Steve B. from Van Nuys, CA at 19th Annual Singles in Sobriety convention, Lake Murray, OK

Welcome. He's all the way from California to talk to.

Everybody. I'm Steve Bordner. I'm an alcoholic

politics in AAI. Don't know what he's talking about.

It's just one big fellowship here.

Now that we've stopped drinking, our Halos shine and we never argue about anything that maybe the punctuation in the big book

or gratitude. That's a controversy. I mean, the great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is you never know when 1 old timer and a Walker is going to get in a fistfight with another old timer in the Walker

at an intergroup meeting. You know,

I love that. Remember, second edition is my favorite edition of the big Book and and the professor in the paradox. He says that Alcoholics Anonymous was born in a riot.

And so if you're expecting utopia,

this is a very human place. And I don't think I could have survived my sobriety days, May 25th, 1979. And I, I couldn't have survived in a place that wasn't very human, which is the most spiritual of all conditions, I think. I think on 6263, that's what Bill's really telling me now. Bill says that it compares us, says we're an extreme example of selfishness, self centeredness, not a unique one, not even the most extreme. Sometimes I want to take my alcoholism and make it a badge.

Now make it different than those normies, those normies who don't have a program. You know why normal people don't have a program? They don't need one.

They don't need a sponsor to tell me the kinds of things my sponsor tells me.

You know, if drinking is like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, most people who do it would do it once and stop.

And even if they did it compulsively, they probably wouldn't have to go to meetings for the rest of their life not to hit themselves in the head with a hammer.

But we come here every day so we don't hit ourselves in the head with a hammer and we get more spiritual than the rest of the people on the planet.

We say those normies, they don't have a program. That's right.

This is who's there's their first year, first year of sobriety. All right. I am so sorry for you. God,

you are in Loserville here. You know, you really screwed up. You're an Alcoholic's Anonymous, the lamest place on the face of the earth.

You're sitting in chairs that the Baptist youth just got out of

on a Friday night. Listen to some mook talk about God so you don't die with a big liver out there.

It's so sad what has happened to us.

Oh, you're an alcoholic? No, so sad. I'm going to take you know, it's just is. And you know the worst thing about ending up in AA is all the stupid people in your life were right?

All the stupid people,

your high school principal, you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to get in trouble. The nuns, you keep doing what you did, you got to get in trouble. Your pastor, your rabbi, you keep doing what you do and you got to get in trouble. Here you are,

Friday night. Could be out in the boat, drinking, being somebody. Nope, you're here.

Listen to some idiot from California when you could have brought somebody in from Texas or Oklahoma to do this. Talk just as well

talk about God. Are you going to die with a big fat liver out there?

It's really sad. Sad. Yeah. Newcomers, you're in a room full of losers. These people can't split a pint or they will die.

How sad Alcoholics Anonymous is,

you know, we really want to think it's hip, especially in California. Everybody, you know, because I do. I've gone to meetings with like four or five Academy Award winners in the room and, you know, lots of porn actresses. And

I have one friend says you can't have too many porn actresses in a movie and in a meeting. And

it's always nice to take a group conscience on those meetings. And

so it's a little different out there. But you know, in California, you forget. You think AA was started like in Big Sur? Laguna Beach in a hot tub? No,

Alcoholics Anonymous was started in Akron, OH,

the lamest place on the face of the earth, in 1935 by by men who were more white than Wonder Bread

and more conservative than Gurbles, I tell you. I mean, Bill Wilson used to get drunk and write letters to Franklin Delano Roosevelt commenting him a communist telling him he needed to resign.

Alcoholics Anonymous is the Chevrolet of spirituality.

You don't astral project, you don't get to go back to Rome and meet your relative. You just get to haul some stupid newcomer to a meeting.

It's about as spiritual as it gets here, you know. And if you're lucky, if it's real spiritual, they'll vomit in your car.

Yeah, a friend of mine, I just spoke at a conference in this friend of ours said this is great. It's the best comment I've ever heard about alcoholic Saddam has said Alcoholics Anonymous. Staying sober a long time and Alcoholics Anonymous is like getting kicked to death by rabbits.

Isn't that great? It's like that's it,

that's it.

And you know, it's just the practice. There's no place else to go. I mean, I, I'd go somewhere else, but I'll drink if I do.

And then whatever problems I've got today with you people will go away. See. Because that's really the problem I have, is you.

It doesn't surprise me. We need to tell you not to park and no parking.

Doesn't surprise me. My

God, we get on airplanes and they say do not disconnect the smoke alarm.

Why would you tell that to somebody who's on an airplane that if it catches on fire, they're going to die?

They're honest to God. In the Valley, there's a sign that says all right, to make a left turn. Here's the part If safe,

why do I have to tell people that? Shouldn't they be able to figure that out themselves?

People tick me off.

You irritate me. You irritate me when you're not even doing it. There was a guy on the airplane, just the way he was sitting down was irritating me. The way people put their luggage in the compartment irritates me. I get irritated, see, because that's the nature of places. People, places and things, you know, You get sober, you can move different places. You can go any place you want. I can move here. Great thing about being an A A and moving to Texas or Oklahoma as you people got to accept me or die.

I've been all over Berlin, Costa Rica, I've been to AA everywhere. It's great. It's great. So places I can change things. I got a few dollars in my pocket now that I'm not buying Boones Farm Apple wine or a little Ripple and so I can get things. It's the people.

It's the people, not just the all people.

Irritate the snot out of me. Let's just take one that all irritates all of us, the crosswalk button.

All right, You only have to push it once.

Once you push it, the circuit is set. It doesn't matter how much you push it, that walk sign is not coming any quicker. And yet you people just to mess with my day, stand on the corner and continually do this over and over and over again.

Now on a good day, when I've talked to my sponsor, meditated, work the steps, and then spiritually fit, I can drive by you and go. Have a nice day, brother.

On a day when I'm not working a particularly good program, I want to get out of my car and bitch slap you. You understand what I'm saying?

Getting on airplanes I I'm so glad that you no longer content. Take Aunt Martha into the airport with you.

Just us people trying to get on the plane because that's bad enough.

But here's what happens on a plane. A guy gets on an airplane, his seat, his ticket says 37A,

so he stops at the 1st row.

OK, I'm going to give you that one. Maybe the plane starts with 37A. All right, I'm giving you that one

because I'm a humanitarian,

but it says one. Oh, what a surprise.

So that would think to say move on, right? No, no, you go to the next row thinking it goes 137A.

Here's Alcoholics and parking. I'm I'm in my Home group right now. We have my home groups. It wasn't a little church. We moved it little church. They have some rules for us. These people do not need an Al Anon meeting. These are not control issues. They just have a few rules they'd like us to obey if we're going to have our meeting in their home and they didn't ask for our vote.

One of those rules is no pets in the meeting. I don't know. I don't mind. I don't mind you bring your dog to the meeting. I don't care.

Oh yeah, Texas. We always take our dogs to the meeting.

Hell, my dog sponsors me. Boy,

my dogs work the steps 37 times.

And if of course you don't meet her at the conference, then oh, never mind. So anyway,

is it true that when you move from Texas to Oklahoma the IQ and both states go up? I don't know. But anyway,

newcomers, that's called there was too much love. So I got to push him back and see if I can get him back. See,

they liked me too much. I got to mess with it now.

So anyway, I, I, you know, sometimes you sort of have to be that I'm not one of those people that will give you my opinion. I really don't like to give my opinions to newcomers too much because they could hit you,

you know? I really admire old timers of getting that newcomers faces because they forget they're detoxing.

You know when you detox you just a little irritable.

All my guys go, I'm having feelings. I haven't feelings. I'm going, no, you're not having feelings. It's just detoxing. Oh thank God,

feelings happen in the second year so

sometimes for male Alcoholics they never happen.

Way too many women laughed on that.

OK, Just remember, the only thing in common with the people you date is that you pick them.

Out of all the people you could have picked, you picked them.

Believe me, I wish I'd known that, that having felony convictions would have made you more datable in a A

I wish I'd known that I'd have got busted some more. You know,

just didn't know. Who knew who knew who knew that's, you know, I got this one friend that you like, almost shot his wife, you know, And when you hear him talk, the women have two reactions. Some of them are going like this and some of them are going why doesn't Joe love me that much?

Show never wanted to shoot me.

I need a man who's loved me enough to kill me.

So I I relationships, singles and surprise, you know what? I don't know if you guys want to make this conference any bigger, but last night when I was listening to Jennifer, and if you didn't hear last night, you got to get Jennifer's tape. It was just a marvelous, marvelous call.

Just just terrific. And so, so much about what it's like and, and, and, and it was so humorous. And yet underneath it, there's all that pain. And Norma said that Alcoholics Anonymous place where we, we, we laugh at our misery and we cried our joy.

And it was such a talk like that. But I was sitting over there. So we're down and I'm looking up. And so the only thing I could see is I couldn't see on the sign. All I could see was this.

I I thought that's a great name for a conference. Sin and sobriety. Boy, you'll pack this place out. You'd have to get a bigger space.

You can get Texas Stadium filling up with that. Have a hell of a lot of newcomers with that one. Sin and sobriety. Yeah, that's a workshop I want to go to.

So I'm sitting in my sitting in my Home group. And and Adam Alabama was my spiritual grandmother said, you know, sometimes you got to suit up and be the mommy and their daddy. And this guys walking up the street with a little dog and, you know, the church says you can't dogs.

So I'm hoping, I don't know this guy. So I'm hoping to keep moving on. But now he's coming up the door and I'm in the door and I'm looking around to see if, you know, somebody who's not working a great program will get into his face for me. And they're not there. So I stand, I take those deep breaths.

Could you know when you give out the holics, bad news, they never take it Well, I don't care. You can find the biggest guru in your meeting and just let him talk a little bit. Turn around, Go. Shh. You watch him,

you watch him. That shush is for other people. I'm the guru. I'm saying things that are important.

So I go, hey, good morning, good morning. How are you doing that? Could you see you? Good to see you. Good to see you. Welcome to the group. You know,

what do we have with the church? Bad church, mean church, Nasty church. Not me, not me. The church. Church not I. The church says you can't bring the dog into the meeting. And he said the classic alcoholic thing. It's just a little dog.

Well, you see, the church didn't say size of dog.

I know they're jerks, but they didn't. But that's like, you know, it's, that's just it. I, I really have believed that the rules apply to me and and it's OK to break them as long as I'm willing to pay the consequence. I, I was in traffic school there. I got first ticket in a long time. I started, I was the only one and as far as I know other Alcoholics in there and it was amazing. All these non Alcoholics. Well, I was doing 90, but so is everybody else. And and I wasn't the onn and I just said, you know, I speed and I spent a lot and it was my turn on the barrel

that's here. You know, I just didn't get resentful because I actually was going that fast. And, you know, you pay the ticket, you go to school and you take care of it. And that's just a great freedom. They're not doing it to me anymore, see, because I have the type of personality that will take an impersonal world personally.

People I don't even know get up in the morning, they go. Now, what should I do today? Let's see, go to the gym, go to work. And I don't know Steve Border, but I'm going to cut him off on the freeway

just to mess with him

and newcomers, I'm just going to tell you this is deep. I'm going to give you the deep spiritual stuff tonight too. I like this this Baptist AA in here too because everybody's already talking back to the podium. Amen Bridge. Hi. Okay, so,

so I'll get slain in the Spirit tonight for the first time.

Walking on water and talking in tongues. That's just called being drunk. You know we did. We talked in tongues a lot.

Alcoholics and not. So if you're new, this is like a weird place. It's a strange place. It's full of contradictions.

We call it paradox

just to make it sound spiritual, but it's really contradictions. I was thinking about a couple of them. Here's a couple of contradictions. One thing you'll hear is somebody say, let us love you until you can love yourself. And then in the same meeting, you're going to hear what we think about you is none of your business.

You'd ask 1 old timer, what do I do with problems? And they go hang on. Then you ask another one to go let go

and, and here's my favorite, don't make any decisions in the first year. Give a sponsor.

Weird place, very strange. That's because the inmates run the asylum here.

Just think about it, if I went back to this mythical 12 step program, you know about hitting your head and myself with head and the hammer. Just say how long you been here? 35 years. I've had to come here 35 years to keep myself from hitting myself in the head with a hammer. One day at a time. You're a loser. What a loser. Here 35 years, right? And yet, if you're here 35 years, we'll bow down.

We'll think you're something special because you haven't poisoned yourself in 35 years.

We are easy to impress here.

It doesn't take much to impress us

and look at his here's deep spiritual truth. Deep spiritual truth. I didn't make this up. Alan McGinnis who died 01020 years before I got sober. Wonderful speaker got a book called the rest of your life that's out. Just wonderful. I think on a par with a tough Chuck C set. Here's deep spiritual truth. This is the kind of stuff I had to come to Alcoholics Anonymous to learn. I cannot learn this without a sponsor, a Home group that steps in divine intervention.

Here it is. You ready? Deep breath. This is deep. Let the tailgater pass.

That amazed me the first time I heard it. I know it amazes you.

Let the tailgater pass. I had never thought about that without a sponsor. Without a sponsor, there's only one of two things to do to a tailgater. You slow down South, their head gets big and their eyes explode.

Or you let them pass you and then you tailgate them.

But to get out of their way and let them go on, get out of your life too long down the road never would have occurred

to me. Honey, this guy, our Home group that says they can't cut you off if you let them in

now you say that kind of stuff in your Home group when you go back, it's God.

He's God. Oh, my God, yes. Sponsor me. Marry me.

You're a spiritual giant

because you're used to dating people who slept with your sister, spent all the money, killed the Chihuahua, and then left.

Now, newcomers, our job with old timers is to mess with you. That's really all we have to do. We can't do anything for you.

As somebody said, and I think they're right, our job is to mess with you till you get it

because we can't give it to you. You have to get it. That's usually between you and God. We're just the instrument of that.

God knows I, the guy that died in my Home group a couple years ago, I mean, had all the big time sponsors in Southern California hung up, just died.

And I'll probably talk about that a little bit. But we get we get to mess with you. I mess with newcomers all the time. I love to mess with newcomers.

I like to lie to them.

I will lie to newcomers if I think it'll keep them sober.

Don't sure you'll get married.

Oh yes, I'm sure there's a girl out there for you, Iago. I'm sure there is.

The hump on your back won't make any difference. I'm sure she'll be able to look right past that.

And there actually are several groups in California that actually that's an asset to have.

But I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

No, but I'll go up to newcomer and know what? I'll go up to Newcomer. About how long you got? About 35 days. Great, great. 45 days. We send you a gift

now. I think in Texas you changed that. 45 days we send you to the gift, but that's all different thing.

It's the it's the gift. Like The Sopranos here or what is the gift? I'm in the gift, man. Yeah,

JoJo didn't work the steps. He sleeps with the fishes.

The gift, everybody, here's the gift. The gift, okay,

and a movie about Satan. I don't know anyway, so they,

you know, they get like 55 days. They come up to me and they go, hey, where's my gift? I go, how much time you got? 55 days. I saw oh, we move that up. It's 89 days now

and I'll play this game for about 6 months and finally I know what the gift is. I know what the gift is, Steve. It's sobriety, isn't it? That's right, that's the gift.

Guys will call me 4:00 in the morning. Now she broke their heart at 9:00 PM.

They can't call at 9:00 PM No, no, at 9:00 PM. All they need is God them in the big book. They'll be fine At 4:00 PM when there's a little mass of sobriety, they call me. She gave me. I go well repaid your 22.

I don't know what's on 22.

I read 22 in years, have no idea what it done to my head. I couldn't tell you what was on 2210 minutes later. Thanks Steve. 22 saved my life. I've got you're brilliant.

So I got to read 22, figure out what I said so I can continue to look good.

Now, newcomers, what they won't tell you is you're allowed to mess with us.

You can mess with old timers. It's loud. They won't tell you this, but it's loud. And you have to understand that you have just joined the most rigid organization on the face of the earth, Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't like to think that. We like to think we're sort of both Hemian and laid back. That's when we're drinking.

You get sober, you get a little rigid and opinionated about everything.

Now, see, this is what I was in a meeting called Ilakanyada in California. And I love this meeting because they're a little older.

It's a meaning, right? And still going. They'll call me kid.

I like that because see, the problem was staying sober 23 years is you get 23 years older, which never occurred to me.

I mean, I never wanted to be the ward cleaver of my group. That was not a goal.

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at the girl. I'm going to ask out and she's going. You're so much like my dad. So it just

because in my head I'm not, you know, I'm still 15 in my head,

you know, you start out sponsoring guys, you're the Big Brother and then you could be like the father. It's weird. So they still, they're older up there. They call me kid and I go up there and there's, you know, they give us chips. Now I don't know if it's like this in Texas, but in California you do not take a chip one second before it's time to take a chip,

right. So this woman's down there and they said anybody want take a 30 day ship? And I just think she was trying to be nice. She was just about 45. She wasn't, She just said I have 28 days, could I take a 30 day trip? Oh my God, you would have thought she farted. Oh my God, Oh no, you can't take a chip a second early. There be boils and flags and grasshoppers will all die.

This from a group of people that only a couple of years ago left their house on Halloween to get a pack of cigarettes and woke up January 12th still in costume.

You know the little number where you got the nut on the front and the hooker on the back? That one,

yeah, I love it, you know, Oh, my God. You know, we weren't always on diamond. You can't take a chip one second early.

Whoa, go.

This guy is to this guy was telling me a story, this true story, this this clubhouse was trying to run the clubhouse by the traditions. And you guys know the clubhouses aren't really a a they're separate entities, but they were trying to run the clubhouse by the traditions. And so they were trying to figure out whether it would break the traditions to put a soda machine in the clubhouse.

Now, any of you who've ever been on a committee know how longs this is going to take to decide in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Congress and the Senate could pass it first. Somebody could sue and the Supreme Court would rule on it before we're going to pass it.

So they argue about this contrafrocut, and finally they take the vote. And they vote that, you know, maybe it would be OK to put this soda machine in the clubhouse. And then this guy who's my kind of alcoholic, you know, just a Pebble in the boot of AA, raises his hand and says, Mr. Chairman, there's an issue we have not addressed. And he goes, what? He goes, I like Pepsi,

said the chairman almost killed him because he knew what it meant. You know, 17 more hours of arguing. Pepsi, Coke, Akron, NY, Bob, Bill Clarence. Oh, my God.

So newcomers, this is what you do

next time your home groups gonna have its yearly picnic. You go to the meeting and as they're talking about things, you raise your hand and said, Mr. Chairman, I think this year we need to move the picnic tables over there.

The oldest of the old timers will raise himself up on his Walker to his four foot two heights.

Say we don't move the tables at their Home group here. Bill Wilson had potato salad right there.

Doctor Bob. Brooklyn, right. We all move the table. Tap

tables were there when I got sober. Good enough for you,

see, because in 23 years, I'm not an old timer. I'm just in the old timer training program

place where you teach you to say things like didn't have 12 steps. When I got sober I had 37,

didn't have chairs. We set our rocks,

didn't have coffee. We drank fungus. It was a different program.

And I just want to say this, if you're new, welcome to Alcoholics. Now. This is the greatest time in the world to be sober. The golden age of AA has not passed because if it has, we're all screwed. I certainly hope that the best time of my sobriety isn't passed in 798396 'cause I got I, you know, I hope we got another 23 years of this thing to do. I hope the really good times are in front. And unfortunately, if you listen to people like me, sometimes

you think you got the AAA by the time it was a loser.

And I don't know about you, but I'm tired of getting places that were better before I got there.

You know, apparently this country was greater before I was born.

And if you're not careful, you'll think a A was better before you got. And here's the old timers. Here's how you do it to him. This conference is going to happen. You've been the 19, you've been the 16, you've been to 15. And somebody who's just come to their first one, you're going to get back off the Hilltop. You sit out on the meeting that newcomers going to go. Wasn't that conference great? And you're going to go, yes, pretty good. But back in 96,

96, we have The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Liberace.

Chuck C walked right on water that year, Walked right out here in the lake. Whole damn thing

Alabama skinny dip. It was the best time.

See, but this is their good old days. I said old timer. The only thing I've got to say is, yeah, it was a great conference. It's terrific. So glad you're here. What was good about it? You know, because it's their first and I don't want to take it away from them. This is the, you know, it's amazing because when I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, it was, what, 45 years old? What an amazing thing. To join an organization is only 45. This thing's only going to be 70. It's a baby

and it's the best times happened in 50 or 60 or 80.

We shame the newcomers,

like somehow we're giving him something secondhand. And I've been around for 23 years. I didn't get sober in Southern California. I got sober in Colombia, South Carolina.

Yeah,

you know, I believe me. There was no problem with the 13 step there because all the women were older than me and married first. A a dance I went to was like jungle. Gardenia was the primary scent.

They played Glenn Miller. You know, I go to dances today in LA and there's girls 30 days off Similac. I mean, that's a little difference.

My sponsor says I can cross the street next week if I say sober. You know,

LA is a weird place for meetings, but

we're talking young so

I mean it's justice. But I walked in there and they were all retired Sergeant majors because there's a little place there called Fort Jackson. Some of you may have done some basic training there. So that means all the old timers are retired Sergeant majors with 7th grade educations. Weren't people this college educated hippie had much in common with,

but they saved my life and they saved my life because that was the meeting to go to. There weren't a lot of me. You know, the great thing in LA is I can go to a meeting with people just like me. You know, my meeting sort of suburban, a lot of Volvos, a lot of baby seats, a lot of people work in the studios, a lot of mommies, a lot of daddies, a lot of houses. That kind of that's kind of me. I mean, there's a lot of people just sort of middle class meeting. Well, artsy little, little to the left. But you know, and then I know people you you can find any meaning you want. You want to ride with bikers.

They're there.

And so, so the thing about LA is I can go to people just like me. And, you know, Maurice Dinner, who was here in 86 used to say that she wasn't so happy about that change in, in, in a, because the place she went to, everybody was there and that she'd been raped by bikers And she had to come to alum to learn them, love them in the meeting. And

the rednecks that had hurt her, she had to come to love them in the meeting. And the going with, to, to meetings with people who aren't like you was the thing. So I don't know. I, I do not believe that at its base, what was given to me in form is any different today in 2002 than it was in 1979 when those people handed it to me. Although the meetings in California are very different than the meetings I went to in South Carolina and probably very different. And that's the problem with moving. You know, when I move, I have to adjust to you.

I mean, you know, but we didn't talk about feelings in 1979 in Columbia South. Those guys had never had any. Why should you?

They went through WW2 without a feeling

and drugs. You know, I always joke when I got sober. Drugs were not a controversy when I got sober. The old timers in South Carolina did not think you weren't sober if you were on drugs. They thought you were a communist.

Who'd you vote for? Just a whole different thing. And then I move out to and, and white, white, white, white, white. I mean, again, it looks like Wonder Bread for the most part. You know, I've been back there and, and it's it's much more diversified today, which I love to see. But but you know, I move out to California and I go to a midnight meeting and I'm there with transsexuals and gang members from Thailand and, and, and, you know, girls off the street. I'm going. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Oh, this is wild, you know? And they're younger and weird and tattooed in places I don't even touch on my own body.

I mean, it was real culture shock

and, and I've grown to love that about Alcoholics Anonymous that a couple years ago I, when I was married, I married a woman who was having an affair when I got married.

I

you people laugh at odd things.

So glad that makes you happy.

The newcomers, if you, if you ever aspire to this job of speaking, you have to deal with that. They're weird, these people. They laugh at the strangest things. You go, they'll come before you talk. They'll go Tell that story. Remember. Remember when they elected you prettiest on the cell Bach and stabbed you and you were in all that pain? Tell that story. I love that story.

OK so and I thought that was weird for her to have an affair. When we got married, she didn't understand the rules of cheating. You don't cheat at the wedding. You marry them thinking they're the love of your life. They turn into a bastard, then you cheat on them. That's the way it goes.

But I gotta tell you, I've been depressed, I've been hurt, I was traumatized. I, I say that one of the things that will happen in sobriety is you're going to have the bomb go off maybe many times if you are here getting sober, thinking that getting sober will now make it all OK because we tell you it gets better. Let me explain what I mean When I tell you it gets better

because you have to be careful with a person like with me. When you tell them it's going to get better because you say it's going to get better and my head hears I'm going to get everything I ever wanted

if I stay sober, that will be the reward.

The problem with that is when it doesn't happen, why should I stay sober?

Alan McGinnis said that if you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous long enough, you're going to get everything you ever came to get here or you're going to find out that you're never going to get what you came to get here. And then why are you going to stay sober?

See, and, and in 23 years, there's been a lot of letting go of things I thought I would get if I stayed sober, been a lot of gifts, a lot of loss. That's what life's about. So you tell me I'm it gets better and that's what my head hears. It's not what you're saying, it's what my head hears. And, and this is, this is what I mean when I say it gets better. Her name was Michelle.

Michelle has been no God. You know the dance is going to be in a little while.

Just keep those hormones under check.

We all know nobody's going home with anybody anyway.

It's Friday night. You don't go home with them tonight. If you do, you're stuck with them for the whole weekend.

Nobody's going to anybodies room to the Last Dance tomorrow night. Just mellow out tonight. It's a little shopping, That's all we're doing.

Nobody want to wake up with Mr. or Mrs. Wrong for Saturday and Sunday,

and then they're stalking you

on water skis.

When he said he had a big boat, that's exactly what he meant.

I don't know. You know, it's just the silent news runs across here. I'm sorry, just goes there and it comes out.

Where was I,

Huh. Michelle, Thank you. Yeah, it was actually going to get. I was actually going to get a little serious.

Michelle has been dead

18 years. Michelle was a dancer and when she danced she hurt her back and she got a year sober and they decided they were going to operate on her back and they made a mistake and they paralyzed her. She's paralyzed for a year

and then she walked again and they did another operation and she was paralyzed for it another six months. And then in her third year sobriety, she got lung cancer and she died. That was it, folks. That was her whole sobriety.

Now, when she was in and when I was there, when she died, she did not. And those of you have been a caretaker, know that it's not a Hollywood ending. It's ugly.

It's scary,

not necessarily peaceful. She was scared to death of dying. She panicked many times. She did not see death coming as a friend or looking at going home. She didn't want to go. She was not a happy camper. And yet every night she would get in the wheelchair and while Cedar Sinus Sinai still had a chemical dependency unit, would go down to that chemical dependency unit and tell those people that getting sober was worth it. That's what I mean when they say it's getting. It gets better because I believe it's better to

that way then not live that way. Although it changes nothing.

Didn't change that she died, didn't change anything. Except for when I go over to Cedar Sinai, I almost always tell that story. And a couple of times there's been somebody in the group that was in that CD ward when Michelle was there and she is remembered.

So that's what I mean when I say it gets better.

Because I I'm selfish and self-centered. I'm still selfish and self-centered. I'm still a liar, a cheat and a thief. I am not the well speaker

and I really, and I'm the only male speaker this week in which I love. I think that's great. You know, usually it's like 3 minute one way. I love it that it's all women, just one I one guy. I think that's terrific. Whoever put that line up together. Jennifer certainly wasn't the well speaker last night

and I think she'll take that as a compliment.

You know, Claire is the Welsh be Claire you just that that's that's that's a story that will awe inspire you And and I I don't know about Joanne. I met her at dinner and I'm doubtful, but

I

I'm doubtful. I think it's all going to depend on how the bridge goes tomorrow.

If she loses, it may give a whole different meaning to spiritual speaker.

And for you knew, the spiritual meeting on Sunday just means that we don't cuss as much as we normally do.

I'm not. I'm not well, and I don't want to get well. If I get well, what do I need you for?

I get well. I'm out of here and there's a part of me that's looking to get well enough so I don't need you anymore because it's a part of me that just wants to go. I've done enough. Now you have to leave me alone.

Now you have to leave me alone. A second later, I'll go. Where did you go?

Because Alcoholics is a guy in, the professor in, Paradox said. Are people who when they're out one in, when they're in, they went out.

See, and I'm selfish and I'm self-centered and I have a little story about that. This is a game I play. You're welcome to play it. And beatings that bore me.

Did he say some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings?

Boring boys. Not grateful, is he? Well, you know what? I've been going to 23 meetings for 23 years.

I've heard it all. You'll heard everything you're ever going to hear in Alcoholics Anonymous the 1st 30 days you're here.

There is no new information.

Some of us put it in a clever package, you know, and we mix it up and it's interesting in our stories, but there's no new information. This is really simple. This is not brain surgery. This is Alcoholics Anonymous by the very title of the organization Proves we are not Menza students.

You're not going to go where you going tonight and Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Would you be the CEO of my company? Probably not going to happen for normal people. So this is a game I play. Just shows you how self-centered I am. I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm bored with it because I'm bored,