Paul O. from Laguna Beach at 19th Everett Conference November 28th 1997

Good evening, my name is Paul and I'm a full blown alcoholic

and I'm delighted to be here.

Alcoholics always say that they're glad to be anywhere. I

and I want to thank the committee and anybody and everybody who had anything to do with inviting Max and I here.

And I have the impression they kind of

went overboard and inviting.

I had no idea that there were this many drunks in Everett.

I, I, I love to see Alcoholics crowded together. I, I love it when there are too many, too many Alcoholics for the room. Whether it's a big room or a little room. If you crowd Alcoholics together like that, they generate a great deal of energy,

great deal of love, and I love that feeling. And so I'm not only glad I'm here, I'm glad you're here.

Fact if you're rather dull meeting without you,

I do feel a little bad about the

people that have to stand

but then little voice in my head says what the hell, you've got to stand and.

They, I thought there's Bear and Al did a wonderful job of reading,

read it perfectly without a single error, which is nice, but it kind of disappoints me because I I kind of like the errors. I liked it. Like for instance, I remember the time an older woman was reading portion of chapter 5 and she read it as what an odor.

By the time the fellow was reading the Traditions and he says the only requirement for membership is a desire to start drinking,

I thought that made more sense than the way we have it now.

Let's be realistic.

I like the way Pete started the meeting with the Serenity Prayer reminded me of a time short time back. It was invited to talk at a fun Saturday afternoon fundraiser in a little area in Colorado. It had the event the year before and they had 150 people and went well and they decided to do it again, see if they couldn't get a couple 100 people

and they got to working on. They invited us to come over

and then something happened and the fellow was doing most of the work. Got what they referred to as a resentment.

I don't know if you have them up here or not,

but he quit. By God, he wasn't going to do it.

Wow, That gave everybody else a resentment.

They decided they by God, we're going to have it. They do it themselves and they'd have 250 people and they got to working on it and invited a lot of people and, and did such a hard,

hard that there are actually 300 people. And what that did was to put a strain on the caterer who was catered to noon meal followed by a speaker in that. But it he said it was OK, he had plenty of food, but just take him a little time to get it, get it prepared. It'd be a little delayed. And the other thing happened was that they had invited the local

minister to come and give the invocation, and he hadn't showed up. And so

they went to when the old timers and said, if the minister doesn't show up, will you give the invocation? And he said, well, yeah, OK. And so he started thinking about what he would say at the invocation. And the caterer is preparing the food, and the Alcoholics are getting more and more hungry and the old timers making notes of what he's going to say. And

finally the caterer says, well, the food is ready and the alcohol, she wants to run up neat. And no, no, you can't eat yet. You have to have the invocation. And so they called the old timer up to come up and give the invocation. And he got up to read his notes,

and the first word on his notes was the word God. And he said God. And they all recited the Serenity Prayer and ran for the food.

That's such a a good story. There ought to be a moral there somewhere.

I guess the more would be if you're ever at when you get to be an old timer. If you're asked to give an invocation, don't bring God into it too soon

or you'll lose your audience.

Anyhow.

It was people ask how your flight was when you get here and the flight was fine, and people always ask how, how, how that went. And on this point, we were on the episode,

you know, once you get to 30,000 feet, they say, well, now we give you all a drink, whatever your drink is, and they'll start to cart down the main the aisle. On this flight they had a girl attendant and a boy attendant and they're coming down the aisle and Max and I sit where she's on the aisle on one side and I'm on the aisle on the other side. That way we avoid the middle seat

and the cart comes down and the gal hands me a little bag of peanuts and

little cocktail napkin and she says and what would you like to drink Sir?

And I said I would like club soda with A twist. And she says fine thank you. And she gave me my drink and served the other people around there. And she moved a carton few inches to the guy behind me, and she gave him his little bag of peanuts and little cocktail napkin. And she says, and what would you like to drink, Sir?

And he said I would like white wine.

And she went through her cart,

didn't find any white wine. And she said to the male lie tenant, do we have any white wine? This is all taking place right here. And he, the other tenant, says, no, we don't have any white wine, but we've got plenty of red wine.

And she turned to the man behind me and she says, Sir, we don't have any white wine. Would you like red wine?

He had to think about it.

You know

it's not to think about it. It had never occurred to me what a serious social blunder it would be

to drink the wrong color wine with airline peanuts.

Which actually brings me to a problem. I, I'm looking for somebody to help me with this,

you know, on all these planes that each airline has their own local magazine that they put out and they have it on each plane and they like to read it and take it with you.

And American Airlines. It's American way, I believe. And in reading through it, it has different articles, different stories and different things.

And one of the things it has in there is the best buys. And this gal right about the Best Buy and she lists the best audio and the best video and the best book and the best movie and the best this and the best that. And under the best drinks, she she had the best wines

and under the best wines. The cow said

that the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnay have a crisp pear apple flavor

with a touch of clove at the end.

Now what? What I'm looking for?

Well, I'm hoping to find somebody who is planning a slip.

I'd like to know, but it's not worth going out to find out.

If you're out there anyway, you might as well learn something useful. And

now it's it's the 1992

1992 Napa Valley Chardonnay.

I really don't care that much about the crisp pear apple flavor, but I really would like to know if it leaves you with a touch of clove at the end.

Thunderbird never left me with a

yeah.

Thunderbird was my favorite white wine.

And Ripple was my favorite red wine.

So anyhow,

I I guess I should talk about my drinking.

I hadn't this been a great

convention or conference up to this point. I really enjoyed Ravi and try to enjoy Max's talk this afternoon.

She'd have been a little more honest. I could have enjoyed it more.

It's really not at all funny.

She drove me to drink for 28 years.

She did. She drove me to drink for 28 years and my last birthday I had been sober 30 years. And so now we're even my

it's over 30 years last July 31st and you know.

Oh yeah, well, you're nowhere near as impressed as I am.

30 years is the longest I have ever gone without a drink.

30 years is a long time between drinks for me.

Fact. If this keeps up, I may just give up drinking.

I am 30 years since without a drink and and the maxi pointed out to me the the seasoning Next Tuesday Max and I will have been married 58 years.

Yeah,

you're, you're, you're nowhere near as impressed as I am. Yeah,

I'm not even as impressed as Max is.

That's a long time. In fact, we've known each other for over 75 years, I guess. And

oh, right. Yeah,

yeah.

Anyhow, I

driving me to drink all these years and it ended up the shade drove me into the nut war is what she did. I ended up in the nut work of the hospital. I was on the staff of

Hi Yourself.

I didn't think it was very damn funny.

In fact, it was a bad place to be. Is the Saint Joseph's Hospital in Orange. And their fanatics, they're, they're fanatics on

making leather belts,

really. You can't get out of there until you make a leather belt or ashtray or something useful.

I swear they had a Senate investigation or something. They'd probably find their people have been there for years and they won't let them out till they make something. And

they try to convince me that the quality of my life would improve if I learned how to make a leather belt.

I told him. I said, that's ridiculous. I, I said, I've got a whole wall. I've got a whole wall full of licenses and certificates and diplomas and papers to prove that I've been educated way beyond my level of intelligence,

and I don't see how making leather belt would improve my life in any capacity.

I didn't understand the philosophy and besides, I didn't understand the instructions.

That wasn't my fault. That was a fall that dumb occupational therapist,

because I've always known if you don't understand thing well enough you so you can explain it to me so I understand it, then you don't understand as well as you're supposed to. And she'd explain it to me three times. I wasn't going to embarrass her by asking her a fourth time.

I remember sitting there and nothing nut ward commiserating with myself about the series of misdiagnosis and poor medical management and bad breaks that a nice guy like me ended up in a place like that.

And I as a matter of fact, I'm my background is

people, doctors have a patient they have problems with. They send them to me and I do a history and a physical and tell them what's wrong with them and tell them how to treat them. And he's good at it. And Max and I worked build up a big practice

What how Max got into it was that she was the girl next door. And when I got through in pharmacy school, I want to go to medical school. But it was during the depression. My family didn't have any money, didn't want me to be a doctor anyhow, they wanted me to stay home and run the family drugstore. And I wanted to go to medical school and there was no money. So my

answer to that was

that married a girl next door and suggested she worked my way through medical school

and I figured at least I could do is let her work in the office

for for 25 years.

No salary, of course, because you're near the family. So that's how we work together and built this thing up. And when I saw that I was losing weight, I had convulsions a couple of times

and I was had this terrible headaches and this sense of impending insanity and all these things happening to me. And I thought, my God, I need a good medical work up. And I agreed with me that I needed a good medical work up. And and I realized that I was the best diagnostician I knew at the time. And so I sat down and had a consultation with me,

did some lab work, did a bit of a physical examination, and I went over the weight loss and the convulsions and the headaches and the sense of impending insanity. And

so it's obvious I had a brain tumor

and I died. You'd all be sorry, by God. And here I was in the noteworthy, missed the diagnosis at the Mayo Clinic. And here I am in a nut ward of this hospital, local hospital, and while I'm commiserating with myself about all this stuff that's happened to me, this dumb psychiatrist who couldn't see that the problems were marital.

Walked up behind me and wanted to know if I'd be willing to talk to a man from Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I thought, God almighty, don't I have enough problems of my own without trying to help some drunk from a A

I didn't know anything about alcohol. The only thing I knew about alcoholism was if you treat one alcoholic, they'll all start coming to you. Yeah,

they are coming to you. Then they're good patients will stop coming to you. Then all you have is Alcoholics and that they never pay their bill or keep their appointments anyhow.

But I can tell by look on the psychiatrist face that he thought it was a good idea. I don't know if you knew that or not, but happiness on the network is having a happy psychiatrist. And I was willing to go to any length to make him happy. And I said yes. And in no time at all this clown comes galloping into the room yelling my name is Frank and I'm an alcoholic. Ah,

I was embarrassed for him.

There he is meeting a perfect stranger and the only thing you can think of to say about himself is that he's an alcoholic

and loud voice. God, he had a loud voice, told this whole story and in a loud voice, and I don't remember a word of it. There's AI think I'm thinking, my God, man, why don't you lower your voice? I mean, these people all think I'm a nut. Why don't we just leave it at that? You know,

the only thing I remember is how it ended, he finally said. Well, that's my story. I'm going to a meeting tonight. Would you like to go along?

And I said,

but I'll go. And we went. And I don't know what meeting we went to. I don't know how many weeks you went now, how meetings we went to before I knew what meeting I was at.

But, and I know anything about that man who led, who read or who prayed or anything, but I know that that meeting had a profound effect on the psychiatrist.

It was suspiciously very interested in that case. What's it, What's this about? What's this about the steps? What's this about meetings? What other kind of meetings do they have? How often do they have meetings? When are you going to go again?

And I thought, Oh my God,

I've got me an alcoholic psychiatrist. He's ashamed to go, so he's sending me, you know,

and

so I went every day I could. I got Frank taking me every day. I didn't how many brownie points I was getting per meeting, but I wanted all I could get. I finally got enough so I could get discharged from that don't and I finally got discharged. I had no intentions of coming back to hey, why would I wasn't an alcoholic. But the problem with that was that Max liked the A A meetings.

I'd say, let's go to show.

No, no, let's go to an A A meeting. Yeah. And once I found out she liked them, then of course, if she didn't shape up, I decided it wasn't going to go to a A anymore.

Yeah, yeah, that was the Al Anon said that

that's what Max did. She she couldn't drive. She's not alcoholic, but she liked to aim me and she couldn't drive the freeway and the meetings were 3545 minutes away. And she got in the car and she drive off to the meeting went I don't know how she got there, but she'll go to the meeting by herself.

I don't know if you ever tried that or not. Ever try? You ever try sitting at home on a Saturday night drinking all by yourself while you're a non alcoholic spouse is off laughing it up at an A a meeting?

I thought it was rude.

I had to go back to the meetings to find out what the Alcoholics were laughing about.

I found out they laugh at anything.

They laughed just to be laughing.

I went to meetings for seven months

and then I went to one meeting too many

and I found myself laughing

and I haven't had a drink since.

The laughter has been very therapeutic for me and very spiritual. In fact, I'm convinced that my higher power laughs every time he hears Alcoholics and Al Anon's laugh, even if he doesn't understand a joke.

The laughter is very spiritual for me and

so I first turned into an alcoholic after that one meeting too many. I was a very a very mild alcoholic.

Very very mild.

Almost a non alcoholic.

I'm more allergic to alcohol,

but I hadn't listed things I wasn't. There wasn't a wino. I wasn't a lush. It wasn't the certainly wasn't the Skid Row bomb. It wasn't a chronicle. Nibriet wasn't a chronic drunk. I was

peculiarly to the drug alcohol.

I do weird and peculiar things when I drink. I can't control how much I drink once I start drinking, which really isn't that much of a problem. If that was my only problem, I just wouldn't drink. My main problem is that I of myself can't keep from starting. I not only can't control how much I drink when I start, I can't keep from starting and took me a long time to figure that out.

And once I saw that I was a mild alcoholic, I

here I was in a A

at the bottom of the social barrel.

I was ashamed to have anybody out there knew that I was here,

and I was ashamed to have you know that I was here. I was ashamed of the whole business.

And then I thought, you know, and I have a strong sense of failure in my life.

Here I am now,

as I say, in the bottom of the social barrel and feeling like a fear. I thought, my God, I ought to at least succeed in this. For God's sake, I can't even succeed here. There's this is the this is the worst. I mean, I mean, I've got no chance at all. And

in fact, back in those days, they used to say a lot. Don't leave now.

I thought was just building up to something for guys,

don't you? Don't that makes you afraid to get up and walk out, doesn't it? When

the rest of you, by God won't leave, I'll say

so. Anyhow, back in those days, they used to say a lot. Stick with the winner. Stick with the winners. Oh, he did come right back. Thank you. Let's give him a hand for coming back.

This is a stick with the winners. And I thought, well, if I'm going to stick with the winners, I better know what winter is. So I talked to Chuck see who had been sober, oh, hundred years or so. And I said, what's a winner? And I was surprised that he had to think about it for a while. And then he said, well, I I guess you have to die sober to be a winner.

And I thought, no, God,

yeah, I'd always planned on being a St. And I'd even gotten the book Lives of the Saints in the Big Thick book. And I'd been reading through it to find out which St. was going to be my role model. And I was very serious about this business of being a St. till I found out that the final requirements of being declared a St. was you had to be dead 300 years.

And I thought, well, screw that.

I gave up my sainthood right there.

And now to be a winner, I gotta die. And I've never been very enthused about any accolades I could win by dying. And so I decided, well, I won't worry about being a winner. I'll be worried about being a successful member of a A. And over the years, I, I didn't say it to anybody else. I made a commitment to myself that this by God is one place I'm going to succeed. I'm going to be a successful member of a A and over the years I've

varied my definition of successful member to some extent,

but actually I don't know any successful members who drink or take drugs. And so in fact, they do that to this day when I have a decision to make as to what to do, whether to do this or to do that. If I get lost into

I do that, will they do this, then that becomes the manipulation for me more than a decision. And so now today, if I have to make a decision, I'll ask myself, what would a successful member of a, A do? What would a winner do? What would God have me do? What's the loving thing to do?

All of which I think is the same question. And then that helps me decide what to do. In fact, I I'm convinced that if I do a thing for the right motive and leave the results up to God,

it turns out the way it's supposed to. And the deal with that is that it'll make life so simple. All I got to figure out is what's my motive? I don't have to figure out what you're going to do or not do or whether you're going to like it or not. I'll have to figure out what's my motive and if love is my motive

and Love's always the right motive. And that's all I have to figure out what's my motive, leave the results up to God. And a lot of times I'm surprised at how things turn out and it but it sure makes it a lot simpler than the way it used to be.

Somehow, when I was talking about

love being the right motive, the idea of carrying the message of a A came to mind.

I had the

come across the paper, I don't know, it's a box 459 or whatever it was how they did it on my dresser. So I saw it every day for a few days until I was clear in my mind as to what it said.

And it said that Bill W, one of the two Co founders of Alcohol is Anonymous, had said that carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous

was our primary aim and the chief reason for our existence.

And I thought that is pretty strong language, our primary aim and the chief reasons for our existence

referring to us as individuals or us as groups or both.

And

it's impressed me that the the importance of carrying the message and how we're doing it here. We do it just by walking sober out there in a drinking society. We carry the message by being here sober and filling a chair. We carry it in 1000 ways. And but taking that as a reason for doing things makes it much simpler for me.

A little odd. A sideline of that was I happen to be in New York and went to the

on Friday went to visit the general service office. They asked me to participate in the Friday noon meeting they have there at the office and I've seen this center of carrying the message and I said what I just said about primary aim Chief recent of our existence and talked about the carrying the message from the office there. I got home at home a week or two

and got a phone call from

Frank Mauser, the archivist in New York.

He wanted to know where I had gotten that phrase that I used because they'd gotten all steamed up about it

by that time, throwing away the paper that it was on. And so we had to start looking for it. Well,

he said something about they wanted to use it for the international. And so I was talking to a gal named Annette. Annette. They call her Annette the Jet because she loves to work on problems like that. And within 20 minutes, she found the phrase in the

A. A comes of age on page 129, fifth line from the bottom.

And so I sent the thing by e-mail to Frank

from the stationary for the International Convention, and I don't know how I get into that long story.

I wish I'd never started that.

I think I've come to the end of it. That's that's anyhow, see the problem I have. I thought that was terrific, the way Pete was able to say that if people are talking

and you want to hear, you're authorized to tell them where they take it outside because you want to hear. We're here to listen. I thought, God, how wonderful. Wouldn't that be great if I could do that with all the people in my head?

You guys sit here and you're quiet and and and very easy to talk to. I'm trying to talk in a bit of a straight line with what I'm doing

and I'd be too disconnected in that and but the people in my head,

God, I'm I'm glad you can't hear what I gotta listen to.

A lot of the stuff is illegal

and even more of it is lewd.

And I'm I'm trying to talk in a straight line and one of them will suggest something I'll talk about and then one of them will say no, no, no, him talk about that. Him talk about this here. And the third one say no, no, you guys don't. I'm talking about that. I'm talking about this. Then they get the fighting among themselves about what I ought to be talking about, and it's really very distracting.

And I think, oh, shut up up there.

And they all shut up and I can't think of anything to say.

It's it's even like here at the table. I mean, they couldn't drink. They had tea there. Well, the tea has a caffeine in it. And even even if I drink decaffeinated caffeine really triggers them, really gets them going. Little, little.

And even if I drink decaf, I lie down at night and almost be asleep. And one of them will say, you suppose that really was decaffeinated?

I'm like, down at night. My body will say, my body's tired. Once I lie down, go to sleep, my brain says no, let's lie here and talk about it for a while.

The reason? If I get to sleep around 3:00, 3/30, they'll say, hey, wake up, we've had an emergency meeting and we need to talk to you.

You know that thing that you thought went so well today that that's not wait till morning, you'll find out,

I think. Boy, I don't want to listen to that crap. I'll roll over and go back to sleep.

Just as I'm about to lose consciousness, I'll think to myself, Boy, I'm glad I'm not thinking about that anymore.

And one of them will hear me and say, oh, I'm glad you're still awake, you know?

Yeah, that's not the only dumb thing you've done. You've done a lot of dumb things.

Let's spend the rest of the night making lists of dumb things you have done.

Really an awful time to take a fifth step.

Yeah, that's one of the things about working the program.

Not me. Much more comfortable with all those people up there in my head. And they now I used to fight him, used to fight him.

Like there's one Ari. I was completely baffled by him. There's one guy, only one, only one. There's one person up there that no matter what the situation is, well, there's too many people and you're afraid or nobody around and you're lonely or it's too hot or it's too cold or it's a happy occasion or a sad occasion. No matter what it is, his suggestion is always the same. Let's have a drink.

Yeah,

almost. It's almost like a command from God, you know?

Every time he took a drink, we all got drunk, you know,

but today I I just realized who they are. That's just them. That's my disease talking and all these other goofy people up there and I don't fight them at all. I don't find them at all. You mean to it's like defects. The character might as well get friendly with them because

they love the fight. They really energized them in the fight. Now, when they make stupid suggestions, I think we'll say, well, thank you for participating. Now if you'll sit down, we'll call on somebody else, you know, and we just take care. I know when they really, a bunch of them get to acting real crazy, I say, you guys need a meeting. Let's go to the meeting, You know,

Well, you know, another interesting thing I found about that all that noise and all that confusion and all that pandemonium that goes on

in the very, very center of Maine. There's a center of absolute calm,

and that's where my higher power is,

and that's where he's always been. But I didn't know it.

And to not know it is kind of like it not being true. But now I know it and I know that I can't go anywhere without him being with me. And that's, that's a great

counterbalance to the personality in my head that's always afraid, no matter what it is. No, don't, don't do that. Don't do that. You'll screw it up. Now I'll laugh at you, but now I know that my higher power is with me.

Alright, cool. And I I'd like that. That's very comforting.

In fact, somebody said to me,

asked me the other day, they said do you? Do you still get nervous when you're going to talk?

I said. Well,

I don't call it nervousness, I call it anticipatory anxiety.

But I said besides I

I Alder the third step prayer. I love the third step prayer in the morning when I awaken before I'm even really awake. I like to say the third step prayer, the serenity prayer and the sub step prayer,

and

for those who are new, the third step. The third step is made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God. And the third step prayer says, God Ioffer myself to thee, to build with me and to do with me as thou will, believe me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will, and so on.

And then at breakfast, Max and I say this for any prayer. Thursday 1st 7th at prayer. And we read some stuff for al Anon literature and other literature. And then we have a period of silence. And throughout the day when I'm going to do something that I'm a little apprehensive about, little bored or just whatever, I'll say those three prayers again. And

but like I said this, I'm going to talk

the third step prayer, and I'll modify it and I'll say God Ioffer myself and this situation to you to do with as you wish. Now I would like it to turn out phenomenally successful.

But if you have it in your mind that this is the night for me to make a complete ass of myself,

well, at least one of us will have a good time.

I'm that I've done. I'd love the third step I that made a decision to turn their will in their lives or the care of God. I remember when I first did that,

I, I said I recited the third step and the third step prayer on my knees with my sponsor as my witness.

And I thought that's a contract

and that's would be easy to break. Maybe it needs more witnesses.

So I went before my then three home groups and I recited the third step, third step, and the third step prayer in order to make it harder to theoretically harder to cancel the contract. And I thought, well, that's, that's still just verbal. That's just a verbal contract.

So I went down to the

business supply store and I bought a blank form for setting up a limited partnership.

And I filled it out and I gave my higher power a 51% controlling interest in my life.

And I made him the general partner and I became the limited partner.

And I felt better to have it in writing. And I knew that he knew that it was in writing.

But then I realized that all that shows is that a partnership exists. It doesn't talk about the terms of the partnership.

So I had to sit down and I decided to sit down and draw off the terms of the partnership. Who's responsible for what?

So that when a problem comes up, it's already written down as to how you solve it. Basically, it's too responsible for what? And I doubt piece papers are lying down the middle. And on one side I put was his responsibility, what's mine? And what that narrowed down to essentially was the adhesion charge of worry. And I'm in charge of work

and he doesn't even like for me to help him.

He he doesn't like for me to help him with the worry. And he never does a damn bit of the work.

What's mine's mine, and what's his is, you know,

And I tell him I'll pedal and you steer. And for God's sake, watch where you're going.

I'm sick of some of the places we've been

and then it's worked out pretty well for me then. I like that

I stayed around the program long enough to find out that I needed to go to meetings to stay sober.

And I watch people who stayed sober on just meetings

and saw a beautiful sobriety, people going meeting every day, maybe that beautiful sobriety

right up to the time where they got drunk.

And then I decided I needed to do the steps

in order to face over, and I gotten involved in doing the steps. And

then I watched people who had done that, who had come to meetings long enough to find out they had to work stuff, space over, work the steps. And once they worked the steps, they got us over. They didn't need the meetings anymore

and you got drunk after 10:15 20-30 years. And so I decided I need both the steps and the

meetings. I need both. I need both. I can't do it alone. I can't do it. I can't. But we can, as they say. And you, You keep me sober. My efforts to help, my efforts to keep me sober didn't work, but my efforts to help you stays over. Keep me sober.

In fact, they get involved with some

papers that demographic sheets I got from down Texas where people were they got together and they would form a have a commitment to read their assignment before the meeting. And that's the meeting answer the questions on the sheets was how to study the 1st 164 pages of the book. And when they came to a step, they would do the step. It wasn't a step study, it was a step do it.

And

there was parts missed, steps missing, typos and all that stuff.

And so I sit down and I put it together and I made a pamphlet out of it and had took the risk of having some printed.

And then I thought, well, now what am I going to do with these? You can't sell them because it's really just a big book. How to study the big book is nothing there except what's in the book. And so I remembered computer software where have shareware, instead of selling the program, people get it for free. And then if they like it, they decide to pay for it because I'll put the pamphlet out and the people use it and want to make a donation to keep more printed and pay for the posties to mail them out.

They can do that

and put them out, gave them out to anybody. It won them and enough money dribbled in. I had some more printed and that's been picking up momentum and

it's up to this day. I've printed 22,000 of those and distribute them for free. And the point of

how I get into that long story,

there had to be a punch line there someplace. I thought that the point I'm interested in about that was that by cost of that involvement with that, and people think when am I going to start a group to do it, When am I going to be another group, and so on. I've been involved in it enough. It's turned out that not by plan, but it just worked out that about every five years I've redone all the steps to the best of my ability.

I haven't necessarily rewritten the whole 4th step and all that stuff, but done what I see necessary

and I've redone all the steps about every five years. And every time I have done that,

I've moved to a new plateau in my sobriety. It's just remember how it was the first time you did the steps. It's that it moved. And

how can you end that story?

I have to get away from that and I but anyway, I'm glad I did it. And then

one of the things that I was talking about, Max and I being married such a long time, what I, we've made kind of a hobby out of the

interpersonal communications because I, as she said earlier, our communications were zilch.

We did. We're better at fighting than any other kind of communication. And as I said, she's been, she was very difficult to live with.

I, I came up with some basic beliefs in that and that I like to believe. I choose to believe

that people treat me the way I have taught them to treat me.

That if I don't like the way people are treating me, there's something I need to do about me, not something I need to do about you.

And I

have come to believe also

that a measure of communication is the result it produces.

That if I'm communicating with somebody else and I don't like the result, it's not their fault. It's my fault that I'm not communicating effectively, and

I like that. That brings it back to me. There's something I can do about. It's much easier. It's difficult, but it's much easier to change me than it is to get somebody else to change. We came into the program Max Wanted, was working on me,

working on her.