Why Sobriety Must Be the Number One Priority – John A.

Thank you, Joe. My name is James and I'm an alcoholic. My name is John Eckerlin and I am an alcoholic I'm very enthusiastic about this program this program. I'm very grateful for this way of life. It's terrific. First, I'd like to thank Ken and Stan and the rest of the committee for the invitation. It was certainly wonderful to be here. I'd also like to say thank you to Joe and Debbie for picking us up. We just clicked right away. You know, it's just neat. It's just like having one of my own kids here. You know we, some people kind of thought that why didn't we leave a little earlier yesterday so we could be here on time. We started out at 5.30 in the morning and we arrived here at 9.10 last night. and anyhow I knew it would be a close call so I wore my Ralph Lauren suit and traveling in it you know, so I was ready to go on here when I came and anyhow so I sure thank James for doing this thing last night and I know you all loved him and yeah let us give him another hand, okay? We have known each other for a long time. And I know he said a few things about me last night, but sometimes they exaggerate a little bit in this fellowship, you know. And Joe was too kind. Anyhow, I hope that you won't get too disappointed this morning after all this buildup. You know, I know you will enjoy carrying this afternoon at 1 o'clock and then the cat will really be out of the bag, you know. And Sean and I, carrying Bonnie, we grew up in AA together. I think that Sean was about this big when I first met him. He has been sober forever and he's just a young guy. It's just amazing. Anyhow, you will love him tonight. And Betty Martin tomorrow morning, she has energy for ten people into one. She's just incredible. Gary and Delvia. In fact, I have a lot of friends in this room that I love very much. But you have never seen me before in a very short while. You will know me very intimately. And that's just one of the nice things that happens in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because we can know each other on that level. Some of you look a little suspicious. A few people walk around in the back, that doesn't give you too much confidence. It's just like if I don't like the son of a bitch, I leave. You know, actually, right now looking at the most famous substitute speak on the West Coast started long ago you know when some of these beautiful people that have nice titles they speak a lot and sometimes they are invited to this same weekend to two places 27 years ago Dr. Paul he was invited to Vancouver, Canada and Hawaii at the same time and his wife, Max, said, I'd like to go to Hawaii. So then they said, well, let's send old John to Vancouver. So that was my first deal, big deal. And there was 4,500 people there. And this guy named Corky Burke picked me up at the airport. And he was my host for that weekend. And we came to this beautiful hotel and all these people milling around. And we stood there and talked in the lobby. And the lady came up to him and said, hi, how are you? And he said, fine, honey, how about you? And she said, you don't remember me, do you? And he says, sure, honey. But I'm rather busy with this gentleman right now. I said, yo, she wanted to talk to you. I said to her, she wants to talk with you. She said, I'm fine. Everybody is friendly. And you don' have to babysit me, you know. So he went over and talked to her. Ten minutes later, he came back and said this is the damnedest thing I ever run into in my life. I said, what happened? She said, I said hi. And she said, you don't remember me, do you? He said, sure, honey. What meeting did I meet you at? She He said, for God's sake, man, I was your second wife. Next time it was in Reno, Nevada. Tom Breen from Canada, he was going to speak there on Saturday night. And Tom Bween, he'd sometimes eat two lunches and two dinners the same day. and he had a little problem with his weight and he got a heart attack on the plane and they carried him off and he said call Norm Alpey and ask him to substitute for me so they called Norm Altey and said will you substitute for Tom Breen he said I'm not a substitute speak a cold acolyte there I was the substitute substitute we sat down banquet Secretary General of Nevada sat next to me he's kind of the governor now and a very nice guy and his wife and they were kind of there for regular people to pay tribute to Alcoholics Anonymous and listen to a meeting and so he tried to make small talks with me and he said you know do you know this famous judge in Los Angeles that speaks a lot in AA and I said yes I know him really well he threw up on me in Palm Springs Roundup one night. He said, I know him very intimately, you know. From then on it has got worse, you know. Anyhow, I love to be with your beautiful bunch and what a thing, you know, to see this lake from the sky when you come down here. What a a beautiful, beautiful place and you are beautiful. I am never nervous up here. I'm home here but I get very emotional when I see you and I think where would you and me be if it wasn't for a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. You really are a beautiful bunch. I don't think I'm too presumptuous to say that some of us here this morning seem to be a bunch of and lots of Evonis, but be that as it may we are here in these rooms are still the lucky ones because we have a chance. Lots of people have this thing called alcoholism, doesn't have the chance and for various reasons. For the record my grandfather died from alcoholic delirium in 1910. He lived in a 2,000 acre place off of Stockholm and that's what happened to him. My father had problem with his liver in 1927 and nobody knew anything about this illness then. was a giant of a man he radiated vitality women adored him and men entered with him but he died three years later on he only weighed 130 pounds when he died and he didn't want to die at all and he did not have much of a chance i was eight years old and it is something to see a beautiful human being like he once was because he was six foot two and when he touched you You realize his strength. But in three years, he had deteriorated to absolutely nothingness. My father was an aristocrat. He was very vain and proud and arrogant. But he was also a very loving person. But I wasn't violent. And thanks to our program, I have been able to forgive him for that violence. Forgive him, maybe it's the wrong word. I have being able to accept how that was, you know. And it's a very important point. 99 out of 100 meetings I go to we finish with the Lord's prayer and there is a line that says forgiveness I forgive those who trespass against me and I can assure you that there was stuff in my inventory I wish I could be forgiven about and then we can't have two stand-ups here I'm supposed to be forgiven I'm exposed to have an opportunity for a new life but anybody that did something to me justice for them or whatever you want to call it it's an important point because if we don't address this issue we will come in as victims and we will remain victims and it will interfere in our own recovery and that is why I bring up this point. My older brother didn't have much of a chance for another reason, he had a little bit of pride and it seems to be a commodity that we can't afford a luxury on this outfit 20 years ago now, he lived in a castle outside Stockholm and he was married to a very beautiful girl. In fact, he married my girlfriend. I had a little bit of problem with that for a while. Now I'm glad he did. But he drank like I drank and he blew it all. For 18 years he defended his right to drink. It is something to see this insidious denial that some of have you know this guy earned 150 grand a year spoke six languages fluently carried a swedish flag in the olympics on three occasions but for 18 years he lived in a room that cost 15 bucks a month to live in drank a 50 whisker every night and has lived in the past and i was never never anything wrong with him i tried to twirl step him a few times his drunk alarm mind was very similar. I wrote him a letter, page and a half what I used to be like, and three and a half pages about all the wonders that has happened to me since I joined the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got a postcard back. It said, Dear John, I'm sorry to hear all your problems. Some of us have a little problem with identification. I flew to Stockholm in 1978 and spent a couple of weeks with him. I invited him here and he was out with me at Laguna Beach for a month when I took him to AA meetings. He died 11 years ago from yellow jaundice. My younger brother had went through scripts in La Jolla twice, first time was 17 years ago and they told him that he couldn't drink alcohol anymore, shouldn't drink alcohol anymore. That was something really wrong with his liver. They told him this for 90 days, said Carl you can't drink that booze anymore. And he doesn't drink the way I did and then and you know he's do a little differently kind of have six seven whiskies before dinner two kinds of wine coffee and brandy for dessert sometimes it is candlelight dining it's very beautiful it's really bullshit all day oh you know you still drinking I love the alcoholic attitude The guy that drove his Corvette 140 miles an hour, rolled the car six times, got up on the other side and said, never again am I going to buy a goddamn Chevy. It's nothing wrong with me. You know, you and I wonder sometimes, what's wrong with people like my brothers? There ain't nothing wrong without them. Alcohol did something for my older brother. Today he died. It's still doing something for my younger brother. And that's the nature of the illness, and that's why I said in the beginning that you and I are the lucky ones because we have a chance. Because of the evidences in these rooms that people like you and me, the way we carried on and drank, we can change and live without and have fabulous lives. And as far as I'm concerned, that's what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is all about, how to live good out there without it. This probably will come as a real shock to you. I actually became an alcoholic because I drank alcohol. And now it's unique these days, you know. You know, I really talk to newcomers. I love the feelings in these rooms from our newcomers and I like being a newcomer myself. It's very important to me. And I'd like to share with you why I like to be a newcomer. I hope I never forget the last year I drank, because I compromised on everything I believed in and stood for. I couldn't leave a function without liquor. I didn't dare to go to sleep if I didn' t have a fifth of whiskey in the refrigerator because I had to have it when I woke up. And if I ran out of booze at midnight, I usually called an associate of mine in Baldwin Park and said, Harold, next week you will owe me $150 on this particular job, but if you give me $20 tonight, you won't have to pay me the $130 next week. And I drove a hundred miles around trip at midnight to pick up $20. I didn't dare to buy any booze in Bowling Park because then I wouldn't make it home. And when I came home to Anaheim where we lived at the time, I bought a fifth of a pail of bourbon for $4.85. And then I was safe and I had to leave like that that I hope I never forget that period in my life. I know some of us after we get a little well kept a few dollars in our pockets and bedroom privileges again. You forget I really was, in fact, Karen cut me off six months before I came into my age. She really ran out of humor at the end, I tell you. She stood up and looked at me one evening and said, John, I wish you could find yourself a girlfriend so I wouldn't have to fool with you. She said, you take forever. After sobriety, you take forever, it's very commendable. It ain't fair, folks, let's face it. The other reason why I like to be new come, I've been going to meetings 90 days. And Phil Petty talked one Sunday morning and he stood up here and said if you keep going to readings, you will wake up one morning and realize and find out that you can function without alcohol. And it is not necessary to drink anymore when you have a way to go. And I sat in that room and I said, my God, I've experienced those feelings. It was the first time here at dawn on me that I wasn't hooked anymore. That I had some degree of choice over my own actions. And I had already started to experience the freedom here that I hadn't had for a long, long time. And I hope I never forget that period in Alcoholics Anonymous. The knowledge that I was not hooked and that Iwas free and I hopeI never take it for granted. Those are the two reasons why I like to be in Chicago. I didn't start to drink until I was 31 years old. I know it doesn't sound so promising right now, but that's how it was. But I'll share with you how I was when I was young. First of all, the reason why I didn' t drink when I wa s young. When my father died, I promised my grandmother I was never going to drink, so I didn''t drink. When I was 19 years old, I had gone to college a year. The war broke out and I went in the Air Force for two and a half years. and after that I went back to college for a year and a half and I was selling at night and Iwas trying to help my mom it was very important to me to play the man of the house part because my older brother was different he was brilliant in school he had scholarships at universities and everything was laid out for him but I was different and I could never figure him and me out in the first place you know this fella he never opened a book he had ace in everything I could study till one in the morning I still failed It really bothered me. Fuck it, it's still bothering me. You know, I'm very willing. I try real hard. I can be good for a short time but when the bottom fell out or something negative happened I couldn't figure out why I was such a screw-up. When I was young I had an unbelievably inferiority complex. I'm a perfectionist. The top of it is not a good combination. I contemplated suicide a lot because I knew if I died, I would be my dad. And you see, when he lived, I was security, prestige, and respect in those things. And I'll tell you what I did when I was young. I just faked it. I pretended I was really together. I was very noisy and opinionated. That gave me some false courage, and that's how I was when I Was young. When I was 31 years old, I was employed with this door factory in Alhambra. My boss was an alcoholic, and he taught me how to drink every day. and a new life began for me. You know, it was an incredible time in my life. And I never drank before. We had early times at 8 o'clock in the morning, cocktails of 10, martini lunches from 12 to 2.30. Made a couple of calls in the afternoon and went back to the office and typed up bits from 6 to midnight and drank whiskey. And I thought I landed in heaven. I used to come out to Karen and I said, you know, this billing business is already worthless and I never felt this good in my live. You know, in retrospect, you know, I drank a fifth of booze a day from day one. For two years, I was never drunk, never hungover. I just felt good. And there's something wrong with your system where you can drink that much liquor and not get in trouble. I had an enormous capacity for booze, you don't. And my emotion was being what outdoor did for me. You know when I was in my early teens, you now, my mother started to send me to the psychiatrist. I had a real problem with my father dying so soon. And I started to play games like if I was a good kid, he was going to come back to me and reward me. You know, in one sense, I suppose that the guilt, the pain was less. But you know, I lived in fantasies and illusions, you know. Until I was 20, 21 years old, you knows, in this thing. And, you know, I really lived in fantasies from all those years from when I was 12, 13 years old until I was 20, 21 years old. And when I started to drink alcohol, it was just like that had never happened. The sky was the limit I couldn't miss. And that's what alcohol did for me emotionally, you Know. It was an incredible vehicle. I had had some real disappointments in that time in my life, and many times alcohol saved me from committing suicide, I tell you. It was just incredible. And a year later, I owned the place. I had sold so many doors, they couldn't pay me my commission, so they gave me one-third of the stock of the company. And I was really successful. You can't believe it. I mean, you know, think about it. I mean I owned my own company after the last few years, you know. And what I'm going to give you now is the highlight of my drinking career. When you own a place, you're a general manager, sales manager, which I was. But I was also the truck driver. I delivered all the doors I sold and I've never been afraid of working you know and I had landed a big contract with American Housing Guild in San Diego several hundred thousand dollars worth of door openings to be manufactured and delivered in a short period of time and I practically worked around the clock 16-18 hours you know seven days a week and we lived in Corona at a mall at the time a little town down there on the bluff near the ocean six miles north of Lexington Beach and I used to work in that ham where we had our little plant up there on Palm Avenue and all day and all night pre-fitting doors and noting this two and a half ton truck we had, you know and then I drove home 3.30 in the morning I came to this little house in Corona Lamar and Carrie and I had a hot bath ready for me and I slid in the tub down lit a camel and inhaled you know and laid back there in the pub you know she came in with a pitcher of martinis and sat and drank martinis with me 3. 30 in the evening in the morning it's really living you know and i lay down in that tub and i smoked that camel and i drank that martini and i spit it out to pimento you know and then i usually said you know i'm just a little immigrant and i own the goddamn place you know a few years later they fired me for my own door factory you know Can you get me another cup of decaf? Thank you. You don't have to tell him. Tell him. I have three beautiful girls and a son. We took them to church on Sundays. We did everything right to be Americans. The only problem with the church business was the last four years I drank, I was the morning drinker. She usually inspected me before we should leave and many times she just looked at me and said, Not today. Hurt my feelings. She took off down the street there with the kids in the corner. and I had to stand there in the corner of the homes. Sometimes I ran down the block after her, screaming and hollering, you know, and my neighbors watched that talking about the lawn problem, and here I came running by. Sometimes I was strangely clad. She saw me in the rearview mirror coming after her in my pajamas. stopped down the block and waited for me and rolled down the window and said what's the matter now you know I said don't forget to pray for me when I got there I didn't feel like I belonged but God I tried I sat down and looked sincere and hummed a lot I could take the sermon 20 minutes max and then I had to have a drink 20 minutes into his talk I just got up I said, oh, screw them all. Then I went home and I drank Grand Scots those days and played good music and became very spiritual. I played Stan Getz and Dave Brubeck and Laboum and Coleman Hawkins and the big bands, you know. After sobriety, I even played Pink Floyd and Brian Ferry. I don't know. A couple of years later, it had progressed a little bit. One week she said, let us try the Episcopalian church next Sunday because the congregation certainly doesn't do the job. It sounds terrific. And she said, yeah, they have very colorful costumes there and they sing a lot. And if you like music, it might hit you. I'd been drinking to five that morning. I still had a shake when I woke up, so I went out in the kitchen, drank a little codeine cosmetice and two shots of bourbon to stop the shakes and tightened my belt and walked around small steps and tried to look effective. and passed inspection and came to church. The only thing I can say through the routine in the Episcopalian Church is it really ain't for drunks. It's a very busy place. I mean, they get up and down and kneel and pray and sit and stand and sing. I was up and done three, four times then my timing got off. When they sat down, I stood up. In Sweden, when we don't know the words, we sing tra-la-la. I had a couple of soldiers there all by myself. In fact, the second time I came up there and gave it to the little dealer was a guy five rows behind me. He said, sit down, you son of a bitch. The third time down praying, I couldn't get up again. I tried everything in the book to get up. You know, I tried it sideways and backwards and forwards. I even tried to roll up. she sat down and looked at me and said for God's sake Johnny get up I said it's an absolute impossibility so they went up and down and I sat down saying by myself next time I look behind me they're all down praying and there's this guy in the room behind me laying on his knees with his shin in his hand and he mumbled and looked real serious and he looked right at me and I Sat down on the floor and stand at him. You know, sometimes you look at the guy, you focus in and you lock and you can't move, you know. He stared at me and I stared at him and I thought I better look a little casual so I winked my eyes to him. Kind of stopped him for a minute. Sure glad I wasn't in Laguna Beach that morning. No offense. So we didn't go back to the Episcopalian church. I really never had any problem with alcohol until I tried to stop drinking. When I started to try to stop drinking, I got into trouble in my liquor, you know. And when I'd been off the source for a couple of days, I'd got the shakes and then two shots of whiskey stopped the shakes, I could function and work. So then I had to calm myself into where I had a couple of drinks all the time. And then I lied about it and then I was hiding from then on it got worse. You know when I was into two three years of my drinking, I was up to two-fifths of whiskey a day. The last year I drank the last ten months I drank. It didn't matter if I drank a pint or three-fiftths of whisky a day I also drank two bottles of codeine cough medicine every day six innocence four times a day and I was absolutely well those 10 months I couldn't get drunk and I couldn'y get sober and the guilt was on all the time and there was no relief and I just thought I was going crazy and this is a terrifying time in our life because we can't tell nobody I was just worried about they're going to find out that I function and live and I knew they were going to put me away somewhere and sometimes you and I we talk about the alcoholic loneliness and as far as I'm concerned there ain't nothing like it because it is a total isolation and we drink to live we know we are dying there's no way out of it and that's how he is two years after the shakes began weird things happened to me when i stopped drinking one morning at four o'clock i sat straight up in my bed and looked in front of me and this big white snake came out of the wall i never saw anything like it in my life he came right out of a wall snow white had three black eyes this big in diameter on his fat as probably was 23 feet long he came slowly across the room and stopped right in front of my face and started to hiss at me. You know, like this. Tongue dangling. I couldn't even smell him. It was kind of a Peralta eye. Sweet mortuary deal. The whole thing was incredible. And you know, and I sat down and said to myself, you know I haven't had a drink for two days so it can't be the booze. The closer he came the more I screamed and the noise in my head from my own screams reached such a crescendo that it was eventually like my brain exploded from my old sounds. you know, and finally it was just like my brain and then I blacked out and fell backwards. That was my experience with it. Karen told me in the morning she said something strange happened this morning around four o'clock. She said you sat straight up, looked in front of you for quite a while and then you said eee laughter laughter laughter laughter it's really a trip and a half one morning she almost had me I woke up and my bed was wet it was the most humiliating time of my drinking career I lay down I said it has finally happened what can I say to this and she was standing in front of the bed and looking at me with those cold island on eyes you know those little bitty ones well the dialogue was terrific she stood up and looked at me she said well I laid on her and said well what I mean what the hell can you say Jesus I hope there's some bedwetters here tonight you know I felt that moment my youngest daughter Katrina came in she said oh daddy I'm so sorry but last night when I climbed into bed with you, I believed I wet your bed. I mean, talk about the break for an alcoholic. I just smiled at her and said, oh my little darling, that's a little squirt now and they won't hurt anybody. And then you thought I was alcoholic. Four days later it wasn't Katrina's fault. I didn't have a dream that I went to the bathroom. I didn't have a blackguard I just laid on reason I said I'll have to hang with him she can do what I can do sometimes we talk about degradation in this outfit one night I made love to her when she wasn't even there that's kind of tricky she was actually laying two feet away from me there and she said what are you doing over there I said, I beg your pardon. When she realized what was going on, she started to laugh at me. I started to cry. I felt it was humiliating to laugh at the guy who was doing his best. In the morning, I had been out in the kitchen. I'd had my coating coffee and was into my whisking. She met me in the hallway and she said, Well, good morning, lover boy. I got you finally. I didn't feel any pain or a smile. her, that's the best peace I've had in a long time. And so it goes. Needless to say, I happen to love Laughless and Alcoholics Anonymous. To me, that in itself is a spiritual experience. Anything that you and I have laughed a little bit about this morning was absolutely the deepest tragedy when it happened. But when you and i in this manner of identification, when it comes to this insanity and this denial can just laugh about the whole mess. It makes it possible for us to forgive ourselves and change. And it is very much part of the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Our story, like everybody else's, got sad before I came in here. We started over many times and every time we had the best of intention and every other time it got worse. And one time when I was boxed in and I said in three weeks I'm finished these jobs, we go to palm springs and start over you know and uh i tell you i hadn't at that time in my life i hadn't been out of town for five years i didn't dare to leave town because i was safe there they took my checks and they weren't always good but i had a charge account that the liquor stores always got what i needed as far as liquor was concerned and that morning in anaheim when we should go to poem springs i knew what's going to happen to me when i'm all the way over there and I drank a fifth before a whiskey before we drove and I drove 89 miles and off to Palm Springs the kids were crying she was hysterical and I had to get there while it lasted and Carrie was convinced that it was my way of telling her I didn't love her anymore and wanted out of her and didn't know how to say it and second day there she just locked herself in the bathroom and drank Honolulu and said I can't live like this any longer I'm going to commit suicide and I laid on that bed and prayed to God hoping she would die so she wouldn't have to be with me anymore and because I knew that there was no way out of it for me because I had really tried two years after that I came into AA and you can draw your own conclusion on those two years well my guilt connected with it it was the same years they fired me from my door factory and you should have seen my attitude about that I mean this is my means of income and when they said sign off I just signed off I said who needs this headache anyhow Now I can just drink and be happy. And that's how it is. You take everything that's near and dear to us before we throw in the towel or something can happen to us because we cannot accept defeat, you know. And I'll give you one more. Alcoholism, family ends of alcoholism really is, you Know, at that stage of our drinking. You know, one evening there I had been drinking a lot and Karen said, do you do this to drive me crazy or don't you love me anymore? And I said, I thought it was the other way around. You always bitch and complain when I'm a little drunk, so I thought you didn't love me. So we talked on hall shot, and we turned the page, and we started with a scratch. And when we went to bed in the hour later, everything was going to be all right, and she still loved me. And she says, it's still okay. The next morning, she waved goodbye to me. Eight o'clock in the morning, I should go to work. And I drove down the street from where he lived and said, she still loves me. It's going to Beall ride. And I had an appointment with a big developer, his name was Teach Construction. He was the biggest developer out there those days, and I had a point with him at 1030 or quarter to 11 that morning to negotiate a contract in Oceanside, and this guy had 46 corporations. There were 110 houses he was going to build in O oceanside, and I was in frames and jams and doors and waters and finished lumber, and I installed it all, and that was my contract. you know and so on but anyhow about 8 30 or 9 o'clock my shakes began and then i supposed to see this guy 10 30 and i mean i can't come in jumping around like that you know so i went into my bar where i had my office for four years and uh had two double shots of whiskey steady as a rock i went in to teach construction and negotiate a contract with several hundred thousand dollars and $300,000 worth of business. And I came out of there 45 minutes later with this contract in my hand and then the compulsion was on and I could not stop drinking for nothing. And I went in there and I sat and drank there for three hours in my bar and then I came home there from that day on. The guy met me in the doorway and I come in there with tears rolling down our cheeks and he said, I knew you didn't mean it. I just knew you Didn't Mean It. and that's how alcoholism is we don't have a shine of a chance when it comes to get off it when we are in that cycle of it it's just disastrous for everybody two days before I came into AA I was picked up at 3.50 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning trying to steal a pint of whiskey for 3.57 now you should have seen me that morning I was drunk and unshaven I weighed 246 pounds i couldn't even defend myself i just stood on a whim but it can't be me i mean look where i came from i was brought up in a beautiful family under the most favorable circumstances but that morning i looked exactly like a person who has to steal a pint of liquor to live you know and then came that last ultimatum when karen says to me one day she said you know johnny for years because of the children we have stayed together but now because of them we have to part and either you go down and try that thing called Alcoholics Anonymous or you have to leave again. And that's how I came in here. And I didn't think this would work either. The last four years I drank, there wasn't anything I hadn't tried to use. I had 13 years, two hours a day of religious education when I grew up. One time I said to her, I swear to God I'm never going to drink again. On my world of honor, I'm never goingto drink again." She said, "...you know Sheila, your father never has broken his word for me. And I thought if I used this thing that means so much maybe i can stop two weeks later i'm drunk again went to minister for counseling every week for an hour for 18 months i leveled with him he said to me one time he said you know you have to ask god to help you i said walter you're a good man i'm not you don't talk to your wife the way i talked to mine in the evenings when she bugs me about my drinkers of god doesn't want anything to do me i've tried that stuff he read a big book of alcoholic synonymous to find out how he could best help and he realized that him and I we lacked identification and that I had to find my bottom photo down alone even suggested a program of Alcoholics Anonymous I had no idea what he was talking about Alcoholics Anonymous what the hell is that you know do they sit down down drinking peace and quiet nobody but them you know that's how I thought you know when he wouldn't talk to me anymore I went to a psychiatrist marriage counseling Santa Ana the doctor I spent $2,000 with this guy. That wasn't anything he said to me that my wife didn't tell me for free three times a day. That wasn'T anything he SAID TO ME EITHER THAT WASN'T THE TRUTH. EVERYTHING HE SAID WAS THE TRUE. ONE TIME HE STOOD DOWN AND LOOKED AT ME AND SAID YOU KNOW JOHN WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU AND I SAID TELL ME AND HE TOLD IT ALL ALL MY SECRETS AND ALL MY EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS AND I SAY DOCTOR YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT AND THAT'S WHY I DRINK because I can't stand myself the way I'm put together either, you know. And that's how it is, you now. You know, then he told me how I hurt my wife and my kids. So what do you do then? You do what I did. I went in the wagon and the tragedy with that at this stage of the deal is simply this. The more sober we become, the more we realize how we hurt our loved one and that in itself drives us back to drinking again because that's the only way we know to get out from under the guilt. And so it is. There's a lot of capable people in the field of alcoholism today, but I sure don't envy them because the nature of the illness is still the same today as when I came in. As long as alcohol is doing something for us, it is impossible for anybody to stop using it. And that's why I said in the beginning that you and I are the lucky ones because of the evidences in these rooms. So now I had that last ultimatum And I came into the Ilona Club in Anaheim. And there was a lady behind the coffee bar said, do you have a drinking problem? I said, no, I got along just famously with it. Can you do something for my wife? She's crazy. And that's how it is when we come in. And I didn't know it was going... And we don't know if it's going to work. I'll tell you another thing. If I had known how sick I was when I came in, I would never have stayed. because stopping drinking wouldn't have fixed that. It is an incredible thing, you know. When I came into AA in that shape, alcohol was not my problem. It had been my solution for so long and we so slowly and so gradually go into our relationship to liquor it's impossible for us to see where we are in a relationship to liquid and admit it because for a long time it worked. You know, that's part of the insanity. It might work like it used to and that's the only thing you and I remember and that is how it is and that how tragic it is but I said line in the big book that covers what I am talking about more will be revealed and thank God for that line and the next day by the grace of God it all happened to me I woke up in the morning I went out in the kitchen I drank a little Cody and Coffman and some bourbon and I brushed my teeth drove down to the Ilana Club and polished off a pint of Seagram 7 on my way down there and came in there and asked them to call my wife and say, oh, I was there already. It stood on bullshit a little bit. I mean, how can I be an alcoholic, for God's sake? I mean I have a beautiful home with a swimming pool tree out on the beach and an English bulldog, you know, and play a little music and fantasize a little bit that certainly cannot be alcoholism and there was three guys on the side that stood on listening to me so that son of a bitch will never make it, you know. Then I went out and I had four double martinis for lunch And came back to the club And asked them to call a second time To show how sincere I was And then I should go home and buy a fifth And say I beat the AA three times that day And this guy standing at the coffee bar And he stood down and looked at me And said, you know Johnny, why don't you come home with me And let us talk And I said, okay his name was charlie vick and he became my sponsor and we sat in his patio and he told me his story and that's what i think is important in alcoholics anonymous one drunk talking to another the identification between the two and when he was true with his story i realized that he was worse than i was and he depended more than i did on it than he was sober and i said you were that bad and you can stay off the sauce and he said yeah and i knew he was telling the truth but i tried to wiggle out of it one more time i said charlie you don't understand every time i stop drinking i get the shakes and weird things happens to me when i stop drinkin' and he says johnny you will only shake for four or five days and then you never have to shake again as long as you leave and i didn't know that i sat down And I thought, what information this guy is coming up with. And then he told me about the disease of alcoholism. He called it an allergy of the body coupled with the obsession of the mind. So he said the first drink is a mental one to make you comfortable. Then the body takes over and craves more booze and you cannot control your blink and paranoia behavior pattern. So things made a little bit of sense to me that afternoon. I was in a meeting that night and when they read portion of chapter 5 that we heard here this morning, I just said, please God, help me today to stay sober. And it wasn't a big deal. You know, I always thought the spiritual experience would be something like, kaboom, yes, John, what can I do for you? You know? But it wasnít like that at all. It was merely a feeling. And my thoughts were these, that perhaps after all this lies a way for me too. When I came home that night, I said to Karen, and I said, you know, it happened to me tonight. I don't have to drink anymore. And she said, your eyes look different. I haven't had a drink of alcohol or any codeine cough medicine or strange peers of funny cigars since that day. It's 32 years ago, just last October. And you all knew you might sit down and say to yourself, well, it must be easy for you have all their time on the program but it wasn't easy then and that's what we're dealing with right now you know i was not a great success when i came in here i had a lot of anxieties about my kids i wanted to be good father i knew i wasn't most of the time i was thirty six thousand dollars in the hole and they were all small bills and due and carrying suicide attempt just about drove me crazy it's very hard to live with yourself when you realize that you are broken and not a human and being spirit. But I didn't drink when I went to meetings and that's all I had going for me for quite a while. But I'd like to tell you on those first two months of my sobriety, I had the most unbelievable fears. I couldn't handle nothing. When the phone rang at home, I just pointed at it. And I just split and hid in my closet. I sat on the floor in my closets and wept. I was scared to death to answer that phone. I had about 10 days of sobriety I sat in a stag meeting and blown it out I said you guys don't understand but I feel so damn guilty and that was an old time when I said the reason you feel so guilty is because you're guilty and they were guys like that that saved my life and for the first time I could admit it was my fault without reservations you know as long as we pin it on somebody else something else nothing can happen to us but i just came through whatever you know that that's it you know and i could accept it then i started to get free when i could admit it was my wrongs you know when uh you know Now, the only thing I had going for me then was this, that I knew under no circumstances could I go back to drinking again. No matter what, I couldn't escape the booze anymore. I had done enough damage. I had no more rights when it came to liquor. And whatever was coming my way, I just had to face the music. But I couldnít split with booze any more. So I'd actually taken the first two steps in this program and didn't know it. But how do you turn your wheel of life over to care of God, as you understand? What's a spiritual experience in these rooms? That happened to me moments later the same evening as I stood there alone and afraid. This guy came up to me. I never saw him before. He just came over and put his arm around me and said, Johnny, don't worry. Everything is going to be all right. And I believed him. And that's how he began for me with higher power. It was just like those guys had my welfare at heart, and I just trusted them. For quite a while, those same guys actually gave me the courage to face my wrongs and my difficulties. And they talked to me in a fashion I'd never experienced before because they didn't point fingers and there was no judgment. They just shared their own experiences from heart to heart. And this love and this care that goes on in these rooms is really the most healing commodity that we can offer or being offered. It suits us back to good health, and it gives us a God of our very own and we can trust on any good addition. He's here for everybody. Nobody's excluded. I actually envy you all new what you're going to find out about yourself providing you go to meetings. I just envy you what you'll find out about yourself providing you'll go to meeting. And you don't believe me now and I didn't believe it then but it was actually the greatest opportunity I ever had in my life when I was beaten down to nothing. So don't fret at me I've all been there. You sit on an opportunity if you throw in the towel and let us love you and help you it's a trip and a half here. it took two years of sobriety before Karen realized that I meant business you know we come in here and you know we want them to believe us you know and we are very sensitive you know but for one reason or another I understood she didn't dare to believe it every time when I had been on the wagon and we kissed and made up they always went back to drinking again so she didn't dare to believe I was going to stay so when you see when it comes to trust it's nothing we can demand it's something we have to earn and that's what the day at a time is all about and besides that there's a lot of stuff that's going on between you and me in these rooms I mean we come in here you're doing just fine and just hang in there it's going to get better don't worry about it and we have this whole support group here and we don't have to go through nothing alone anymore it's a beautiful thing what's going on here, the support and uh my i had two months of sobriety my sponsor came to me and said that you know that sobriete got to be the number one in your life i said no my kids comes first i loved them all my own life charlie said no you can't have them without sobrieta sobrieto you know you know uh you know i mean and it was true i had a letter in my pocket you know to you know because i was kicked out at the time, you know, and Carolyn had written me a letter, and I realized it's true. Without sobriety, I can't have them, you know. And then I said, well, my business comes first. I got to pay them bills. Charlie said, you drank up a door factory or 36 brand in the hole if you don't stay sober, whatever you're doing, you're going to blow that deal too. And every yabba I came up with, he plugged it. And I realized it's real. I said without sobrieto, I don't have a chance at all. and then he said well and then excuse me what is it there yeah okay no you know thank you sometimes I have a little blank down there but don't worry about it it's much better than it used to be and then he said there's no conditions on sobriety I said what do you mean no conditions I mean if she could forgive me my business could go a little better I could consider this damn thing there's not no conditions on sobrietty because one of the conditions you set up might not come true and then you blame AA for it and then you go out and drink again. And for one reason or another, I bought the package. You know, then sobriety is the number one in my life. There's no conditions on sobrietry. Then something spiritual can happen to us here. And I tell you how it was in our house, you know. I got up in the morning before, and, you knows, you go to work and she could say, well, before you had a boost, there's a crutch now, you have those damn meetings. Oh, you're kind of a weakling, you can't stand on your own two feet. Thank you so much. and uh i said i suppose so and then i went out and i worked all day and i came home at five o'clock i should have dinner that was 25 phone calls about the people i owed the money to wanted to get paid and i had no way of making a commitment already because i hadn't even started work yet you know i was just going to meetings playing cell phone things like that you know and and i was absolutely paranoid with his phone calls and all those and i just had a quick bite to eat and run to a meeting and I have a preview for an hour and a half and then I come home at 11 o'clock and I'm supposed to thank God for my sobriety that day. And I lay down in my bed and I said, God, what a terrible day I've had. What an absolutely terrifying day I've been through. What a terrible day I have had. I said yeah but I didn't drink. I said what's going on here? I used to get drunk a whole lot less. And then it begins. Because then I started to realize that this thing called sobriety is mine it's my own it's the only decent thing that has happened to me in a long time it must be some sort of a gift something and then there's start to be a consistency in our living and then we add to it so this thing called sobrietty it's mine you know and that and you know that then everything is God's business good and bad and if he is part of the bad stuff the bad things must just be appeared within a period and when we have gone through that period we realize why we had to go through it and then it all starts to make sense but you know this thing with sobriety this is a fantastic thing we are talking about right now because the admission and the acceptance is partof that gift of God many of us say when will my ship come in this is the ship this is the big deal here it's not natural for us to stay sober and here we have this thing called sobriety and all that and the admission and the acceptance you know in chapter 3 says we have to concede to our innermost self, we are alcoholics. It's the first step of recovery. The admission and the acceptance. Those three things, the sobriety itself, the admission and acceptance, it's a divine intervention as far as I'm concerned because 9 out of 10 alcoholics never make it because they don't believe what I'm talking about. 9 out OF 10 alcoholics either die or go crazy from desilience because they didn't buy what I'm talkin' about. 9 OUT OF 10 alcoholics have periods of sobriete in and out of treatment center, care unit in and out of meetings of alcoholics and addicts because they don't buy what I'm talking about. So this thing, it's an important thing. And then we can say, for example, what's the difference between everybody here that seems to be an addict, alcoholic or something these days? What's the different? You know, a heroin addict doesn't identify with somebody on coke. The people on coke feel superior to alcoholics for one reason or another. Maybe the price tag of a snob appeal or something, I don't know. And many of them say, well if I had a program like Alcoholics Anonymous that would be great. Narcotics Anonymous, Coke Anonymous have a greater credibility today, have a lot of success stories. But what's the matter with us? Why is it only nine out of ten of us that makes it? It's like Clancy says, my case is different. That goes on the, I'm not really like them. And you know and that's what it is. And when I realized that I'm just like they are, and they are just like I am. And if they can do it, I can do with them. It was on a competitive basis and I was part of something. You see, I was all around with gratitude that I saw it. And I tell you, I had a gratitude and I felt special. I felt like I was a God's kid and we all are God's kids. You know, and I tell you, this thing, why did I see it? Why didn't my brothers? They needed us as much or more than I did. How many people have you and I 12 steps over the years that don't want it, you know? So this thing what I'm talking about, it's a big deal. And I'll tell you something. It's worthwhile to fight for sobriety. you know my sobriety was right my AA life was good my work started to go better my kids come home in the afternoon and say hi dad can we talk in our daily place and every day you and I stay sober something improves in our daily living little by little by little by a little so hang in there you who are new don't worry about it what's the use hang in because when you have gone through that corridor something is going to happen but you start to feel a little grateful that you have a chance There's no way we can beat this rap. And then two years later, Karen comes and says, you know, Johnny, it wasn't always your fault. I said, now I can die. You know what I mean? I'm just kidding. You know, now she is in place. And long ago now, she came to me and said, you know, this life we live today really is the most fabulous adventure. I was so hopeless at one time and completely turned around as even a degree of innocence between us today and that's almost impossible to believe but that has come to pass because she's just as busy now as I am in her age. We have seen so many people over the years have turned around and started to be good to one another. Nothing is in vain. All that bad stuff that you and I had to go through will benefit somebody else down the line, so don't worry about it. There's no profundity here. It has nothing to do with intention, promises, gifts. We can't even bribe them anymore. It doesn't matter how many good things you and I do. When we come home drunk, it's all canceled out. The only amends we can make to ourselves and our loved ones is to stay off the booze a day at a time. The rest of the program will fall little by little but you we got to start somewhere now I had a I went to seven meetings a week the first year I was sober I've been to five meetings ever a week ever since I mean a lot of meetings I'm up 630 quarter to 7 every morning I'm late to bed I work very hard it's a privilege as far as I'm concerned and And people say, Jesus, what a schedule that guy has. You know, I live more normal than normal people do. The only difference is I'm aware of it. The last four years I drank, I worked seven days a week, 16, 18 hours a day to deliver something so I could invoice something so I'd collect enough money, could buy enough booze and codeine to survive a day at a time. It's a full-time job to stay drunk. With the schedule I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous, I came in here, my kids were 13, 10, 8, and 6 when I came in here. With the schedule I've had here, I was able to play tennis with them twice a week when they grew up, taught them how to swim and dive. I had a double gray Arabian horse that I bought last year I drank, and we had him for 10 years. I relieved my youth with those kids. It's a beautiful thing. I have experienced everything with those children that I wish my father had with me. but you know it's a funny deal that it's just like this journey in Alcoholics Anonymous I have sensed his presence here all along so there is nothing there inside of me that's an emptiness anymore it's just a different kind of communication you know. It's a beautiful thing I just think this way when when I think of them they think of me and it's just that simple you know you know now I have to start to wrap up this thing a little bit. Drive you crazy if I go over time, you know. You know, the first hurdle we have is the inventory. And I give you a little shortcut. If you sit and think about doing your inventory, there's a long form and a short form, you now. Do this. First write down the four things you have decided not to tell anybody even under severe torture. We'll save you 62 pages of writing, I didn't think the inventory would do a damn bit in fact, I had a real bad attitude about it but Charlie said if you don't take it you ain't going to stay sober so I said well, I'm going to prove to him it doesn't mean nothing the funny thing was when I had taken my inventory and given it to him I felt like I had fulfilled the contract for survival I didn' t have to worry about getting drunk anymore and I had the deep feeling that God had forgiven me and it's a fantastic thing I even could see through my inventory I had the same problems in the same areas throughout my life when I was 13 12 and 13 14 15 17 18 21 20 the same area throughout my live I had the same mistakes and I realized that these could be my defects of character on shortcomings and you know that some people say well I'm going to go home and work on my defects of character on shortcoming it's just like with the booze the more we work on them the worse we're going to get this is part of God's business see with my own technique and willpower I took the opposite point of view I say this and so and with all my technique and willpower and so on and the more I worked on it I realized I cannot do this anymore and I said God you take them and you remove them on your time and your terms and then you see then the obsession to prove something is gone the obsession is gone and then it will be just like we have a problem and a solution and we live in a solution you know and uh and it is a very important and this is probably the first hurdle we have these days about people just I don't think that they're even towards you it's very important because you get introduced to yourself you know it's an important thing then the next biggest hurdle we have is resentments and i had a tremendous resentment against my older brother because he was the reason why i was as screwed up as i was you know he was a brilliant guy and photographic memory he was in high 180 iq and that stuff and i'm Very slow compared to him. And he hated me with a passion I didn't understand why. When he was 12 years old, he was over 6 foot tall and he weighed over 200 pounds. And I was nothing compared to his size. And he used to punch me out when I rolled under the dining room table and I pretended I had fainted so he wouldn't hurt me anymore, you know, and I didnít feel much like a man because I had no way to do anything against him, you know. And he always used to stand there and laugh at me and say, ìYouíre the dumbest son of a bitch I ever knew, you know, and I had no confidence in myself at all. And when I was 13 years old, he was a water polo player. He drowned me. I was out in the ocean at 15 feet depth, and he just grabbed me by the hair and held me on until I heard my father's voice talking to me from the other side. And it's a terrifying thing to drown. And now I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm supposed to forgive my resentments. I tell you, I said, I mean, I felt like a hypocrite. I mean how can I forgive him after all he did? Am I some sort of second class citizen that I just said I forgive you and I love you no big deal after all He did to me, you know. And I said give me some help here. And I tried the serenity prayer and I just felt cacophony. But then one guy said try to understand your resentment. And you know what happened was a fluke because I turned it around and I said why did he hate me? and that's not a ball game and it was just like I saw a film there you know I realized when we were little I was three years old and my brother then was five and my father favored me when we was that little and he used to lift me up and hug me and kiss me my older brother was obese and he stood at the side could see his eyes burning say what about me and he was not a lot baby you know and I realized Jesus Christ this is what the whole thing is all about I was in the way and he's such an introvert and such a serious guy and he needed more love than I did. And I said, there it is. Then I started to look at things, you know. And I realized throughout his entire life he lived for one purpose only and that was to get the approval from our Father. You know, and I sat there that night and I thought, my God, you now. All his life he has lived in me. You know when he went into junior high school in high school. He took gymnastics seven days a week, became one of the finest athletes in Sweden. He was in the gymnastic and water polo team in the Olympics. He had become an officer on The Gentleman. He lived in a castle outside Stockholm just like my father grew up. And I thought, here he is, 40-some years old, and he can't get the approval from my father because he died when he was nine. And that was the only reason he lived. And you know, I thought how can I set it straight with him that he has no problem with me anymore and you know the funniest thing happened i hadn't heard from him for 15 years next day i got a letter from him confirming everything what i had been thinking about tonight he said remember when we were little we should glorify our father's name and he went over all the things he had achieved to please him and so on you know so i i said i used to sat down and i wrote dear beth if our father would have been alive today He would have taken you in his arms and said, You have succeeded beyond my greatest expectations, your loving brother John. And I haven't had a resentment since. But you know what the payoff was on this? I lost my inferiority complex. I never counted on that. And you know, it's incredible. And you can say, Jesus, what a loving guy. I was not a loving man. I was a loving God. I did this strictly because of my own pain. And I just felt venom and hate myself toward him. Why did he do this? Why did He say all those things to me? You know, I did it because of pain. And I didn't say, I forgive you for the drowning. I didn'T say, I made straight to minister Him. And you know, we became one of the dearest friends after that. He wrote me every 60 days for the rest of His life. And we were friends. And He came and met me and all that stuff. But He didn't want... He said to me down in Laguna, You see, you don't understand. I don't want to quit drinking. And then, like I say, he died 11 years ago. But he was a great man, you know. So now this was kind of a fantastic deal for me, you know, when I realized this. And you know what happens? If I wasn't the center of attention, it was no good. But here we're a little longevity and understanding. We can be interested in other people, you know, and we don't have to see our inner selves all the time. It's a beautiful thing. And I promise you I'm going to get off soon. And I know that this thing of going overtime, you drive your old-timers crazy. I know there's a few of them here. And I have a friend in Glendale. His name is Bob Lemkin. He's a full-blooded German. And I had a little problem with the Germans during the war. But I knew Bob for four years, and I realized I loved him. He's great AA, and he helps a lot of people do a lot of 12-step work, and it's a great AA. He even talks funny, you know. He was actually born here. He has more of an accent than I have. He must practice every night or something, you know. For the last 18 years, Bob has invited me to Glendale to talk on his birthday, you know. And mind you, he invites me, but he's one of those stoners, old-timers that you don't save any souls after 10, buddy, you know, that type, you know. And the last year here when I was up there, he was 30 years sober, you know, and he's a great guy and a friend of mine but here uh so he invites me and uh i was about a minute and a half for the end of my talk and bob sets down you know you can't save any souls that pretend that attitude that some of these old guys have and he sits back down shout john for god's sake it is 10 o'clock I said, Lemke, this is only an AA meeting. We ain't marching into Poland tonight, you know. Oh, it's wonderful. Well, you now the 12 steps of the Program of Alcoholics and Armistice, the recovery program, but it takes a while before it falls in place. And in the meantime, the group and the fellowship is of the greatest importance. And then I'm going to give you this little episode how important the groups are and the scholarship. You know, I love in the beginning of the book why it says alcohol. It's a mere symptom of something deeper-seated emotional. It sure covers me. I love at the beginning of their book, it says, God as I understand him. It must be the most spiritual line that has ever been written on the face of this earth. God as I understand him. I mean, think about something that doesn't interfere in anybody's religion. It's an incredible line. I love in the beginning of the book where it says we are 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. We have recovered form a seemingly helpless state of mind and mind and body. What a promise. But again, it takes a while before the steps fall in place in our daily life and in the meantime what the group and the fellowship is. There was another guy that came in at the time. His name was Bill Schellenberger. He was a framing contractor, and he was framing 110 houses down in Mission Viejo for a gentleman developer. His name is Alvar Wilson. He built about 1,000 homes a year. And Bill was framing these 110 houses for Mr. Wilson. It was one of those July, and it was 84 degrees hot, and I came out in the afternoon down on Friday to see what my guys were doing. And Billy's up on the second floor nailing on roof rafters, And he was a good-looking guy, you know, 6'2", you know. And red handkerchief around his forehead, you know, and no T-shirt, shorts on the big belt, the big hammer, 30-foot tape in construction booths, you now. And he looked pretty much up there when he was swinging the hammer, you kno. He saw me coming down the street there, you know. And just then Mr. Wilson and six vice presidents, you know., come down to Culver's Sack to watch the project, the bankers and all those guys. Six beautiful guys in three-piece suits, you know. But Bill saw me. and he stood up there on the second floor and you know and he jumped off the roof bounced right down on the ground and came up like nothing and threw himself around me and kissed me twice you know you know here we are two big guys in a construction job you know wow Jesus you know God put it there you know and we're standing there hugging each other you know Mr. Wilson is standing there looking at us you know and he said what's going on with you guys and Bia said Oh, Mr. Wilson, old John and I went to Alcatraz together. But he knew better. He stood down and looked serious. In fact, there were tears in his eyes. And he said, No, I don't think so. But whatever it is, it's beautiful. And that's what's going on here. Chuck Chamberlain all the years he lived amongst us trying to show us what's gone on here in these rooms. It's called Love Him No Conditions. love with no conditions. You and I can be who we are and what we are and in spite of it, we're loved. There's nothing like it on the face of this earth. And then there's ism we have. It makes us belong. We belong to each other. There's a sense of belonging in these rooms that is haunting. It's a fact and reality. Alone, we cannot do it. But together we can. The room, the group, the fellowship will carry us when we can't care for ourselves. It's beautiful It's such a beautiful thing this thing called love with zero conditions. I'd like to say to you, when I was 13 years old I used to sit and look out over the ocean in Sweden And I had intentions and anticipations and dreams I'm 73 years old now And I look out Over the Ocean in Laguna Beach every day And I have intentions and Anticipations and Dreams And I'm extremely vulnerable And I thank God every day for that sensitiveness That you and I have That sensitiveness that I used To curse What's the matter with me? right away I will feel in all directions what the hell is the matter with me that sensitiveness when we practice the principles of the program of alcoholics and honors will become a blessing because it will function like a thermostat and it will motivate us to take the action that's laid out in the program of alcoholic and honor the action we take sets us free Chuck used to say you can't think yourself into good living you have to live yourself into good thinking it's the action we take that sets us free but Chuck said another thing life is tough and life just blows and sometimes even with longevity on the program we get into the negative and we have fears in our life and that has to do with the distance from God we are but he said self is involved here it's actually a conscious separation from God and conscious implies that I have something to do about that and there again the action we take sets us free you all knew if you can just believe this that we just wish you well and we only want good things for you. If you can just believe that and take that with you, you will never wake up lonely anymore because you know by now there is a way to go and to live. I cannot for a moment believe that God would take us through all these things then bring us in here and show us this way to live if he didn't have any plans for us. It really wouldn't make any sense at all. So you all knew. Do this. do what we do don't drink and come to meetings it's the best deal in town