The Insanity of Thinking Insight Is Enough – Terry R.

My name is Ron, and I'm an alcoholic and a connoisseur of numerous other fine chemicals. Once again, on behalf of the committee, welcome to San Diego and to our breakfast meeting. We have a few announcements this morning before our meeting will open. that the East Room in the White House has been reserved and that a small vehicle from Cape Canaveral will be used for the finale. It's also to be announced that next year's spring meeting will not be held in Morristown, that instead the spring meeting will be held in San Antonio, and that Dr. Jean Seale will be chairing that meeting and looks forward to contacting each of you and to having a good turnout for that meeting. Dr. Seale, are you in the audience? Would you stand, please? I guess not. Dr. Bessel is trying to have the privilege of standing here before you with a red dot on my badge. Two years ago, I was at the peak of my illness. I was so delighted to meet you wonderful people and to find out that I was an alcoholic and an addict and a person and that you treated me with love and told me that there was hope. I no longer had to identify myself as having some sort of syndrome actually not being a psychiatrist I thought that a syndrome was a brothel in which they competed it's been a treat and a delight for me to relive my experience with you with the enormous number of newcomers that are here. Newcomers, you keep us alive. You keep us young. And we want you to come back again, 100% of you, next year, and help us to grow as exponentially as I've seen this organization grow in my short contact with it. Come and bring two or three or six newcomers with you. And now I'd like to open this meeting by reading our preamble. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. I feel very personally grateful during this convention to share with you the things that have been so important to me in my sobriete. You're seeing the people who have surrounded me and helped me, the lovely city in which I live. Father, this morning's speaker is someone who has helped me to know my higher power on a friendly, loving basis as a resource I never knew I possessed. Father Terry Ritchie is dearly beloved in this area for the work that he's done among many alcoholics. He comes to us from the Los Angeles area, where he's a member of a five-man intervention team and an advisory panel on alcoholism for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a board member for the National Clergy Council on Alcoholism, and the director of numerous retreats for alcoholics and co-alcoholics. While Terry was a little bit anxious about addressing you this morning, He said to me that he didn't know what he could possibly say to follow Shamu. I said, I don't care what you say, but perhaps if you dress the same. Father Terry. Very good. Hello. My name is Terry, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Terry. Not bad for an Italian. I'm a alcoholic, and I'm sober, and I'm delighted and very grateful. I was drawn towards the program in such a way that my higher power had a chance he gave me a chance really I can't complain he gave me a good chance to figure out how to stay sober with just the usual mass of health society he did me two favors he told me he let me know what alcoholism is, basically. And he let me know that I had it. Then he said, take it away. And six hospitalizations later. This is after I knew better. And after being fired for life twice, I got here with a, let's say, ready to pay attention. And not ready to play attention with any type of hope or good cheer or expectation a wonderful thing, just ready to pay attention because all my bright ideas had been pounded out of me. I didn't have any other place to go at the time. I was in a recovery house that required four AA meetings a week in order to be fat, so I went. There's two thoughts in my head here at the beginning. One is that from Captain Pershing's description of the everyman alcoholic position, the peculiar deformation of the psyche that goes along with the average Alki addict doctor I figure I missed my vocation I I identified fully down to the family with the very high ideals and an alcoholic father and I also grew up with the with this fantastic education in alcoholism. And my story as an alcoholic and recovering alcoholic might be summarized as a confirmation of what I consider one of the understatements of the 20th century we find in the big book, and I'm not going to quote it verbatim. I don't know it verbATIM. But it's put succinctly in one place and in many places in more and more drawn-out fashion, namely that we discovered that self-knowledge is not enough. Insight doesn't do it. I'm here. I will now elaborate on that. My insight started early. As many of you, I was kind of a smart kid, and I listened. My father went to AA meetings in the early 40s In Los Angeles 2200 Club next to MacArthur Park He was found dead in a dry out place On his 42nd birthday Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles I was 6 years old But even at that time We already had all the sayings of AA In the family vocabulary I already knew that I should live one day at a time easy does it I knew that alcoholism was a disease I knew once an alky always an alki I knew the first drink got you drunk and I was fascinated with all that I was told not to think badly of my father and my uncle to say a prayer for him and I prayed A few uncles were alcoholic And they added to my education We had a policy in our house That my Uncle Bill and my Uncle Matt Were always welcome no matter how drunk and dirty As long as they stayed in the boys room In the garage In the army bunk beds And if they made the run again Then they got the formal expulsion orders I can remember one of my little sisters, Kathy, commenting to my Uncle Bill as he was being escorted across the backyard after he had made the run. She said, if that's a disease you've got, don't come back because I don't want to catch it. So we were very sophisticated on these matters. And I decided to outwit all the ambiguities and problems of life by becoming a good boy. And I devoted myself to it. I went to the seminary and studied to be a priest and about that time was confirmed there was an Irish bishop who encourages all to take the pledge not to drink till we were 21. I took him up on that and I not only took the pledge but I kept it mostly because I think everybody was out of stubbornness, kind of an alcoholic like stubbornness, perhaps. All of my classmates says, nobody keeps the pledge. Don't worry about it. I said, I'm going to keep it. So I went ahead in my education. The longest paper I wrote in college was on alcoholism. I read the big book, the stories, and a number of other books on this disease two years before I had a drink so when I began drinking I began drinking in a setting that the the National Council of alcoholism couldn't ask anymore by way of preparation for their first drink. There I was, a student in the seminary. By the way, it's not against my religion to drink. Moving about here the last day, it looks like some of you were sinners from the start. I just wanted to drink like the other Catholics. That's another thing, another rumor I might try to scotch here while I have the podium that not all Catholics are alcoholic. That has been circulating in some meetings. Anyway, I began drinking in a setting that, to say the least, was ideal. I didn't have any money to speak of. I didn' t have any friends who caroused. I had a head full of knowledge in alcoholism. And it was in the summertime. I was glad of that. We got out in the summer. And my birthday rolled around and I went to the store. I bought a bottle of bourbon, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters, maraschino cherries. I got the Southern Comfort Recipe book out of Newsweek. The one that they staple in the middle periodically. An ounce and a half of this and three-quarters of an ounce of that. I computed out the recipe, made a batch in Manhattan's, and discovered America. drinking was a big deal to me from the start it's a big meal now it was then and I wish to God at work at that time I knew right away that it should not be a big deal well I should be casual about this there's a definition of an alcoholic I like a lot as an alcoholic is somebody who is always wanting a drink or wanting not to drink and pretending to be indifferent. I've never been indifferent, and I've always tried to look indifferent. I had a few Manhattans that day, and we talk about crossing the invisible line. Some people People drink for a good number of years and they look, their drinking doesn't look particularly different from anyone else's or it certainly doesn't seem to be causing particular problems. And then something happens and there's problems and then the problem, they never go back across the line. Some people cross the line early. I'm pretty sure that I crossed the line sometime in the early afternoon on my 21st birthday. There was no waiting. One of the reactions I had that day that I consider a very clear symptom of the disease of alcoholism was after having a drink and having my tummy warm up and that tightness in my chest loosen up, and my IQ go up about 20 points, and feeling that gaining a deeper respect for my father and my uncles. And I won't say feeling happy. Booze never made me happy. It always made me feel like I was going to be happy in about 15 minutes. But after all that I decided not to tell anybody how much I liked Manhattans I decided that they're going to be checking up on my drinking soon enough and I am not going to help them I am NOT going to give him any free ammunition so I didn't say anything I did look around and I think I may be confused this this reaction kind of built time went on I don't know how much I felt it that day but I did notice very early those other people with a drink in their hand and wondering, why are they pretending that they're not feeling what I feel? I wasn't asking why I was pretending that I didn't feel what I was feeling. Well, but I caught that they weren't. They just didn't look like they appreciated what they had at all. Either they were into deep deception or lacked some capacity to appreciate God's greatest gift. But that was something I noticed early. As I looked around with other people with a drink, I could tell they were into something different than what I was into. We were in different activities. We looked the same. A photograph would show the same thing. We both had a drink in our hand. But they were at a party and they happened to be having a drink. I was drinking and I happened to Be at the Party. And this is the root, I think, of my own alcoholism. I value a high. I value it more than I value whatever else you put up against it. and you could say to me gee you say that so sensuously didn't you go to school don't you have any standards I have standards I went to school and I value a high I have good reason to believe that my alcoholism is progressing as most other people's alcoholism is progressing and so I'm going to be valuable high more now than I've ever had you say well So why? I don't know why. I just do. That's my premise, you know. That's the given in this problem. But I do like to speculate. I always apologize before I go into this speculation because this kind of sharing in this setting, we usually discourage speculation and why questions. If you're new, you've probably already been warned not to ask any why questions. We don't tolerate that for a couple of years. You may ask how. We are encouraged to ask how we tolerate what questions and absolutely forbid why questions nonetheless. less. Why do I value Ohio as much as I do? Well, then you go into the proximate stuff. I have a physical constitution that is such that I don't get sleepy right away when I start drinking or throw up. I don'T get distressed that way. I get a kick out of it. That's one thing but the deeper thing I think the deeper thing has something to do with the spiritual experience I think being high on alcohol is the closest thing to a spiritual experience that isn't it's just about exactly the opposite of one actually but it's it feels like one's coming on there's an experience of transcendence I was asked by my sponsor he said father have you ever felt close to God sort of a nervy question and I I thought it was a trick question, so I didn't answer it right away. Waited a little while, and I was careful. I said, yes, I think I felt close to God. He said, when you felt close to God, would it be fair to say that you had the feeling that everything was all right? I said that's kind of a bland expression, everything is all right. But yes, I'll go for that. There was a definite feeling that I'm still a jerk and the world's full of troubles, but life is going on and love is going on and everything's all right. Yeah, that's sort of a sense of spiritual stance, attitude, experience. And then I got to thinking. when I have a few quick double scotches I had the feeling that everything was alright because I got the chemical transcendence and I don't sneeze at this I don' t say well dummy it was just chemical so why grow up because that's the way I always talked to myself before I always despised myself for the root of my alcoholism. I despise myself because I valued that feeling as I did. I would just, and I despised myself so deeply, of course, that I would figure out that I really didn't like it that much and that this is a temporary moral aberration with a few more prayers I will heighten my consciousness, deepen my awareness, and get good and won't have these attacks of fantasizing how to have a drink on the way home from an AA meeting. I think that most alcoholics in this country are regular folks going around trying their best to do the impossible. trying very hard to get over something that isn't to be gotten over now you know we have a lot of education along this line now we all hear about alcoholism and once an alcoholic always an alcoholic it never goes away and not a moral issue it's uh just a condition a metabolic condition and relax, folks, don't worry about it, doesn't mean you're a monster. All of that's true, and no drinking alcoholic believes it at all. Every drinking alcoholic will say, yes, I agree to that. But I think while I was a drinking alcoholic with, I think, an above-average pile of information on the disease inside of me, I was able to say, of course, I'm an alcoholic. I'll never be able to live normally if there's drinking in my life. The first drink gets me drunk. Should anybody know the first drink get you drunk? I was a booze fighter. Go for a couple weeks and have one drink, and it was a different world I was in. I knew that. But, in spite of that pamphlet-level knowledge of the situation, I was deeply, I wouldn't say convinced, there was a sense that I simply had to get over the way my head worked or it was all over. I had to fix my head. I had to get it worked out in such a way I think some more insights would do it or more prayers or more something. I had a get my head overhauled to the extent that I would be high-minded enough not to be plotting after a drink not to be as susceptible to obsession as I was i had to become high-minded and oh lord what a burden that is to carry around um i haven't become high minded that was the the great good news of coming into the program of alcoholics anonymous was with my ambition to be transformed so that i would automatically not only not drink, not only be sober. I thought, oh, anybody. I'm not going to settle for that. I want to be sober and know why I'm sober and feel right about it. I thought I had to feel right about it, and you laughed your heads off. What do you mean feel right about it? You're an alcoholic. There's going to be times when all you want is a drink. The good news is, you don't have to have one. You get to be sober one day at a time as long as you are willing, fully willing, to feel like a fool. To feel like an idiot. Like a jerk who was slavering after a drink in the middle of an AA meeting, figuring that, well, if I just have a half pint tonight, I've been good for a while. If I just had a few tonight, taper off in the morning, and I haven't had any for so long, I'll be good as new by tomorrow afternoon. That's so manifestly insane for anybody with the experience we have that when I had those sort of obsessions, I would drink out of sheer humiliation that I had the thought this kind of ran away from this I had to complete a thought that started out here about that spiritual experience I think that when a person's the condition, the contrast between being half-gassed and into surrender on how the feelings are remarkably similar in some respects. And the state is exactly the opposite. I'm fascinated by that. I think it's just something else. And I already described a little bit how the states are similar and the way they are different comes across most clearly to me when I consider the way I relate to other people in both states. When I've had a few drinks, I'm never in worse shape to meet people. And I really like to meet people. I have a few drinks. I'm ready to commune with the universe. I'm out there ready to get it on. But what I do is go out and get very busy with my drinking project. Now, I don't know about you, but when I drink, it requires all of my attention and energy. When I drink I have to constantly re-compute the situation. I am computing. I have to make sure that I get enough to drink to do the trick and not too much to screw it up. And in order to make sure that I am getting enough to do the trick, I am taking into account the percentage of alcohol in the drink that I'm working on and the amount of time I've taken to drink it and how many ounces and the liver tastes here of so much per hour and then I've got to make sure about the future and the supply situation and this picture changes hour to hour and I have to keep the computations up to the minute this takes a large part of my mind but that's minor compared to the project I have when drinking of keeping all of you in the right place I have to make sure you are thinking good things about me. That means every move I make, every gesture, word, I don't have to be perfect. I know that. You know, we're artists. We have a little shadow in the picture. It isn't that I haveと make sure you think I'm wonderful. I just have to makesure that you think I'm doing well enough so that you don't have to do anything that's going to make it more difficult for me to get a drink. That's the bottom line here. And so I'm constantly maneuvering and making little moves to convince you that I'm doing well enough. Now, this includes, this even includes when I would be your counselor. I counseled many people after a swig of scope and while doing that it looked you probably thought you were being counseled you weren't being counsel what was happening was that I was playing counselor and I was I had to listen to your problem in order to play counselor well. I had to listen to what you were saying and get enough of your story so that my responses would be appropriate, as we say, appropriate enough to convince you you were getting a good deal by coming to talk to me. Now, it would have been nice if I actually cared what was happening to you. But... When I'm drinking, I'm just too busy. I'm too busy to actually go across that line and actually care or get involved with your situation. So what I do is I play adequate. I do a little playlet of being adequate and work very hard at it. It takes up all my energy. So I don't have anything left over to give you. Not only that, it's the energy problem and it's also a security problem. But when I'm drinking, 95% of the action inside of me is top secret material. I can't tell you anything. I can tell you what I'm doing or planning if you said, well, what are you up to today? i'd have to say well i'm sitting here plotting out the day's drinking wondering if i'm going to make the run before lunch or i'm gonna wait till after uh my funds are running low and i i do like to maintain a little class and drink scotch but white port from 50s drugstore is very cost-effective you know you might look down a white port in the abstract but when it comes to getting the job done yeah well they must be considered especially so I can't tell anybody that you know I'd give you can't say those things and but that's what's important to me that's the thing on my agenda that's sort of and if I have to talk about just things that aren't important it's boring very boring not in good shape to meet people I can't tell anybody how I feel when I'm drinking can you imagine us so we're much too polite to tell people how we we feel. If someone were to ask me, you know, you're looking a little peaked at how you're feeling. If I were honest, I'd say something like, well, I feel like an inexorable and irreversible process of disintegration has taken hold, and I'll be dead soon. How are you doing? Sometimes you'll be talking to somebody and the person you're talking to is ready for you. They're mature, intelligent, and loving and have the time. But when you're talking to somebody like that, you can't tell them the truth either. Because if you do, they'll try to help you. And it's a lot harder to get a drink when they're trying to help you than any other time. Anyway, that's the merest sketch of the communication problem I have when booze is anywhere in my life. I'm not talking about being drunk. I am talking about drinking the way I drink, and if I might with Sunday morning and having on what one of my babies who plays jazz calls my gig suit, I could say I drink idolatrously. I drink with a level of attention that shouldn't be given to that, can't be giving to that without making your religion out of that. Anyway, and the opposite thing of what we'd call a real spiritual condition or experience, I'm never in better shape to meet people. And a spiritual experience, the spiritual condition, you know. What is that? God talk and spiritual talk has fallen into disrepute. I guess it's always falling into disrebute, you know. Most of us people in the profession, we tend to talk as if God's our uncle and I know them and you don't. People become skeptical. And if we're around the program, in the program for a while, we begin to run into people living a spiritual life. And it doesn't look churchy usually. It doesn't seem to matter. But also, once you find out how every day and how real faith in the spiritual life is, it's almost a disappointment to find out that a lot of people go to church who are like that. Anyway, what I consider a typical good spiritual condition is that of an alcoholic going to an AA meeting, of an Al-Anon going to another meeting. And let me just flesh out a bit the way I picture the condition in which this person finds herself on the way to the meeting. If you're going, if the person's going to the meeting, that usually means they already found out some time back that they're never ever going to be happy. They were pretty sure for years they weren't going to happy, but they had a slight suspicion there was a chance. And then when they just about, when everything ran, broke down, fell apart, when they finally became really convinced, no doubt about it, I've had it. Well then you can go to a meeting because you won't miss anything. That's the thing I hated most about the thought of going to meetings was, you know, something might break while I'm, I might have some breakthrough or something wonderful might happen, but it's not going to happen there. We're not the type of people who've spent much time fantasizing sitting in folding chairs in a church basement is our idea of fulfillment and happiness. Or after the meeting, sitting in a 24-hour coffee shop with formica tables dribbling water down a little hot water pot that always dribble. You're trying to make Sanka. It dribbles up your arm and onto the table, sitting between two people you don't like. You were trying to, thought you were going to get to sit next to that person you like, wanted to talk to, and they're at the next table. The booth wasn't big enough. And there you are. Now, usually a person there is in a magnificent spiritual condition. Because they're so sure nothing good will happen, they don't put any demands on the people around them. They're ready to be bored to death. They figure that's what happens when you get to this stage. When they finally get you and you've finally got to be good, it's going to be boring. So here I am and usually since I don't expect anything and don't demand or push or pull I'm ready I'm actually ready to notice what's good about a person and as soon as I know this was good about you you think I'm smart and we start talking like human beings and that's the condition that that's a spiritual condition. Anyway, I feel like I've been giving a lot of advice here. I really did drink there. I'm very grateful to report that my drinking was relatively brief. I guess the total quantity didn't set any records at all. But I drank a bit before I was ordained a priest. Once I was ordained, I got to drink more because you're allowed to. And it went very fast. I was a booze fighter very quickly, trying my best to fit in and do my job, getting up at six, sticking close to home but starting to have blackouts. Also, the great backfiring experience of trying to control drinking. I had this thing where I used to try to drink one drink per hour on occasion. Usually it was in repentance after I drank too much. The next time out, I'd say drink one drink for an hour. You'll never get drunk that way, they say. They may be right, but I made that resolution a good number of times and usually did not keep it. It didn't make me feel terribly bad when I didn't keep it, I figured it was pretty good of me to make the resolution. But it didn't demoralize me too much, I kind of felt the same. But when I did keep it, that was alarming. When I did keep it that's what...that was alarming because I'm an alcoholic and I was imitating a social drinker. You know anybody can get drunk. You can get enough booze into somebody in the amount of time, the required amount of time they'll get drunk but you've got to be an alcoholic. To go to a social gathering, drink one drink per hour, be the perfect guest, talk about what they want to talk about, be a big relief to the host and have a nervous breakdown. It's usually my reaction. And I quit drinking to save myself the trouble of becoming an alcoholic. And about four or five months into that, decided, fantastic, you've got the talent to quit. Isn't that wonderful? I didn't think I did. Nobody else was impressed. They figured it's a free country. I didn't have to drink. I was very impressed. I was so impressed with my ability to stop that I decided to start, knowing that if there was any trouble, I would simply use my talent and quit again. And then was into booze fighting in a more serious way. I quit a lot after that, starting and stopping, and then decided that my trouble was that I quit too much. If you quit for life more than ten times a month, it affects your morale. I thought what I should do is accept myself, be realistic. I became very idealistic and perfectionistic and so forth in the seminary. I've got to accept myself as a regular human being. I'm a drinking man, and just be cool. Settle down and quit losing your head. So with that approach, I bought my fifth of scotch every day, and this lasted a number of months until I was missing things and getting in trouble with my boss and then saying I wouldn't drink and drinking again and missing things and being in trouble with his boss. And finally, I was fired. And I started into aversion treatment. That was the treatment of choice in the place I happened to be at that time. And many of you are familiar with that, nausea drug and warm salt water and a lot to drink. Five of those treatments are supposed to impress a person so much that if they have any motivation left to be sober, that should get them through. One or two extra should do it for life easy. I've had 23 aversion treatments and they asked me never ever to come back there again. I was demoralizing the other patients. And we're kind of back to the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that chapter 3 talks about. I was in it. I was knowing the knowledge by this time had built up I was always hospitalized as an alcoholic, talking to counselors and saying my prayers, praying for God's help. And I got in, so I started going to meetings and said, Father, didn't you pray to your higher power? Yes, I was praying to my higher power. I was praying to my higherpower to what I figured the deal was that I was going to be stuck with a label alcoholic for the rest of my life. I agreed to that that my family it was kind of respectable to be an alcoholic anyway I'll buy that one but somehow I had to get over this condition I had to get over being me I had to undergo a radical overhaul that would make me so different than I am I asked I was like a man who had lost his legs and was praying for new ones that's and I was very cynical not having received an affirmative answer no, no new legs huh? Well, if that's the way you treat your clergy, no wonder they're not coming to church. You know, I found this thing of self-will run riot. That's a wonderful phrase. Bill Wilson's deathless phrases. And I found that self-will run riot in the pursuit of virtue is much more dangerous than self-willed run riot of the pursuit advice. Usually when you're when you are when you re up to no good, you kind of know it. But when youre hot on the pursuit of virtue, God help the neighborhood. Our Father who art in heaven, my will be done on earth. You know, it's easy to get confused there. I mean, if you're not confused, Still, I'd like to talk to you after the meeting. Seems like if God doesn't want you to be sober, if God isn't watching to be a good doctor, well, what does he want? Doesn't he want that? I used to think kind of think that way. I pray to be a good priest, but my prayers always had secret clauses. They were so secret. They were secret from me. And my clauses went like this. When I would say, God, please help me be sober, and my secret clause would be, and the way I'll know you're helping me is when I notice that I'm comfortable every minute. I mean, wouldn't he want to give me a quality sobriety? God, please help me be a good priest. in secret clause, and the way I'll know you're helping me is when I notice that I'm better than the other ones. Just a little ego there in the old humble prayer. And I think this willfulness and ego it wells up eternally it goes on and on for me I was getting into the we there but a dozen of you too I'm sure of that this thing of my will under the guise of good works and high mindedness is with me all the time, all the time. And the only hope that I have of keeping in reasonable touch with my own deviousness and to keep in reasonable touch for the way of life that is spiritual is to be in constant touch with you, to be listening to your sharing so that I can identify with your deviousness and say, oh yes, oh Lord. I absolutely need it. People have asked me at times, well what about this religion versus AA? Within me there's no verses, whatever. I'm an alcoholic. I need the full, unmitigated, undiluted program of the Twelve Steps and the fellowship to be in good enough shape to go to church, to be in good-enough shape not to twist. My religion's fine. I feel much more comfortable with it than I did a few years ago. It was ten years ago, but I need this as a preamble and the kind of faith. It's wonderfully American. I think AA had a start here. So pragmatic. It doesn't give a little sermon first about faith. that says, we're not even going to talk to you. From the looks of you, you're not really, it doesn't look like a conversation is going to go far, so why don't you just be quiet? And come along and do this stuff that people with faith do. And if you do the stuff that people with faith do for a while, the transformation starts. The pragmatic approach, the live as if you're not the center of the universe. And that's what I was invited to do, maybe not in those words. But I began to see, I began to be with people who were aware that their sobriety was a gift and if there's a gift there's some giver somehow or some way people living in grace people living with a sense of great good fortune and then people living with such a friendliness with the truth that we're able to gradually let down and be the neurotic immature childish people we are so that we can keep on the journey and grow up I am just appalled at my progress anybody could have gone faster than this anybody I'm it's just shocking and of course and every time I have those insights pile up of course everyone says gee, you're looking terrific. Doing wonderful work. My hour is about up. And by the design of this program, there's a lot of people who really want to run to your room right now. If you didn't make it after breakfast, I bet you're really ready to go. I am grateful to be sober and I am full of an awareness that I am being held in sobriety and being given life and health, that I'm somebody who's now receiving and that this awareness is in direct contrast to the ideal I carried around in my head as I grew up, the ideal of being self-sufficient with God's help, you know, asterisk. Of being the person who gets it all together. I don't have it all together at all, but I am with you in the fellowship of the Spirit and very grateful to be sober. Thank you. God love you, Terry. We're concluding the 30th meeting of IDAA. Thank you for sharing with us. Dr. Milner, thank you for your brilliance in bringing us together this year and for making this such a celebration. Please remember to see LeClaire Bissell about the regional meetings. Sign up for your tapes with Jerry McCracken. Stay and enjoy our fine city if you can. And see us next year in Washington and bring someone with you. God love you all. Father Terry, will you lead us in the Lord's Prayer? Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Thank you.