The Pea Green Plymouth Duster That Led Him to AA — Harold L.

Well, good morning, Tennessee. My name's Harold and I'm an alcoholic. I'm grateful to be here. I have a sobriety date, April 7th, 1987. I have home group in St. Louis, Missouri, Strong 3 Legacy Group. It's called AA on the Rocks. If you're ever in St. Louis on a Wednesday, come and see us. And we'd love to host you. And if we get a hold of you quick enough, we're going to put you to work. I can promise you. We will get some mileage out of your sobriety. It's been a great trip. My wife Susie is with us. Give it up for Susie. It's always good that she gets to come. It can be challenging sometimes with the work, but also because she's hearing impaired and we can't fly most of the time without having a special procedure to put a special tube in her ear. And so a lot of times she don't get to come because we got to fly. But when she does, this was a nine hour trip for us to get here. We've got nine hours to go home. So I know I'm the only thing between you and the road. So, I get that. But we got probably 10 hours altogether with stops to get home tonight. So it's a long grind, but we'll get there. But I'm glad she came for the weekend she knows a lot of these people she loves a lot of these people one of the last times we tried to fly with her we actually Bob and I were doing a workshop in Orlando some years back and her ear exploded on the plane it was not a good situation and so just a few I think it was last year maybe a year or two years ago was out at Georgia's home group Pacific group and we drove out and then we were going to fly back and we did and she was able to put that special tube to get there because we're going to the international she's like I can't do the tube for this we can drive it but I'm going to fly to the International so she came she's had a great time so thank you for giving her a lot of love and showing her a lot of love I'm grateful to be here I come from a great line of sponsorship my grand sponsor is here my sponsor is not here but his bride is here I got sponsee guys here I got a lot of lifelong friends here it's a privilege to be hier really it's just a privilege Ben thanks for inviting me to come i love ben and i'm so excited for his new life his new future bride who's amazing and i think that's amazing for ben you know and it is brian it really is and and god bless you ben and so we got a lot of love in the room between georgia and trenton and shaylin and uh ben it's it's a fun it's fun weekend but in a lot of long marriages that we heard here this weekend. I'm tasked to talk about the 12-step and how we get here, how we have this spiritual awakening as a result of that awakening. What are we commissioned to do? What are we called to do and then try to live these principled way of life for the rest of our life out and how do we do that? Definitely imperfect but we heard a lot about Ebby's this weekend, we heard about mothers this weekend why my mother was the rock star in my life so I'll probably mention her. We definitely had a lot of ebbies and we're going to talk about step 12. So we're going to be talking about some of those people, uh, what that looks like. But you know, this whole weekend has been beautiful. The speakers have been awesome. I know all of them. I love all of them. And, uh but they just been like Bob said last night and everybody said they've just been on there. It's just the spirit field and it's been amazing and it's definitely charged my batteries. I could just simply say amen and we can go home right now. Seriously. But that's not what they asked me to do. So I'm going to share in a general way with that and uh and all I can share with you is what I've seen, what I heard, and what I experienced. And that's what I'm going to share with you. That's it. Nothing more. I'm not going to give you a bunch of this or that. It's just what I have seen, What I've done, and What I have experienced. It has changed. It totally transformed my life. And if you are new here today, it is not just good news friends. This is the best news ever if you're suffering from alcoholism. There is no better gig in town. There's no more kingdom of God experience, I think, on the planet than right here, right now. I mean, there's just not. The equality, the inclusion when you walk in you fill out a brochure they don't get you know where are you from who'd you vote for you know what's your gender what's your sexuality no you just hey we're glad you're here and there's no place like that on this planet that exists at that level and we're sitting in the most i mean the most kingdom kingdom of god space i think that there exists in the world and we'RE HERE RIGHT NOW AND IT'S ON FIRE RIGHT IT'S On Fire Thanks There was an old theologian named John Wesley who said, if something's on fire, people want to come and watch it burn. And that's why this place is growing. That's why these things are growing, because people want to watch it burned. They want to be a part of that fire. And the fire's been here all week. And it started with Barclay. I mean, there's only so many people that come here and go, yeah! and just imagine Barkley on dog dope and Jack Daniels doing that so Barkley's like a family member to us we love Barkley we've been brothers for a long time in 1979 is how I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous through the Department of Corrections And I just got released and picked up on another charge and brought to a detention center in northern Missouri. And they brought us to the detention center, and in this detention center one day they come out and said, come out into this bullpen, and we came out because a couple guys were going to bring in a meeting to this space. And I can remember the CO said, if you don't want to die, you better get in here. If you don'T want to DIE, you BETTER GET IN HERE. Because he knew all of us were just drunks and blowing our lives up. And we went out, and I think it's on page 105 of Bill sees it as an excerpt from one of Bill's writings. And the title of it is right in the middle of the page. It's titled Chief Responsibility. And I'm paraphrasing, but it goes on to say that our chief responsibility is to deliver an adequate demonstration of Alcoholics Anonymous to the newcomer as an individual, as a group, as an area, as conference. It's our chief responsibility. And I can promise you this weekend's been an adequate demonstration of Alcoholics Anonymous. Right? It has. But it's so imperative, especially when you're trying to carry the message, whether it's in somebody's home, whether it'S in a jail, whether IT's in a prison, whether it' s in a treatment center, to be an adequate demonstra tion. Because why? Because that audience, especially that audience. And it's really important, I think, to understand they listen with their eyes and they think with their feelings. They listen with their eyes and they think with their feelings. They're going to watch how you carry yourself, how you walk, how you talk. Are you really full of the fire? Are you really full with the light? Are You Illuminated? What message are you really carrying? How you carry yourself and how you walking to those spaces and talking those spaces is everything. It's everything. And so that's really important. And it was for me. I couldn't tell you anything those guys said that day, but I can tell you what they did, you know, because I listened with my eyes. And I didn't want anything they had to offer. I was far too young at that point and hadn't really done the big dance with King Alcohol at that point, but the message was planted and a demonstration was given. I was given a plea bargain because I had a parole officer and I had a prosecutor who understood my illness better than I did. And they said, look, here's the option. We can revoke your parole, charge you with this new crime, send you back where you were for two and a half more years or you can go into treatment for 30 days now i quit school when i was 13 years old but i had enough math to know that 30 days was a heck of a lot shorter than two and a half years right it was a really quick plea bargain and i went to treatment for the first time by this time the calendar rolled it's 1980 so it's 1080 i'm in this treatment center and uh and again another adequate demonstration recovery small rural treatment center northern missouri kirksville Missouri to be exact name of the treatment center was care unit and back then at least in that part of country everything was 12-step driven everything was big book driven everything was AA driven you didn't have to have all the certifications and all the things you need today wasn't there wasn't so much science and medicine into treatment it was just purely out of the book let's get it on let's do it and they would take you on vans and they'd run you out to these meetings and I remember it's like being on an old folks band and when you're just a young punk juvenile like I was at this stage, you know, your little face is plastered against the glass. You look pretty pathetic if somebody pulled up next to you, a little tear down your eye. Here's that. But they took us to our first meeting and one of the ebbies in my life was this lady named Millie Mays. And Millie was a superstar in mid-Missouri. She was a rock star in recovery. And she looked like Santa Claus's wife, you Know, from the cartoon. She had big white hair, big rosy cheeks big smile full of energy full of life and uh and i walk into this meeting and she greets me and she bought me an orange crushed soda out of the pop machine i remember like it was yesterday and we sat down it was a small rural little plate of missouri small little rural meeting and everybody had to talk because there wasn't very many people there and the time comes around i got to say something and i said well i'm here because the department of correction said i had to be here and i only got so many more days and you will never see me again because i'm not like you people and this beautiful soul turned on me right in the meeting and and she grew horns she grew fangs she grew a tail and fire shot out of her mouth and right inthe middle of meeting she says just keep drinking you dumb little bastard it's all gonna happen to you and she became my first resentment in alcohol exam but how things work if you stay is that when she had her 30th anniversary she asked me to come and speak at her anniversary so it all came full circle eventually but then i but i i got you know it's time to go home and my my home plan was the thomas boys and i don't know what if the thompson boys were are from where you're at, but you don't want the Thomas boys as your whole plan from where I'm at. And they rolled up in a pickup and backed in. You could all pile on the back of the pickup. I bet they never did that in Tennessee. Did they ever do that in back roads in Tennessee? Everybody just piled on the back of truck, trucks full. We hop in. We went to one of the best parties I've ever been to in my life on the Sheraton River. And then they handed me a big plastic jug of what they call jungle juice, pure grain alcohol mixed with some punch or something. They gave me a couple pieces of paper with Snoopy on it I don't know what that was about I just know a little bit a few minutes I was saying hang on Snoopy and off we went to the Sheraton River right one of the best parties ever been in my life there's a summer party it was great and they gave me this 30-day coin for for 30 days of sobriety and the highlight what I thought was a highlight of that whole evening as I walked down to the river with that coin and I skipped it across the river and I pounded my chest and I made some hillbilly rebel yell that we got victory over alcohol, over the DOC, and God bless America. And everybody's like, yeah! And that would be the last time I thought about not drinking for a long time. But that was my introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. And it was an adequate demonstration, even though I was so far removed from conceiving that I was powerless over it. In 1987 is when my life crashed. And my life crashed hard in really an eight-week period. And I'm not here to really get into step one, but I'll just tell you how it all came to an end. I got arrested for a 4TWI conviction. A few weeks later, I was playing music. I was a rock and roll drummer most of my life in those days. And we were coming back from playing a gig in East St. Louis, Illinois. I was passed out in the back seat. I wasn't even awake when all this happened. But we got involved in a multi-fatality drunk driving accident. And everybody in the other vehicle lost their life that night. And then a few weeks later, I got home from that. And I was just destroyed. It's like somebody took out my soul and cut it in half. I was absolutely crushed by all of it. Alcoholism was my master from day one. But here it is. It's sitting next to me, and I cannot get away from it because I'm so powerless over it. And I got behind the wheel of a car and got arrested for another DWI a few weeks later. Fell in DWIs, parole violation, on my way back to the penitentiary. And in that cage, when I was in that case, I said, I got down on my knees, and I said the most honest prayer I've ever said in my life. I've heard it a million times from this podium. And it was simply, God help me. And from that moment until now, I've never found it necessary to pick up another drink of alcohol. Right? From that moment on. And it wasn't just a drink. It was a huge surrender. I mean, Bill's story, he would say, spiritually speaking, most people, you know, it's an educational variety. It happens over time. They have this spiritual experience. and it's going to take a while, but for him it was sudden and profound. I would have subscribed to that mentality, that theology, that mindset for a big chunk of my sobriety. But one day we were in the prison, we were reading through this book and we got to that part of the story when he said that his impact, God's impact on his life was sudden or profound. In hindsight, looking back over 12 years later, I realized that God's effect on my life was suddenly profound because from that moment I said, I got on that prayer and said that prayer, i never drank again his impact on my life was immediate but i just didn't wake up to it and what you heard all week from every speaker up here has done an elegant job of describing the root of the problem which i would say spiritual separation we're spiritually separated and we can debate through science through reason through faith and all those things why we are like that is it from birth i would argue it's from birth if you don't think so take three two three-year-olds, we'll call them Katie and Amy. Right? Put them in a room together and give them one toy. And you'll find out what I'm talking about really fast. But that's that. And so it would take a long time. I came into Alcoholics Thomas, in my experience, there's really, if I had to frame it in categories, there's three types of people that come to AA. There's those who make it happen, there're those who watch it happen and there are those who don't know what's happening at all, right? And I've been all three of those people. And I absolutely had no clue what was going on when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. Zero clue when I go here. And watched AA happen. Yes, I got involved. The fellowship saved my life. I don't have any qualms with fellowship. It saved my life! I had a sober band. I went on sober float trips. I played on sober softball teams. I did all the sober fellowship stuff, and it saved my life. But I was on step nada, right? If you were at the last international conference, the person who spoke on Friday night from Australia said it best. I was doing everything right in AA, but 12 things, right. And that's my life, that was my life the first three years I was sober. So I was around, you would have thought I was running for office in Alcoholics Anonymous. But there was no real transformation going on in my life Of course, if you've been abusing king alcohol in your life and you stop, you're going to get a little bit physically better, a little but mentally better, a little emotionally better. You can easily say a little spiritually better. But it's going to plateau. And that spiritual separation is going to start in the wide. It's going come to life again. And the irritable and the restless and the discontent are going to take over your life. And you'll get to that space where you're going to grow or you're go. And that's what happened to me. And so this spiritual awakening, although I was having an awakening it really didn't come until i had and bob talked about it beautifully last night that that second bottom or that third bottom i think we all had to come to that bottom i would describe that bottom if i was going to give it a name i would say i would call it coming to the end of yourself it's just you got to come at the end to yourself in my experience before you're going to come all the way in sit all the day down and do this thing you have to come to the into yourself and i hadn't come all away to the inner myself even when i got even though but King Alcohol was my master in everything it put me through. My entire life, I still wasn't at the end of myself. I came into alcoholic science, I'm going to do what I want, when I want. How I want it, the way I want and if you don't like it, too bad. Because that's how I flow. When I bailed out of that treatment center, this is where that adequate demonstration really talking about step 12 comes into play. Because when I bailied out, there was nobody to call. We didn't have cell phones back then, but even if I had a cell phone, there would not and this is the gospel truth there was not one person in my phone that i could call mom been gone a long time so i i said i gotta get help and i went all the way back to that treatment center i was at in 1980 lots of treatment centers in st louis that's where i went because of the adequate demonstration and i'm always anonymous right i went there i didn't go there to be what we're doing tonight i didn'T GO THERE TO BE IN AA I didn't go there to be sober forever. I went there because it was only desperation. It was the only place I knew to go. And I needed a piece of paper to stand in front of the judge and plead for mercy because I was in a lot of trouble. I've been in trouble since I was 12 years old. And we got, I went to the treatment center. And I was there. I had seizures. And seizures really started for me right around age 15. I had my first alcohol withdrawal seizure. and I had that playing in the band two weeks after I got out of that first treatment center and we were on a town square in Kirksville, Missouri playing a gig for the United Way the very last song, true story, Sunday morning Ozzy Osbourne crazy train and I have a seizure and I wake up with a drumstick in my mouth my drums are all kicked over and I rejected the paramedics I went and got as sick as you could ever get in the bathroom and just vomited all the toxic stuff I put in my system the night before but I ended up in the hospital, they took my, they've convinced me that it might be epilepsy or I might have a brain tumor. That sounded a lot better than I got to quit drinking. What's a little brain tumor, a little, a little epilepsy. So let's go confirm what I'm hoping is true, right? But it wasn't. And we got there and this is where my mom and I parted ways. My mom was, I was 15 years old at this stage of my life. This is 1980. And my mom sitting next to me in this ebby, this Laverne, who was in charge of the treatment center, who was just an amazing soul, came in to give me the A pitch. Came in with the book one more time, sat next to me and gave me the invitation. The invitation that we're all given. You know, are you willing to go any lengths to do this thing? And I rejected that offer. I said, no, I'm not. Because it didn't seem like a solution to what was going on in my life. And my mom got off the train. My mom had been married to two alcoholics, one in St. Louis, Missouri. She had a son and two daughters, and it drove her insane. The toxicity and the drama, and we, and Larcine spoke about it beautifully, but it's just, it's insane, and my mom just left the marriage. I mean, just left. Was MIA for 10 years. Nobody knew if she was dead, if she was alive, she was gone, and she ended up on the western side of Missouri in a state mental hospital, and she was there for quite a while, and somehow or another, she got well enough to get out of there, and he met another alcoholic, or maybe she knew him beforehand, which happened to be my dad. I came out of that marriage. But after about two years of that rodeo and all that toxicity again, you got to go, man. And she ran him off. And it was just her. Her parents died young. I never had any grandparents. I didn't have any great-grandparents. I did not have any aunts. I did NOT have any uncles. The only thing that was in my life was my mother. And thank God my mom turned her wheel in life forward to the care of God. She understood God that night, that time. And that was through her Catholic faith. And SHE never wavered on that until she died in 2015. and she became one of the most remarkable women you've ever met in your life. And there's nothing, I know I'm biased, I'm biased but I've been hanging out with some amazing women all week but I'm really biased on this but there's really nothing more beautiful than a woman who's walked with God for a long time. And my mother was one of those people. But she was done. She's like kid when you get out of here you can either do this or you can go this way but I am done with you. And being an NFL Marlboro leather on leather guy was like you know, yeah mom I don't need you either. That's what half of me said. The other half was I can't even believe my own mom doesn't love me anymore but I rejected it and I chose to leave and I left home when I was 15 years old and I hooked up with a biker guy or a drifter he was he was a biquer but he's also a drifter and he had a panel van and he was just a drfter in my town. I hooked up with him and we just took off and that's a whole story in itself but I went all over the south and I ended up in Texas, ended up at Knoxville for about six months, ended Up in Nashville for about six months and I finally landed in Ackworth, Georgia. And there was a great Southern boy named Charlie Daniels, right? He wrote a song in 1979. The devil went down to Georgia, right guess what he found me. He found me in Acker, Georgia and uh and that's where I had my first any kind of moment of clarity with alcoholism first time in my life um is in that place and I woke up from a blackout in that in that old beat up trailer we lived in a beat up old trailer we live in a old trailer park in Ackworth it was nothing but hillbilly rejects from the south how bad was it I live next door to three guys named poor chop Hollywood and screwdriver should give me an indication how life was going for me but I woke up from a blackout I've been a black out drager from day one in my life and I wokeup it was winter time I had on cowboy boots I hadon blue jeans I had a flannel shirt I had on a beige vest and Iwokeup with a big tomato head because that's what we called a hangover in the south was a tomato head and i had a big potato head and i and i looked down i had dry blood all over my hands all over my jacket and i couldn't figure out what happened to me and i went into the bathroom and trying to figure out somebody kicked the dogs not nasty out of me which wasn't uncommon but i couldn'T find it until i got undressed and i realized somebody sliced me all around my my arm and then stabbed me in my in my rib cage to this day i couldnT tell you what happened what happened next is really, I think, the most important part of it as it relates to alcoholism. Because I went out on the front porch for the first time in my life at 19 years old and I was so oppressed by alcoholism, so enslaved to it. And I'm sitting there trying to smoke a cigarette and I mumble something to the effect, man, I got to do something different than what I'm doing. And King Alcohol, the authors of our big book, they took King Alcohol. They personified King Alcohol gave him an old English character named John Barleycorn. It was just like John Barneycorn sitting right next to me. Call him the great compromiser because he'll meet you where you're at. I don't even care if you have this book as long as you don't read it and do what it says, you know. You go to these meetings. But he's sitting there next tome and I'm mumbling something. Man, I've got to do something different when I'm doing it. And this is what he says. You know what, kid? You're right. You do need to do Something Different Than What You're Doing. But before you do anything drastic, grab your old army jacket and let's walk up here to the magic market and get a pack of smokes and a quart of beer. and it sounded like a really good idea. And I started walking up to the liquor store. I didn't even wash the blood off my hand. I got the army jacket and I started that job up to a liquor store and I got up and before I ever got there, I'm already feeling better. I'm almost skipping to the liquid store. I'm always feeling better just since these encumbrance coming over and I get the bottle. I get to cigarettes. I come out, twist the cap, make that noise we all love, right? And a white spirit of king alcohol comes out of that bottle and I take a big mighty pull of it. Make that pucker face we always talk about. We always take. And that was the last time I thought about not drinking for a long time. And I hitchhiked to Marietta, Georgia and got sewed up and that was The Last Time I Thought About Not Drinking for a Long Time. That's king alcohol. And, that's the mindset. That's the illness that brought me to this treatment center. So, I get into this treatment centre in 1987. I have another seizure. So, it took me a little bit to get out of detox. But, eventually they come and I got to knock on my door, and this guy walks in. His name's Gary. Gary's got two and a half months of sobriety, and he's got a Kansas City Chiefs hat on. He's got prison-issue glasses, and he says, hey, guess what? I said, what? He goes, you're on the list. I said the list for what? He goes you're on a list to go to a meeting. I said what kind of meeting? He says an AA meeting. I said man, I'm not going no AA meeting. He goes you sure? I said I'm positive. I'm not going to an AA meeting. And he says all right, and he leaves, and then he comes back a few minutes later, and He opens the door, and he just takes nothing but his head in. He says, do me a favor. I said, what's that? He goes, try really hard to smile and get it over with. And then he left. And I'm like, what is that? You know, smile and give it over. But you know when our book says that an alcoholic properly armed with the facts about themselves can win the confidence of another alcoholic. It didn't take a few hours. It took like 30 seconds. And I start looking for this guy. I go out scouring the halls, and I finally found him. I go, hey, you still going to that meeting? Yeah, I'm still going to that meeting. I said, man, that's great. He goes, why is that great? I said because I want to go with you. He goes that's even greater. I said why is it even greater? He goes because I can't get anybody else to go with me, right? So now you know you've swallowed the hook. And so we go out and it's a true story. A two-story little treatment center in Kirksville, Missouri. We go down to the parking lot and we could take just this section right here and pass the hat and pay for his car. It was a 1970 Pea Green Plymouth Duster, piece of crap car floorboards rusted out he had some floor mats hot guard stereo system box speakers in the back seat right and uh and we get in the car and we crank this thing up there's no exhaust on it and we're in a small town we're going down to where all the churches are at and we go boom and carbon dioxide's pouring through and you're trying not to die from asphyxiation and he's got a smile that wraps around his head why because he's got the new guy. He's going to show up and score some points at his group, and he starts giving me the AA pitch, telling me how great his life is, and I'm looking at his car. I'm looking at its prison-issue glasses, and I think I invented the word right there on the spot. Dude, I hate to admit it to you, but it really looks like your life sucks to me, and alcoholics are quick. He He goes, well, tell me about your car. I don't even have a car. Right? And rumor has it you've got a big trial coming up. How's that working for you? But I got to the meeting. And before I went into the meeting, the guy goes, hey, I want to give you some great advice. Here's what I want you to do. We're going to go to this meeting. If they would call on you, if they would calling you, all I want you to say is your name's Harold and you're an alcoholic. Don't add anything to it. You're from the Ozark Mountains We know you probably smoke some of that Huff some of it Sniff some of them You probably even slept with a few farm animals too Alcoholism has got a broad definition But just be heralded alcoholic I've been heraldalcoholic from day one It saved me a lot of grief in recovery I can promise you But I went in and sat down And I sat down next to this guy And I asked him this question And maybe if you're new here, you got this question And it's a fair question How long do we got to come here? It was a serious question. How long does this take? Whatever it is we're doing, how long does it take? And the guy's like puzzled by it. He looked at me and he goes, until you want to. And it was like really sad news. I didn't even want to be there that night. Much less the next night. And I darn sure didn't want to go. I didn' t want to look like him. And guess who I look like today? I look exactly like that guy. But I came back to St. Louis and I didn''t go to AA. I was just consumed with this trial. That's it. It absorbed every second of my life, and I came back in this ebby, this guy, this adequate demonstration. We didn't have text. He called me on the phone. Did you go to a meeting? No. Why? I don't know why, Gary. Very defensive about it. He goes, man, your life depends on it, and i knew that's true. This is a guy with two and a half months of sobriety. He wasn't trying to be my sponsor. He wouldn't try to take me through the steps, but he was definitely filled with the light. He was definitely full with the fire. he definitely had the spirit. He definitely was shared in the best news ever and he wanted me to have it and he knew my life depended on me having it. And he stayed with me till I finally went to my first meeting. But I told you how I showed up and I, and I grinded it out for three years in AA. And what really brought me to the bottom to be transparent is AA boy meets AA girl on campus. And I met a girl and she got pregnant immediately. and she was only six months sober I was two years sober she was six months over and and she said you know I'm out I want I'm not doing recovery no more I'm out of this thing I'm see you later you know whatever have a good life I'm taking the baby I'm and she left and I didn't have nothing I had no resources in my life I had to you know steal from Paul write a bad check to Peter you know just to try to do anything and I filed a paternity suit against her but long story short I think the guy she is with her whole life, her whole time, somebody she worked with, they got married and filed a suit to adopt this child. And I took on that suit. But I was three years sober. I just got a sponsor. I was just starting to work the steps. I mean, just barely. And we go to court over that child. And this is really what brought me to my knees in Alcoholics Nihilists. Because we get to the trial, and I've never been to a trial ever in my life where I felt more confident about the outcome ever than this one. I'm sober. My sponsor's there. My boss is there. My family's there, my mother's there my new wife's there kids are there AA members are there I'm pretty stoked about this deal until they call me to the stand and that prosecutor gets up and he filleted me like a fish and the judge said based on the evidence that we heard here today we think it's in the best interest of this court this child. We're going to revoke Mr. Long's rights as a father. Adoptions accepted, case dismissed. Worst sentence I ever got in my life. And there was zero alcohol involved in it. And it happened right here in these rooms. Katie mentioned it. When we look back on our lives, we see we're made decisions based on self which later put us in a position to be hurt. I would love to tell you a great, warm story. When she turned 18, my sponsor was Tom, for a big chunk of my sobriety. Steve Lee is my sponsor now. But Tom and I wrote a letter, and we made connection. And we were just back and forth. She knew her half-sisters and all that. But that guy that she married stayed with them. They had two other daughters. She went to Mizzou. She graduated on her. She's married to an able attorney today. They've got three kids. And she's had a super blessed life. So if he wanted to pray for a great outcome, that would have been it, right? But it was a cost. I paid a price. And that's what really brought me to my knees and showed me what the root of our problem was, which is spiritual separation. But whatever you want to call it, you don't even have to put the word spiritual, but you are separated. I guarantee you from the power in this room, from the people in your world, you've been separated your whole life long before you ever took a drink. I guarantee it. Your inventory will prove it to you. And you're driven. You're driven by so many false narratives and so much delusion in your life. The delusion of what I would call the delusion Of inequality was the thing that drove my life My whole life I can do any inventory and look at my life And see where the delution of inequality drove my wife What you thought of me paralyzed me I would change my body I would changed my looks I would changes my clothes I would changer everything And the dark side of that is There's two narratives going on at the same time I walk into a room like this And one narrative is I want everybody to pay attention to me and tell me we're good. The other narrative going on the exact same time is I want you to leave me the hell alone. And the kicker is I want to do it at the same time. So like if everybody here just walk up and say, Harold, you're great. Talk to me the rest of the time, I'm good. But that's not reality, right? That's not real. That's reality. Thanks, Barkley. And it's not really reality. And so that drove my life. And I can look at my inventories and I don't think any of us would want to know how many poor choices we made based on that delusion you if the data could be pulled up and just show it to you on a spreadsheet you'd want to leave the room when you find out how many core choices you made on that illusion alone and when i met king alcohol it numbed that delusion baby that was the magic of king alcohol so when i came in and finally came to my first saving that it was common sense to me that i put down the alcohol my life's going to get better and it did get better that's part of the delusion it did get better but I was still so blocked off and I finally humbled myself and I asked this guy to sponsor me it took me three years to do that and all the pain and consequences that went along with it and I went to his house and his name was Roy I said Roy will you be my sponsor and the reason I asked him because I could walk to his house I didn't have a car I didn'y have a license and he agreed to it he had about 11 years of sobriety and we sat and he goes well, you've been around for about three years. Tell me about your life. I said, I'll tell you about my life. I said I'm 25 years old going on 26. I don't have an education. I got a criminal record. I don't have a driver's license probably never will for the rest of my life I Don't have a GED. I don't Have a car I live in the basement of old house up the street from me that I can't that I walk to I got A dead-end job. I Said Roy my life sucks man Sucks capital letters highlighted italicize it sucks. And I hadn't drank in three years. And he said, Harold, I'm going to be the first one to admit you've been dealt a really tough hand in your life. I'll be the first one to admit it. But I hope you're going to hear what I'm going to tell you. That every single thing you have in your life, sitting right here at my table, right this second, every single things you got going on, you've attracted it to you by the person that you've become. And today you're man enough to own that truth? It's today you are on your way to some real change but you so you can own that truth this vicious cycle you're on you're eventually going to drink again because you're not happy about your sobriety i know you don't think so you got a desire but you're like a candle blowing wind eventually it's going to go out you're either going to return to the drink or you're going to do what my dad did my dad was an alcoholic who never could get sober at age 54 he took his life that's how my dad quit drinking so you're gonna do one or two things man you're neither going to grow or youre gonna go and the million dollar question is, what do you want to do? And it's a question every single person here, if you're truly a hopeless alcoholic, has to ask that question. Not once, probably several times in your life. Do you wantto grow or do you wanna go? And I didn't wanna go. And I knew he was gonna say, let's work the steps. And the steps just didn't make any sense how it was gonna fix my problem because I was so full of consumerism, materialism, secularism, individualism. My mindset was calling me crazy, but I think I could be a little bit more spiritual if I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket and a driver's license and a car that wasn't held together by bumper stickers and a better looking girl or a girl at all. Call me crazy. I think if I get a little of that going, I could be a little bit more happy, joyous and free, you know? But that wasn' t the mathematics. The spiritual mathematics was you put the spiritual ahead of the material and the rest of it follows. My sponsor Tom had a beautiful quote, the definition of a miracle. He'd say the definition of a miracle herald is when preparation meets opportunity and god does introduction great things can happen in your life but you're not prepared for the opportunities so once you get prepared forthe opportunities things will change for you and it couldn't be a truer statement and i finally got on board i started to work the steps and it didn't happen a big cataclysmic explosion but little by little my life started to change two plus two didn't equal four anymore the impossible became possible and i went on to live this storybook life that i live today but i had to come to the end of myself and some people it's the minute they walk in the alcoholic stomachs they just they've had enough king alcohol has killed and crushed them in every way and they're just done they they come in there's those people and god bless them but there's just a lot of people like me that just under this false narrative that i just put down the booze and things are just gonna just change and it's not true but i but i started to work to things and things started happening so this is how the spiritual awakening came from me i just started working the steps i did the inventory i shared all the deep start secrets that i plan to take to the grave for me although i didn't realize they were the very things that were going to put me in the grave right but i was able to share those things i was unable to start reconciling my life being restored i think it's a word we don't use enough in in recovery is the word restored to be restored to what i always was alcoholism didn't take it from me it just covered it up. It was always there from day one. I just didn't see it. I didn't know it. I didn' t know it was spiritually separated. Didn't know any of that. But little by little, I started to put those things together and life started to take off. I got married. I had another child that I could legally keep and they handed it to me. I did not know I could fall in love with a little bald-headed woman with no teeth, right? Until he gave me one. And Susie and I got together. She brought three children into the marriage. I had two. We got four girls, one boy, four grandkids. Amazing life. And here's the cool part. None of my kids have ever seen me abuse alcohol in any form. They've never seen me do anything too crazy. And that's being transparent, even say a cuss word. That's just how the principles of this life has shaped who I was and how I am today. And it's just we have an amazing life. It's not perfect by no means, but it's a pretty awesome deal. And I was able to finally reconcile, make amends to my mom after three years. and was the greatest winner in my life. The only person in my life, but she was the greatest winner of my life and able to reconcile with my mom was huge. It took three years for that to happen when she had a year when I had a year sobriety. I called her up. I said, man, I think I need to find my dad and tell him that I'm sober. She says, well, come over. Let me see what I can do. And she called me next day. She's going to come by the house and I came when I walked in the house. She's sitting at the kitchen table since she's sobbing and I knew she was going to tell me my dad was dead and he died in 1986 is 1988. This is how torn apart my family was. He died almost three years before that, never knew it. And then he took his life. So it was a long period of reconstruction, no doubt. But as I stayed sober, things started to happen. The opportunities came. I got jobs I didn't deserve to have. My mom brought me into her business. She said, I'm going to bring you into the business. I said, Mom, they're not going to hire me. She worked for a huge national insurance company. I said to Mom, They're not gonna hire me." I don't even qualify to take out the trash. She says, let me worry about that. And so he got me a couple interviews, and I got through the first two. I don' t know how. I had to borrow a tie from the guy next door. He worked at Budweiser. He had no ties. And it's true. He gave me a clip-on tie that came down right here. This is how I show up to the last interview is with the vice president who became the president of this company. And I go to see him, andI sit down, and he looked at me, andhe was almost in disgust. He goes, you know, the only reason you're here is because of your mom. You know that, right? There's nothing about you that gets me excited. Nothing. This is how the interview is going. I mean, immediately. He said, I love and respect your mother. This is her spiritual walk. This is their spiritual disciplines. She goes, if I hire you, it's because of my mother, nothing more, nothing less. And if you work here, you're going to do three things. You're going do them well. You're gonna work hard. You're gunna work smart. You're gona work honest. If you can't do those three things, you will not be here. Do you understand that? tell me you understand that. I said, I understand it. Get out of here. And they hired me and I got a chance of a lifetime to work at this company. And I started doing that and I started to get some education in the insurance and financial services world. I got all these fancy initials behind my name, but it wasn't long into it that I finally hit a plateau and I applied to do something. And the HR department says, come, says, you can't, you don't, you've got to have a formal education to get here. You don't even have a GED. How did you get a job here you know there's there's a they're starting to backtrack i said it's divinely inspired so i well you don't you you got to have at least a gd and i went to my sponsor and i'm i'm double digit sobriety i'm 30 years old and he says well you need to go sign up for a community college i said are you crazy you want me i said i tried to get when i was incarcerated i tried a couple times to get a g that could never pass it i get frustrated and just quit he says no you got to go so i signed up for community college in the first at 16 weeks i'm 30 something years old double digit sobriety i show up to this classroom and they thought i was the teacher seriously and i and i sat down where i didn't have to look at anything because when i was a kid i took the thumbtack out of my kiss poster and pierced my ear that was a pretty big deal i got a lot of fights over that now they're all tattered out all pierced out some of them have so many piercings they look like they fell down a nut and bolt section hellos or something i mean they got a lot going on so i sat in the front where i don't have to look at idiom but i got a kid named robbie sitting next to me robbie's got a crew cut shaved head a bunch of different colors in his hair judas priest jacket on you know spike neck i mean he looked like he belonged in a museum he was a beautiful specimen and you couldn't help but look at the guy and the teacher is not even there yet he jumps bad on me in this little classroom with these kids what are you looking at old man's what he called me and i remembered a lot some good humor from way back i said well robbie right in front of everybody i said you know i made love to a parrot one time and i'm wondering if you might be one of my kids i couldn't resist it he set it up and and robbie robbie became one ofmybestbuddiesin16weeks But I graduated and went on to college, and I finally finished a bachelor's degree, stayed on the dean's list all the way through it. I sent my mom a bumper sticker that said, Hey, your kid made Donnero. It was a big joke that I had. But eventually got an MBA degree and wrote a thesis on starting a business from scratch and ultimately selling it. And I did that not once, not twice, but three times. And ultimately go on and get another master's degree and almost finish with a doctorate degree. So the impossible becomes possible every day in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous if you just stay here. But what really shifted all that and what really gave me the life that I have today is what we're going to talk about now, and that's step 12, becaring the message piece, which this thing is all about. The highest place you'll ever get in AlcoholicsAnonymous is trusted servant. It's it. It's the highest status, don't care what you do, where you go, how hard you work, trusted servant is all you're goingto be, but it's the most special job you could ever have, to be gifted with that. And so my sponsor said in 1990, he says, Harold, do you want to have a storybook life? I said, yes, I want a story book life. Then there's two things you're going to have to do for the rest of your life one day at a time. And if you do these two things, you will have a Storybook Life. I promise you, you won't. I said what are those two things? Number one, you always have a new guy you're working with. If you don't have a New Guy you're Working With, you stop what you're doing, you get out your rod, you get your bait, you go fish where there's fish, but you always Have a New Guide You're Working with. Always. number two i want you to go somewhere once a week where you don't want to end up and you can pick where it's at i don't care where it'S at but somewhere you don'T want to end up i want YOU committed to doing that one day at a time for the rest of your life and that's been 35 years ago and that'S exactly what i've done for 35 years i've always had a new guy and i've ALWAYS went somewhere once A WEEK I DIDN'T WANT TO END UP AND THAT STARTED INTO SKID ROW MISSIONS IN 1990 IN ST. LOUIS MISSOURI ON THE HARBORLIGHT STREET HARDEST A ever did in my life, still there today. It's a tough place. We still go there. But I went there every Thursday and every Saturday. By far the hardest A I ever did. But in 1993, a phone call came in and said, hey man, do you want to come out and give a talk at this prison? I started laughing. I said, dude, do we know who you're talking to? Yeah, we know what we're talking about. I said they're not going to let me come out of no prison. Are you out of your mind? He says, no, you've been off paper long enough and I have a lot of pull in this institution. I'm pretty sure i can get you in i said well let's just say you're right let's just pretend for a moment you're ready let's play let's pretend i made it pack a long time ago but i ain't ever never ever going back on that side of the fence for you or anybody else for the rest of my life and he goes yeah yeah he goes run that by your sponsor and call me back you know how that went i don't have to tell you the story how that went but i got in and long story short i became a volunteer in corrections and mostly in maximum security or high security prisons and i've been doing that ever since for 35 years and i could sit here all day literally all day and tell you story after story after store after story after story how this has changed my life might change my family's life it's it's an amazing experience my friend liz and matthew are here i got a young kid that's coming out of prison he got out on friday so i couldn't be with him but i said you call me every day check in and he he was checking in when i put him on speaker so we all talked to him said hello to him he's been out he just got out friday i'll hook up with him on monday but he got out he's with his mom in the car i said he goes i got you on speaker he's what your mama said everybody said hi mom everybody said hi to his mom this kid's been down for a long time but if we connected years ago in the prison he's out i'll see him monday and there's no better journey than walking shoulder to shoulder with somebody else and helping them rediscover life it's what this thing's all about you heard it all weekend from amazing speakers the transformation bob talked about it eloquently last night he always does that you got to move from a taker to a giver in my experience if that doesn't happen you won't stay here you may not ever drink again but you'll get burnt out on all this stuff and eventually you get sick of how it works you get stick of it you'll leave but if you have that shift it'll change everything for you i'll share one story here because it involves georgia she's part of this story and she just got done sharing so we'll connect the dots so in a maximum security prison in 1996 you know as we were working with these guys we realized we couldn't we had a great meeting it was on fire people were just lining up signing up to get in our group but we weren't into the steps who weren't in the sponsorship women we got to do something difference so we had a group conscience and a few of us wrote this workshop for prisons and right out the third edition of the big book and it was just questions pulled right out all 164 pages go through the 12 steps so we wrote this workshops and we signed up we have people sign up for it and we capped it at 25 guys 25 offenders sign up or 16 weeks let's go let's get into this book let's do this workshop through these worksheets all the guys who signed up that internet workshop had life sentences or more every single one of them and the same 12 steps that transformed my life transformed theirs and we saw that we saw the shift it was not about having a fantastic meeting it was about getting the spiritual separation dealt with right that was the root of the problem even in a maximum security fence yard so this particular guy's name was brent He's one of the guys, a mini. But Brent came into our group just like everybody else. He listens with his eyes and he thinks with his feelings, right? And he had his head down. It took him months before he even said who he was without being called on. But he got into the workshop and it changed his life. When he came to prison in 1987, he had two life sentences. Two life sentences, second-degree murder and armed criminal action. And through the resentment and his alcoholism, he ended up murdering his father. So that's what he was in prison for. He came to prison in 1987 when I almost came back to prison in 1987. We grew up 25 miles apart from where we were born. We're the exact same age. We're in this prison together, and we start working the steps, and I started sponsoring him. And his mom was gone, his grandma was gone. His wife divorced him. But as he started to work the steps the transformation started to happen inside a caged community. And eventually grandma came back the same. And then his mama came back this same. and then he got a letter from his ex-wife and he's like what's that about and then she called said i just i heard you're doing some good things i'd like to come and see you and she came back and they redid their vows and got remarried and uh but even went up five years setback two years set back but eventually in 2006 he walked into our prison group with a smile that wrapped around his head he goes man you're never gonna guess what happened i said dude i come here with holy anticipation every single week what happened he says i got an outdate i said you got an update he goes yeah i'm going home in 2008 two years later i said well 2008 comes around i said when you get out you call me every single day until i tell you not to call me or connect with me i've been connected to brent every single day since that time every single day i never missed through that through that time to this time but he's on his way home and he calls me on the cell phone he goes dude i'm on this i'm in the car. I'm just waiting. I know I'm in the car with my wife. I'm on my way home. I want a cell phone, man. Pretty cool. I go, yeah, I got one. I don't know what they're about. He's pretty excited about it. I said, get home. Enjoy your family. Call me in the morning. Call me the next day. And I could hear, not happiness. Happiness is very circumstantial. This was joy. This is pure joy. And I'll never forget the phone call. I'll ever forget it. He called me he says man you're never going to guess what I've been doing all morning I said dude you haven't been with your wife for 21 years I know what you've been doing as soon as he got done laughing and he goes no man that's not what I'm doing I said I've just been sitting here opening gifts all morning I said gifts what welcome home gifts he goes no man I've open father's day gifts birthday gifts and Christmas gifts since 1996 when he started programming alcoholic stocks. He said, you'll never guess what I got for Christmas in 97. I said, what did you get? He goes, I got a Miami's dolphin jacket. I don't know why he likes the dolphins. That's how deep the disease really goes. But he goes, I got this jacket. And I go, but this is the spiritual mathematics we always talk about, Brent. And I said, because right here on my desk, I got four tickets for you to see the Rams play the Dolphins in four weeks here in St. Louis. That's when the Rams are still in St.-Louis. He goes, well, who am I going to take with me? I said you take whoever you want. He says, you go? Hell yeah, I'll go. He goes we'll take Bob. Bob had life and 45. We'll take Gary. Gary had life in 20. All three of these guys got sober at the same time in that prison group in 1996. So we went to the game. We had pancakes. We went to The Game. and we had a time of our life, and at halftime, the lady sitting behind us got our attention. She goes, hey! And we all turn around and look at her, and she goes, I've been watching you guys. And I go, yes, ma'am. She goes、You guys are having a hell of a lot of fun. I go、Yes, we are. You guys aren't even drinking. I said、No, ma'm, we're not. She goes،Well, it's a good thing. I said、「Why is that?」 She goes、「Because the way you guys are carrying on, you'll probably end up in prison or something." True story. True story. So Brent went on to have a storybook life, and his wife unfortunately was injured seriously in a car accident and then lost her life. And after he got some time and got off parole, people would call, of course, like this, hey, can you come and speak? I can't, but I've got somebody who might. And we'd done several things together, and he got invited to go to North Texas Roundup to speak, and while he was there, he met another speaker That was from George's home group who was there to help fill in, actually. She was there for somebody else. And dynamic woman. They met, got googly-eyed like these two did. Like these two do. And he finally says, man, I think I'm going to move to California and sell my house and move to California. So we walked through all that diligently. And he moved out there. She's had an amazing storybook life. You need to have her come here and share her story then. but she's an attorney partner a partner law firm now this is an amazing life but they're getting married in october a few months after georgia and that so he moved out there he goes tonight he goes i don't know what i'm going to do for a living i said well what do you want to do he goes i want to get a job where i just help people that's all i want TO DO I JUST WANT TO HELP PEOPLE AND I SAID WELL I GOT A FRIEND BILLY WHO WORKS OUT THERE AT THE MIDNIGHT MISSION I SAid WHY DON'T YOU GET HIM A JOB AND HE DID LONG STORY SHORT THAT'S WHERE HE WENT TO WORK AND HE WORKS RIGHT next to georgia every day of his life and it's been that way for i don't know how long now quite a while that's the impossible become impossible how does that happen but it's true and i can sit here and tell you story after story that's like that and and as we wrap up here and get ready to go home i mean what are you doing i mean this is what our book asks us i mean it's a very personal question all of us got to answer but here's the question for all of this you know and the book's very humble about it. It says our book is meant to be suggestive only, and we realize we only know a little bit about this spiritual separation. But what we do know is the magic of Alcoholics Anonymous. One alcoholic talking to another. And Bill gives terminology for it on page 109 of the 12 and 12. He calls it the magnificent reality of Alcoholic Anonymous, that even the guy with brand new, as blind as he is, can help the person who's just brand new themselves. And that's what Gary did with me. My sponsor Tom used to say, When he got a new guy, he gave him a mop before he gave him a book. The magic of service. And Joe spoke about this eloquently, about what I would call the gift of equality. The gift of just looking you in the eyes and you have value here. You have purpose here. You have status here. We're not hiring you. We are not lowering you. You are one among many. It's the most precious gift we can give anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous is that very gift to look them in the eye and say welcome home. We've heard it from every speaker this week. It's exactly the truth. You are here, and it's that, when I'm in a treatment center, because I spend two days a week in a treatment center. I ask the group this question every single week. I got 50, 60, 70 new people every single day. I've been doing this for years, and I ask them this question. What are your two biggest fears? Number one, relapse. always number one but number two is how do we how do we continue this connection we got in here these are my siblings these are sisters these are brothers how do we keep this going they'll never call it love never call love but they'll call it everything that's synonymous with it because that's just not even part of their love language but why is that so powerful because love it's the only thing your disease has no defense against yeah your disease has absolutely no defense against it and this unconditional agape unequivocal pure generosity genuine equality inclusive language body language demonstration welcome home and that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about and that and that'S what they're scared to death they're going to lose they've only experienced they're signing each everybody's signing everybody's book they're so excited we're going to stay sisters and brothers forever I still got my first big book you would love it because it's got gary that guy he 12-stepped me i because all the pages are yellow highlighted yellow he told me harold they wanted the book to be yellow they would have paid the visitors yellow but i would repeat a lot of stuff he gave me a fancy big book cover and then he sent me a bumper sticker i wish i had it with me but it says as harold hears it yeah and i still got i thought that was a compliment it's not a comment but that but i look i go back and look at that sometimes of all the people who signed that book in 1987 i don't know any of those people where they're at most of them are probably gone or dead you know and uh but but it's that love it's like it's not that's that's what we have the language of the heart whatever you want to call it we we have that gift we have that gifted that shared that i took a guy from prison they just got out 90 days you know this is some time ago and i sponsor a guy he's a kidney doctor and i'm big long name, and I'm not going to even begin to pronounce it. But he can't break his anonymity with his clients, but he'll call us when he needs to. And he called me and says, I got this guy, he's 37 years old, liver's blown out, he's yellow, he probably not going make it, but he's willing to talk about this deal. Well, you come up, and took the guy 90 days with me. We go to see this guy. We go in, and his dad's sitting there with his arms crossed. He's mad, he doesn't want to be there. His mom's hysterical because her son's about to die, he's only 30 something years old and we just do what our book says hey we need to meet our our prospect alone so we ask him to step out of the room and they step out the room when we close the door and we start having our conversation within minutes we're laughing we're cutting up and within 30 minutes we get ready to leave and we left it was like all these ears were against the door then everybody just fell in and they followed us down the hall this one particular clinician and she asked the question how did you do that i said how did we do what how did you do what you did he said he's been here for two weeks hasn't talked to anybody you guys are strangers show up within you know in minutes we could hear you in there laughing cutting up how do you do that i said it's the language of the heart you're never going to get it in a book it's a gift that keeps on giving it's it's to give you can only transmit what you got and it tells us that here it says we are realized that we only know a little god will constantly disclose to you and more to you than to us. And be honest with yourself. Do you do this? Ask God in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who's still sick. Do you doing that? Just be honest with you. I'm not asking for a show of hands, but that's our purpose. And as far as I'm concerned, not to do that is gross negligence. And my brother and sister's out there still lost and I'm nicht going to any lengths to go grab them it's it's gross negligence and i'm missing the magic of alcoholic synonyms i'm absolutely missing the magick what this thing's all about so we ask him and what does it say we ask for a morning meditation what we can do each day for the managed to stick and the answers will come what a promise the answers will come if your own house is in order but obviously you can't transmit something you haven't got see to it your relationship with the sim right is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others this is the great fact for us abandon yourself to god as you understand god admit your faults damn right clear away the records of your past give freely what you got find and join us we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you tread the road of happy destiny may god bless you and keep you till then that's that's the calling order that's what all this stuff the spiritual separation that overcome that to you have to have that transformation and it's and i'll close with this on page 152 it the fellowship asked the member asked the fellowship a question here's the question do you have a sufficient substitute for king alcohol and it is a fair question because nothing on this god's green earth my mother's love playing music playing sports, nothing's ever duplicated. Do you got a sufficient substitute? And the book says yes and it's vastly more than that. It's a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous and the word fellowship if you look at it's in the verb form, right? It's inthe verb form but if you embrace this way of life your imagination will be fired. You're going to make lifelong friends evidence right here right now. The most satisfactory years of your existence you've heard it all weekend but here's the cream the crop, you're going to have the privilege, and I'm paraphrasing, but you're going to had the privilege to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with other people and help them rediscover life. And if you do that long enough, you are going to finally know what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. That's the transformation from a taker to a giver. You gave me that principle of life to talk about practice these principles all year fair. If I had to sum them up in four there would be these four. Number one live a life of humility. It doesn't mean we don't have goals ambitions save money strive for this. It means that we put God's ambitions ahead of ours. That's all that means. I'm going to put God's ambition ahead of mine. Two-word prayer, use me. But number two is that you live a life of self-sacrifice. Number three, that you live the life of other-centeredness. And number four, go out into the world and love everybody. Include the people you just don't care for. And if you do that, I can promise you, you will have a storybook life. It's happened in my life. So thank you for my life, thank you por la oportunidad, Ben. Have a safe trip home.