The Difference Between Watching AA Happen and Making It Happen – Harold L.

My name is Harold Long. I'm an alcoholic. Can you feel the love in the room? If you can't, grab the leg next to you. Go ahead give it a shot. I'd like to thank the H&I committee and that asked me to come and I'm glad it worked out that I could come. I sponsored Tom called me we were in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago at a men's conference doing a corrections conference and I had to leave there to go to Dallas to participate in another conference. And next thing I know, I'm getting bombarded by Tom and Dave that, hey, can you make it to California? And I said, well, you know, it just depends when it works out because I had the opportunity to do it. So I had him go to Scottsdale from here for four days. And it worked out. The wife and the kids and everybody gave us the blessings. And so here we are in the great state of California. We send our hello and our love from St. Louis, home of the world champion baseball Cardinals. And to St. Louis Rams. How can we go without saying that? Field of love. i want to thank uh jamie for being my host and coming to oakland airport and picking me up he's a good guy um you can always pick out the the host or the hostesses that are coming to pick you up every time without even him saying a word and i'm walking through the airport going towards the baggage claim and I see you know Easter was just over and here's these three guys one white guy and a couple foreigners are all arguing over what Christmas is our Easter's about so I'm listening to imagine I get my bag and the one says you know what Easter's is about he said it's about this guy in a red suit that comes down the chimney and he hides Easter egg all the way down and the other one's going no no it's abut this rabbit that comes around your yard at night and he puts presents It's underneath all the trees in New York. And then the third one goes, no, that's not what it's about. He said Easter is about Christ who died on a cross 2,000 years ago. And they took him off this cross and they put him over in this cave and they rolled a rock over in front of him. And they came back three days later and they rode this rock out. And if you come out and see in the shadow, I mean there's six more weeks to enter. I said, ask my guy. So they're easy to pick out. But if you haven't been able to tell yet, I talk a little funny. It's because I'm a country boy. Is there any other country people here? It's going to be a long night for the city people. A lot of people make fun of us rednecks, and you've heard all the jokes and all the stories. But really there's a real genius that goes on with the redneck. I'm going to share with you a redneck parable, and if you get this parable you will get probably something out of what I had to share with you tonight. If you don't get it then I apologize right now to each and every one of you. But there's real genius in the rednecked community and I'll share it with you. I'll give you the parable. The parable is about two hillbillies who lived on this back road to this little gravel road And there was Daryl and Bubba. And one night, Daryll called the sheriff. He said, Sheriff, I need to report Bubba." They said, What are you reporting Bubba for? He said,"Man, he's selling drugs. He's manufacturing and selling drugs." And he goes, Well, that's a pretty strong accusation. Are you sure?" He says, I'm positive. And these trucks come down the road. They park, and they go back to his woodpile back there. And he shifts around the woodpyle and gives them their stuff, and they peel out. He says,"I'm tired of it. You need to come do something about it." He says, all right, Bubba. But he goes, that's a pretty strong accusation. We'll check it out. So about 3 o'clock the next morning, old Darrell enters his door. It's the sheriff. He said, what do you need, Sheriff? He says we've got a search warrant here, Bubbas. Bubbas, we need to check your wood pile. He says they went on back to the wood pile and they took their axes and their log splitters and everything they had, sledgehammers, and they just started tearing through this pile of wood looking for these drugs. And they couldn't find anything. And they left. And the next day, old Bubba called Daryl. He said, Daryll? He said yeah. And he goes, did the sheriff come to your house last night? He goes, boy they sure did. He said they cut up all that wood in your backyard? He goes they sure didn't. He said happy birthday buddy. All right? So if you get that, we'll get along fine. I want to thank everybody who set this thing up. It's a thankless job sometimes to serve on a committee of any kind, and so just another round of applause for those who took the time out. And thanks for the sobriety countdown. A trivia question. Does anybody know who started the first sobrieta countdown? It was the guy who wrote 99 bottles of beer on the wall. That's the truth, so now you know. But it is an H&I conference and I know it's a California thing. If you ask somebody back from my hometown what H&Is, they'd stand for hell I don't know. They wouldn't know what it is. That's true. But we do have a passionate corrections team in my part of the country and that's where My passion comes from as a past consumer of the department, but also as a strong volunteer of the Missouri Department of Corrections. So I have a real passion for AA and especially corrections work and treatment center work and the like. And hopefully I'll be able to elaborate on more of that because that's why we're here. These are the grassroot conferences is the way I look at it, and I love to be around brothers and sisters that are out doing the deal, you know, what this thing's all about. not a better place to be as far as I'm concerned. My story is, my sobriety date's April 7th, 1987, my home group's Do You Want to Try the Truth in St. Louis, Missouri? Or the short name is The Truth, you know, that's what they call it. But and you know I believe in sponsorship and I believe being a make-it-happen person in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's three types of people that come to AA. There's those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who don't know what's happening at all and most people in my experience I don't know about your but my experience most people watch watch alcoholics anonymous happen they watch it happen and they miss everything there is to be that goes on here they missed being rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence they miss it all and and but I've been one of all three of those people I didn't know what was happening when I got here my first a meeting was in 1979 in a correctional facility and I I had no idea what Alcoholics Anonymous was about. Didn't want to know what it was about, you know, wasn't an alcoholic, wasn't ready to stop drinking, didn't want to hear anything he had to say. But I, you now, so I didn't know what was going on. And I got the AA and for sure I sat around here for a long time watching AA happen and judging people, being envious of people and hating people really for all said and done. And then eventually through sponsorship, through example, through inspiration, through motivation I got into the make it happen part and it changed my life just like our moderator or the voice of the conference tonight said her lead was into corrections and that's where my lead went in and it changes my life and that passion has never stopped from now until then and it's been my experience that once you get into that and you fully give yourself to the simple programming go down that road you can't kick you out of it it's my experience you couldn't kick me out of what I do today and Alcoholics Anonymous, you'd have to drag me out fighting. But I was born in a little country town in southwest Missouri around the Oklahoma border called Nevada, Missouri. And I was borne to a mom who was just beat up by alcoholism. My mom was married to an alcoholic, had a son and two daughters out of that marriage and basically went crazy is the bottom line. She lived in St. Louis at the time and the insanity and alcoholism that went on with that drove her nuts to the point they put her in a state hospital in Nevada, Missouri. And she lived there for quite some time. And when my mom got out of that place, like all people that are sick and with this illness, she totally gravitated right back to another alcoholic, which happened to be my father. And it was just the race was on again one more time. She met this guy. They had me. After about two years of that, my mom just had her own bottom in life. You know, she just crashed and burned, and she was done. And she didn't go to Alcoholics Anonymous. She didn't Goat Island. I don't even know if she knew about any of that. But she did have a belief in the power greater than herself, and she turned her will and life over to that power. And she's never looked back from that day until now. And she has been the greatest winner in my life and still is today. So I've got a special place in my heart for single parents, single moms, single dads. And she was the greatest winter I ever had. And I guarantee I wouldn't be standing here tonight if it wasn't for the role she played in my wife. She taught me a lot of things. She taught me that there was a power grader in myself, and if I turned to him, it would make a big difference in how my life turned out. She told me every day that she loved me and still does today when I talk to her. But there's some disadvantages to being raised by a single mom. One of them is you throw a ball like this for a long time, which isn't cool. You run a little funny on the playground for a while. And then if you've got a mom who's been with two alcoholics, the birds and the bees talk. It isn't pretty. Because the moral of the story is all bees are scumbags. But mom did. My mom, like I said, we didn't have any – some people were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. We were definitely born to plastic when we didn't have any rich relatives. We didn't have any family. My mom was totally isolated by my other siblings. I didn't meet those brothers and sisters till later on in life. It was just me and mom, and my mom didn't have any education. She grew up during the Depression. She cut hair for a living, and that's what she did. She worked two or three jobs most of my life to be able to keep a roof over her head, basically. So I didn' t see a lot of my mom, but what I did have It played a big role in my life. That's all I can tell you. Growing up, I had a lot of dreams like most kids. I wasn't a gifted guy. I liked to play sports. I likedto play baseball. I tried out for the teams. And, you know, I didn't get to start a lot. I didn' t have the gifts a lotof the other players had. And after about four years of trying that, I eventually quit. You know, discouraged because I couldn't play. I guess I could have went ahead and went on in life and played for the Dodgers, you know, possibly. But I didn't. I didn' t pursue that dream. But I did. But the best I can tell you is that I was emotionally and spiritually retarded. And that's just the truth, man. I had an emotional illness, the roots of this alcoholism. Mom, if I ever took a drink. And the easiest way to describe how I was was I was the kind of guy that wanted everybody to pay attention to him and I wanted everybody to leave me alone. And the hard part was I wanted you to do it at the same time. That was really the truth. If he would have just come in and said, Harold, we think you're a great guy and we're just not going to talk to you the rest of the night. As long as I had that reinsurance I would have been fine. But I did. And so what our book talks about, that hunter forms Just, you know, fear and self-pity, self-delusion. That stuff was driving my life long before I ever took a drink. Long before I even took a drank. I went to a Catholic school growing up until the fourth grade. But, you known, going to the Catholic school, I admired the priest. I guess it was the only real male role model I had in my life. And I really looked up to those guys. So much so that I'd go home and play church. I remember taking out the fruit basket and dumping it out and filling it full of potato chips for the Eucharist and getting grape Kool-Aid out for the wine and putting on the towels and getting the Bible out and reading Scripture. And then we'd get to the Eucharist part, and when you use potato chips for the Echarist, well, you know, church is pretty much over by that time because you can't just eat one. But my heart was, you Know, I had a good heart. You know, I Had Good Ideas, and I Had Motivation, but I Also Had This Hundred Forms of Fear, Self-Pity Driving Me. And it Just Drove Me. It's Insane. I Call It The Dark Side. You Can Call It Whatever You Want, But, I mean, the dark side was on me all the time. And I can remember it just as clearly as today as it was back then, just how it just drove my life. It was just crazy. My mom, through her own amends process, decided to try to move from that little country town towards St. Louis. Not all the way to St. Lewis, but towards St., so she could try to reconcile with my brothers and sisters, people that I'd never met before. And by this time, I'm seven or eight years old by the time we made this move. And we moved from that little country town into a suburb off of St. Louis, and I got introduced to what I call this dark world, if you want to call it that. And I gotintroduced, and I saw things for the first time I never saw before, like smoking cigarettes and people cussing and people in their loud rock and roll. I was a country boy. I mean, Merle Haggard, George Strait, baby, that was where it was at. There wasn't any of this other stuff I was all of a sudden introduced to, but it changed my life. I was attracted to it, and then I just loved it right off the bat. It was incredible how it changed my life, and I just gravitated right towards it. And everything about me, I mean, just being introduced to that worldview, to that philosophy of life, to that way of life had an impact on me. I was attracted to that right off the bat, and I just started moving in that direction. I took my first drink of a real alcohol probably right around the age of 10 or 11, and I may have had a sip off a beer prior to that, but I guarantee you it wasn't much of anything. But I had a tendency, especially growing up without a dad in my life, I always had a dependency to run around guys that were a lot older than I was. And this really took off when I got to this point. I was running around teenagers, 16-, 17-year-old kids by this time. And I met this kid named Steve, and his parents went to Florida, and he invited me to his house. And I wasn't even 11 years old yet. And he was having a humdinger party. And I walked in, and there's girls, there's smoke, there're drinking, there's rock and roll. And he says, what are you drinking? And I said, whatever you're drinking, you know. And he handed me a big old glass of slow gin and coke. That's what I said. And I went over and sat on this couch, and I probably stared at that thing for who knows how long before I got the guts to even tip it up to my mouth. But I started taking pulls off it, and something started to happen to me that changed my entire life. You know, and that's the effect produced by alcohol. You know, it was that sensation, that feeling that I had arrived was starting to come upon me. And the easiest way I can explain it is like this smile took off. And the more that buzz took over me, the bigger that smile got until it eventually came all the way back and met back here behind my head. You know? That's what alcohol did for me. Man, I loved it. I loved It. And I didn't know I was turning my will in life over to that way of life right then and there, but that's what I did. I mean, I made a conscious decision right then and there that this is what I was going to do. And I got as sick as I ever got off alcohol. And I went home and lied and swore off it and did all those things. But I can guarantee you when I woke up the next day and the weeks and the months that led after that, that became the center force of my life. And I moved towards that. And by taking that position in life, it changed everything about me. Morally, anything morally I stood for started to erode. My character started to errote. I started to lie. I started To cheat. I started Steele. I started really getting into rock and roll I loved that rock group Kiss Boy, that was a big band back then And man, I remember We used to dress up like them It was crazy And it was back I had these big bell-bottom pants on With these big hiking boots With the red shoestrings And I got the blue jean jacket Cut the sleeves off Put a USA patch on it Big peace sign Took the thumbtack out of the kiss poster Stuck it through my ear You know, made me a headband Had big gap teeth freckles zits i look like a freaked out howdy doody's what i look and i still get embarrassed by those pictures still today but that's what I was I mean and people freak out you walk around the earring in your ear today man you can just go to the nut and bolt section of the hardware store fall down get up and everybody go get with us dude go with it you know it's just amazing you know but little earring they just freak out but but that was my life i mean that was all armor that was everything to fit in but the problem was we lived in a mobile home and when we moved into that mobile home court it was like a major step up for us i mean i it was a big deal to live in a mobile room and and have that and uh and i just loved it but we didn't have much money and i i developed a a real bad habit of uh finding stuff before people lost it yeah stealing you know the old spot and steal it was a two man operation you spot it and I'd steal it midnight shift but I wasn't any good at it it started with pop bottles and then it ended up being the manager of that trailer course home we stole all her stuff and the list goes on and on and that was my beginning with the Department of Corrections in the state of Missouri that was just a small beginning where my life was going but I'll tell you how fear drove my life It was amazing. I ended up getting sentenced to go to a boy's home, a boystown in Missouri. And I remember getting in that car and I was driving to this place. And this is how the 100 Forints of Peter and South Pedia are working on me. They're just driving me. I remember going down to this space. Man, I'm just full of anxiety about going to this police station. And they're going, you know what, man? This is like an audible conversation going on. You know what? There's no way you can go to this places with the name Harold. Man, because the name Herald sucks. And it does. It sucks. It still sucks today. And it's a funny thing. You meet guys named Harold, most of the time they don't go by Harold. They'll go by some nickname. Very few guys do that. But my middle name is Eugene, so you can't use that. And my last name is Long. That's the only part of my name I ever got any mileage out of was the last one. but you take the initials for that and it spells hell and that's what it was like living with that name but this is how fear drove my life this is how the fear drove by life I went to this place and and I mean it's about an hour and a half from where I live and by the time I got that place I went from Harold Eugene Long to Jeffrey Allen Long and that was my name until I got sober and alcoholics anonymous that's how fear drilled my life you You know, what you thought of me was what I lived for. You know? It was amazing. I had no identity to myself. I just guarantee you probably the first 25 years of my life was just a big facade, just a Big Lie, a big screenplay is what it was all about. But that was my life. I got out of that place and my mom with the parental guilt she had and all the alcoholism just ripping apart our family and just tore it apart our whole life. she was just ate up with that parental guilt some of the worst guilt you can have is that parental guilt and she thought you know what i'm gonna i'm going to move and she moved to this little country town you know and uh little town called kirksville missouri by that time i'd got out and i'd gotten a real sentence you know i had to worry about jeffrey allen long anymore now it was six six eight oh you know in a nine by seven you know bedroom and that started my life into the boon bill department of corrections but after i got out of that place she moved to this little country town and uh and i got to this town that was a sentence in itself after i was exposed to the big city and everything they had to offer the rock and roll the parties everything i got exposed to this Little Country Town and that was the sentence in itself you know i thought man there's nobody cool lives in this place i'm not going to be able to survive but i can tell you what it didn't take me long to find my kind you know at all and i call them the woo people and let me tell you about the blue people in these little country towns where So I grew up. These guys would get their pickup trucks, put coolers in the back, fill them full of ice and cold beer, and head to the town square, and they would start popping the tops on that stuff and start drinking. And as the sun would go down and the buzz would go up, the music would get a little louder, and as soon as it was dark, everybody started going, Woo! I'm proud! You know? And I called them the woo people, man, but I loved those guys, man. I'm sure there's some in California. But I became one of those guys, man. And I loved to scream and holler and terrorize. And we were just hillbillies. That's all we were was just drunken hillbrillies. I mean, our idea of entertainment was we'd go over to this little bank and throw M-80 on the ground and poof! And it set the alarms off in the bank, you know. The cops would surround the bank. That was a big deal in the country town for the police. but that's what we did but that was alcoholism and by the time I got introduced to other things you know, I'm a get high freak I'm sure I'd done burr control more than once you know I'm sorry because I didn't ask what it was if you had some, I'd try it you know I mean, seriously I mean I tried everything from eating in Vic the little filter inside Vic's inhalers to huffing liquid paper I was on a pretty good tulio addiction as a young teenager. I mean, the list goes on and on. I was a get-high freak, man. But what happened was I got arrested, and I was in a compromised situation. And the situation was this. You can either go back to Booneville Correctional Center on this five-year gig that you're on and finish the other two years you've got left on it, or you can go into this treatment center. And while I was In That Process of making that choice, I got introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1979. and I wasn't a real smart kid because I quit school when I was 13 years old but I knew that 30 days was a hell of a lot shorter than two and a half years and I said I'll do the 30 days in that treatment center by God and I got out and they put me in that treatment center, an old carry unit I don't know if they had carry units here but they had back in the midwest and I went to this carry unit and it was an AA driven treatment facility I mean everything was on AA, it was 12 steps they didn't have a lot of in house meetings They put you on these little, look like nursing home vans, man, for the age. And I was by far the youngest cat in that place. And they'd drive me to the aid meetings. And I remember going to this little bitty church space in this little bit of country town. You blink your eyes through it, La Plata, Missouri. I go down in the basement. There's this lady with big white hair, big old rosy cheeks, looked like Mrs. Claus. Best lady you'd ever want to meet. And I fell in love with her right off the bat. She said, you just come sit next to me. and she was as joyous you can have in Alcoholics Anonymous until it came my turn to talk. Then they got around to me and they said what do you got to say? I said my name's Jeff I'm here because the Missouri Department of Corrections said I had to come here and I can guarantee you in 30 days or however long it is you'll never see me again is basically what I had to tell them and then she turned on me she turned on me can you believe that? She grew horns and fangs and tail come out and she looked at me And she said, just keep drinking, you dumb little bastard. It's all going to happen to you. And she became my first resentment in alcoholism. And all I thought about was beating that woman the rest of the meeting. It was unbelievable. But, you know, there's a real important message to that, and I just want to lay it out. And it really applies to H&I. It really does apply here. And that's, you know, I think it's on page 105 of Bill's season. There's a piece from, I thing it's page 96 of the big book, and then there's a piece from a letter he wrote, and I believe the title of that page is called Our Chief Responsibility. And it says in that letter, and i'm just paraphrasing, it basically says our chief responsibility to the newcomer is to deliver an adequate presentation of Alcoholics Anonymous all the time. And that no matter if we're sitting in an H&I conference or if we are in an H&I facility. That's our responsibility all the time, and that's what I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous. We're all teachers all the times, whether you want to be or not. You know, you're teaching people around you what this thing's about, and I got to admit that that had a huge impact on my life because I've always had an adequate demonstration of Alcoholics Anonymous, even when I really didn't want what you had to offer, even when i wasn't ready to stop drinking. I never felt unwelcome here. I never really felt too threatened by you people. I always felt like, you know this is a place I could go if I really needed it but of course I didn't need it you know but that didn't stop my journey I mean I you know I drank and I got more trouble and end up doing some more time and and by that time I got to a you know a real turning point in my life my mom was ready to bail out on me you know. This was the only crush I had in my life and as I laid in a hospital with all kinds of good people around me trying to help me, trying to point me back to sobriety. My best choice then was, you know what? In the nicest way as I can tell you, just leave me the hell alone. You know, I just don't want what you have to offer. And my mom looked at me and she said, look, here's the deal. This is what you're going to do when you get out of here. It's A or it's B. And being an NFL Marlboro leather on leather guy I was, you know,I just said, what did we all say? I said, screw you, Mom. You know I don't need you either if that's the way it's going to be. That's what part of me was saying. The other part of my was just torn in half in my heart, you know, that I hear my own mom don't even love me anymore. But that's where I was with this way of life. I loved drinking. And if you're brand new, don't get, don' t even take that from me. I loved to drink. I loved it. I mean, I loved everything about it. Not just the drink. I mean I loved all the craziness, the BS. You know, I love the keg parties. Back in the hillbilly days, keggers were a big deal. I mean, you know, the worst noise you could ever hear at a keg party was, just break your heart when you hear that noise. Then we were each in our pocket going, glad I brought these, you Know what I'm saying? But that's where I was, and I said, I've got to get out of this place. You know, as the old song goes, I got to Get Out of This Place. And there was a biker guy named Scott, and Scott was a lot older than I was. He was in his 40s at the time, and he drove a panel van. He was from Austin, Texas, and I don't even know where he came from. He just showed up in this small town. And he was on his way back to Texas, and I said, can I get a ride with you? He said, you can go. And I took off, and I was on my way to the great state of Austin, Texas, you know? I'm just a punk kid, you know? Broken young guy, alcoholic. as you can get. And I ended up down in Austin, Texas living in a panel van with a guy. And the highlight of that whole time was hanging out and partying with Willie Nelson while they were shooting the movie The Songwriter. Him and Chris Christopherson and the band and all the people there had a big riverboat on the lake we were at. That was the highlight of my time. The rest of the time I'm dodging, stealing, begging, robbing, stealing. I mean, I was a big-time thief. You know, that's just what I knew how to do. I ended Up from there and I ended UP hitchhiking my way to Atlanta, Georgia And, you know, the big book talks about a lot of types of different alcoholics. They talk about the type that swear off every day. They wake up remorseful, full remorse, full guilt, full shame. I'm not going to do this no more. I'm going to turn my life around and by 3.30, 5.30 they're ready to rock and roll and do it all over again. And I can guarantee I can count on one hand how many times I ever thought about not drinking being the option for my life. It was just never an option. But what happened to me when I was living down in this trailer court, I lived on what I call, if anybody ever seen Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys. That's what I was on, the Island Of Misfits Rednecks. I lived in a trailer court, Red Barn Trailer Court, Ackworth, Georgia. And I lived with misfits from Tennessee, Texas, Kentucky, all around there. I mean, three guys lived next door to me, and their names were Porkchop, Hollywood, and Screwdriver. and here's a guarantee, if you got a guy named Porkchop Screwdriver in Hollywood that lived next door to you, your life's unmanageable, I guarantee it. Sober or not. But that's where I was at, you know, and I lived with my buddy Mike and Danny, and we were all on parole, everyone was on parole. Danny had a warrant for arrest. Nobody had a driver's license. I never had a driving license. We lived in this beat-up mobile home. And, you know, I was hitchhiking to work to Hardee's every day. I had long hair. Check the picture just out. I had like the old Astro uniform, the old brown. Every day, two miles there and back. You know, long hair, people would give me rides, and we'd just party and going and coming. That was my life. And what happened to me one night was it was wintertime in Georgia, and I woke up, and I guess what I'm about to describe is why I think people that really have alcoholism, many of them and most of them, a lot of them end up destroying ourselves because of it and this is the process that goes through i woke up one morning and i was just covered in blood i mean from you just about head to toe and uh and i had this gift some of you may have this gift but i had this gift especially when i became a bar drinker that everybody wanted to punch me at least once before an eye was open i had that gift believe it or not i know it's hard to believe but i had that good but you know so typically it wasn't uncommon to wake up with a pot mount on your head or a busted lip or pretty beat up but this time I wasn't beat up and I couldn't figure out what happened to him and as I started to get undressed I had a flannel shirt and a ski jacket I realized somebody had sliced me way down deep in my arm and stabbed me a couple times on my side and I woke up, I went outside that trailer and I sat down and it was one of the most scary moments of my life. I wasnít so worried about being stabbed as I was I didnít know what happened and from that day until now I still canít tell you what happened But I can tell you, this is how alcoholism works in life. Bill had a real great way of talking about alcoholism in a variety of different ways. And one of the ways he talked about it was he personified it. And he gave him a name and he called him John Barleycorn. And it was just like John Barlycorn was sitting right next to me as I'm laying down, sitting out on the front porch of this trailer. And I'm sitting there with tears in my eyes, first time ever that I can ever remember that I was really remorseful or saddened by how I was living my life. And I'm thinking to myself, man, I've got to do something different than what I'm doing. I can't live like this any longer. And it was just like John had his arm around me. And he said, you know what? You're right. We do got to be different. We've got got to go do something better. But before we do anything drastic, let's just walk up here to the Magic Market and get a quart of beer and a pack of smokes. And that was the best idea I had all morning. And I walked up there and I got that quart of bear. I didn't even get – I just threw a jacket on. Didn't even wash the blood off my hands. And I took it at that time and went, pssh! That noise we all love and that little I Dream of Jeannie smoke come out. And I take a pull off that thing. And any idea about not drinking was gone. And that's alcoholism. And I just ate up with it. And I'd love to tell you that's the end of the story, but it's not. You know, my life ended up, I ended up back in St. Louis as a desperate hope. You know we all say, you know, I want to go somewhere where I don't know anybody. But the truth was I wanted to go where nobody knew who I was. I wanted to start all over again because I knew what a knucklehead I was, you know, by this time in my life. And I knew it wasn't adding up too much. And I couldn't even stand to be around myself. But I ended up there and I ended UP with a DWI. It was my fourth DWI and right after that, it was just a few nights after that I'm with some buddies coming home from a bar. I'm in the back seat of the car and we get hit with a spotlight and we pull over and we're all in trouble. We know we're in trouble, everybody's trying to hide stuff, pour stuff out. And the next thing you know this light goes off and it's just a couple of corn dogs in a pickup truck. And they peel out, and we peel out behind them. And the high-speed chase begins. Today they call it road rage. They were racing down this highway doing an ungodly amount of speed, and eventually their guardrail ran out on the fast lane. And when they whipped it just a little bit too hard, I watched that pickup truck shoot up just like a bottle rocket and go over to the side, and within seconds it destroyed the truck and killed everybody inside that pickup. It was like that. and uh and still today the trauma of that still affects my life today and i remember getting home at six seven o'clock in the morning way past daylight and i was just in trauma about the whole event and the best thought i could have was listening to john barleycorn one more time and why don't you just go in there get one of them cold shaffer beers and i walked there and popped the top on it and tried to drink that feeling outside inside me just drank it away And it didn't stop me because the insanity, within a few days, I was right behind the wheel of a car again and arrested again for 50WI. I'm 21 years old, laying in a correctional facility inside St. Louis County, parole violation, felony DWI convictions, a whole lot of list of other problems I got going on. And that's when everything come full circle for me. That's when Alcoholics Anonymous, my experience here, that's where the love of my mom, the direction, the affection, the example my mom laid out for me, all that stuff came full circle for me that day inside that county jail. And I got down on my knees in my underwear whopping 145, 150 and I said probably the most honest prayer I've ever said in my life. And i asked God to come into my life and and i can tell you from that day till now i never had or done a drink of alcohol and it changed my whole life. and that's that's what Alcoholics Anonymous did for me. I knew i needed to go back to AA And the AA was planted some several hundred miles away in that country little town, and I headed my direction back to that little town. And that's where I checked myself into treatment. And I had a problem with seizures, and I started about age 17. I'd have seizures sometimes in the morning if I didn't drink, just flop around like a fish all over the floor. And the morning drink solved that, but the morning drank wasn't there anymore, and I had another big seizure inside this treatment center and chipped a tooth and got some stitches. It took me a little extra few days to get out of this detox. But finally the day came, and a door knocked. and this little guy come in my room, he was probably about up to here, 55, 56 at the time, gray hair, prison glasses. Boy, you've got to love those things. He's got this Kansas City Chiefs hat on. I hate the Chiefs, so right away I hated this guy. And he said, My name's Gary. And I just got out of this place about four months ago, and I come up and take guys like you to outside meetings, and you're on the list, you get to go tonight. And it's the sarcastic ways I could say it in one or two words that told him to jump in a lake. And he walked out. But, you know, when the book talks about an endless solution, it says, you Know, we had the ability to win the confidence of an alcoholic in just a few hours when no one else can do it. Well, he won mine in about 30 seconds because he stuck his head back in. He said, Hey, Aaron. And he called me Aaron. He says, Do me one favor. And I said, What's that? He goes, Try real hard to smile and get it over with. And he walk out. and i and i couldn't help do what you did i just kind of get this laugh on my face and i just whatever reason the spirit grabbed ahold of me and i got up my walk time i said i guess i'll go to that meeting with you he says good because you're the only one who wants to go fine and we get in a little elevator we go down the parking lot and we're walking across the parking and I can see the alcoholic car. Don't you love alcoholic cars? Man, you can spot them 500 miles away. And I've seen this car and I'm just hoping to myself that this isn't the car we're going to get in there. But the closer we get, here it is, a 1970 Pea Green Plymouth Duster. And we could pass the basket in the front row and pay for that car. It was a piece of junk. You could see the asphalt through the floorboards of this car. And he was a total redneck, man. I mean, he had stuff all over the dash. He didn't even have car speakers in his car. He had house speakers from his house. Wires hanging all over place. No muffler. And he starts that thing up, man, and we're on our way to the A meeting and exhaust is coming through the floorboard. No mufflar, man? And he's got this big old grin on his face. Man, he's so pumped up. I'm going to this meeting with him. He's just laying it out there, passionate as you can lay it out how great his life is, just laying it out there. And I'm like, dude, I hate to be the guy to break it to you. But your life sucks, man. Big time. Big L right there. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. But, you know, we just don't know how it's going to impact our life. And it's amazing, really. We get to the meeting and Gary said something that was really important for me to hear. If you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous, I hope you're here tonight. He said, Harold, I know you did a lot of other things besides the booze thing. But when you go into this meeting tonight, just be Harold the Alcoholic. We know what that means. You don't need all these other designations behind your name. Just be Harold The Alcoholic I've been Harold The Alcoholic ever since. And that's, you know, without even consciously thinking about it. You know, that's how quick self started being restored to me. You know? My sanity started to be restored. Long story short about Gary, Gary is still, he's just a hillbilly. He still lives in that same little town. When I got married several years later, he was the best man at my wedding. Gary drank up everything he had in his life, including his pilot's license. And not too many years ago, he got his pilot'S license back. And he never did have the money to drive a plane, but he was able to lease Cessnas and whatever. And as insane as it was, there's Jay Walker all over again. I go climb in a Cessna plane with Gary. You know, 18, 19 years later, we're flying all over this little town that we were both just broken, two little broken guys, and flying with the Eagles, you know. And that's Alcoholics Anonymous. Gary still lives in that little trailer. I still go up there and deer hunt. I stop at his house. He usually stays at his home. Last time I was there, he's a total hillbilly. You've got to love it. You go in there and he's got a goldfish in his bowl. And I said, there's no oxygen or nothing in this bowl. And I asked him, how long have you had this fish? He goes, not long. He goes this because the other two or three I had died. And I say, really? I said what do you call that fish? He says fishy. That's the best thing you can come up with is fishy for a gold fish. No, I'm kidding. But God loves him. I love that old guy, and he's just as crazy as ever. But he won my confidence. So that's the important message here about the H&I. I mean, this guy is four-and-a-half months sober, hasn't worked hardly anything, but he had a passion, and he had four more months than I did. And he won me confidence. He got me to go take an action that up until then I wasn't willing to take, and it changed my life. And that's what H&Is are all about. I came back to St. Louis, and the self-centered fear just grabbed a hold of me with a death grip like it never had before. And I was so paranoid because I had so much trouble. The biggest problem I had is I had to go to court over those DWIs, and I had the same judge for both cases, and I just was in trouble. And I remember going to court. I was just a little over 90 days sober, and it was pouring down rain as hard as it could rain, storming, tornado watches, everything's out there. I go into this courthouse. I told this attorney, I said, can I sit right here by this door? He says, you sit right there and don't move. And I think the weather is the only thing that saved me because the dark side is telling me, go. Walk out the door, hit the road. I don't know how many times I got up and just bailed in a court proceeding or a warrant for my arrest. Just get up and walk away. Here I am. I mean, the temptation's on me. It's just pounding me, pounding me. And the storm's just poundin'. About an hour later, he walks down and says, hey, man, all I can tell you is the good Lord's looking out for you. I said, how's that? He says, man because you were the eighth guy on the docket. And when they went up there to run your record and background check and do all that, all the computers are down, the terminals are down. They couldn't do any of that stuff. So they just took my advice, and you're not going back to prison. But you're now getting your license back, but you never had them to start with. And you're going to pay me a hell of a lot of money. I said, okay. But that started a little bit of my journey. But my first day, I mean, when I got back out of that treatment center, I couldn't go to it. I stood outside there and fear had me by the throat. I mean I took a bus down this place. I watched people going into the meeting. It was 2 o'clock on a Saturday and fear just pounded me. And this is so critical, that 24 to 48 hours of, you know, that transfer from incarceration or out of a treatment center back into society. I don't know about in California, but I'm going to be willing to gamble that that's a pretty vital time for your offenders. And I know for me it was. And lucky enough, you know, our book talks about it. It drills at home. Bill uses the word 100 times, persist, persist. And Gary, thank God he was persistent because he called me. You go into meetings, and for whatever reason, I tell him the truth. No, I'm not. We need to go to AA. Okay. Wouldn't go. It took me a couple weeks before I mustered up the courage to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. But finally I went, and I started my journey here. And I love to tell you, it was just this great storybook experience. I came to AA, threw myself into it, gave myself to a simple program, and voila! But that's not what happened here. I had conceded to my innermost self that I was alcoholic. To the deepest core, I knew that I wasn't. I was powerless over alcohol. But that is all I thought the problem was. And I was really convinced. I may not have verbally expressed it that way, but I was very convinced that once I started drinking, my life would just explode into change. And it did get so much better by just not drinking. So I just avoided the steps. I avoided sponsorship. I avoided all that stuff. And I lived off the fellowship, you know. And you can live off the scholarship, and trust me, you can do it for a long, long time in this place. And I did it. And I loved AA dances like you're going to have tonight. And I was a hillbilly, never danced in my life, even drunk. Maybe the Hoosier 2 step or something, but that was about it. You know, there wasn't no dancing on my end. But it didn't take me long to catch on how to do all the Vogue stuff, you know, Macarena, getting jiggy with it, you know, running. man, I could do all that. That's right. I did all those things. I joined the AA softball teams. I did the AA float trips. I did All the Parties. I did ALL those things, but I didn't do the AA program, which is working the steps, and my life got worse. I fell into love, if you want to call it that, the AA romance, chasing girls around in this place, and what I'm going to share with you is an important message, and it goes for guys and girls you know i ran around and did all those things and i met a young lady in alcoholics non but she was actually coming from al-anon beautiful lady she got pregnant and then not long after that she didn't want anything to do with this fellowship it's the only thing doing me anything to deal with any of this stuff she says i'm out of here and it wasn't a whole hell of a lot i could do about it and i filed an attorney suit but i'm just gonna just flash right through this but i'll just tell you this much two three years later i'm sitting in a courtroom. By that time, I do have a sponsor. By that time I am working, by that time my life is changing but our book says that we make decisions based on self which later put us in a position to be hurt and we can do that as much sober as we can drunk and that day that reality came to me that day in that courtroom because this is this is my past you know and I'm sitting there and this kid's got an attorney I got an Attorney she's got an attorney long story short porch all over with she'd been married and they had filed an adoption suit I dropped my paternity suit went back against them for the adoption. But then at that court trial, that judge hit them out and said we think it's in the best interest of this child and the state of Missouri awards this adoption and this kid's rights to be with his parent. And that day my heart was just crushed. And by that time I'm married, I have another child of our own. A life is good to me. But I'm just telling you that's an experience. It's a choice I made. And I'd love to tell you the warm, fuzzy stuff that it's been almost 18 years since that happened and that this wonderful relationship took place. But it hasn't been God's will. It hasn't happened. I don't know if it will or if it won't. But there's a lesson there, and I hope you hear it, what it is. It's the hardest thing I ever had to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. Today I have – I ended up marrying my wife, Lisa, who at the time was in a halfway house for women. I don'T recommend that. Do you guys? The name of the house, it's famous in St. Louis. is called the Harrah's House. I unfortunately thought it meant it was Harold's house for women, not the Harah's house. But I met my wife there. She was there. And long story short, we've been married 15 years. We have two awesome daughters, Danielle and Sarah. Danielle's 15 and Sarah's 11. Those three ladies are the cornerstone of my life. I live with all women. There was a day I really wanted that in my life, you know, living with all men. Prayed about it, wished for it. Be careful what you pray for. I work with all women, too, in my business today. I can tell you my journey in alcoholics now is what happened to me was right before that incident happened. My life was crushed. My life Was just smashed. And I finally humbled myself to sponsorship, what they've been telling me for almost three years in this program. And I finaly went over and asked this guy to sponsor me. I said, Roy, this is my life, man. And he said, just lay it out there. I've known you almost two and a half years. Just tell me about your life. Man, I just laid it out here. I gave him a big blame list and excuse list why my life was messed up, why it was the way that it was. And he listened to all of it. But when he got done, he said... Harold, I want to tell you something. I hope you hear what I've got to say. And he goes, if you can hear what we're saying, if you hear whatever I've gotta say, you've got a real chance. But if you don't, you're on your way to a real vicious death. My dad's way of getting a sobriety date was sticking a shotgun in his mouth and pulling a trigger. And that's one way of get a sobrietate. And I maybe saw my dad ten times in my whole life. But he said, Harold, I want you to hear what I've got to say. Everything you have in your life right now, right this second, you've attracted to you by who you've become. He goes, I wants you to here what I got to tell you. Everything you've got right now in your live you've attract to you by who we've become and today you're man enough to own that. It's the day you're on your way to some real change but until you can own that you're going to go around this vicious circle and you're eventually going to do what your dad did or you're going to go again. You're going to self-destruct, you're gonna destroy yourself and maybe some others with you but that's the way it is." And I knew that he was right. But I just...that right to myself, that right that I made long before I ever took a drink, that stake I put in the ground and said, you know, it's my deal. It's my life. I'll do what the hell I want to do. Just leave me the hell alone. That still was just rock hard in my life. I just wanted to be autonomous. I just wanted to have my own life. You know, like the book says self-centered to the extreme although usually don't think so you know and i just didn't think i was that self-centered but i was ate up with it and here i was faced with this challenge what are you going to do and man i mean and believe me the higher power concept you know i've just brought up you know I was read the bible I was told about Jesus and all those things but it just never did nothing for me it never did impact my life you know it never grabbed a hold of me I respected God I believed there was a guy but I didn't understand God I didn'T know you could have a personal relationship with God I DIDN'T KNOW any of that stuff but this is what impacted my life and it's just driving me but we started that step we started with the inventory and i can just tell you this much it changed my whole life it didn't happen in one big cataclysmic explosion but the change took place pretty fast and it changed my entire life i never looked back from that day till now and everything about me changed things started to open up doors started to happen for me that weren't there or weren't existing before that and i got a lot of breaks in this program i got along the way don't let me fool I didn't deserve any of them. I got a lot of breaks. I mean, and I can't stress enough, breaks. Breaks from the state of Missouri, breaks from the Department of Corrections, breaks from a division of insurance, breaks from an division of securities exchange commission. The list goes on and on. A lot of brakes. And I tried to take the best advantage that I could of them, and it's changed my life. I went back to school. You know, I didn' t have a GED. I didn''t have an education. I tried to end a penitentiary a few times and quit. Felt like I was too stupid, couldn't do it. Finally went back to school, got a GED. Went back to college, got her degree. Went backto college,got an MBA, you know. Went and got a whole other list of initials behind my name and run a very successful insurance practice today in the state of Missouri, a practice that takes me all around the world, all around United States, not just doing AA stuff but doing business. That's why I'm going to Scottsdale after this. I've been rewarded a hundred times fold in this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous like I said, I had the two girls I had my wife and of course we have all the problems that most couples have in AlcoholicsAnonymous we argue about the same things sex and money she wants me to pay for it and I don't think I should have to it's an ongoing it's ongoing but we struggle with it and my biggest struggle today is you know just trying to to love my kids man to love them for who they are and just let them be who they're supposed to be who god wants them to be it's the hardest thing in the world for me just to stay out of that and not let my own self-centered fear grab a hold of me when the boys come knocking i know who you are yeah you know and that's just you know that's just discrimination really you know whenever I take that because whenever I take that route a discriminatory way letters due to skin color whether it's due to gender whatever basically what I'm saying is I know you I know about you and I know what you are in it and as soon as I make that decision the bets off because I can look at you two ways I can either learn from you or I can judge you but as soon as i make that decision the other bets off and that's my biggest problem you know i just try to stay away from it but if i battle with it i can just tell you i battle it um i started my journey in alcoholics and i was a dispatcher roy and roy told me two things right off the bat he says i want you to do two things i always want you have a new guy you're working with and i want to go on somewhere once a week where you don't want to end up and that is your choice and it started with the harbor light salvation army skid row mission on washington avenue in st louis missouri and i stayed in that place for quite a long time. And one day a phone call come in and said, hey, we'd like you to come out to this Maximum Security Penitentiary and join us with this AA group, starting this AA groups inside this penitentiaries. I said, there is no way in Shinola that those people are going to let me in that penitentiary. I guarantee you. And they did at first. But then somebody made a phone call, made a call, and eventually I got a call. I said we need you to go down here because we need to take a picture. And they gave me a badge. And I became 102822 and that's been worth 15 years ago and I've been 102-822 every Monday night in the maximum security penitentiary in the state of Missouri and you couldn't kick me out of the place if you wanted to. So, I mean, that's how my life has come full circle in Alcoholics Anonymous. I just want to close up by talking about corrections and I get to go around and talk a lot about corrections in a lot of different venues And Tom, my sponsor, who many of you know or are good friends with, who's got one of the most incredible stories that there ever was in Alcoholics Anonymous, is passionate about corrections. And I know there's a lot of passionate people here that I've met at the International and different places that I have talked with them. But through that collaborated effort, what I call team corrections, and that's what's going on here is this Team H&I, the team concept, is we come up with some beliefs about corrections And we compiled a list, and you read some H&I beliefs, and I strongly condone all those. But I just want to read a few of these because I really can't elaborate on them because we're not in a workshop format. But I think they're important, especially since we're in H&Is, just to bring these points home. And I'm sure that the panels have talked about these points over and over again. But this is a collaborative list, and I just wanted to share a few Of these. And this is just the topic of this is beliefs about corrections. But the first one is that the program is exactly the same for those on the inside as it is for those on the outside. The people inside are far more like me than unlike me. The challenges met in recovery are at least as great for those on the side as for anyone. And if you've ever been a consumer or been incarcerated, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every tradition that can be practiced here can be practiced there, every single one. There are some fine, capable people combined to correctional facilities as well as some who are not so fine. And that's the truth. Correction staff are usually willing to offer full cooperation if they understand our purpose and function. Sound business procedures contribute significantly to the spirit of our cooperative relationship with correction staff. We spend far too much time working on arrangements in routine operations. We spend far too little time working on the quality and effectiveness of what we do A sound and well-implemented program works very well with good results People are almost willing to respond to specific requests for help Either service or material And I've seen that even though I wasn't here this weekend I've already seen it on your program The professionals and outside contributors you had to this place And I applaud you for that You can help someone in a correctional facility by simply showing up. I mean, that's the truth. My work is with alcoholics who happen to be confined, not inmates, prisoners or convicts. Don't do anything for one person that I could not do or would not do for everyone else in the group. Be an enthusiastic good example of recovery is a great contribution. Keeping commitments is extremely important. Walk like you talk. Profane and vulgar language impresses no one. Speaker meetings at an established frequency should be a regular feature in groups of corrections. Always remember that someone new to AA is present in most AA meetings and correctional facilities. And the last one I'll read is, there is no type of service work that is more rewarding than the powerful, accountable relationship that is established when I take a long-term, regular commitment to a group in a correctional facility or a state hospital or a treatment center. And that's just been my experience in my walk in Alcoholics Anonymous and Corrections and no different than H&I, you know, in institutions. That's my beliefs along with a lot of other people's beliefs. It's been my experiences. We all have a purpose. We do have a Purpose Driven Life. Alcoholics Anonymous has been our Purpose Draven Life book. It tells us we all have the general calling to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. But it tells us it's much deeper than that, and it says that our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be a maximum service to God and the people in our lives. That's a huge calling, and that takes us to a lot of different places, each and every one of us. But the road is unbelievable. I shared this last experience with you. When I started doing my nine-step work, my sponsor had me put them on three-by-five index cards. And I wrote who the harm was, person, place, or thing, what the harm wasn't. On the back, I actually wrote out what it was going to say, cut through the chase, this is it, go do it. And keep them on your desk for you to look at them every single day of your life. And don't stop until you're done. And year after year, I had my Uncle Bob on this list. My Uncle Bob was my dad's brother. I only seen my Uncle Bobby one time in my entire life, and that's when I was five years old. And my argument was, why do I have to put Uncle Bob up on my list? I've never seen a guy, never did nothing with a guy. What's the heck's he use? What's this all about? And he said, hey, do you know your Uncle Bob? I said, I know who he is. He said, have you ever picked up the phone and called this guy? I said no sir, I have not. He said so you indirectly chose not to participate in this person's life. And I said that's correct. He says you need to yell at the guy in the midst. And I say okay. So every year, year after year, Uncle Bob's name would come up, Uncle Bob his name would go to the back of the list. This went on until I was 12 years sober. 12 years sobers, Christmas time. I don't have very many cars left, and here's Uncle Bob. How do you know if this guy is still alive? So I get on the Internet, and I look up Robert Long, Betty Long, Buffalo, Missouri. I said, man, that's got to be them. So I called them. Well, I didn't call them, really. I wrote them a letter, gave them a brief synopsis of my life, why I was getting ahold of them. Man, immediately they sent me a car back, and a few weeks later they gave me a phone call. They were ecstatic. And I said well, you know, I've got to make this amends to you, And I said, you know, my sponsor is adamant that I don't just do it and try to get off doing it in writing. I need to come and see. He said, we think that would be great. So I got in the car, and it was on a Thursday. And it was about three and a half hours outside of St. Louis. And I go to this little country town, and I pull into the driveway. And this lady comes out and says, well, he looks like a long. So, you Know, in our book, you Now, it tells us nine times out of ten, the unexpected is going to happen when we do this. And I knew that. And there hasn't been an amends. I intuitively didn't know that going in, but the fear always grips me. And I get out and I walk up and my Uncle Bob comes down on the porch and he grips my hand and he says, it's great to see you. Come on in. And guys, what happened next is unbelievable. If anybody ever seen the Antoine Fisher story, that's what happened to Harold Long's life. Because when I walked into that house, every one of his kids, cousins I never met, nephews, nieces, everybody was there. There was over 30 people at that house on a Thursday afternoon and 1 o'clock in the afternoon to meet me. And we've been the long family ever since. Is that cool? About a month later, I took my wife and kids back. My kids never had a grandfather. Both their grandfathers died from alcoholism. But when they first got here, the first thing they did is they hopped up in Uncle Bob's lap and they said, do you think it would be all right if we call you Grandpa? They said, I think that would be just fine. And we've been doing that relationship. I couldn't tell you how many wounds that relationship healed in my life. But I know that there's Uncle Bob's in your life. I know it. And I just hope that John Barleycorn, the dark side, in your own sobriety, in your old walk, isn't robbing you of some tremendous opportunities while you're sitting here supposedly happy, joyous, and free. It changed my life and the men's process. I could sit here all night and share it, but it's just important to share that one. And in closing, I want to say this, that we, you know, again, we're all here for a purpose. And if you don't think so, all you've got to look is this thing right here, the very thing that most of us had to run across an ink pad or scan at one time of our life. And probably the Department of California Corrections has yours on file somewhere. But that right there is really your spiritual birthmark because no one else in this world before you or that's going to come after you ever had that birthmark. Even identical twins, all the way down to the same DNA, had different fingerprints. If there isn't proof that there's a spiritual birthmark in your life, it's right there. The question is, and the challenge is, what am I putting that fingerprint on? Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I can tell you I was putting it on beer cans, other people's stuff. That's where you would find this fingerprint. But I think our co-founders, Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob, and everybody else, all the elder statesmen and stateswomen that stand up tonight, I think that what this is supposed to do is supposed to be on the hearts of the people we meet and greet in our life, that this fingerprint should be on the hands we shake and the hugs that we give. And that's what's going to make a big difference in our lives. You know, and that's the challenge for each and every one of us. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous spiritually retarded, emotionally retarded. AlcoholicsAnonymous gave me so much more. Most importantly, it gave me a personal relationship with a power greater than myself, which I choose to call God. It changed my whole life. I was waiting for the miracle to take place somewhere out there. The miracle took place right here in my heart. It's heart disease that we suffer from. It's really what it is. The question is, is what do we want? And it's a question, I think, if God walked in here tonight and looked you right in the eyes and said, Ronnie, what do you want? Dave, what are you wanting? You know, what Do you Want? And I know what the answer is from God. I know What God Wants from each and every one of us. He wants our hearts. He wants Our commitment. He wants this to be a maximum service to each of us, to be of maximum service To the people in our lives. And the question is, Am I really doing that? or I still had that stake and that claim to myself. And if I do, I can just tell you, you're missing it. And I hope you get it because once you get it, you can start to laugh and you start to have the humor and the joy and the hope that comes with this thing. And a great thing about all that, and I can't stress it enough, is that humor is a gentle way of acknowledging human frailty. And there's a lot of broken, fragile people when we get here. But I hope he stick around alcoholics long enough to not only laugh, but I hope you stick around long enough to find out what your purpose-driven life is really about. Congratulations to all the H&I people, all the people celebrating birthdays, and if you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous, welcome home. Thanks a lot. Thank you.