Michael McK. from Whitefish, MT at Kalispell, MT May 17th 1998

Hello Montana,

My name is Michael McKee and I'm a recovered alcoholic

and these people have scorecards over here.

They covered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, and I need to thank you for that possibility in my life.

Doc was telling the truth there about he and I being on different sides of the fence, and it was

20 to 30 years ago, and

he didn't like my type and I really didn't like his type. And it turns out that I came to realize after some time, an Alcoholic's Anonymous, that his type was the better. So how's that for a transition?

I thought about not thinking about. Hi, Ed.

What I was going to say all this week and get my mind jammed up and then I come to realize that there's really only one thing that I do talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous. And, and what that is, is my belief about the first step

and

a kind of a question for you. How many people knew they were alcoholic before they got here?

I mean, something was wrong.

There wasn't much of a question for a lot of us about that. And then there's then there's those that really do have a question and a fight. I was one of those who knew that I was alcoholic for 12 years before I got here. There was no question in my mind.

Alright, so it's one little story that my sponsor likes the best of all, and then I'll get that one out of the way.

I was

living over here on the Northside of the fairgrounds for a number of years and dealing drugs and drinking whiskey lots

and it became a a habit. I had a, a routine

and the routine was to be up by ten, 10:30 in the morning and have hopefully still a half 1/5 of granddads left. And then that would get me through about noon or 1:00 in the afternoon.

And by that time I felt much better.

And then I could kind of go down to either the finish line or the Stockmans and even the liquor store sometimes. But I wanted, I had this thing about state and federal operated facilities. And so I went to the Evergreen one sometimes and I went to the one by the B&B sometimes, but not all the time because I didn't want them to know I was alcoholic. It was OK for me to know it

and then I would pick up the next and actually the 1st, 5th of Granddad for the day

and take it back home. I like to drink in private.

It was just too bothersome to be social,

but it was important to be social at 4:30 as a Stockman bar here in town

because the 1st 3 drinks were free and they were $0.90 apiece after that for an hour and a half

and being thrifty at the time, no too, it was important to keep with that schedule.

And then

I would finish off the night and sometimes I'd make it till 10, sometimes all the way to 2:00 in the morning and, and a person never knew. But this problem had been increasingly developing and that was blackouts. Now,

I didn't know the term blackouts or

you know what the correct term for blackouts is. The clinical term is called polyps. No, I didn't know I was having polyps either, but I had,

I had a friend who did lots and lots of volumes with me. And we would go around to the doctors and, and from Kalispell to Polson to Missoula to Spokane, coming back through Sanpoint and like that to all of these doctors and pick up on

the important things in life.

And, and the first blackout I ever had was on Valium. And not knowing what else to call this state of mind, we called them Valium holidays.

No, I mean we wouldn't pay much attention to that. There was something wrong with that other than if you eat these Valiums by the handfuls that you will probably forget everything for four or five day period

and we became adjusted to that.

Then it started happening with the booze and it got real scary

so I would try to. This was great. One of my faves is I would hide the car keys from myself while I was reasonably sober

in the house, out in the garage, and then I'd go, you know, get down, get a ride downtown or get to town and then get leased and then realize that I had to have my car

so I go right back home. Didn't matter

what condition, somehow wasn't in a blackout about that. I could go right to the keys and then

a 4000 LB weapon on the road.

And it got so horrifying after a few years that each morning I woke up, I would, after I had the first couple of pulls off the bottle, go into the next bedroom and look down out the window in the driveway to see if there weren't some little kids bicycle wrapped around the grill of my pickup. And, and this is when I was getting real scary

one of these days. I was I had hidden keys for myself and walked all the way to town. And you know how it is sometimes when you just absolutely get blasted on three drinks and you can't figure it out the three, what is going on here? I only had three things. Did somebody put something in there?

And so it's like a summer night, early 5/30, 6:00, and I had to go home and I was so drunk that I could barely walk.

So I came down there, block and a half, and I decided to take a shortcut through Norm's News there between Norm's News and the Conrad Bank.

And I, I couldn't make it anymore. So I sat down by this telephone post. It's kind of on the corner of the bank at the alley. I just sat there and I was thinking, you know,

well, there was these kids. There was these four kids in a car and they were down. They were drinking beer and raising hell and having some fun. And they were in this car behind Western Outdoor in the same alley half a block away. And they saw me sitting there about ready to pass out by this telephone post,

and they came whooping in the hollering and driving down there and screeching on brakes, and all four doors were open. And the thought that I had at that moment was,

oh, I hope they don't pee on me.

I don't know why that's funny because that's, you know,

at that moment,

that's kind of was the synopsis of my entire life.

I'd already been incontinent several times at at the bars and everything and woke up one time off the bar and whitefish with the Varney stuck to my forehead and my pants were wet. And that was very shameful. But this one

was, above all, the most shameful.

I was 35 at that time.

It wasn't over. It went on for another 2 1/2 years after that.

So in

in the history of my alcoholism, which is still ongoing, the earlier history, it was about leading a life of degradation such as is written in the book.

And

I never really thought that I was going to live past the age of 37. There was there was no reason to believe that I spent 6 1/2 years of my life behind bars and I lost two wives and two children, two beautiful daughters

in the process of the alcoholism. I lost everything there was to lose, and I tried to convince myself that I did not care,

it didn't matter that I was gonna die and the sooner the quicker would be fine with me. And then when it got to that point

and there was a little teeny glimmer in there that says you really don't want to die. By this time I had crashed eight cars in major car wrecks and and motorcycles as well, broken 39 bones in my body. And I never broke the first one till I was 31 years old. So it was like, what was I trying to prove? And it was like

a it was like a thing to go in the bar and get

just that one notch past feeling good and kind of ornery and then go take on the biggest guy in the bar. There were some of those guys who are friends to this day who took mercy on me.

One of them was my net was my next door neighbor for a number of years and and he told me that I had better settled down. Little buddy, he called. You better settle down,

little buddy, or I'm going to spank your face.

And it was obvious that he could do that probably with any five people.

I don't know. You know, we're so lucky. It talks in the book about us crying over the good times and laughing over the horrors and stuff like that. And it's amazing how we can do that. And I think that's this transition that we talk about and live in Alcoholics Anonymous. So it brings me back to this whole business of step one. That's my

it's my favorite topic. And you

hear me say it that any meeting I go to on the topic is step one. That's why I ask you if you knew that you were alcoholic before you got here.

Every step in the book

after the second-half of step one relates to the second-half of Step 1. The unmanageability. The Any fool can quit drinking. Anybody can do that.

But then what? Oh God, it really gets good after that, doesn't it?

So in the last,

or at least the last 6-7 months of my drinking it, it ended up in hospitalizations A lot of time. Now, I'd already shot all the veins out of my body and it was difficult for them to give me a glucose IV in the hospital. And one time it was surgically implanted in my thigh. Then they could find a vein

so that I could live and the dying was from the drinking.

So when I got here,

first of all, it was a judge that helped me make the decision.

And then when he told me to go to treatment, I asked my attorney what does treatment? He said never mind, you just need to be there.

He certainly knew what it was.

And then we got over there

to an abandoned Air Force Base in eastern Montana and they had this beat em up therapy stuff. I mean just God Almighty if the counselors didn't have enough time to beat you up then they would encourage all the clientele in their

to get with it

and they did. I mean, we are some angry people and we need to, we need to vent this crap.

And so we made each other targets over there and so and it was really fun. As long as it was somebody else going on a hot seat the next day, it was a good time. When it was your turn.

Well, I made a statement to a friend of mine after I'd been in there about 10 days with him. And I said, you know, one of these days I'm going to do this. I'm going to get into this business of alcoholism and I'm going to fire anybody that ever treats an alcoholic with disrespect.

And I did.

I got into it and I did some training and I got some education and I got into the business and I counseled for a couple of years and then, as ego would have it, went up the chain so I could get in the position to fire these people

who would treat Alcoholics with disrespect.

I still think I was right, even now.

I mean, didn't we live enough disrespect out there before we got here and then have to be treated with it in a way to recover? I just kind of went against the grain.

Well, I had my time in that business and I had a pretty good time in that business until corporate America took over. It was time for me to leave and get back to some sane and happy usefulness. And I wanted to come back to my hometown of white fishing. Just grow up and be somebody.

And so I did that and I keep thinking about my ears as sitting at a A meetings

and the topic is the first step

and the whole business is about my resentment,

my 100 forms of fear. I just wanted to but a hundred of them in my sexual behavior.

I had that stuff going on before I took a drink. I had it certainly going on during the drinking time. And then I wasn't a very nice little boy when I got to the Alamo Club in Kalispell, Mt for a couple of years after that either. There was a lot of things that needed to be modified in my behavior.

And what did that have to do with alcoholism? I mean, I quit drinking

and then I've been so fortunate to just be around the right people.

At this moment. What comes to mind is

I need to thank God for you. I need to thank you for God.

I need to thank my sponsor who shall remain nameless because I may told him. And if I say something that he didn't say, then you know, at least you know who he is.

And I want to say that

I'm remembering at this time a fellow that some of us knew named Ivan Hanson.

Ivan Hanson was a friend of ours Who

picked up a 27 year medallion and said I was drunk for 27 years. I've been sober for 27 years. I'm just starting. Even with the board,

I thank him a lot because he was just one of these stable guys. When he said one day at a time, he lived it. He meant it. It was serious. And his favorite saying was to keep on keeping on, always with the keep on keeping on like going forward

is a wonderful man.

He, my sponsor and some others pointed out to me that

maybe my resentment started at four and five years old and that some of my deceitful behavior started that early. And and then it went on through the whole gamut of the pre drinking years and then the drinking years and then the after drinking years. Some of that stuff's going on, and that's the ISM.

My friend Chuck over there, I've heard him say it many, many times,

that selfishness, self centeredness driven by 100 forms of fear is the root of our problem. And the word alcohol is not on the page. It's not there and it isn't.

And So what we needed to have was this thorough house cleaning.

Now about that,

I want to tell you about my experiences in sponsorship. Not me being the sponsor, but seeking out and getting the sponsors I had. Well, who knew? Who knew? All I knew was first of all, when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not deserve to sober up. I did not deserve to have that life and I truly believed it.

There was nothing in me that should merit such a thing.

But I had some animosity and I had some resentments, and I wanted to fight by God because it was easier to fight than to settle down and do what the people were telling me at the meetings.

So the first time that I picked a sponsor,

what was interesting, I didn't sober up right away. You see, after leaving the Air Force Base, I had to find out a little bit more about the unmanageability aspect of this this program.

So I did some drinking and and one of them first or second time ended up in the hospital up here and they were.

Wow. I broke Doctor Armstrong's jaw. I didn't know it was him. I thought it was this other doctor in town.

I didn't know it was Jim. He's a friend or he does a lot of work with Alcoholics and getting them in in the hospital for detox. Hadn't a clue that it was him. So I got drunk this one night and passed out in the snow bank and the hospital. I mean, the ambulance came. That was all blue. I'd been underneath the car and the coat was off of me and under me. I don't know what I thought was going on, but

I was having one of those holidays, you know.

Anyway, I got to the hospital and he was there obviously, and I broke his jaw. And then I threw this little nurse and I still don't know to this day who she was, gives across the room when I didn't break her neck. So they put me in restraints in one of these hypothermic tubs until I could

come to, you know, and thaw out or whatever, defrost, I don't know.

And at the end of the bed here,

it's a friend of ours. I haven't seen him for years.

Big guy, bald head and I'm waking up and I'm in restraints. Hmm.

And I see this peaceful guy sitting across at the end of the bed in a chair and he's got this big book in his hand.

And I'm, I'm becoming more alert, you know, by the 2nd I'm trying to sit up in the bed like this so I can be attentive.

And it was just the neck going up and, and what I did was

I credit the 12 steps perfectly.

They don't What what else does he do? He's got a big book. I'm gonna quote that thing. I know it.

And then I passed out.

I kicked him for a sponsor because he was nice

and he agreed with me that the counselors that I were working with were treating me unfairly

and so because he agreed with me, he should be my sponsor. And then I got drunk again.

Well, then I picked another sponsor there for a while.

He was even more violent about the counseling profession than he really not only agreed with me, but he was ready to go kill sons of bitches.

Then I went to the counselor that was threatened me with to go back to prison. You see, the last time I was in the courtroom and

ensuing trip off to the treatment center, the judge gave me 100 years.

You see, in Montana, if you commit 5 felonies, it's 100 years and we're sitting in there and the judge is dead. Now. He's a wonderful guy and he was supposed to be the hardcore, he said. Young man, do you think that you can stay sober?

I said I don't know. The first time I ever told my the truth of my life, I think was right at that moment. I said I don't know. And he said, I'm going to give you every opportunity to find out. And if you blow it, you're going down the road for 10 years,

I'm thinking, I said. But, your Honor, the charge only carries five years. I mean, in the midst of all this, I'm arrogant with it.

He slams the door open on his destiny, pulls out the book, and he says, by God, you're right.

I got five years out of the deal. But it was not the deferred kind. It was a suspended kind. That's worse.

And the proviso was to not drink and pull coals in my arms and do this, you know, seethering behavior, seething behavior.

Probably a good time to point out that I'm also a recovered criminal

and I spent a lot of years as a criminal.

Thank you very much to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't live that kind of life either. In heaven before

18 years.

But it all gets back to this business of step one. And when? When do we clean it up? How do we clean it up?

So what occurred to me to get the guy that was after me who was my counselor,

he was also going to AA. And so one day after an AA meeting, I asked him, would you be my sponsor? He says, well, yes, I will. I said good. And now from now on, everything I tell you will be of a fifth step quality. It will not go to the courts, in the probation officers and anywhere else.

Use some of it. You know,

I was kind of in the process, but he had a job and he could not devote 24 hours a day to my recovery. And so he pulled in two other people

and said the three of us will sponsor you

and you will not do anything unless you get joint triple decision here. One of us is not going to be good enough.

God Almighty, the pressures of A

and and major decisions in my life at that time was like maybe getting a job.

I was unemployed and unemployable.

I didn't know what to do. I was

frightened,

I was mixed up and I had all kinds of energy. What to do?

So what my friend and I decided that we would build an Alano club. It had been on paper, but it had never gone. So we did that. And in the process of doing that, I realized over, you know, this went on for a couple of years. We finished one up over there by the Senile Citizen Center. And as soon as we outgrew that, we've got an opportunity to move down to Tampon Maine.

And we did all kinds of physical work in there and we did all kinds of Alamo Club kinds of things,

and it was very successful. I wasn't employed for money, but I was able to find out if I could really work and be worth something just to do something, to take out the tools and build something.

Be a builder instead of a destroyer. That was another thing that I even talked about early on when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous is be a builder and not a destroyer the business about.

I'll come back to that. I must say that

then I even talked about he went to

Portland one time. He had terrible skin cancers that he got on Midway Islands in the Second World War and below each shoulder blade, huge craters. And each time he'd go into surgery, they'd take more out.

And so he made quite a few trips to the West Coast to deal with that cancer problem.

And he came back one time he'd been in Portland and he got together with a bunch of us who I'm happy to see here this evening, and said, I heard about this, this greatest thing. It's called intergroup. So he pulled a bunch of us together and sat us down and explained what it was. And none of us really knew anything. And all of us were relatively new at sobriety, but it was exciting and it was like building instead of destroying.

And so we got into doing that.

Been doing it ever since.

It was just kind of more on on the principle of building and staying healthy

in the process.

It took about eight months.

My friend Dale and I

decided to go have a drink, so I'm eight months out of a treatment center,

eight months in and out of AAI. Was going to 11 meetings a week over there

in the parish House of the senior citizen center and the three meetings that I would miss, I'd be out there.

My mother lives right across the street, 80 yards away. I could not be trusted to make it 80 yards to an A a meeting to stay sober

and this evening old Dale and I decided to go have a drink.

We went down to the Hole in the Wall bar, Pretty fitting,

and I sat there with him

and I had 2-3, probably 3, pretty healthy double S

and I'm kind of looking this place over and I said, Dale,

it's the same old asses sit telling the same old lies and I'm out of here.

I'd had to. I'd had the drinks, I wasn't blasted and I went home.

That was a Saturday night.

He and I were going to go.

Sandy Moran, Hang on.

We were going to go Sunday morning to Glacier Park.

It was about 10:30 in the morning and I got up and I called him up and

he was angry, angry, angry.

And So what are you so angry about? So that wasn't supposed to wake up. I took 100 volumes and 100 beams of barbitols and washed it down to fit the vodka. And I was not supposed to be here today,

he says. But it doesn't matter. I got one more bullet in the gun.

While we had been saying that to each other for eight years, the two of us got another bullet in the 44. Not to worry,

but I knew that he would not do that with a 44. I had the 44 for a long time, but he just got his and I knew that he wasn't gonna do that with his 44. And it was just more of this, you know,

miles and off.

So I went to a meeting across the street then at noon,

and

for some reason I never called him back.

The next Monday night went to a meeting over there and we're sitting upstairs in the lounge area and then we decided to go down for the meeting and Jerry H asked me if I wanted to chair the meeting.

I'd been sitting upstairs and on the lounge reading the newspaper and it said

Dale and I was surprised. Dale Hollenberger, I think I can use his name.

I was surprised to see that he was 32. I thought he was as old as me and and Jesus, he was six years younger than me. And I'm reading the obituary

and I'm flipping the newspaper back looking at the date and then I'm flipping it back and forth like this in in disbelief,

moving down to the meeting

and Jerry asked me if I wanna chair the meeting and I, I said I don't think so. I

I'm just reading about my friends obituary and it couldn't be,

he said. Oh, I thought you knew

Confirmation.

I was devastated, absolutely devastated.

I buried in the next week

and on a Saturday and on a Sunday morning I went to a meeting in Whitefish.

And as it was just one of those things, you know how you're around for a while, people start to know your stuff.

They can read your face, they can see what's going on with you. I've known these people for eight months now. I'm, I'm getting to a place where I'm as comfortable with them as I was with the old bunch on the streets. Kind of a one of those things, you know, 5050,

these guys thought that something was wrong, so they invited me up to the house after the meeting.

I said no, I got something to do. And what I had to do is go home, blow my brains out with my 44. I tried it a lot.

Well, they talked me into going up to the house and

there were four grown men there

and

the most arrogant of all of those other four. I do not exclude myself here.

Hands on the hip says Do you want me to be the first one on my knees?

I put my hands on my hip and I said, yeah, you damn right, you first.

And he did,

and then the other three did. And there was this gulp there in the throat like, oh, I've had it.

And so I did too, and it got down on my knees with those four men

and did the first third step of my life. Actually, it was a first, second and third step and in an instant

I knew that it was over. It was over. I had lived that life

and the whole thought in my mind was take this compulsion away for me to drink and poke funny little holes in my arms and I will do the best I can the rest of my life to live this way of life.

It's been well, actually, in August,

this coming August,

if I don't get too serious about anything, I will not have had a drink in 18 years.

You guys,

you guys get the credit for that, not me.

So this whole thing about step one,

we look at Step 2 and and I see the thing about restoring to sanity.

Now what does that have to do with drinking versus what does it have to do with unmanageability or turn in your will and your life over to the care of God has a little bit more to do with the unmanageable lifestyle. Or doing a fourth step about the sexual behavior and your resentments and your 100 forms of fear is about the second-half of the first step. The 4th step is about that, and the 5th step is about that.

And then just to bring it all back around again, in case you're not really convinced, here comes step 6 and says, I know

there's a couple of these things you'd like to hang on to when I hang on to your lust for a little while and I hang on to your power monger stuff for a little bit longer because it's going to get you so far.

And then the 7th step, you know, and you get choked up with it and you realize it's not going, it's not working. And there's the seven steps to let you out of that. Then in the eighth step, which if you've done a fourth step properly, you've already got the eight step list done,

it just says you got to be willing, willing, willing to go there.

I gotta tell you that sponsorship probably is at its biggest worth when it comes to Step 9.

I have some friends here in the audience who have been with me from day one,

Chuck, and over there. He and I've been together since we're five years old

in the Presbyterian Church and Whitefish.

He went dutifully, and far as I know, he was a pretty nice young man. I went to steal the pencils.

I mean, five years old, What do you want?

No, no, money didn't come to a little later.

Well, I had some pretty abstract ideas about what the 9th step really meant

and so I was going to do this night step with my ex-wife and I wanted to start immediately. This was even before we had the final dream

start. Immediately go tell that woman how sorry I was.

I've been telling her how sorry I was every time I got drunk

for for at least 14 years. I'd call her up and tell her how sorry it was.

Anyway, now by golly, we're sober and we're going to go tell her how sorry we really are.

That was about six months sober. Had done that the 4th and 5th step and I was ready to go, I think, but there was no job and there was no car and there was no money.

God prevailed. About a year later, I had finished building this convertible.

Randy took some wonderful pictures of that convertible.

So now I had money, but I was still building walls in an Alamo club and for no, I had a car, but no money. I mean

God prevailed.

I was a year and a half sober, mind you, after doing intensive, exhaustive step work, according to my sponsor,

doing it and feeling good and reaping the benefits and doing all that stuff in a year and a half sober, we're getting ready to go. I got car, I got money, I got it all and I'm clicking

Chuck over there

asked me, says OK, and he and he, Chuck wasn't my sponsor.

But he says, OK, He says, kind of tell me what you're going to do.

I'm sober now and it was easy. I'm going to get in the convertible,

drive to North Dakota,

knock on the door and tell her how sorry I am.

And he says, oh, and then after that. And he says, maybe nice tablecloth and a roast beef dinner.

Yes,

why not?

He says, maybe after that, a little trip to the backroom and spend the evening. I thought, yeah,

why not?

And then he pointed out to me that I may have to do a ninth step for the way I did the 9th step.

So, you know, I'm talking a year and a half being without the booze and this stuff, you know? So

I said, what should I do? Well, then it became perfectly clear that what I needed to do is call her up on the phone. She and my daughter both make an appointment, say that I'm coming to town, when would be a good time for them. I had some things I needed to talk about. It was very important.

Get some scheduling done, then go get a motel

by myself

and then do the amends and then get out.

Well, OK, I'm going. OK, I can do that. I'll do it.

Well then there's this other gentleman who thought, well, he's still a little skipsy

and he had just bought a brand new car himself. So here we were, two of us driving around brand new cars,

and he says

we're gonna flip a coin as to which car were taken to North Dakota.

Now both of us knew why he was going with me

and that the flip of the coin or the car really didn't mean much.

And off we went. By golly, he won. We drove his

and we went to North Dakota and checked into the motel. They knew we were coming, got there, called them up, had the appointment with my daughter at that time she was 12. And then the next morning had breakfast with her mother, and we're sitting in a restaurant in Bismarck, ND, of all places.

And she said, Michael, why are you telling me that you're sorry?

You've been telling me that you're sorry for 14 years.

I said, well, I just needed to be sober. I need to look you in the eye and apologize to you for all the things that I did. I did not have to categorically name them and beat her up piece by piece on those incidents.

And when I did do that and she said, why are you doing this? I said, I just need to do this. She said, what do you expect? I don't expect the thing I got to get going and we're out of there.

That's the way that was supposed to have been done.

So sponsorship is kind of the thing for

step forward, especially for step really, really especially nine step

sponsorship.

So if your sponsor hasn't got you doing those kinds of things, ask him or her why not.

Life does get better and life gets to this place where it is saying and happy and you feeling useful

all the time, all the time. And we all have our moments. I mean we're Alcoholics and it says that we are self-centered and it says that we got 100 forms of fear and it says this and that and all of that stuff is truly and it doesn't go away because it is part of the ISM. It is part of the second step. I mean the first, the second-half of the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what it is all about.

But the thing that changes is that we don't react to it anymore.

All of those things that were driven by and insist on having and demanding and all that stuff. The whole working of Alcoholics Anonymous

is about changing the behavior.

I would have none of this. I would not be breathing air today

if it weren't for you guys. I think about Ed. I've known Ed a long time.

I'm glad you're there when I was there. Thank you,

Chuck and Dell,

some of us that came together in the beginning.

I brought down some

meeting schedules

there this evening,

just having her hot off the presses

and in counting them up last night. Do you know folks, for those of you who are not in living in a Flathead valley, that there are 92 meetings a week In the Flathead Valley, 6 meetings a week. In Eureka it's 98 meetings

in the whole in the whole valley, and of that nineteen groups in the Flathead. We remember the days that there was two in Whitefish, two in Columbia Falls and five or six in Kalispell,

and we would go to Libby to get to an, a, a meeting on the day they didn't have one around here or Paulson. Go, go, go. And at that time, it wasn't because we were motivated to do all this service work. We were terrified that we were going to get drunk. And so we were willing to go whatever it took to get the meeting.

We're very happy that things are easier now for the newcomer.

Excuse me. And we're very happy for the newcomers. And I'm real glad to be here tonight. Thank you.