very carefully unloaded the shotgun, put it back under the bed and went out and got another bottle of brandy. And, you know, things weren't going too good. My mates didn't sort of want to know me by now. And that suited me fine because I didn't like them now anyway. And they interfered with my drinking. And I used to say strange things. I used to say, you know, Don, you can't drink. I'd say, can't drink? I spend more time at the pub drinking than these folks do. What does that mean, I can't drink? But I guess they should have explained it a bit better, not that I've taken any notice. But what they meant was, Don, you're the sort of bloke who shouldn't drink because when you drink, you change. And, of course, that was true. But being an alcoholic, I very quickly found a solution to that. I just gave my mates away and did it on my own. And I preferred my own company because people used to go into hotels and they'd want to play darts and skoits and, you know, I went in there to drink, you know. But anyway, it wasn't too long after this that I was getting drunk. I was getting in a bit of trouble with a grog and my mother had remarried and she'd married, of all people, a guy who used to play football for Melbourne down here at the old Melbourne Cricket Ground many years ago, a fellow who won the Morris Medal up in a little town called Yarrawonga. And they brought him down here, worked for the Shell Oil Company, et cetera. And he was the biggest drunk in Wagga Wagga. And he went down to a place called Hyderbray Hospital, which was the first hospital, a private hospital in Australia, ever treating alcoholism. And he met a fellow there called Dr Sylvester Minogue. And Dr Minogue goes back a long way. He was a psychiatrist, a Macquarie Street psychiatrist. And he finished up getting into alcoholics and non-alcoholics himself. But anyway, it was while I worked here in the family business. We had a 24-hour service station, restaurant, motel. And it was while I worked there on my way to Adelaide, I pulled in there one night, called him one night drunk. And he was there. He said, he got any money? I said, I'm going to Adelaide. And he said, well, you got any money? And I said, no. He said, well, if you wash the dishes, I'll give you a few bob in the morning, you can get on your way. So I did this, drunk, of course. And next morning, I didn't get to Adelaide. And I stayed. And I worked there, which was the greatest thing I ever did, because he was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he married my mother. And I used to go to these Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with him to keep my eye on him, because if he hurt my mother, I'd kill him. And when I went there, and I'm a smart fellow, you know, because I knew what was going on, I'd go to these meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I knew there was about five of them went to this meeting. And I knew they were looking for new members, because when I'd sit in that meeting, they used to talk about things about me. And they obviously had a meeting before the meeting, and they were trying to recruit new members, you see. But I played hard to get. I wasn't going to sort of get sucked in like that. So I'd stay off the grog for a little while. I'd turn up the next night, and I'd have a bottle of McWilliams Cream Sherry. I'd hide it in the geraniums outside the door. And in between speakers, I'd whip out and have a bit of a gargle. And they never knew, because when I drank, I was invisible, you know. So, you know, things weren't going too good. And so I got to the stage there where I was trying to give the grog away. And I sort of give it away for a little while. And the very fact I didn't drink, I'd go out and have a drink to celebrate the fact I didn't drink, you know. And then the whole cycle would start all over again. And it was during one of these periods of time that the old fellow, he'd never ever said anything to me about not drinking. He never tried to preach to me. He was an AA member. And it was during this period of time, he said, you know, Don, if you didn't drink, he said, you know, you could save a few, Bob, and we could buy ourselves a ute, you know. We could buy it, and I'll go your half. So it didn't take me long to save up 300 pounds. And he put in 300 pounds. And I hadn't had a drink for a few months, actually, now. And we bought this new ute, and it had my name on the side. And, oh, wonderful, you know. And I was washing it for about the fifth time in the third day I had it. And I noticed this little trapdoor around the back of the, under the car. And I wondered what's in here. I hadn't had a drink for, oh, I don't know, three months or whatever it might have been. So I opened up this little trapdoor where the spare tyre went in. And immediately my mind said, look at the gaps at the side of the spare tyre. You know, you could fit half a dozen bottles of McWilliam's Green Sherry in there. Not that I was going to do it. And then I argued with myself, oh, half a dozen. I reckon you'd fit seven in there, or maybe five. So I went out and bought a dozen. And there was about five bottles left over. Well, they couldn't waste them, you know. So I picked up a drink. And it was that night that as I drove over the Murrumbidgee River, over the bridge, I got a mate of mine out of bed. And it was because he was my mate that he came with me. And I said, oh, I've got a drink. And he said, oh, I've got a drink. And I said, oh, I've got a drink. And he said, oh, I've got a drink. And I insisted on driving because I always drove better when I drank. And he was the passenger who'd come with me to keep an eye on me. And as I drove across the bridge, the sign said 30 mile an hour. That was for the earth people. But being me, I was doing something like about 50 mile an hour when I hit the 12-year-old boy on the pushbike. He was wheeling the bike. And he had no right to wheel it where he did. He was up on the footpath. And that's where I mounted the footpath. And clipped this kid and bent the front wheel of his bike. And my next recollection of this was when the police called. And they said, you know, Don, if you ever do this again, we're going to have to lock you up. Now, I'd been locked up a couple of times before. And there were better motels in the town. You're looking out through the bars, you know, early in the morning. Birds are chirping. The sun's shining. And the bikes in the next cell are still full, you know. And you're dying for a drink, you know. And not that I had a problem. This was long before I had a problem with a grog, you know. So, anyway, I was only at this stage that my stepfather said to me, Don, he said, if you want to work here, you don't drink. And if you drink, you don't work here. And I said, you mug, I'll show you. So, of course, I've been trying to show him all my life, you know. Because, you see, I'm an alcoholic and I've got a problem. And I thought my problem was the grog. Well, the problem was the grog, all right. But it accentuated the problem I've really got. See, I've got a personality problem. And it starts off with a low self-esteem. And a great big ego to cover it up. And I didn't know anything about this until later on I was to get off the grog. But infrequently I'd turn up at AA meetings. And they shot me down to this Hydebrae Hospital where the old stepfather had been. And my node was still there, still sober too, you know. And he used to come in and see us, not as a psychiatrist. He used to come and see us as an AA member. And we'd all say, oh, here he comes, the old deal again, you know. And he'd ask us stupid questions. But he never really used to see us as a psychiatrist. He was an AA member. And I remember I sat in his office. And I went there and I was in this hospital. I was the second youngest patient ever to grace the doors of Hydebrae Hospital. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. It's a good thing because I'm here tonight. But anyway, he called me into the office. And I sat there and sat across the desk. And he looked at me and he said, Don, you're an alcoholic. And I thought, strike me lucky. The old man's been talking to him, you know. And I said, well, look. You know, we've got a 24-hour service station. And I said, there's AA members come in there all hours of the night and day, particularly early hours of the morning. They come there and talk to the old bloke. And I said, I get to talk to them. And I know a few of these people. And I said, I have cups of coffee with them and that. And I said, look, if I sound a bit alcoholic, it's probably only because I mix with these people. And he did exactly what you just did. And he said, you tell that to another alcoholic and he'll laugh at you, you know. So, of course, I took no notice of him. And I kept on. I kept on drinking until eventually I just got crook enough to want to do something about it. I got sick of spewing blood. And the horrors I used to sleep. I was drinking methylated spirits by the time I was 19. Not because I didn't have money, but I needed something with a bit of a kick in it, you know. And I found I was terrified if I didn't take it to bed with me. Because what used to happen to me, I used to have to leave the lights on, you know. Because if I didn't do this, I used to wake up in the middle of the night and my heart would stop and I'd wake up and there'd be a guy standing over my bed. He had his hat pulled down, collar turned up and a great big carving knife in his hand. And he'd be standing up above the bed going to plunge this thing into my heart, you know. So I used to keep this bottle under the pillow. And what I used to have to do was pull the blankets over my head and have a bit of a gargle under the blankets. Because he couldn't get me then, you know. And, you know, this is the craziness. And I was something like about 23 or something or other, you know. I'm very, very lucky. I only drank for eight years. All told. And as I said, I was a sprinter, not a stayer. And I got very, very sick until eventually I thought, well, I'll give this AA a bit of a go. I'd had many times of drinking and not drinking and all this sort of thing. I'll give it a bit of a go. And I thought you were great people. I had great respect for the AA people. You know, they obviously needed it or they wouldn't come here to these meetings, you know. But I was different, of course. We were all different. But anyway, I got to a pretty desperate stage. And I said, well, I'll tell you what. I'll go to the AA. I'll give this show a go. And when it doesn't work, my life will be in your hands and you'll be the people who'll have killed me, you know. I'll give it a go. And lo and behold, I'm still giving it a go. In spite of myself, the thing has worked for me. And I thought, well, okay, this is great. You know, I'll give the grog away and everything's going to be fine. Well, I was wrong about that. I've been wrong about a lot of things, you know. But I put the grog down. And when I did, of course, the AA came. And I found out the anaesthetic began to wear off. And it was like standing in the middle of the Melbourne cricket ground in the nude with 100,000 pairs of eyes perving at me. Because here I was naked, so to speak, you know, and no tranquiliser. And I found the going was pretty tough. And I didn't like what I saw. And I couldn't look in the mirror because, you know, all these things came back to me. Or not all of them, thank goodness, but some of them did. And I found out I wasn't the hotshot I thought I was. You know, this thing up here, I often refer to it as the mirror. You know, I look into this thing and I see things. And, of course, having defects of character, you're not allowed to have them because if I'm not perfectly perfect, then I'm perfectly no good. And I found out things like I was part of the family but I didn't really belong. Please, love me, get out of my life. I'm no good. Reject them before they have the chance to reject you. You know? And these are called defects of character. And I found out other things too. I had a shocking violent temper. And I was all twisted up in a lot of ways with a lot of things, you know. And I had this very low self-esteem. That's why I used to act like I knew everything because I couldn't be wrong. Because if I wasn't perfectly perfect, I was perfectly no good. And it was very uncomfortable. And I was a bit fortunate, really. We lived out of town a bit. We lived seven miles out of town. And I'm trying to stay sober. And all of a sudden I'd go off the air. And I'd drop tools and away I'd go. This would be three miles. Three o'clock in the morning or any time. Midnight, wouldn't matter when it was. And I'd start the walk in the Wagga to go and get drunk. You know? And I'd get somewhere down the track about, you know, three miles. And it'd be shivering cold. It'd be raining. And I'd turn around and I'd come back. I'd get drunk tomorrow. You know? It wasn't easy staying sober, as you people well know. You know? But it came to the point where if I was going to stay sober, I had to do more than just not drink. I don't know about you blokes. But in my case, all I was capable of doing was not drinking to start with. You know, I couldn't do anything about any of this here. But I was getting to the stage now that just not drinking wasn't good enough. I had to do something because I was mad up here. There's no question about that. And gradually over a period of time, and it didn't happen overnight, over a period of time it became necessary for me, if I was going to survive, to have a look in the mirror and do something about it. And I've discovered a lot of things since then. You know, I discovered, of course, that I had some defects of character. They're human defects of character. And I quite often, when I talk at AA, stand up and say, my name's Don and I'm a human being. Oh, and I'm also an alcoholic too. Because I'm a human being and there's nothing wrong with being a human being. And the reason I was having such great difficulty in trying to come to terms with being a human being was the fact that normal people go through a thing called adolescence, I'm told. You know? I'm 23 and a half years of age and I've got to go through what kids go through at about 14. I started drinking at 14, there was no growth to place. And I'm very uncomfortable and I've got to do something about if I'm going to get well and stay well, I've got to do something about me. See, I'd spent all of my life, and I didn't realise it until then, I'd spent all my life taking the moral inventory of the people around me and the world about me. And the world was a rotten place. And some of the people, and you know, there were people I knew that weren't perfect. They were so disappointing, you know. I was depending on them. If they couldn't get it right, well, I'll stuff them all. I'll go and get drunk, you know. I had to do something about growing up. And this is what it's all about. And it's a very successful prescription for the said ailment. And, you know, this is the most predictable illness in the world. It's so predictable. Predictably unpredictable, if you like. But so predictable. You know, if you do certain things, you'll get well and you'll stay well. If you don't do certain things, you've got to have a relapse. And the relapse comes because you don't take the medication. And to me, this is the medication. And I have a treatable illness, would you believe? And I was reminded again about it today. I'm walking through a shopping centre, and there was a gentleman there leading this young lady. She had a white walking stick, and her eyes were closed, and she was fumbling around. And I said to yourself, you know, what about you, Dom? You've got a treatable illness. You know? And I was humbled. I've been humbled a lot around this program. And I can remember when I worked back in the old days at Warburton there. We had a young fellow there who was one of twins. His brother was a footballer. He was a fisherman. He was a man's man. He built his own house. And a young bloke. And they were twins. And the other guy that worked at the hospital there, he was born spastic. He was the other twin. And they created a job for him at the hospital. And he was bright enough to know that anyone could have done it. They gave him a job typing with one finger, you know? And he used to get round on these crutches, you know? And, you know, poor little fellow. And he came to me one day, and he said, Dom, would you sponsor me? And I said, of course I would, Geoff. What are you going to do, mate? A readathon? No, mate. He said, I'm going to go for a walk in the park. I'm going to go for a walk. He said, out to East Warburton to raise money for the people in the islands, the crippled people who have no wheelchairs. I want to raise some money for them. And that little bloke dragged his little crippled legs all the way out to East Warburton and back again on his crutches. And it took him all day to go the five mile. And I'm bitching and whinging that I can't have a drink. Poor me. Poor me. I've got a treatable illness. And you know, is it worthwhile treating? Well, there were times when way back when I didn't think it was, I was so full of self-pity. But today, you know, life is good. And this is coming from the bloke that had the shotgun in his mouth going to blow his head off, you know, because life was a rotten, stinking thing. Didn't want to be in it. Well, you know, today it's a wonderful life. I've got my wife with me here tonight, and she's a lovely lady. And I got to the stage there in sobriety, too. I'm getting romantic there. Oh, well, it is that time of night, isn't it? But I've got this lovely wife with me. And I got to the stage, you know, just as this is a progressive illness, it's a progressive recovery. And the things that happened to me and are still happening to me today, you know. And I wake up at one stage in my sobriety. It was all right to be lonely. It's quite normal to want a mate in life. And I spoke to my mate up here, my mate, God, as I've come to understand him, because, you know, I had some big problems. I had some big trouble with God when I came here. That's part of that program there. And I thought it was a religious turnout. That's what I expected when I came to AA, you know. And I couldn't tap into this thing here about came to believe in a power grain myself. It says came to believe, by the way. It didn't say as a prerequisite to getting well you've got to be believing in God, because had that been the case, I'd be dead years ago. But came to believe, and in fact, I think I was sober, something like about, I don't know, I think it was something like three or four years when humility came into my life. And I had a talk to this God. And I said, I'll tell you what I'll do, sport. I'll give you one more chance to get into my life. And if you stuff it up this time, you're out forever. And he trembled with fear, you know. Sure he did. But, you know, I got to the stage where we came on talking terms. And I said, hey, listen, I'm pretty lonely. I said, you know, is there a lovely lady out there somewhere that would want to boil down an old dill like this? And he said, no, no, no. I'll let an old dill like me. I've got the most wonderful lady sitting with me here tonight. We've only been married something like, I think, 44 years. It only seems like 60, but 45 years. And I've got three kids. I've got three kids and I've got four grandchildren. These are the bonuses. You know, this was the tea I'm drunk. One of my mates said to my wife one day, she said, could I ask you a question, Jen? Well, she said, if I can answer it. She said, he said to her, well, did you know Don Winnie is drinking? No. No, she said, I didn't. Fortunately, he was sober when we got together. And he saw off and wondered what a kind of ice girl like you was doing with a bloke like him. And quite rightly so, too, you know. But anyway, as I said, this is a progressive recovery. And that's the appropriate medication. The first thing I had to do was to accept the fact that I had a problem with the grog. And it wasn't easy because I've got pride. You know, I'm like every other alcoholic. I've got a double dose of pride. Two lots of love and hate and guilt. And fear and low self-esteem and big ego. All these things, you know, it's as if we lined up in the queue twice and got two lots, you know. And it makes it awful hard to handle. It's hard enough for the people with one lot, you know. But there's a program for me to work on. And getting to the stage where I recognized and accepted the fact that my life was unmanageable. Oh, and by the way, I also had a drinking problem, too. But my life was unmanageable. And if I wanted manageability in my life, then I needed a program better than this. Because my program kept getting me drunk. And I came to believe the power greater than myself. And for me in the beginning, the power greater than me. No, it's all right. I always cough. Get excited. The power greater than me, I needed in my life to get some sanity in here. See, I didn't accept in the beginning that I was insane. You blokes were. But I wasn't insane. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man. You might think I'm insane. You might think I'm seen at least. You might think I'm insane. But really, I was insane. I just, you know, I was a real good guy having a passing prot it covered there ... I was a genius. I was very humble about it. I couldn't help it. It's awful when you're born a genius, you know. But I needed to get some sanity in here. Because if I was going to stay sober, if I was going to stay mad... Like I was, I'm going to get drunk again. I need some sanity. And as you can see, I'm still working on it. I haven't quite got it. But it doesn't matter. And I felt that I wasn't perfect. It was all right not to be perfect. Have you ever met a perfect person? because are they? It's nothing worse, you know. And that's why I couldn't have friends, because they weren't perfect. Every time I'd let someone into my life, they would let me down. Stuff them, I'll go it alone, you know. But I've got hundreds of imperfect friends today, just like me, you know. They're imperfect, and that's fine. They're human beings. And so the whole thing, without me going through it, you know what it's all about up there. And this all comes about, and this is what this weekend's about, and it's wonderful. I was fortunate enough to be here last year too. And, you know, what a wonderful thing it is. And I want to say something, and please don't misunderstand me, because you'll think I'm a male chauvinist, and I don't mean to say that, but I looked around here tonight, and I said to my wife how wonderful it was to see so many women here. Because I'm old enough and been around long enough to remember that if you saw a woman at an AA meeting, believe me, she was pretty old, and she'd been around the traps. She'd been at every institution, and around Sydney and everywhere else it might have been, there weren't too many women around. But wonderful to see. It helps to beautify the working area here too. But it's just marvellous to see. And the faces are getting younger too. That's probably because I'm getting older. But the fact is that the younger people, you know, when I first got to AA, they were pretty tough in them days. You've heard that said before, but they were too, you know. I can remember saying to someone, I want to get drunk. I said, well, go and get drunk. You know. You never got any sympathy or anything like that. But they were all older people. And I overheard a couple of them talking one night, and they were talking about a friend that I knew who had come to AA to get off the grog. And they weren't, I thought they were running him down, but they weren't really. But they were just talking about this bloke. And I heard them say, well, the trouble is with Peter, you know, I think he's too young to get this. And Peter was 38 or something. And they thought he was too young. Because the people around AA in those days, they were, you know, people in their 60s and whatever else, late 60s, all that sort of stuff, you know. And there weren't the young people, and there certainly weren't the women around, you know. But anyway, it's wonderful to see tonight here, people like yourselves. This is a wonderful program, Alcoholics Anonymous. I have had more trouble, would you believe, in sobriety than I had in my drinking. I've had some more downers, you know, in sobriety. But the wonderful, the miracle, of this program, and it is, it's a miracle, is that in spite of what has happened along the way, I haven't had to pick a drink up yet, you know. I often call this program Life, Be In It. That's what it's about, Life, Be In It, you know. To be in the reality of what is. Five years ago, my wife had breast cancer. Fortunately, she's okay at the time. I had a heart attack 15 months ago. I'm coming down, down on the aeroplane there, and there's a big man, a big Maori bloke in there. He's ugly as that, full of, well, he wasn't real good looking, you know. And he's in there, and I hear him, I hear the ambos talking something about a gun and the police, and this bloke's got a big lump on his head, and his eyes closed, and the other one's black, and obviously there's been drug and drugs involved, and all this sort of stuff, you know, and I'm lying there, and I wasn't feeling too good. And in fact, I thought it was curtains, you know. And I'm having a talk with the man upstairs, and I said, well, listen, mate, you know, this might be curtains, but, thanks for the sobriety. It's been wonderful. And I'm saying to myself, I just hope this bloke can get it. But by the look of him, he doesn't look too good, you know. But anyway, I don't know how he finished up, but I've come out the other end okay, you know. But no matter what happens, and this is what the old timers used to say, no matter what happens, a drink won't fix it. And it's true, a drink will not fix no matter what it is, you know. And that's how it's been for me, and that's the thing I grabbed hold of anyway, was, a day at a time. Just don't pick up the first drink. It's only the first drink. It's not the 100th drink. It's the first drink that does the day, for me anyway. And if I don't pick up the first drink, whether it's a good day or a bad day, it doesn't matter. If I don't pick up the first drink, I can't get drunk. And these were the simple things you people taught me around AA. And, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't swap what I got, and yet I can, you know. Because my disease lurks in the background. It just stands behind me. It will never, it will not be satisfied until it takes my life. But I don't live in fear. I haven't stopped drinking because of fear, you know. And I couldn't think tonight of anything worse than picking up a drink, you know. In fact, it doesn't even enter my mind these days. I still do what I always have done. I don't unnecessarily put myself in the firing line, you know. And yet at the same time, you know, it talks about it in the big book. I've still got to live life with normal people out there. But I choose very carefully what I do. And most of my mates, in fact, I was playing golf with some of the boys the other day, and they like a beer. They get around halfway around. They go into the clubhouse and get a beer. And one of them said to me only just the other day, he said, can you remember what it was like when you were drinking, Dom? I said, yeah, this is why I don't. I can remember. And I can remember also back in the old town of Orbiton there, they used to have, we used to have the meeting in the courthouse, which was the RSL Hall. And quite purposely, we used to turn on the switch and the light used to come up above the judge's desk. You know, the old judge used to be there was the courthouse. Many of us were familiar with it long before we got to AO. But we turned the switch on and there to be was the RSL Hall, lest we forget. You know, and that's what I come here for, lest we forget, lest I forget, you know. And Elkie's got very convenient forgetteries if you don't do something about it, you know. But anyway, life's pretty good. And that's coming from the lips of the bloke who tried to blow his head off. And as Al Jolson once said, you know, you ain't heard nothing yet, you know. And someone here said to me tonight over there, he said, I don't know, he said, it seems to be getting better. Well, it does get better too, you know. If you don't pick up a drink and you work the program to the best of your ability, you know, things improve. My ability to cope with reality has improved. That's what it's all about. I'm not under the pressure. And most of the pressure I break down under is the same as the pressure you break down under. It wasn't the war in Iraq or the way Mum and Dad brought me up or the town I lived in. Most of the pressure I break down under is the pressure I put on me, you know. So today I don't have to compete with anyone or anything. I just plug along a day at a time, keep out of the pubs and the clubs and whatever else when I don't have to be there unnecessarily and whatever else. And, you know, life is wonderful. I love life. Fear and ingom, I do. I don't know, just a day at a time I have. I've got plenty left. If I haven't, I've had a wonderful time over this period of time that I've been around. So I don't know what else I can add to all that, but I get a bit carried away. And, look, I said this last year and I don't want you to misunderstand. I'm not skiting because I hate skites, really, truly. But I've just got to tell you this because, you know, I say to you that, you know, you don't know what life's got in store for you. You know, this is the most exciting thing of all time. You just don't know what's around the corner for you if you stay sober. And I'll just tell you this and please I'm not skiting. But I came home from golf and this was in 2000, the year 2000. I came home from golf and my wife said, look, you've got to ring this bloke in Canberra. Oh, strike. Yeah, strike me lucky. I said, someone's found I've been mowing a few logs. I've got horns on the side. I'm living an honest life but I do a couple of things. I've been an old pensioner. There's special dispensation for you. I've got to ring this bloke in Canberra. So I ring the bloke in Canberra. He says to me, Don, would you accept the order of Australia? I'm not saying that because I'm skiting. But I'm telling you this because the great contrast of what it was like when I was, I suppose I can't claim the mantle of being the biggest drunk in Wagga, but I was certainly up in the top ten, I'll bet you. No one wanted to know me and I didn't want to know anyone else and all this sort of thing. And here I am down the track a little way and my country says, good on you, mate, for doing a good job. So I'm just saying to you, what's around the corner from you? If you're lonely here tonight, maybe like happened to me, you'll find someone to love you because it's beautiful. And maybe you don't know which direction you're going in, stay sober and I'll guarantee it. I'll guarantee it. If you're handing over to the higher power, stay sober. Don't pick up a drink a day at a time. The world is your oyster. Who knows what might be around the corner for you. I'll guarantee it's not going to be bad. It's going to be better. In fact, I just will leave you just with this little thing that I've said to so many hundreds of people along the way. And there's a little proviso. Providing you a fair dinkum, by that I mean doing what you need to do, providing you a fair dinkum, I will guarantee you, I'll give you a money-back guarantee that doors will open in your life that you never ever knew existed. I'll guarantee it. And I'll just finish off with the famous words of, I think it was Jeff Fenwick, I love yous all. And that never happened on ostentatious makeshift. And I think it was literally terrible that we were calm because you knew that he kind of haunted us day in and day after I went to bed. I Novomerd wouldn't quit meullingou know. You might remember this. But you don't even know how it's going to end now that I've been through this storm. Many thanks to our speakers and to Dr Laura hands and hands of staff that have taught me all this force and performance that has been my strength Thanks for letting us share.