Desmond T. from New York, NY at North East Texas Area Fall Convention

thanks no one does the Menachem how like

and I asked Joe if

it was okay if we if we did the preamble so we know what kind of meeting this is and he said it was okay and one of the things that we do back in New York City we have a meeting at one o'clock on a Friday to which you're all invited on the tenth floor of the four seventy five Riverside Drive and it's called the language of the heart meeting and if we use that book the language of the heart and we do a little reading from that maybe are sharing from that was kind of like a language of the heart workshop

but the thing we do there are going to ask you to do tonight with me and

because I've been sober with the grace of god in this program since April twenty third nineteen seventy two

and I can't tell you how many times I've said the preamble in that time period but I can tell you this that if I tried to say it now by myself I will screw it up

but I can also tell you that if we stayed together

we'll get it done

so let's try it

alcoholic's anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism

the only requirement for membership the silence doctoring king there are no dues or fees for AA membership we are self supporting through our own contributions Hey is not allied with any sect denomination politics organization or institution

does not wish to engage in any controversy neither endorses nor opposes any causes our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety thank you very much that was beautiful that sounds beautiful too with everybody saying it

and I want to thank Pat and Joe for that wonderful welcome it was great to meet Joe out there in Albuquerque and then again in in Austin I am particularly delighted that he understood my broken Spanish which I actually read from the podium because I'm not fluent enough yet to speak it with any fluency but I do pretty well with some of the bilingual employees that I have at the grapevine and they seem to enjoy a correcting my Spanish

and it's very helpful to be corrected by the employees because that way they get to know me better and I get to know them better and I also learned a little bit more Spanish each day as a matter of fact

and

it's pretty remarkable to me to think about why we're here and to think about the fact that you guys spent all this time of your lives in electing the trusted servants that you've elected today and what an honor it is to have seen you do that and and the patients and the and and the jockeying and the politicking and all that great stuff that goes on with drunks I mean it is a celebration of being alive here and that's really what we're wait we're together we're alive and we're doing it and that's what happened to me over the past thirty years I was dead and I was in the gutter and I was wondering and I was lying and I was doing all the things the drunks do opening their mouth and the nose as they open their mouth they were lying that's what I was doing and fellow AA came along to me and they said you know that you're not a holic and I said on that note colic I I wear a white shirt I wear a tie I can't be an alcoholic I was saying that same thing not wearing a white shirt and a tie when I was in Saint Vincent hospital in New York City when I was in there with the bleeding stomach and of course I was in there with it with a bleeding stomach because I had taken too much aspirin

well

when you take aspirin on top of a quart of Scotch

for a few days in a row or for a month in a row then it kind of get the atomic and make your stomach bleed and so as I was walking down the corridor of thing Vincent's hospital with my green down on in my paper slippers trying desperately to hold the back of that green down close

this doctor who I was with that estimate that's been doing alcoholic and I said to him boy the what what kind of unintelligent remark is that I'm an alcoholic

he said well he said you know I said you don't even know me you've talked to me for five minutes you're supposed to be an intelligent man and you say to me I'm an alcoholic

well this guy didn't even blink at that shot when he comes back and he says to me that's when I know thousands of people and they're just like you and you're a plain ordinary alcoholic

you know what I'm gonna say next already on him

I'm not sure if I was more upset about alcoholic or plain ordinary

so that was the beginning the thing was I kept denying being alcoholic because I could be a guy like I was too smart to be an alcoholic I said to this guy well I'll do anything I'm not an alcoholic but I I mean just to prove to you I won't but what do I made up it's a value not to drink anymore I said consider it done

well yes

I said I will not go I will do anything is that I will not go to a because that group of people I mean I knew what you were and what I know you were was used used to go to the three corners and you would bring in these poor unsuspecting people who are not alcoholics but if you brought them into a meeting and you build the more chairs than here you got extra points and you might get elected to be the DCM or the A. B. the other thing yeah because I didn't know any of those things at that time I didn't know all the structure but I had it figured out so what happened to me was that well I didn't want to believe I was an alcoholic and I kept denying I was an alcoholic and I would deny it every morning as I got up and I looked in the mirror and I look my eyes because they were red white and blue and there was nothing to get the right out at that particular point in time what I would do is then I would get all dressed up in my white shirt and tie because I was not an alcoholic and anybody who got dressed up in a white shirt and tie and suit and everything else I had a job couldn't possibly be an alcoholic because I was making money and lived in a nice part of the city and I had a family and I couldn't be an alcoholic and so because I couldn't be an alcoholic I would go to a different like our store every morning as I went down to my office and I would sometimes open up that liquor store with the man who owned a liquor store knocking on the door having pulled out the shade and I would walk in there wanting him to know that I really wasn't an alcoholic so I would say do you have any of these tiny bottles of alcohol

because doesn't every suave debonair the cider go into a liquor store at seven thirty in the morning for a tiny bottles of alcohol knowing damn well that they will call managers but they I knew what I was doing by giving on that line was that he would think that I had this wall unit in my pocket eastside apartment filled with tiny bottles of alcohol from all over the world and he wouldn't think that I was an alcoholic and that's how I would start my day putting those in my inside coat pocket so that I could begin my social drinking at about eleven forty five behind the stall in the John and that's how the day began now the reason I had to drink in the stall in the John was that

I had to have learned that I couldn't drink safely at lunch people were gonna think I was an alcoholic and I didn't want them to think I was an alcoholic so because what happened to me once I was at lunch with my boss and is the mother person and they I I drank a glass of water just like I picked up like this and I put it to my left and I

it took a drink I ordered a vodka martini

and is there is that part of my teeny arrived my whole body tightened up I knew what was gonna happen to me was I was gonna have to reach for that and I'm I can't we're gonna shake I was going to spell the vodka martini on me and I also knew that what I needed in order to stop the Sheik was a vodka martini so I looked into the front of the restaurant and there's a bar in the part of the restaurant but I thought that if I was at the bar getting my first vodka martini noted to drink my second vodka martini they'd be able to see me so I couldn't do that I left the restaurant I ran across the street this is forty second three Lexington Avenue in New York City to another restaurant plowed my way through twenty but the bar put the money down got the vodka martini all the while knowing that they're talking about me back at the restaurant where I just laugh this is all taking place in about ninety seconds you know back and forth across the street my mind going a thousand miles an hour I grabbed the second vodka martini and the like that with it down dash back across the street and in the thirty seconds that that took and I sit down and I grabbed a second drink

no six picked up now wouldn't you by tiny balls of alcohol to drink in the John before you went out to lunch if that's how you solve the problem and that's of course what I did and so this went on and on and on not being an alcoholic until one day

by not being an alcoholic took me to and then and then I would start homing it after I got through my lunch time drinking what I would do is I just wanna give you a kind of a feel for the days you know the these really brilliant sun shiny day is that I was living when I was coming to the end of my drinking I didn't know of course it was the end of my drinking but I was rapidly winding it up

I would come home from I've come back to my office at about two thirty and then between two thirty and three thirty I would check with them papers and write them notes and do whatever I thought I needed to do to keep this job which was the source of my income for drinking and then about three thirty I would go down the escalator elevator my building up the escalator in another building whether it's great restaurant called Charlie brown's enjoyed resident to quick shooters to tide me over a cocktail time and then a cocktail time I would go to the bar in the building have one drink because I didn't want anybody to think I was an alcoholic and then I would go home I mean I might leave office at five thirty six o'clock I make it home by eight I might stop in five or six bars on the way home I don't have one drink in each bar because I don't want the bartenders think I was an alcoholic

and then I go home and I say to my wife Hey let's have a drink and so I make her a drink and make me a drink and then we got up right we have some beer with some wine or something with the upper and then I proceed to watch the television with another beer or wine or something until I would wind up at two or three in the morning with the the work patterns on the TV I do is not TV all night long at that time they were like exes and why the numbers and things like that and I'd wake up in front of the TV and having passed out and then I would go to bed and sleep for a few hours get up look my eyes and begin the whole thing again

now what god was doing for me that I couldn't do for myself was he got me really plastered one morning

in my office

and so what happened was my boss came in and that higher powers in the been the company came in and they said

there's something wrong with this man as he is lying supine on the floor

when everybody else is out having lunch or they just come back from lunch and that they didn't know they honestly didn't know that I was drunk

but I said to my boss you know I have an alcohol problem

and he said you're telling me you got out

you can never drink in this company again

so I think my job

and my cards were on the table and so I came into a a because the best way to save my job was to go to a

but the fact was I couldn't get over because like I said I really was not hot I had this little time I'd go to meetings you know and I'd say to the people of the meetings you know I'm really not a holic I just had this little problem that I get drunk sometimes when I drank and they'd you know sort of put up with me and they smile a little bit they say last night as well if you just keep coming back you know hang around with us a little while see how you feel you know a few months from now and

I just really couldn't get it you know I was trying to get it I was trying I I could see what happens this was what happened to me it's what happens to me every single time I go to a meeting is that I fall in love with the people the first time I walked into my first meeting no I didn't know this at the time

but I know today hindsight I fell in love with the people they just got me I was listening to Pam tonight I fell in love with Pam and she was talking I mean it is coming down my eyes isn't listening to her talking about her mom and everything else

and you know

when I came into that first meeting I mean I was really a hardened non alcoholic as I describe myself but I went to that meeting because I was gonna be fired from my job

but

when I walked in that room

here's what I thought I thought that everybody in a war khaki

know why I thought that I don't know but that's just what I thought

so I walk in the room but you know everybody's wearing different colored clothes

I said while she's there just become like ordinary people

and I met a guy there skip they tell me to me I called up into group you know they tell me what you got to the meeting and to go ask for skip was skip with crazy it was awfully crazy you know and I met give sense he's over now twenty twenty five years and he says you know when I met you doesn't mean I was told the crazy because he's talking about I don't even it's telling about his mother his father is something else and you know thank god I was well fortified for that meeting because I'd stopped into classes and a few Boilermakers before I walked in so I can handle skip for that first meeting

and then I saw the people there and they're dressed in this fight one guy had one of these mattress jackets on you know multi color Technicolor Dreamcoat kind of jacket and this guy he took my took this book one of the one of the books of the meetings and it began writing it and and marking meetings

I thank you that was kind of nice to me but the I was I was still like

behind so many walls

so many walls of denial and I didn't know this at the time you understand I'm looking at this with the benefit of thirty years of hindsight

and so I was I was behind these walls but you guys had me from the first minute I mean there was no question in my mind I was finished I missed a lot of drinks the more

but I was done

and the reason I was done was

I'll talk to so real

I mean that meeting I have I don't remember a single thing that was that at that meeting

but what I do remember was that people were real I mean it was smiling they were laughing they were serious they were concerned they were open they will want to talk to me they could smell the alcohol on my breath I'm sure but it didn't stop the

and they marked the book and they told me to come back again

and so that began

my first year in a in my first year in a a is not a story of a lot of successes because I was kept denying I was an alcoholic and I come to look at that phase of my life as the inability to turn it over the inability to be powerless

and

I'll talk about this the end in in a little while more about this idea of powerless how that first step is is so powerful in terms of everything in a I was great analyzer you know and I used to try to figure out

how does that fit together you know I beat listings and the shades on the wall and I'm analyzing I'm memorizing the stuff and doing all this stuff just give my brain occupied which is going in five different directions and I'm thinking to myself this word powerless boy this permeates everything on those steps that's what I'm saying to myself and I mean I didn't know how smart it was when I was doing it I mean it done as misunderstand me I was arrogant enough to think I was really smart but I didn't really know just how smart this program is and what it does here

so anyway what happened to me was that I didn't want to stay sober I didn't want to be a drunk I I don't want anybody to think I was drunk and so you know if you're not a drunk well then you can't get the program because the program is for people who are dropped and what powers of Rakel and I wasn't

so the great thing about it was that

I kept going to meetings

and the people

like me and I and I as I said you had me from the first minute I walked in the room so I like them I mean they were really smart but you know what I was doing I was writing a written term paper on alcoholics and I was going to publish in the New York times where I was gonna I was gonna rewrite that the the the big book I was gonna rewrite that and put it into a real good English like it wasn't in good English but obviously it wasn't well written and so all those kind of things I was going to do but I sit there and I'd be amazed at these people who would come in it's a go to meeting call the mustard seed in New York City at twelve thirty I mean are people from all of the different businesses and then they with mark with a quote is booking a quote bill Wilson and a quote the philosophers make license while pulling these guys I got it I can do that so anyway I start quoting stuff right and people are writing down all those brilliant things that I'm quoting is thanks yes things over on the mound getting drunk on

because I couldn't admit it but here's what happened

they thought I kept coming back and I need and here's how they is now they have only

they are first time I came back they're very sympathetic and they say welcome back and I course that well of course they wanted me back I'm adding a little bit alike to this meeting they want me here and so I think it requesting as they welcome well then I'm out again you know I I discover we confront the next and I. B. B. S. over a month and then I might be drunk for two weeks that kind of thing

as I come back the second time in as they welcome back how how was it I see what I mean how was you think I'd be back here it was any good you know what kind of kind of stupid question is that so then then then I I don't know if this is to go on you know but they still welcome me back as well okay just keep coming just get covers gonna it's gonna work out okay and then and then and then they say next time is that what what tell me what happened

so I did I go through the whole thing you know like I lost the car I felt through the coffee table and in the cops came and I I drove the car into a snow bank or had attacked the kid had to drive me around the neighborhood to find my car and I was very embarrassed by the whole thing and the taxi cab driver didn't seem to mind I mean you probably have done this with a few other people and that people are

and I caught some of put me in jail but they didn't put me in jail because I knew some people in the neighborhood and blah blah blah blah blah and they said well thanks a lot

he did it for me

yeah that really pissed me off I gotta tell you I didn't like that idea of doing it for somebody else

I thought that was a little bit too tacky so

anyhow next time I come back we went through this whole thing and the same the same drill you know welcome

because what was it like you know and then and at tell us you know what it's like and you know you did it for me the whole thing and and then the and then the coup de gras that they came upon me and they said you know we know you are coming back

well I really didn't like that because I hated being predictable and they really had my number down cold

and so this went on and on until there were various milestones that began to break down that wall of denial that began to break down that wall of being powerful over alcohol

and one of the things that I remember so vividly

and I still recall it many times even today I was sitting in this meeting in the not to say that it was a it was a it was a dimly lit

you know downstairs cellar in a brownstone on thirty seventh street and Lexington Avenue in New York City and

it was a rainy Friday afternoon

and I've been in my office that morning trying to write a marketing plan for a company

that I had written the same marketing plan for the year before

and I was in such great mental condition that I could not remember the words that were in front of me on this page

long enough to change the date

on this page when I tried to re write them an update the marketing plan for the ensuing year and it was baffling me and it was frustrating me and I was absolutely

going insane and I knew that's what I told the group just I just told you and I told the group you know I know how to solve this problem

all I need is one drink I would have five out of one and I'd be able to write that marketing plan

and the whole meeting turned around to me everybody in that meeting I mean the next person shared about how their nerves were jangled somebody else that shared a similar experience to mine and so we talked about you know getting medical attention and you know what you have to do it now they have to take care of yourself and you know drink warm soups or whatever I'm not what they said even what was that it was the whole feeling of people just taking me in their arms and loving me right there and again I fell more deeply in love with the people

and then what and then the next thing that happened was that the meeting is over and I'm standing at the Billboard reading the notices on the on the bulletin board and and I'm just really are preoccupied net and I kind of noticed that the guy his inner city fireman is by six four he's standing on the side of me and then and then I noticed there's not a guy needs by six three and he might have been in New York City cop and nobody look like an accident cop and he's standing on that side of me and they just started talking to me doesn't know how the going on what's going on because I had said you know I know how to solve this this ten bars between here in my office and organise one drink and I noticed as I'm leaving them leaving there on these two guys are kinda like one on each side as well walking down Lexington Avenue

and I'm talking to them you know and just very casually and a budget what is dawning on me is that with passing the first bar the second bar on the third or the fourth floor and I wind up standing in the vestibule of my office building and they said the

we noticed you didn't drink did you eat and drink get back to your office today I said no I didn't drink

thank you

SO that begin another phase of that love affair with with a with the people in a because I knew they really care

and they come to my home and what when I was out on a on a slip they would come to my home and and and try to talk to me they would do it and all five of them would come up with a twelve step called a comfort to my apartment

so that I knew they really Love Me and they really cared about and they were getting nothing in return from this in any type of monetary way any praise there was nothing they were just there because they believed that sharing the gifts they had been given was the way

to live life

and so that's what they did to me

and so gradually what happened to me is that not wall that I had placed between myself and people in Alcoholics Anonymous began to crumble no because they punch that out with those gifts of love that they throw in there and slowly it came down

but then what was still there

was the cellophane wrapper

do you know what I like I can see you and I could talk to you at meetings

and I know you were there any were listening and I knew I was affecting you and your affecting me but there was some way I couldn't touch

I didn't know what that was all about

but it was true it was like I was behind the filter or something

and so

somebody said to me you know does there's these things called the promises in the book and

one of the promises is

if that you'll be able to handle situations that used to baffle you you'll be able to handle situations intuitively and I said oh man I want that I just want that thing because I'm I'm in mice well you know the signs of you know you're the sun sign you know well I'm a libra the scales right so the scale that means like on the one hand you know the Teviot thank on the one hand we should do this well I don't know let's try this over here and you know by the time I got finished figuring out the two scales well the whole day had gone and I hadn't done anything yet and I used to drive me absolutely bonkers because a living in my head getting ready to live all that kind of stuff I wanted to just do something so I said in intuition is gonna be the case

and I figured out and I know today that I figured out because I'd read in the books it's just so all over the place I thought that I had brilliantly deduce this from something else but it's right in the big book and the book book let you know that if you want to be intuitive what you need to do is meditate I need to do our eleven step

so I said okay

so I started to do the eleven step and a number of things and I I know what I know and believe me it wasn't a big time thing and maybe sixty second eleven step you know I can I can handle sixty seconds because I've got the Taylor to go to when I got to go to the bank plus I've got to get something from the from the from the from the laundry or bring my laundry in the lot of important things I do in the course of a day and I could just about you know dole out sixty seconds for this eleven step but I did it every single day

and so gradually I began to be able not to have to do this total analysis paralysis evaluation kind of thing and I began to act and gradually what I noticed was that I'd be in places and I'd be totally by myself you know I never waking up one morning I was in California on a business I used to have already hit the go off on business trips by myself it was just a lonely type of thing and I do the business part of it but I was always feeling lonely and so I woke up one morning this nobody in all of the human being in the room except me and I woke up this morning and I knew positively

and I was not alone

I knew there was another presence that was with me in that in that room that day

now with them that that's a milestone

in the change in my change of attitude and my way of seeing things and my way of feeling about things

I thought that was the end of it and I think alive arrived here at the mountain here but you know it keeps going on on and on and on so there were other milestones another milestone I was I was in

this is how it pertains to getting a cellophane wrapper just because what happened to that cellophane wrapper I gotta tell you is that you know when you take a self paying rapper and you put a cigarette in it we'll have to discuss such well that's what happened it just disappears I mean I don't feel it tonight I don't think there's anything between us at all

even touch me and I can touch you I know that

but the net what one of the other other other milestones in in in this process

was that I was up in Canada in Canada at a meeting and

if I was doing I'm sitting at this meeting and the people there about seven or eight business people at the meeting the lovely venue looking over one of the great lakes and I'm sitting there and I'm saying

what a stupid remark that guy just made I mean he's a president because the president of multi billion dollar company right I'm saying is really stupid

this other guy over here look at that time I mean that's the got that type of some flowery bomb because it doesn't match anything else the plans don't go together the lines in the wrong direction

this other guy over here I mean he thinks he's smart he's just a jerk and he hasn't said and and some going on like this with everybody every single person character assassination one by one by one by one by one I'm saying this is the most stupid boring me this is like I've been at the meeting for four hours

and so little voice in the back of my head says Dez why don't you put yourself in the presence of your higher power

no I I I do want to do that because I was convinced that if I put myself in the presence of my higher power it would stop me from being present to those people that I was a fascinating using

and because it was going to interfere with my being really there in the here and now and all this kind of stuff right so

but I suspended beliefs per minute and I I could what I go okay to myself on this conversation going on inside of my brain okay if I put myself in the present my higher power and it's like

because I saw what I was doing I thought I was playing Boyer I saw that I was being ungrateful to those people who would have been to come up and spend some time with them and we're actually paying me to come up there dispensing time with them and what was I doing I was sitting there being a critic of the whole thing and not participating

so the voice they look at that as

it's going to be in the ring keep the gloves on

so I started participating in the meeting it turned out to be a fabulous meeting for me I don't know how they reacted to it but I was making remarks I was having fun I was cracking jokes I was having a good time is making some intelligent comment about their business it changed everything for me because I

experienced

for myself that being in the presence of my higher power like it says in that eleven step improve your conscious contact with god as you understand got I could do that and not be separated from you and not be less available to you which was my fear I think if I do that I'm going to be in some mental

stratosphere which is gonna prevent me from being available not true it makes me totally available to you and to anybody else within the course of the day

and so this process of being more and more powerless

of turning it over more and more and more which is that which is that the tremendous Lee Lee therapeutic and healing

healing principle I believe in our steps

this particular on the simple principle I mean this is simple if you don't drink you don't get drunk if you don't pick up a drink

you can't get drunk I mean a rocket science for an alcoholic

and so the same thing is true that if I spend more time

meditating

if I spend more time in the eleventh staff then I'm going to be more available

to my fellow alcoholics and to everybody because our responsibility statement doesn't limit us to alcoholics

seven ever anywhere anyone anyway reaches out for help they want the hand of a to be available to them

so if that applies to anybody

and I'm not afraid for it to apply to anybody

I don't care if they know melancholic not that I go around **** nilly breaking my anonymity don't misunderstand me but the fact is if somebody calls man also yeah

yes I am I am I I'm I'm recovering in this fabulous program about how economics

so

what then happens to me is that

Hey again comes to the rescue with this drug so this is about twelve years maybe about twelve years sober so and then they come up and they say Hey would you would you would be on one of our committees you're involved in the public relations business how about being on a public information committee so

my father is said to me well if they ask you to do something just say yes don't even think about it just say yes so I say yes

but if they'll take about an hour a month I said that's fine I can do our quarter I can do that

so then they come up a little while longer a little while later number years later and they say oh well you know would you what let us put your name in to be a

director of the group of A. W. S. and I said well what they W. S.

and they explain to me what a W. S. isn't it tell me what they do and so on and I just I thought well like yeah fine I don't understand what this is all about that yes do it do it so they go through the vote and then they kill somebody else

so I said to rific dammit terrific you know damage

both things I mean I thought that it that that's the way it was I felt good I felt lousy but then they came back the next week and they said well we got this opening on that on the grapevine boy what can we put your name into dominate the grapevine board

and I said sure you can do that because I I used to be the great but not at the great but I knew something about

so I said yes and and so you know typical a a fashion I'll tell you how I got I got I got put on the paper and board

I walked in the go to the meeting up with all the directors the grapevine and this guy by the name of a family

Stanley Silverman

was there not the only and you can tell by the Jewish guy

and I'm a Catholic guy so Stanley looks at me and he says

it's Jesus Christ

I said give me filling it's a terrible does you know I used to think you would you describe every summer to talk he was up you know yes you are I don't know what you're talking about but you know you just had this way about you that you know I think this guy's Jesus Christ so I said I gotta tell you the story so I donned the story you may have heard but it's about it you know it's about Moses and Jesus the playing golf

and

there's a water hole so Jesus get up to the water hole in his that you know the Moses Moses it's a it's it's a

a seven iron shot just like Jack Nicklaus Moses says Jesus at the hundred eighty yards it's a five iron shot Moses and Jesus knows that it's a it's a seven southwest is that hits the shot clock right now water Moses you know part of the war against the blood bank is it to Jesus and J. that gets up again it says that the seven iron shot just like Jack Nicklaus and most of the changes that the five

same result because the timing at the bank and bounces animals that look at I'm tired of this is part of what to get the ball back this the last time did not give me the ball with the

so anyway Jesus gets up is that you know the seven iron shot just like technical out any course right and it just

about that off the tickets right and right into the to the water

some of the top lucky that Jesus doesn't matter he walked across the water gets the ball he's walking back over the water with that does that force them coming up on the next T. and they see Moses and I think this guy on the water running all over the mother they say Hey Hey buddy whose like I think he is Jesus Christ Moses is not writing he's technical

so they asked me to serve on the board I guess they thought I could I could improve the caliber though the humor in the grapevine now

so but that begin that began a whole series of things and then and then they asked me to be a trustee of the serve as a trustee and by that time I knew what a trustee was I mean after all I've been serving for you as a director you think I might have picked up a few things and I did I said yeah I'd like to do that and so I had a wonderful time serving as a as a as a as a trustee on the grapevine board and and then I rotated off that I thought oh god thank god I'm I'm here I'm out of this thing I I don't have to do this anymore because