The Part of Chapter 3 That Convinces the Agnostic – Ted H.

Thank you. My name is Ted Harbach, and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm alive and sober tonight by the very special grace of a loving God, the Loving Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. everybody hear me all right I was the only drill instructor in the Air Force that had his electric megaphone taken away for Christ you made Earl feel very bad that hearing that there's more banquet tickets obviously my affair is sold out. For a humility speech, you've got to have standing room only. I want to thank the committee for asking me and particularly Larry Thompson for picking me up at the airport and taking my lovely daughter and I to see Niagara Falls this morning. I'd like to introduce my daughter. Before I go any further, Monica, would you stand up please? Many of you that have heard my tapes know that Monica is a very, very special part of my story because she's truly an AA child, product of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she's celebrating 22 years of sobriety. And that's pretty good for only being 22. And I want us to also thank Jim Cook and Ed Koons. We had a few problems with the airline tickets. They went to the wrong address because I didn't tell them I'd moved again. And we finally tracked them down, and everything was all right. How about that chorus? Was that incredible? And the theme of this roundup is share to be free. There's one unfortunate thing about that, and that is that newcomers have to care to be free before they can share to being free. And if you don't care about this deal, you're in the wrong place. I'll go to hell and back for anybody that wants this deal but if you don't want it, you can go to hell all by yourself. And that's just the way it is We've got a hold of the most magic deal in my opinion that's been given to mankind in over 2,000 years. And I'm sort of a custodian of Alcoholics Anonymous I kind of take a stewardship to try in my small way to make sure that it stays the way it was when I came in, and if possible, even a little better. And I'm a big book man. I'm an economist. I'm not a fundamentalist. So if you want to argue with me about anything I have to say, why, read the book. What a concept. I was born an alcoholic, and the reason I know that is the first thing my mother said was, My God, did you see how much you drank? It's only about five minutes old. I absolutely cannot tolerate people that stand up at these podiums and say things like, Well, I didn't like the taste of it, and I couldn't stand the smell of it. And I loved everything about it. i even love the smell of those bars the next morning six o'clock you know dedication of a true professional and i had all the attributes to be an alcoholic when i was born i hadn't i had a chip on my shoulder resentment against everything and everybody a big mouth and an insatiable thirst and things haven't changed a whole lot i was a little retarded um i didn't start drinking till i was about 16 i kind of envious about these people that start early these days you know three i had to wait 16 whole years to get comfortable and all during those years i just felt like a an alien on a foreign planet and nobody'd given me the brochure and all I did was ask people what's happening because I really wanted to know and finally at the age of 16 I sat down with a few intimate friends to have a couple of quiet martinis to celebrate his 16th birthday and when I got up from the table 23 years had gone by And I never intended for that to happen. But I'm a blackout drinker, so most of my story is hearsay. So if you're new or nearly new or not quite through, I just hope you don't identify with my story because I went as far as you can go with the terminal progressive disease of alcohol, alcoholism. And I had an incredible time. Another type of person I can't stand are the ones that stand up here and say, well, my worst day sober is better than my best day drinking. Geez, a feller like you just shouldn't drink. I had it. I had incredible time with the whole thing. The reason I know I was a blackout drinker is because one morning I came to, I always came to. I never woke up. In fact, that was the only question I flunked on the 20 questions where it says, does alcohol interfere with sleeping? And I put no. And my sponsor with great glee pointed out, he said, Ted, passed out is not sleeping. So I got 100% with a little God, we're glad you got here. We've been waiting for you. I lost my place. i tried to um alcohol tried to kill off my mind but it wouldn't give up because it needed my body to get around in that was backwards but half of you laughed anyway that shows that we don't get the well ones here anyway one particular night uh i went out and i came to the next morning why all i could remember was that i'd been in this fabulous bar where the the bartender served triples without being asked and and the baby dolls became beautiful long before 2 a.m you know like nine and and they had a great orchestra and wonderful dancing and i just had had a wonderful time and uh the only my only problem was i couldn't remember where this bar was And all I could remember was it had azure blue wallpaper on the back bar and it had gold toilets, high class joint. So I kept going out for the next couple of weeks searching for this place and finally I walked into this bar and there was this wallpaper I thought I recognized. We don't want to look bad though so I asked the bartender, you know I said, I was in here i think a couple of weeks ago and i was really quite impressed by your uh ambiance and i said but to make sure that i'm in the right place can i ask you a question do you have gold toilets and he yelled across at the band leader and he said george I think we found the drunk that peed in your tuba. And then you come to a dumb place like this and some cluck says that you've got to take an inventory. Everybody had already taken mine. I was the first streaker in Catalina I woke up and two things were going on I was in this motel, one of those with all different colored doors they don't realize that alcoholics get colorblind when they drink as well it didn't matter what color the door was I didn't know where I was anyway but two things Were going on that I couldn't stand I was alone and there wasn't anything to drink and so I gathered myself together and thought I'd go find my girlfriend in a bottle and I knocked on this Huckleberry's door next door and a very narrow-minded puke and he slammed the door in my face so I undaunted, we have a lot of willpower I went to the next door and knocked on the door and this gentleman, obviously a man of letters well read, understood my plight and so i explained my problem And he said, well, really. He said, I understand your plight, but there's two things that may have escaped your attention. And before you proceed in your search, maybe I should tell you that they are. And I drew myself up to my full six feet and I said, indeed, sir, and what might that be? And he says, well first of all it's three o'clock in the morning and second of all you are stark naked. Very hard to maintain your cool. yelling at some people to let you in your own party when they've locked you outside of the glass sliding door and then some Al-Anon looks down and says why don't you get out from under the glass top table, you drunk I have to put a little warning caveat in here though we're in dire danger in Alcoholics Anonymous at least in California now I don't know about this state But in California, they've lowered the blood alcohol content of a drunk driver, for God's sake, to where they're sending social drinkers to AA. Can you imagine? You'd think you'd hear stupid things. Wait till one of those dummies gets up here and says something like, Well, I had a half a glass of wine my whole damn life gone unmanageable. and I just turn myself into A&A and my God, I'm never going to have another drink as long as I live. And they won't. They're going to wreck the whole thing. Sponsors will be out the window. God. I, that part of chapter three that, I don't know if they read that here probably not but where it says that medical science has not yet found a way to turn drinkers of our type into social drinkers I think that that's your seat right there oh, that was unfair he can't hear and i don't think that uh where it says you know medical science has not yet found a way to turn drinkers of our type into uh normal drinkers i think what they're there's some chemist working in a garage somewhere working on a pill that's going to make me a social drinker and if they ever invented i'm going to say to myself well if one pill will make me social I can't stand social drinkers honestly my drinking is as bizarre to them as their drinking is as my well how does that go my drinking is as bizarre to the as their drinking is to me it just it'll never work out and I had a secretary for years that was a social drinker and I used to take her to lunch occasionally. I couldn't take her to lunch very often because she just made me crazy. The first thing she'd do is, God, damn newcomers. Why didn't you tell me this was, we were on slippery ground here. She'd say something stupid like, I feel like a glass of wine. And I'd say, why? And then she'd sit there, for God's sake and she'd drink half of it I could just see it evaporating I'd say, for God's sakes, why don't you drink the rest of it? She'd say Oh no dear, I might better not I might get dizzy I said, I'll tell you what we'll do We'll order a 20 ounce glass filled with fortified port wine Just slam that baby back You go right through dizzy to fun they are really weird I just loved alcohol because something happened to me when I drank alcohol that I have never heard described by a social drinker and I guess the best way of telling you how alcohol affected me was to just kind of maybe share one day of drinking in the life of Big Ted. And the way my drinking day would start would be at lunch. And I had this signal reflex response where I knew it was lunchtime. I would be signing something and my pen would fly across the room. And I knew at that moment that it was lunchtime because if I didn't go to lunch now, I was going to fly across a room in eight million pieces and nobody was ever going to put Humpty Dumpty back together. Sometimes lunch was early, six. But when the pen went, I went. And then you come into this bar. I don't know about you folks, but have you ever seen or heard what stupid questions seemingly normal people... Oh, you shouldn't be leaving now. We're getting to the part where... Oh, dear. Al-anons. he's gonna be nasty in a little while i can just tell oh be careful they're lurking out in the hall you ever notice how al-anon's lurk you can tell if you're married to an al-anan though or if youre going with one when you come to if you got a pillow under your head and a blanket over you you got one I'm a little jealous, though Have you heard about the new automobile insurance for Al-Anon's? My fault insurance So you go into this bar And you're flying in a million pieces And the first thing this puke behind the bar says is Would you like a drink? Oh, no, not really I'm into health and protein I think probably a hard-boiled egg and a pickle's pig foot would be good for me. That ought to straighten me out just fine. Yeah, bring me a drink before I kill you! And make it a triple. And put it in an old-fashioned glass with no ice and no onion, so, you know, I'll have about three-eighths of an inch of freeboard so I won't drown this brain surgeon next to me. He's got the flyaways, too. His scalpel keeps flying across the operation, making his head nurse nervous. Finally, this guy brings a drink to you and through an ingenious system of levers while you crank it into your face there and you say your first three prayers of the day, God, I hope it stays down. God,I hope it works. God,i wish he'd get back. Finally, he returns after something like an epoch passes. If I owned a bar, I'd have him on skateboards. And then he asks the second stupid question of the day Would you care for another? Hell yes God, and hurry He says, are you sure you have time for another one? You look at your watch, it's an alcoholic watch Has only one hand It hasn't moved finally brings that second one you bolt that baby down and then all of a sudden this magic happens that i've never heard described by a social drinker all of the sudden that god hole in your gut with the wind blowing through it starts to heal up and that ice cube with eight million corners starts to kind of thaw out and you notice all of A sudden that it's not raining inside your suit anymore and then you look all of a sudden at that hand that couldn't hold a pen a moment before and it's just as steady as a rock and you look at that perfectly synchronized reflection of yourself in the back bar mirror clint eastwood you devil then you looked down at this brain surgeon you say what kind of day are you having crap head and all the sharp edges in the rough corners fall off of the world and it's round and it smooth and it soft and it is my pineapple and all of a sudden I step across a line into a land I call the land of someday I'll someday I will get it together and over there I can be anything I want to be I want do anything I want too do and I can go anywhere I want to go because all of the terror is ripped out, just ripped out. And I'm as good as I measure up to and I'm a part of. For the first time in my life everything is okay. Now all I have to figure out is who you want me to be so I'll fit in and what you want me to say so you won't throw me away now you want me to act so i'll be a part of and i begin living that chameleon-like people-pleasing life of the alcoholic living my life for your expectations real or imagined but over there in that land of someday isle i can do the one thing i wanted to do all my life i can just step out easy see that's all i ever wanted to be able to do just step out easy and behind that alcohol i can have a race car on the track when i'm 16 years old behind a forged birth forage birth certificate and i can put one through the crash wall when i'm 17 and break my back and spend a year in a hospital on a bradford frame i can be told that i've never i'll never walk again as long as they live and it doesn't matter because see nothing matters to me no people place person or thing matters to me because i don't give a damn about anything see life to me was absolutely valueless if something has no value i just throw it away and life had no value unfortunately there was a little cleaning lady there in the hospital that made me a rum and coke every day two of them and she saved my life because she made that year bearable two years out of that hospital i became a charter member of the mount baldy ski patrol most dangerous mountain in the world it's up out of pomona used to kill six people a year just as regular as clockwork social drinkers i figured we put a rope barricade up between baldy and thunder mountain to keep them from flying off the back side of the mountain when the visibility dropped down to one foot and they'd have half a glass of wine and just fly off the edge anyway you know all you ever heard those dummies say would be something like oops never hear an alcoholic say that he just look over his shoulder and say it's a downhill race i'm going for it I used to make the I used to make the Sierra Mountain rescue teams madder than hell because they get a 10,000 foot free fall into Victorville just mess up the desert something awful I was the only member of the ski patrol that wasn't thrown off for drinking they thought I came that way and I have a terminal fear of height I have terminal acrophobia I had i no longer have it and so how can you get in those chair lifts in those gondolas how can he climb up into those chairs 70 80 feet in the air and help people out of them and rescue them when the shivs freeze up or the cables come off the bull wheels and the chairs are stuck and the people are freezing in them there's only one way i know you invent the drinking man's ski pole. Each one will hold a pint. Now, I want to tell you, even though I can't get on a bar stool and stand up without a parachute and a backup, with each one of those poles filled with one pint of Ron Rico Purple Label 157-proof rum, I don't care how high or how fast. And I learned a long, long time ago the difference between a hero and a coward. It's booze. And we had some crazy times. I learned how to drink and drive without having the alcohol in the driver's compartment. I think getting arrested with bottles in the car is tacky. And I learned that from a very good friend of mine. I only had two drunk driving arrests the whole time that I drove, and I never drove without drinking. I felt, if you're going to drive, drink. Face traffic with confidence. We were on our way to Mammoth one day. We had a reciprocity agreement where we could work on the ski patrol anywhere in the country when the snow was bad in Southern California. And so we were on Our Way to M mammoth one night, and it was long after the cocktail hour, five after five. And I'd forgotten to bring my drinking and driving and passenger bottle, and I turned to this friend of mine we were driving a I didn't mess around with anybody that didn't drive terribly fast cars and he had a brand new Cadillac convertible with a full race engine in it and he turned to me and he said well yeah he said here and he handed me this little hose out from under the dashboard and I said what the hell is that I want a drink not an enema and he says well dummy just put that hose in your mouth and pull the windshield washer knob. And he had that whole equipment and pump and everything hooked up to a huge sack of scotch up forward of the radiator where it'd stay nice and cool. And in those days, why they had kind of a gentleman's agreement with the highway patrol. if they couldn't catch you they wouldn't radio ahead it was bad form and I don't know if you've ever gone through a place like Red Rock Canyon at 108 miles an hour but we'd always stop in Mojave which is about halfway to Mammoth and refuel and take on a little gas also and this one particular night why we were stepping out easy all right we really had to pedal to the metal and we turned a corner in Bishop and headed into the pines and all of a sudden there's this thundering crash and I slid underneath the dashboard. My friend was driving and I finally got myself untangled down there and I said, what in the hell was that? The whole right side of the windshield was gone and it was cold and he said, I don't know I guess it was a tree limb or something didn't bother me I just grabbed that hose out from under the dashboard had another huge blast off that thing and pulled my goggles down. We got to Mammoth about 6 o'clock in the morning. We were so drunk I fell out of the car, could not walk, but there was an Al-Anon lurking in the snowbank and one of those with the large soft bosoms, you know, and she gathered me up and clasped me to her large bosoms and said, they're there. And then she looked at the car and she asked a stupid question. She said, did you know there was a deer in the back seat? The whole right side of the goddamn car was gone. The bumper, the fender, the hood, the windshield Half the roof was torn off It was a convertible And here this little forking horn is sitting back there And I looked at this deer And alcoholics can recoup a situation With alacrity And I said, well, of course he was tired of walking and I will never forget what she said she said, oh and then she hauled me off to the warming up hut to get tuned up for the day on a half a gallon of Grenache Rose and then at about 9 o'clock in the morning while I found myself at the top of the mountain some damn fool had nailed a number to my chest and I was entering a downhill race. And I got to tell you, if you can clear those gates and clear those spectators without wiping everything out, passing a field sobriety test is a piece of cake. That particular day, I fell down in the second to the last gate and I broke my thumb and I walked into my doctor's office the next day and I said, I broke it. I broke that thumb and he said, how'd you break that? And I said I fell downdown. He said, well, how'd your fall? I said well, in a downhill raise at 80 miles an hour and he fainted. He was a doctor who told me that I'd never walk again as long as I lived. And so I'm one of those people that got to Alcoholics Anonymous with God holding me in the palm of his hand, where he always had. I never had any problem with a power greater than myself when I got here because I've sat down across from death and talked to him seven times in my life, just like I'm talking to you. and death holds absolutely no fear for me whatever because i feel i know what it's about anyway i like what chuck chamberlain used the way he used to describe it and he used to describe life as simply being a bridge between birth and death just a bridge but there's a curious thing about a bridge there's always a whole bunch that goes on before you get to the bridge and there's always a whole bunch that goes on after you get over the bridge, and that's the way it is. And I had a great time on the Ski Patrol. I worked on the ski patrol for 20 years. In 1948 I helped do the first article for Life magazine on scuba diving. I don't know if any of you have ever been under water in diving gear but at 100 feet running out of air you get nervous. But we found out how to dive and be heroic. What you do is take a dish of pure grain alcohol, the same stuff we ran the race cars on, and you put it right in front of the intake manifold of the compressor, and you bubble the air through it, and you can fill the tanks with about 50% alcohol vapor. And you can put the mouthpiece in your face and stand on the deck of the ship and get euphoria of the deep. And you're not afraid. I learned how to fly airplanes drunk. off a little grass strip in santa monica called cloverfield it's now santa monica airport everything that i did was alcohol oriented by the time i was 22 years old pardon me 24 years old i was one of the youngest subdividers in southern california is building over 200 houses a year and already i was in the grip of the terminal progressive disease of alcoholism which is also cunning baffling powerful patient and progressive and already i was up to the three four martini lunch and already i was on the threshold of convulsions and i did not know that if i didn't get in that bar the minute that pin flew out of my hand that i might very well go into a convulsion in the withdrawal from the poison alcohol and i did not know that in that convulsion I might very well shatter my spine and I did not no but in that convalescent in that seizure I might very well die of the terminal progressive disease of alcoholism and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference if I had known because my big book tells me that knowledge is no defense against taking the first drink and no matter what you know, it will not save you when that moment comes. And while I'm thinking about that, why, I'd like to give you a test. They, I like to ask you how many of you people, particularly newcomers, have heard this statement in meetings, don't drink no matter what? Can I see your hands? You don't hear that much out here, I guess. And that's just bantered around in Southern California you're like it's becoming the password and everybody that raises their hands i excuse you from the meeting because you don't need alcoholics anonymous see if you can drink if you cannot drink no matter what what the hell are you doing here so you can in fact you can't even take step one either because step one tells me i'm powerless over alcohol and so the people that don't drink no matter what, have some sort of a secret power over alcohol. And they stick around for a very short time. Do you have an announcement? I don't normally do this. I know. There is a blue Pontiac 6000 MPS 688. It's blocking someone and there's emergency and they need it move. Thank you. That made me lose my place. So if you think that you can just not drink no matter what, lots of luck. But my book tells me that there will come a time in the life of every alcoholic where there will be no mental defense against taking the first drink. That means that nothing up here that's going on cognitively is going to save you. And that the only hope that you have at that moment is that you have provided yourself with a spiritual armor necessary to save you no matter what, which is guaranteed by the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's promised. And most people don't realize that. And I didn't know these things at all. All I knew was that I had to run out my string, and I had a lot of fun with alcoholism. The first drunk driving arrest that I got was when I ran away from home to get married when I was about 30. And some friends of mine were giving me a big stag party down on one of those yachts in Newport Beach, and they were drinking my favorite thing that day, booze. And I was a pig. I drank as much as I could, as fast as possible, wherever possible, whenever possible, particularly if it was yours. And so I'd overshot the mark because I always overshot the mark, if at all possible. If I could get to the mark before I passed out, we were all right. And so, and I was really busy in those days. I was building all these damn houses. I Was driving a little single-seater convertible Thunderbird, one of the porthole tops, and I had a two-way radio. This was before cellular phones, and I'd add a dictograph in there to dictate gibberish to my secretary when I was drinking to keep her on her toes figuring out what I was trying to say. And then you smoke. You've got to get rid of the cigarettes, and you've got to watch the rearview mirror for the police, and you got this hose hanging out of your mouth for a bracer now and then, and and you've got to close one eye so you know which lane is yours. You're busy! And I'd become a very prudent driver when I drank like that, and so here I was, clear over on the right-hand side of the freeway. I still don't know why the police stopped me. I was clear over in the right hand side of freeway there, minding my own business in the dirt, prudently driving at a respectable speed around five miles an hour. The policeman stopped me, and I developed a way of driving that I figured solved all of these problems of being so busy. I would just put the phone on my left shoulder and then lean on the door jamb like this. And it solved everything. Cigarette ashes kind of drooled away, and the rearview mirror was right there, and that hose would hang out of the other side of your mouth. The only thing that you had to constantly be aware of in that position was that my lane was the one on the bottom. half the people's heads are like this you're practicing and so i'm driving along and policemen stopped me it was no big deal i just let off in the accelerator and it quit and i looked up at him and i said why did you stop me officer he had very humorous idiot and he said well we don't allow people to make movies on the freeway and we figured maybe you were filming a rerun of wagon train and then he asked me a trick question he said where do you live I said well I don't know you have my driver's license he did not think that was humorous and he opened the door and I fell out I think it's extremely unfair when they don't even let you try to pass the sobriety test and second 502 was the same thing it was in glendale seven years later and glendales tacky enough uh i'd been at a cocktail party there and overshot the time mark and the drink limits and i was driving home in the same condition and policemen stopped me and and he asked me where i was and um or where i lived and i said give me a break i'm only a few blocks from home. I've been driving a hundred miles an hour for an hour, and I figured I was fairly close to home. It was only seven miles. And I said, well, I'm only a few blocks from home. He says, where do you live? And he had my driver's license. I'd forgotten again. And he says, well, it says here you live in Beverly Hills. I said, right, nothing gets by you. Which is the wrong thing to say. And he said, well you're in Glendale. I mean that still baffles me. How can you still be in... Anyway, he opened the door. And I fell out again. I was having all of these problems with drinking. I even got an interesting speeding ticket. they used to have a ferry that ran from the mainland to Coronado Island and there were three of us I was driving a 1944 125 mile an hour coupe I don't even know how I got on the damn ferry we were going duck hunting at Barrett Lake and there is no lake on Coronado Island and so when we ended up in this damn ferry and I'm just drunk to the eyeballs and I passed out, I guess and all of a sudden I'm startled awake there's a horn going off and there's green light flashing and we're racing and I only know three things to do in a case like that you just ram the accelerator all the way through the firewall slide your left foot off the clutch and hang on And when the red light flashed on, I stopped and I asked the guy, I said, did we win? He said, yes, you did. Here's the award. Press hard, there's three copies. So when I stood up before the judge, he asked me to explain to the jury and the members of court how the hell I could possibly be going 85 miles an hour on the Coronado Ferry. I hold the world land speed record for Coronado Ferry. And I said, you know, you come to AA and they tell you it's an honest program and we know lying works. And I thought, and I said well, your honor, I have this affidavit that I'd like to submit into evidence that will thoroughly document the fact that the proximate cause of this disastrous series of incidents was caused by a defective accelerator. and the document further stipulates that this defective character has been thoroughly and completely repaired to the satisfaction of the Department of Motor Vehicles, the San Diego Police Department, and State Highway Patrol. And he looked at me, he said, furthermore, I can completely assure the members of the court and the people of this jury that an incident like this will never happen again. Well, case dismissed. If I told him the truth, They'd be piping sunlight to me. Oh Yeah, well your honor. I'm a scofflaw. I really don't give a damn about people places or things and especially your property Get my way your history. I have only one speed in my car fast and there's no brakes. How do you like them apples? And all of that would have been the truth so I was having all these problems and and People were beginning to take exception to the these pens flying across the office And so I thought I'd go to a psychiatrist. And I wish you people would stop going to psychiatrists. If I was a psychiatrist, I'd have a sign on the door that'd say no drinkers allowed or people with peppermint on their breath either. And I went to this boob and he asked a stupid question. He said, why are you nervous? I said, well, it's $65 an hour. You can figure that out. And he said, Well, do you drink? I said, yeah, I'll have a scotch and water. He said, no, no that's not what I mean he said, how much do you drink? I said I'm not quite sure how much you have. And the little temporal veins started jumping in and out and the one in the center of his forehead it seemed like a lot of people that happened to after I talked to them about five minutes police officers and bartenders and he says that's not what I mean either he says how long have you drank I said I'm not sure he said have you drunk all your life I said no, not yet God, and then he asked me if I had dreams and I had no problem with step two when I got here I used to go to bars at night and think up dreams to talk to him about the next morning it was $65 an hour finally he pronounced me cured and he said, I'm going to give you these little pills here. There's Librium, and we're just getting to the important part. Oh well. Come back for a 30-day chip next week. These were Librium. This was before doctors had found out that alcoholism was caused by a Valium deficiency. and uh you said that'll keep the pen from flying out of your hand and as far as your modest drinking problem maybe you ought to just check into a and a and see what that's about and then he gave me the bill and i looked at oh thirty five thousand dollars no big deal and i cut him a reader there and he called the bank and they told him it wasn't any good and he jumped out the window he had no fear of height so i don't know things were going from bad to worse and i came home one night and shortly after that and here the enemy was in the entry hall mirror one more time and so we had a little meeting in my head and just decided to do away with the whole thing and um so i went upstairs and i dug my 45 automatic out from under the pillow i kept it there because they were after me. And I'm paranoid to know they're after you. And I qualified expert with a .45 automatic. I hit what I aim at, and I jacked the shell in the chamber, took dead aim between my eyes, and blew a $90 mirror off the wall. So a few nights later, I thought I'd investigate ANA, and and I found a meeting outside of Beverly Hills somewhere where I was sure they wouldn't know me, and they had this meeting in one of those tin Quonset huts, for God's sake. And I walked into this meeting. It was exactly like I knew it would be. Everybody was old. I mean, God, some of you were 40. And you were all lined up around the edge of the room there in these seats, those hard-bottomed tin chairs that give you hemorrhoids. and the treasurer, I guess, had gotten drunk and run off with all the money so they couldn't pay the light bill and they had these little tin trays, for God's sake with these stubby little candles in them how romantic and, I mean, it was just bloody awful and everybody had their head in their hands like this life was obviously over And there was some skinny little broad up there at the podium She was so thin, I didn't know she was there for a long time She was turned sideways Finally she turned around and I thought My God, that'd be like making love to a gunny sack full of antlers And she had false teeth You know, them Iowa store-bought mail-order kind The kind you can eat corn through a barbed wire fence i think her name was phoebe man what a delight and she is up there clacking away i mean god finally she got to apparently a real important part and she said if you want what we have i thought jesus honey if you got anything hang on to Now what's a stepper like me Doing in a dead-end outfit like this God, finally she got all finished with this crap And they applauded for God's sake And then they sent this tin plate around To try and pay the light bill Some fool handed me a damn donut And I dropped it on my toe Almost broke my toe You could have shot pool with it And then I noticed this fat man that was over in the corner, and he had all these little people around him hanging on his coat sleeves. And I figured he is so fat, he looks so overfed, he's probably rich. And I thought if he had a lot of money, he probably was smart. His name was Buford. And I asked Phoebe, I said, who's that? and she says, that's the sponsor, Buford. I said, oh really? So I went over to him to, you know, I made the worst mistake I've ever made in my life. He must have weighed 350 pounds, was all hanging out over his belt buckle, he had false teeth. And I said Bufford? I said tell me about this A&A. and that fat fool started with his damn finger in the middle of my chest just pissed me off says well sonny you know i was young then and this is when i heard that line for the first time he says well what a and a is all about is you just don't drink no matter what I said wow that's why they're so happy he says don't give me that you don't drink no matter what even if your ass falls off I said fat man you don' t even know what an alcoholic is see an alcoholic is a person that drinks no matter how no matter who and if you're sensitive like I am, easily embarrassed. Why, I usually drink around two weeks before my ass falls off. I can kind of feel it loosening up. I don't want to be... Can you imagine stroking down the street and some Al-Anon says, Hey, Ted, your ass just fell off. That's embarrassing because all you have now is a back with a crack. And so you say, Well, bring it along, honey. I might want to sit on it later. And she will. And then he says, oh, you don't understand. He says, it's the first drink that gets you drunk. Oh, wow. Maybe I am in the right place. What is it that you drink? See, because I know what drink it is that gets me drunk. It's the second to the last one. He said, well, you're going to have to think about it. You don't even understand. And he said, you've got to think the whole drink through. I said, I never thought about a drink in my life. What are you smoking? I might think about a Magnum or two or a whole week of drinking, but one drink. He says, well, you just got to put the plug in the jug. I said、Oh God, give me a break. Any fool knows that the cork is just to keep it from spilling until you get it to the car. And if there's any plugs left around, i don't know what they are where they are he says well he says it's one day at a time i said yeah well with that visceral armor you got hanging out over your belt buckle maybe you can last the whole day but not for a stepper like me maybe a nanosecond i'll do it that long he says wow it's easy does it i said easy never did nothing are you kidding he said well, it's live and let live. I said, I'm going to tell you something, fat man. You get that finger out of my chest or I'm gonna rip your right arm off and wear your head out with it. That's how live and Let Live works with me. And I said but I want to ask you one last question before I leave this leper colony. I said tell me this, old man if you take away my alcohol what are you going to give me to replace it? What are you gonna give me that'll heal up that God hole and melt that ice cube if you take away my alcohol? What are your gonna give me that'll allow me to feel as good as and measure up too and be a part of if you'd take away my alcohol. What are you gonna give me old man that'll allow me to do the one thing I wanted to do all my life just step out easy if you take away my alcohol a bunch of trite hackneyed cliches hanging on the musty dusty walls of old beat-up Alano clubs those are the magic tools you're going to give me to walk out there on those bricks with and face a hostile universe oh I don't think so thank you but no thank you if that's all you're going to do what you're gonna give me is a buncha beat-ups sayings to take out there in the world to try to live comfortably with unsolved problems. You see, that just won't work for me. Don't drink. The only thing that allows me to live comfortably is alcohol. And you want to take that away? Why? To save a life that I don't want saved, that I do not care about? I don' t think so. So if your worst day sober is better than your best day drinking. I'd say you ought to go drink. Do what the big book tells you. And I had to run out my string. Because, see, he couldn't tell me about a magic deal called Alcoholics Anonymous because he obviously had never read a magic book called Alcoholic Anonymous. And it really irritates me when I hear people stand at these podiums and read the 12 promises. Because newcomers get the idea that there's only 12 promises and you know how many promises there are in my book of Alcoholics Anonymous? In the first 164 pages there are over 180 promises. There are 82 promises connected directly with the steps and if you don't believe me read it you know this last year the sale of the big book is less than it was the previous year and I wonder why I think they're listening to fools rather than reading the basic text rather than reading the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous, 182 promises. And I had to run out my string. My string finally ran out in the latter part of March in 1968 when I died of the terminal progressive disease of alcoholism in St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. I came out on my last blackout and I was looking up at my doctor and I said, why are you crying? I could tell he was crying, is getting me all wet. They're more emotional than police officers. He said, because, damn you, you've killed yourself. I said, oh, wow, finally. What do we have in here? An out-of-body experience? Doctors just don't intimidate me at all. In fact, an interesting thing happened two years ago. I was out in Riverside on a construction project and people weren't paying too much attention to me so I thought I'd have a heart attack to get their attention. And that worked pretty good. And so I went to the hospital, and the chief cardiac surgeon of the cardiac unit of Riverside Community Hospital came in and sat on my bed. And he crossed his arms and he crossed His legs, and I know that the conversation's over because I understand body language. and see what i've determined in the last few years is that what the big book says is true where it says lack of power was our dilemma and you see the reason for that is that we give away the power so easily just think about it the instant before we become angry or the instant before we becomes afraid we give all the power away to whatever it is we're going to be angry out or afraid of so he comes in and he's got this pompous air about him and uh he says well we checked all of the tests and looked at all the movies and uh check your physical and he says i've determined that you're not a candidate for open heart surgery i said oh really you've determined that i said well let me ask you this why do you say that he said well you'd only have a chance, about 30% chance of survival. I said, I see. What are my chances of survival if I don't have the open heart surgery? I made a decision I wasn't going to give this puke any power at all. He looked at me and he said, well, the main artery of the left ventricle is 98% occluded and if it shuts down you get to die and that can happen anytime within two weeks or two years. We don't know. I said, well, that's interesting. I said can I ask you a few questions? Maybe say a few things? He said, yeah. I said well, Doc I said you may have gotten an A in appendix but I think you flunked hard. And I said secondly I said I don't what gambling halls you grew up in but you don't even know how the game plays. See, the way the game play is is you give me the odds I make the decision whether to pass or play not you, not you. And from where I come from a 30% chance of survival is damn near a sure thing. And I said besides that I need a doctor with some balls not a coward. I said I need somebody in here yelling at me that's trying to protect his reputation so you're dismissed. And you could have heard his jaw hit the ground. I checked myself out of the hospital against medical advice and found two mechanics that could get the job done and had a six-way heart bypass kind of made me angry because I found out later you can have eight so when my doctor looked down at me and told me I'd killed myself I said, why? he said, well, you got it all you got alcoholic gastritis, cirrhosis of the liver hemorrhagic pancreatitis you've got two ulcers that are hemorrhaging you're bleeding from every opening in your body your blood pressure is 60 over 40 which is serene we push seven pints of your blood tight and the blood bank's empty and that's the end of that tune and besides I said wow is there more I'd become interested I figured he was talking about me by this time he says yes if you don't promise me you'll never drink again as long as you live I won't even treat you I promise. Ten days later, I was back out on the street and I was drunk again and he told me I didn't ought to do that anymore. And I came off that last drunk crawling around the unfinished concrete basement floor of an old beat-up house I had hanging on the side of a cliff in Silver Lake, California just northwest of downtown Los Angeles living like an animal. and I just pried my face loose from the floor that had stuck there by the blood from the night before. And in my hour of direst need I cried out to the God of my childhood and he heard me. And he led me to a man who read to me out of a big book called Alcoholics Anonymous and he read the promises, 182 promises. And I said, God, that's incredible. I never heard anything like this in my life. And I've studied comparative religion and I've studies philosophies and I belong to all the fraternal organizations and all of that crap that beseech brotherly love. I'd never heard any of that. I've never heard a thing like this. And he told me, he said, Ted, when you reach a bottom beneath which you cannot go, come home. And I said, well, you know, that's all okay, but tell me, will this heal up the God hole? Will this melt the ice cube? will this allow me to feel as good as and measure up to and be a part of because it sounded like it would I said will this allow me to do the one thing I wanted to do all my life just step out easy without alcohol he said I absolutely promise you and I believed him and so I went home to a little park on Roxbury in Beverly Hills where I grew up and played as a kid. And that's where I found those guys that walked the walk of Alcoholics Anonymous. See, it's real easy to do podium talk. It's real easily. But I found out a long, long time ago that the ones you want to really follow are the ones that walk the walk. And I watched these people in those early meetings that were going through all of the things that I have gone through in the years that I've been sober. That night, it was April Fool's Day, which is a great day for me, of 1968. And as a result of the magic program of Alcoholics Anonymous and loving people like you and a God of my own understanding, it has not been necessary for me to take a drink of alcohol or a mind-altering chemical since that date, April 1 of 1968, And for that, I'm eternally grateful. When I watched these people losing their health, losing their loved ones, losing jobs, losing careers, I watched them dying. I watched him getting new relationships. And I believe this about relationships. I believe in the bottom of my heart that if a relationship has any chance at all it has a far better chance in the environment of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon than in any other place in the world and I saw them getting new relationships that have lasted long, long years saw them get new jobs new careers re-educating themselves I saw them getting out of wheelchairs where they'd been placed paralyzed by peripheral neuritis from the poison alcohol I saw him able to see again from the blindness of alcohol I saw Him restored to health and the same thing began to happen to me and somehow in the madness of insanity that was to be mine for a number of years I wanted what they had and I kept coming back and through the years why I've gone through all of those things that I saw those people go through in those early days and through The Years Why I have become what I consider to be a guide in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's been my privilege in the years that I've been sober to speak with the people that I believe are the true masters of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's through these people that I have finally found what I believe to be the pure and simple formula embodied in the 12 steps of our recovery program. And so, in the little bit of time that I am left, I'm going to share that with you. we have a couple of statistics in Alcoholics Anonymous in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous it says that 50% of the people that come into AlcoholicsAnonymous and really try this program never have to go out again 25% that come in and really try it go out and come back and 25% we don't know what happens to them those statistics are still true But there's a deadly part of that quote That few people hear And that is Have really tried this program And because very few people that come in Really try the program Our success rate for recovery Is about 8% over five years and about 3% over 10 years. Very often I make the statement that I wish every one of you out there had terminal cancer, and I wish I had a 12-step program that would put you into permanent and irreversible remission. Do you know what kind of participation I'd have? 104%. There'd be 4% that didn't even have cancer. Well, here doing the work, just to take out a little insurance policy. But we have a disease that is the only disease that I know of that tells us we don't have it. And so we live in denial. We live in denyel. And then we listen to these fools from the podium who say things like, Well, I do step one, two, and three every day. And they're killing people. They're killing people. Because all those people have told you is that they're getting ready to start, to commence, to begin and they haven't done nothing. They haven't known anything. I often wish in California, I don't know how you operate back here, but I wish in Californa that people would approach getting their driver's license like they do the 12 steps. See, they kind of look at step one there and realize that they were really a driver and that their life was a little unmanageable without a license, which is kind of step one. then they'd come to believe that maybe a power greater than themselves called the Department of Motor Vehicles might restore them to sanity in this area and by God they'd wake up and make a decision to go down and turn their will and their life over to the Department Of Motor Vehicle and they'd do that every day they never go down there and take the little test which is kind of step four and they never turn the test in for God's sake which is kind of step five and share it with the examiner and not having done that sure as hell couldn't ask God to help them with a test which is step six and seven but every morning they'd make a decision to go down there and keep taking the bus and I'd have all the freeways to myself and they'd sound so good from the podium and they looked so good and then they'd have to get in a disguise and go take the bus home because they hadn't gotten into action. They hadn't gotten into action. A number of years ago, I decided to go back and get my pilot's license again. So I went out to the airport and I walked up to this guy and I said, I'd like to get my license again and he said, you know what he said? He said a really weird thing. He said, well, let's go flying. I said, wait a minute. And we ought to go to some discussion meetings on compass? He said well, no, not really. it generally points north i said well we certainly ought to go to some book study meetings on artificial horizon hadn't we and he said no just keep the blue side up well i'm no dummy i said what happens if we get the brown side up he said let go and let god sound like the program to me see the dihedral of the wings is situated in such a geometric fashion that that plane will stay upright if I don't screw with it. And we went flying. And we learned how all the instruments worked in concert with the control surfaces. And we didn't get up there and just practice left rudder or you'd have a different speaker. We had to do the whole deal together. And so the people I sponsored through the steps, we'd do the full deal at one time. You can't do just part of it. And the formula for the steps looks like it's written in a linear fashion, but it's really not. It's all in a circle because everything that's perfect is round. And I don't know why that is, but that's the way it is. And so the way I look at the steps, and I make a promise to the people that I work through the steps. I make this promise. I tell them that we can move if you're willing. from step one into step nine in less than one day. And that makes sponsors furious. I get more sponsors resentful at that statement than you can possibly imagine. I was speaking in Palm Springs one time, and after I got through, a young kid came up to me and he says, you've got two guys back in the room so goddamn mad they can't even talk. I said, what happened? He said, well, one of them used to be my sponsor. I said、 well, what did happen to me? And I said, what happened to him? He said, well, he told me that I had to pray and write about the first step for a year. He said halfway through your talk I turned around and fired the son of a bitch. What book are they reading? What book says that they do step one, two, and three every day? Where is that written? They're not reading my book. Maybe they're reading the white part of the book. I don't know. But I do know this, they're killing people. Had a guy from New York call me about five years ago. He was so damn mad. He said, I heard one of your tapes where you said you can move somebody in at step nine less than one day and you're full of crap and blah, blah, bla. I said, you're really angry, aren't you? He says, you know, I'm not. You're damn right. I said well, listen, I said do you have a big book there? He said, well, certainly. I said, well, why don't you turn to page 60? He turned to page 60 and he says, well, I've got it here. I said well, you see where it says ABC after that part of chapter 5 you read at every meeting that our description of the alcoholic our stories before and after chapter of the agnostic made clear three pertinent ideas. A, they were alcoholic could not manage their own lives. B, that no human power could have relieved their alcoholism. And C, that God couldn't would if he were saw it? Not found, just saw it. And he says, yeah. I said, well, read the next sentence. Next sentence says, being convinced of this, we were at step three. That's the end of step one and two, unless you're not convinced. If you're not convinced of that, go get drunk because that's what the book says. Go to a bar, try some experiments, try it two or three times. There is a softer, easier way to get convinced of those three ideas. Read the doctor's opinion and the first four chapters of the book, because they are designed to convince you of those three ideas, being convinced of this or step three. I said, well, there's a prayer over there a couple of pages from now. I said why don't you go and do that prayer and then call me back, and maybe you won't be so angry. And so he went and did that. i said how do you feel he said i'm still angry and he made a terrible mistake he said what should i do now see because at the top of the next page over on the left side is probably the most important sentence in the entire book of alcoholics anonymous because it tells us exactly where we are exactly what to do and the whole deal in one sentence and hardly anybody knows that sentence is there. And the sentence says, though our decision in step three was a vital and necessary one, which means it's important, it would have little lasting effect, which is kind of zero, unless followed at once by a searching and fearless moral inventory. Now I've cut one whole paragraph down into one sentence. At once! now that means now so where is this well I think you should wait about four years you might write some things that will hurt your feelings and you'll get drunk and you have some issues at once so I said he said what should I do now I said I tell you what why don't you make a list of everything that you're angry at and call me back People, places, things, institutions, philosophies. And he did that and he said, what should I do? I said, why don't you make a list of everything that you're afraid of and call me back. He did that. And then I had him make a lista of everybody that he damaged sexually and I told him to put his name first on the first list and the third list and maybe even the second one. And I said and then put mommy and daddy down there. And then that third list, that's lots of times where small farm animals get into the inventory. I still tell my sponsor, no, no. I was just helping the goat over the fence. And so he called me back and I said, now, he said, what should I do? I said why don't you write a couple of sentences about why you're angry? You know, angry at my mommy because she put me on the potty backwards. You know, real serious stuff. I mean, don't worry about it. Every mother puts their kid on the potty backwards. It's because mothers are sick. They want to watch. And so he called me back with that, and we went over that. And he called my back with a couple of sentences written on fear, and we won over that, and then he called call me back on the sexual damage part, and we win over that and we had been on the phone now for about two hours. And he said, what should I do now? And I said, well, I don't know. I said to tell you what, there's a prayer over on page wherever it is. I didn't tell him it was the seventh step prayer. People that do the third step prayer every day don't remember where the seventh one is or the eleventh one either. And so I said why don't you do that prayer and call me back. And he did that and I said how do you feel? And he says well, he said I feel pretty good. I said, well, you know, having been on the program five years, you've probably made a couple of amends already, haven't you? He said, Well, of course. I said、Well, you're deep into step nine and less than one day has passed. And he asked me a question, and this is a quote. He said,"Well, what about the damned inventory you're supposed to do?" I said,"You just did it." and that is how simple it is so have fun because the steps really look like a big fun slide and then they curve into a big loop at the bottom because they become round you have your list part from step four for step eight and then you continue to make that list of people that you've damaged physically mentally morally emotionally socially financially or spiritually you become willing to make amends to all of them wherever possible it doesn't say whenever and so you're writing this inventory and you're making amends and you've admitted you're an alcoholic and it's all happening at one time and if you got a sponsor that's worth a damn you should already the second day you're on the program be involved in steps 10 11 and 12 people say well i just haven't been sober enough to do any 12-step work. What if Bill Wilson had felt that way? Where would we be? Ah, if you know where a meeting is, you'd know more than this other puke. So then it slides into step 10. Step 10 says continue to take personal inventory. And what that means is that we've got to write about it at the end of every single day. And please don't tell me that the book doesn't say anything about writing the tenth step. Bill simply said, continue to take personal inventory. Now, if you had a job in a warehouse taking inventory and the boss came along and said, you're doing a really good job, please continue, and you threw the pencil and paper away, you'd throw the job away. So let's hang on to the magic pencil and piece of paper because there is a magic that happens between the pencil and the paper that will never, ever, ever happen between the mind and the mouth. There seems to be a spiritual connection between the mind and the paper. And I don't know why that is, and I don' t care why, because knowing why is a booby prize of life. I just know how. I just now how. And it' s taken a lot of years. And the book admonishes us at the end of each day. And that part of Step 10 is mixed into Step 11. So there' s one whole paragraph of Step 11 in the big book, and there' S one whole paragraph of Step 11 in Step 10. so at the end of each day we look back over our day and we ask ourselves where have we been selfish self-centered inconsiderate dishonest or fearful and we got to write about it and then we got to share it immediately with somebody and then w've got to ask become willing to ask god to help us with it and now we gotta ask him and if you ask somebody how to turn it over and they tell you anything but that run from them as fast as possible because they do not know what they are talking about. The greatest folly that man can commit is counseling with a fool, and we cannot turn it over unless we make a package of it in writing and take it to our God after sharing it with somebody else, and that is how you turn itover. And I don't care what's going on with you. If you do that, it will go away because I can promise you three things. If it comes back, it won't come back as often. Ifit comes back it won' t have the power that it had before, and if it comes back it will not last as long as it did before but if it does come back we do that over and over and over until it's finally relegated to the scrap heap of serenity and we don't care about it anymore separated by a little word and when we're wrong promptly admitted at steps 8 and 9 so in step 10 I've got steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 which are the magic tools that I've been looking for all of my life that I can take out there on the bricks with me that are guaranteed to allow me to live my life comfortably with unsolved problems without ever having to drink again as long as I live. As long as i live. So my book tells me that if i'm just trying to do two things on a daily basis if i am just trying to practice the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in my daily affairs and if iam just trying to keep my spiritual house in order i need never fear drinking again as longas i live but the two hooks in that is I've got to find out what the principles are and put them into practice so I can keep on doing that and I've gotta make some attempt to get my spiritual house in order so that I can continue to keep it in order and that's what steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are guaranteed to do and then it rolls into step 11 sought through prayer and meditation to improve the conscious contact that you made somewhere back there between page between steps 5 and 6 on page 75 when you brush the face of God, praying only for his thinking for us because that's what it says in step 11 and the power to carry that out. And so we're powerless in the beginning and we get all the power back in the end in a different form. Our lives are unmanageable in the beginnig but we get the management all back because my book says, hey, I got a new manager. I don't have to worry about it anymore. After you've shared your inventory with somebody and I forgot this. Go home and turn to page 75. There are ten promises on page 75 you'll only find nine but there are ten. It's the beginning of the whole deal. On page 75 it says we're preparing an arch through which will walk a free person. On page 74 on page 74 it says all fear will fall away. On page 77 it says if the obsession to drink has not been removed prior to this point we will feel the fear of it leaving us now on page 75 it says though you may have had certain spiritual beliefs prior to THIS POINT YOU WILL NOW BEGIN TO HAVE A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE WE WILL FEEL AS IF WE WERE WALKING ON THE BROAD HIGHWAY HAND IN HAND WITH THE SPIRT OF THE UNIVERSE YOU'LL HAVE BRUSHED THE FACE OF GOD YOU WILL HAVE ESTABLISHED A CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH A POWER GREATER THAN YOURSELF ALL RIGHT THERE ON PAGE 75 AND SIX MORE PROMISES And I think it's the greatest gift that God has made to mankind in over 2,000 years. And I almost missed it. And then it sweeps into step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening which is defined as a personality change, we try to carry this message of how our personality changed through the application of some gentle, God-given love and steps and practice these principles in our daily affairs, and the loop is closed. What principles? The principles of continuing to take personal inventory, promptly making amends, seeking through prayer and meditation, round and round every day. Step 11, every morning and throughout the day. Step 10, at the end of every day, step 12, whenever we're awake. And it's round and it's perfect. And those are the magic tools that are guaranteed to keep us happy, joyous, and free for the rest of our lives if we care enough to share enough with others how it really works. When I had the opportunity to speak at Founders Day in Akron, Ohio a number of years ago, I went to the archives and talked to some of the old-timers at Dr. Bob's little house, and I found out that's exactly how he sponsored people in less than one day. On page 13 of our big book bill wilson describes how he took all 12 steps in one afternoon with the exception of the formal writing of the inventory and the formal knocking on the doors and making amends he did all the rest in one afternoons you can too you know maybe maybe one day i'll get real lucky and i'll be sitting out in the audience and maybe one of you that's a newcomer will be standing up here and maybe you'll be getting a birthday cake for your first year and if I'm real lucky maybe I'll see a tear in your eye and I'll hear a catch in your voice and then I'll know that you know because you either know or you don't know in this life and there's just nothing in between but I'll now that somewhere along the way you fell in love with a deal called Alcoholics Anonymous somewhere along the way you found your way and the heavens became gentle maybe if we're all really lucky the last promise in the big book will come true for all of us the last promise says surely we will meet some of you as you trudge the road of happy destiny I did not like the word trudge because I don't believe that Bill put anything in the book that wasn't loving, gentle and simple. And so I went to an old seven-inch unabridged dictionary, one of those great big ones, and I looked up the word drudge. And I found that for me, the perfect definition, it says to walk with purpose. And i believe that i can interpret that to mean that if we all hold hands, we'll know for the first time in our lives where we're going. And we can all get there by doing what I think we all really wanted to do all our lives, just stepping out easy. Thank you. Thank you.