Herrington Recovery Center in Oconomowoc, WI

He will tell us a story and the message he has, and then I'll start the other part. Hi. Thanks, Charlie. Good morning. I'm glad you all could be here.

I've got some people who are curious as to what I have to say, not so much for the message as to whether they can actually follow what I'm saying. Because when I first came here and met these folks, that was quite a task. So I'm taping this for them. If you want to yell something, don't identify yourself so you can protect your anonymity. Good morning.

My name is Michael. I'm an alcoholic. I don't know. Charlie's anxious, mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed. I'm feeling anxious right now.

But I'm also very glad to be here. My therapeutic goal today was to share my story with you so that I can remember the places that I've been. My family goal is to do this well so it can reach everybody here. And so with that, my personal goal is to just try to stay out of the way. It's been 258 days since my last drink.

I'm grateful to have the chance to talk to you today. I've got a few things I do wanna say. And then as my sponsor advised me, I'd really like to help. So please, if there are questions you haven't thought of to ask yet or been willing to ask, please ask me, and I'll do the best I can to be honest and answer them. I came to the Harrington Recovery Center on October 31, 2004, Halloween, because I couldn't live the way that I'd been living.

Honestly. I didn't want to die. And like many of us on this part of the path, death was pretty close. That sounds kinda harsh in light of a nice Saturday morning, but that was the reality of what was going on. That's what it took for me to decide to go to any length to get better.

My disease and my dance with it, and I was a willing participant, had blinded me to the truth. I I mean, I was in the classic state of denial. The fact that I was human, that I was flawed, that I had this disease, that I didn't know how to do anything about it was unacceptable to me. And so my conscious mind blocked it. It's hard for me to see now except through the other people that I try to talk to and that I try to work with.

And I see them doing the same thing. I was sick with this disease. I was also very defiant. My life was filled with lies because I was afraid, because I was resentful. And at the bottom of it all was a lot of self pity.

Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why was I back in yet another treatment center? I was trapped. That's why.

Because I was quite literally beyond human help. Psychologists had tried. Doctors had tried. Family members had tried. Even therapy at a pretty reputable treatment institution tried, and it didn't work.

Because I didn't know what to do and I didn't know why to how to find the path that would lead me out of that quicksand that I was caught in. My background is quite normal. I'm the eldest of, what were 3 boys born to my parents. I lived in the suburbs of Milwaukee, went to schools. I mean, it was all very nice.

My parents' only sin was in loving me and in convincing me that you know, whatever I wanted to do, I could achieve. If I worked hard enough, if I did the right things, it would all it would all work out. As I said, I had 2 younger brothers, 3 years younger and 9 years younger. They were vibrant. They were very much alive.

They very much looked up to me. And I had all the advantages, all the schools, all the economics. We played tennis. We swam. There was nothing tragic about the way I grew up.

But I was never satisfied with that. I was never grateful for all that because there was always something missing. I never quite knew what it was, but something something was missing. Something there was some itch I couldn't scratch that kept me feeling uncomfortable. You know, the first time that went away was what I'll call my first real spiritual experience, an experience dramatic enough that it changed the way I looked at life.

I was 15 years old, nervous. We'd just moved to a new high school and there was a school of 450 kids as opposed to 30. And, you know, I wasn't I wasn't a jock. I wasn't a greeter. I wasn't in any of the cliques.

I didn't know what to do. But I was at this beer party. And they said, here. Have a couple of have a beer. And I had a beer, and people started talking to me.

And, you know, I got calmer. I started relaxing. There's some people nodding their head out there. It's happened to them too. Just start relaxing, and you start nodding.

And and that's what the society lets alcohol do. But it went way deeper than that for me because that was the only way that I turned off that drive. That's the only way to scratch that itch. It's the only way to stop. All of a sudden, for a little while, everything was okay.

So armed with that information and and actually supported by society. You know, drive down the road. Drink this. Buy this. Do this.

Bars, restaurants. That's, you know, it's what people do. That's the drug that society has said is okay. So I'm 50 and what do I know? It's got to be okay.

So I went off into life and I got out of high school okay, I went into the right college, went to graduate school, got good grades, got a good job, married the girl next door. Storybook tale. 23 years we've been married. We've known each other longer than we didn't. Two beautiful daughters, 14 and 11, young, smart, vibrant, full of life.

I mean, you know, dogs, horses, cats. Career. I was a corporate investment banker, you know, a guy with the suspenders and the planes and the big deals and all that jazz. I was in control of my life. I was doing all the right things except, you know, when it didn't go right, then I had to use the tool I had to escape because I never learned along the way how to cope with it or the other way than to go escape.

So I'd go crawl off onto this little island by myself with friends. It didn't matter. I could be in a crowd of people and be off by myself. It was always alcohol that brought me there. I mean, in college, you know, you try drugs in college.

At least that was the norm when I went. So I I don't differentiate between the drug I use that society allowed and the drugs that other people fall victim to. I think we're all heading for the same place. It's just a question of which which way we choose to get there. And some roads take you to where I got a little quicker than others.

Some of these chemicals will do that. But for me, it was always the same objective. You know? And my parents were very proud of me. I mean, on the outside, I looked good.

You know? The screen that I put up and then the life I projected was fine. When I came in here, the one most striking thing about the impact letters I received from my family and friends was that they didn't really know what I had been living with this whole time. It never showed. I never let them in deep enough.

I was always able to control it. And besides, you know, everybody will forgive it if you have too much to drink once in a while. And you hide the drugs and your friends hide them for you. And so that all gets protected across. My parents never knew any of that.

But it was the same thing. It all looked to you. It had cars, houses, horses, career, money, country clubs, all that jazz. I mean, it's a wonderful life. As I look at it now, I can't believe that it didn't satisfy, but it didn't.

Because like in The Wizard of Oz, you know, there was something really different going on behind the curtain. And, then that was my disease. I just needed escape. I drank daily. They asked me, do you drink every day?

I'm like, oh my god. Since high school. What are you talking about? Do you drink coffee every day, Charlie? I asked him.

He said, yeah. But we got different things going on with that. It's not having the same effect or I'd have to do something about it. A daily escape to stay in the world. That's what I had to have To keep my grip on the planet, to soothe.

I mean, all that stuff. And there really were no consequences. Nothing too severe. I didn't have even a DUI or the threat of 1 until 2003. So for 27 years, nothing.

Oh, you know, bad days at work. Fights, arguments. Well, dented the cars a few times. Embarrassed my family once or twice. Scared a mom who's a kid I was playing with at the airport in Minneapolis.

I was coming home. Delayed flight. You know, when you're in airports, you drink. And I drank and started playing with this kid and scared the kid's mom because I was kind of dancing around and I wasn't that stable. But I you know, that doesn't look from the inside like what it looked like from the outside.

And so I didn't see it because, again, this denial thing was really working. And it was well supported. I wrote down a Japanese saying that really describes the turning point for me which goes, you know, the man takes a drink, then the drink takes the drink, and then the drink takes the man. And that's what happened to me. Somewhere along the line, I I gave up trying to figure out exactly where, you know, it took over.

When this carefully constructed world that I'd used to say I'm okay cracked, I crated. Because I'd always pointed to the job and I'd always looked at the deals and the clients and my family and the money and all that stuff and said, I've gotta be okay because this is all here. Alcoholics don't don't look like this. Yeah. They do.

I did. I, I don't know what role my disease and my behavior played in this, but it had some role. I just haven't taken the time to identify it. I was released in a corporate downsizing, which I financed for many, many years, but now it's finally happened to us. And, in essence, told to leave a business that I'd built in over 15 years.

That was me. I didn't have any other life outside that. A little room left for family, you know, kind of carved that out. But that was, that was what I looked to as as proof that I was okay. And when that left, when I lost that, I had nothing else.

It's like one of these sinkholes that you read about in California. Something shifts, and all of a sudden, you got a hot crater that goes for miles down. And I fell into it. You know, I can skip the rest of this stuff. I mean, the war stories, the parties, the drinking, I mean, all those things that I heard never really did much for me.

They didn't keep me sober and they were pretty scary. They're not going to mean much to you. But I will talk to you about some of the events that led up to my decision to come and finally, honestly seek help. I had to give up I don't know if it was plan b. I think I was on plan z in terms of another career search.

This didn't work. That didn't work. The other didn't work. I mean, it was 2 years in, and I still couldn't find anything that I wanted to do or that somebody would let me do. And the fact that I was alcoholic and a little bit off, that people could sense that even if they couldn't put their finger on it, never occurred to me.

I just thought, you know, there was something wrong. So I I don't know what I was gonna do. And, I just took the summer off. I got about a week into that summer break because I'd been drinking pretty much that whole week. And, you know, it finally, as these things will do, boiled out into the open.

My wife found me passed out down the basement, Friday afternoon after I came home from downtown trying to get a job, working with the consultants. And the paramedics came. She couldn't arouse me. Have you been drinking, sir? Oh, no.

Not me. I don't drink. To speed up the story, I ended up surprising the doctors. We were having this conversation. He was trying to test lucidity and and, you know, where I was.

And I was doing pretty well with my name and my and Social Security number and things like that. And then the report came with the blood alcohol content. And he looked at me and says, well, congratulations. I was like, well, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. What for?

Says you actually have the 2nd highest blood alcohol content we've ever recorded here. You shouldn't even be talking to me. I was like, well, see, I can handle my liquor. I always could. I was the guy that was the the driver.

I was the one who took care of it. He says, but actually, in a way, you won. You know why? Because that is the highest blood alcohol content we've ever seen that lived. 1st guy didn't walk out of there.

And I did what anybody sensibly would do, confronted with the fact that, you know, what am I supposed to say? I don't drink, honey? That I'm okay? No. I said, I need help.

I don't know how to stop. And I didn't. And so off I went to another institution, internationally renowned. This was the place. Did the research, did the homework.

This is where we fix people. You'll recognize the name if I were to give it, but you know, 3 days of detox up to the plane. I got up there and they proceeded to educate me about alcohol. And the more I learned about it, the more I realized that I really need to be careful about my drinking. You know?

They talked about surrender and I said, yeah. I'll surrender. I, but, you know, I'm a banker. I'm I carefully negotiated the terms of my surrender. I had control over it.

I had my rules. And, and yet a week before I left or 10 days before I left, I knew I was gonna drink. I knew I was gonna drink at the airport before I got out of Minneapolis. And that calmed me. I was I was calm then.

My counselors chalked it up to finally surrendering to to getting in touch with my spirituality. And that's what they wanted. So, hey, here's the lip service. I'm an expert. Investment bankers are the only people I know that can lie to you, get caught, switch lies in midstream and still think they've got you with them.

And and most of the time they do. It's fascinating. So all that 28 days away from my folks, whatever amount of money, got me a coffee cup and 87 minutes of sobriety. Now if you subtract out the drive time to the airport, that's pretty expensive because it was at least an hour drive. And so we go back home.

I'm cured, honey. I'm back. Well, God sort of saw that and he turned the page. He said, Okay. Chapter 2.

And I got back and I went to the people. They recommend I go see the AA people that I work with today. I get a lot of teasing about showing up for that first meeting and trying to stumble through how it works. And feeding pretzels, you know, the kinds you get at the bar, the little ones that are wrapped in little cellophane deals to their dog? You don't get those anywhere else.

They don't sell those accepted restaurant supplies. So everybody knew I'd been at the bar on the way over, except me. Well, I knew I wasn't going to confess. Anyway, speed up that story. I went over 0.40 3 more times in the next week.

I went through 3 detoxes in 7 days. So I was literally coming out and back in in a 24 hour cycle. And real anger came out, because not only was I not supposed to drink anymore, not only had we gone through this whole thing about getting help, and for me to be gone 30 days from my family was incredible. That's never happened. I couldn't stop.

And I couldn't let anybody see that. I mean, my wife found the bottles. Down in the attic, there's this sump pump thing and it's got the ceiling. And I was just tossing by the end, that little half pint of plastic, just thrown them over the top. I'll clean them out later because I'd lost track of, you know, my my normal process, which is you gather them and you drop them off in various dumpsters.

So nobody knows you're drinking. Going out to a liquor store, this is for Tuesday, this is Wednesday. So Thursday and Friday, I'd mix up it so nobody would know. She found all those and scared the hell out of her. She looked up and saw a sea of them.

It was out in the open, and I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't stop. My brother came up from Houston to try to help my family deal with this, to try to take care of the kids while, you know, Susan tried to reach me somehow. And we ended up fighting and yelling. And I mean, it was just it was real anger and it was unbridled.

And it was the likes of which I'd never seen before. And hopefully, I'll never see again. Well, I'll read you a little bit later about what brought me to the decision, but I woke up on 17th October in the Good Shepherd Hospital, and it was like Groundhog Day. Didn't I just leave here? I had the day before.

And, I had no idea what had happened, literally. So it was the first decision there was to get help. My wife asked me to let her know what what I was planning on doing, what my plan was. Because if my plan was if my decision was to keep drinking, she had to make her plans. And she also was curious to know where I was going to stay because I wasn't coming home.

And that day I spent talking to people and and reaching out and and, you know, there wasn't anything anybody told me that gave me the impression there was anything else on the planet I should be doing with figuring out how to get better. We don't care what you do. Don't go home. Don't worry about your business. Don't worry about your job searching.

Don't worry about anything. Figure out how to get better and figure out where to go. Our horse trainer took me in. I cleaned stables and tack and took horses out for 2 weeks, went to meetings and white knuckled it through all that, because I was scared to death. I wouldn't have made it very far on that, but that's how I made it through the 1st 2 weeks.

That was my first set of decisions. And then I came up here and they explained to me how it works, really. I mean, I'd read it all that time but I never understood it. And they told me that, you know, you got to start with being honest. And one afternoon in desperation, I said, okay.

I'm wandering around out by the fire pit and and just kinda walking. I said, alright. I'll try it. And I went back that weekend to write up with my autobiography process. You know, did I even remember all the stuff I'd done and all the pain it had caused and all the hurt?

And the fact of the matter was I spent all weekend doing it. When I talked to my wife about it Sunday night, she said, You forgot this one. I think you misfiled that one. I couldn't do it. I had to have help to do that.

And that was how that came forward. And then from then on, it really was a process. A series of little decisions. You know, they teach they taught me in change management that if you just turn a little bit one at a time every day, eventually you'll move a great distance and and go off another direction. And that's what it took for me.

The willingness to start, to be honest, and then just like 1 degree a day. But turning the decision over was the big part. Finally, there came another reminder of what really happens on that. I was on my way to your group. Excuse me.

And I got a phone call from Houston. My brother, Mark, was in the hospital. His liver had failed. Over the course of the next 2 days, his liver shut down. His kidneys shut down.

His heart stopped. And he died as a direct result of untreated alcoholism. You know, you've all seen ER. And that was it. 3 years and 3 days my junior.

And he came up to help me. So he did. You know, at that point, you just you recognize that you can't do it. I recognized I needed help, and I couldn't find anywhere to turn but where Charlie and Wendy and Deb pointed me. And I turned that decision of whether or not I could drink or not over to God and said, you know what?

I hear you. I don't know what else you're gonna do, but hit me next and then it'll be too late. See, this point is clear. I was gonna quit drinking. The defiance was gonna be beaten out of me.

The question was whether I was gonna be alive at the end of it. And so I made the decision, and it stuck. I was back over a weekend and found a bottle of rumpliments hidden away in one of my little stashes that Susan had missed. And I sat there and I looked at it. Perfect situation.

Just enough to get a little high. Nobody was gonna know. We're off to a party. I wasn't going back to Hazel until the next day. There was no way anyone was gonna catch me.

And Wendy had talked to me about January 6th in the in the 24 hour book. This is the most important thing in my life is not drinking. I read that. I'm like, yeah. That doesn't get me there.

So I read January 7th and it and it asked me the question, did I turn this decision over or not? And I didn't wanna lose what I was enjoying, which was being on the path back to the world. So I took the bottle and I gave it to my wife and said, you need to dump this out. That was the last time I came close. That was the last time I came close.

The work, you know, honesty, accountability, letting go of that anchor that I was swimming with. I had all these things that I held on to, that I had to have, that I had to control. And until I let go of those, I couldn't swim. They were dragging me down. You know, you can always go back and pick that stuff up.

For those of you here doing some work, just let them go. Check them at the door. You can always go back and select them later. It worked for me. The process, you know, God put so many angels in my path.

I can't even count them. These people here, I trusted them with my life. They delivered for me and my family, my sponsors. You know, they know the way. They know the path.

They've been there. I didn't. I already admitted that and I turned that over and step by step. You know, I look back now and I'm out of the quicksand. The quicksand is back there and I'm not going back to it because I don't have to.

The spiritual steps they work you through, the 12 steps, you know, will lead well, they led me to God. And I found them in spite of myself. Step 1, honesty. Step 2, hope. 3rd step is faith.

4th is courage. Boy, that took courage to write down and really look at what I was doing and why I was doing it. 5th step, integrity. Taking that out, letting somebody see it. Willingness to change, humility in the face of what I needed to change, brotherly love, fixing my relations with the world, with the people I'd harmed, Justice, making amends.

Perseverance. I mean, you gotta keep going. I have to. Connecting spiritually and and doing what I am lucky to do today, which is give back a little bit and do some service. I mean, those 12 steps.

That's it. That's the program. That's the blueprint. When all else fails, read the directions. And when I started reading the directions honestly and following it, it got better.

You know, you take the drugs and alcohol out of somebody and you put God in his place, you can achieve some pretty interesting turnarounds. It doesn't have to be that bad but you know, this is the real deal. This disease is the real deal and people die from this. You know, there's only 3 outcomes. You're gonna get locked up.

You're gonna get covered up or you're gonna get sobered up. And, you know, my experience is that that's true. My dad's mom died of alcoholism in 1990. She stepped off the balcony. My brother, Jimmy, died of alcoholism my cousin, Jimmy, excuse me.

Just just he'd been through, listen to, like, 13 treatment centers and never got it. And he always said, I can handle this. You go over to the the lake club, Kahnawake Lake Club. You'll see his name on the door next to the library on a plaque. That's what his his father put there in his memory.

No accidents here. The day after I tried to be honest and start actually working on it was the first day I went in there and I saw that. I saw where my cousin had been and what had happened to him and the choice that I was presented. Little signs along the way. My brother Kenneth died.

I told you about my brother Mark. I mean, it's no joke. It's no joke and it hurts. And it hurts the family most because at the end of the day, you know, it's my brother's wife that still is in pain on that. He's gone.

She's living on with that and and looking back to see what she did, what she could have done, what she didn't do, what what did she fail? What was that all about? I've got a letter that was written to me by my daughter when I was here. And this sort of sums up what happened to my family. Debbie Adamas asked me to write you a letter regarding my relationship with you.

She's 14. As much as I do not want to do this, I'm going to since it's supposed to help you get better. When you made the selfish decision to keep drinking or even to start drinking, you thought it was only hurting you. But it wasn't. It was hurting everyone.

Not just Mom, Lee, and I, but also Mom's side of the family. I'm not too sure about your side. No. Neither am I. But I do know that uncle Mark and aunt Diana wants you to get better.

And there are also our friends. The scientists have been with us every step of the way. My friends in general have been unbelievably helpful and supportive. One of the things mom suggested I read about is things I remember about your drinking, what you did while you were drinking. I didn't realize that you were drinking until that Thursday night when you passed out downstairs and I spent the weekend with assignments.

I thought you'd be okay after you went to treatment. A lot of people did. But not even a week after you got back, you started drinking again. A week. You've been away from your family for a month promising them to get better and couldn't go a week without drinking.

We spent a lot of time talking about that since. I don't know what else to do. Speed up the story. I'll skip down some of it. We got in the car and we went off to go pick up some air and pick up some things.

I needed to buy some a couple of things, a hardware store, things I'd broken that week and wanted to fix. That was what I told everybody. The reality was I was out of booze. And then my wife wouldn't trust me with the keys unless because she thought I was going to go out and drink and then try to drive back. So, you know, she took she had to take Erin with me.

Okay? On the way there, we stopped at the gas station. You wouldn't let me go in with you. I insisted, but you wouldn't let me go in. I trusted you.

I trusted you not to buy something to drink. You were fine in Home Depot, but then we got in the car. You were driving back home. You locked your hours in the wheel and were swerving side to side. You were also muttering stuff I couldn't understand.

You didn't know where you were going. You wanted to keep going. We went to the bank. I was able to help you turn into it but not successfully. We're in the ditch by the side of the road.

I told you just to stay there and I'd call Uncle Mark to come and get us, but you floored it across the highway. If that car hadn't slowed down, it would have rammed right into my side of the car. I could have died because of your selfish mistakes. I drove the car back from Carlson's old house, which is like a quarter of a mile because you had passed out completely. When I got home, I ran and got well, I shouldn't finish that sentence.

I hope you know that I plan never to get into a car while you're driving again. Ever. I don't care if you've been sober for 20 years. I'm not doing that again. It's funny.

When I was at the Simons for the first time, Heidi told me that I shouldn't get into a car with you until you've been sober for a while. It's gonna take a long time for me to forgive you for that. You know that I love you very much and I want you to get better. But I'm so mad at you for screwing up our family. I am unable to sleep since the car had incented, at least not as well as I'd like to.

For a few weeks after that, every time I closed my eyes, I saw you with your arms locked at the steering wheel. My sister isn't quite sure what's going on. I think she's really frustrated. Mom is mom. She's been amazing and helpful and supportive even after you screwed up again.

Yeah. I mean, if you know, and I was fine. That's my experience. My strength now is is that I was able to change with God's help and to help with the people that kept me accountable to staying on that path of things I live with. I don't live with lies anymore.

I live with the truth as much as I can. I don't live with fear anymore. I live with faith as much as I can every day. Instead of resentment, I work for acceptance. And instead of self pity, I'm grateful for what I have.

You know, what you feed grows. And I was feeding all the wrong stuff. This was what I saw earlier. This feeling, this ease and contentment that the drink gave me that time at the beer party in high school, it didn't last. This is lasting.

This is what I was looking for. You know, God didn't make this world wrong. He didn't make it so I couldn't survive in here. It works. I was the one making the bad choices.

I chose attitudes. I chose actions that just it's just wrong. You know? And I'll kind of forgive myself for doing that. I'll forgive myself more for when I didn't know, but it's hard to forgive myself for after that information was given to me and I chose not to act on it.

That was a choice because I knew there was a different way. That's not ignorance anymore. That wasn't a default option anymore. That was a decision. And I needed to make the right one.

On 10/17, I started to choose differently. I chose hope and to move that one degree every day and it got better. My hope is that those of you who are still suffering from this, who haven't made a decision, take a good look at that because it's important. Because only you can make it. Nobody else can.

Charlie can't help you do it. Your parents can't help you do it. Your wife can't help you do it. Your kids can't help you do it. Nobody can help you do it.

You have to do it. That's the deal. The addiction is between the addict and God. You have to figure out how to live here. The family members, I hope you realize that and face it honestly because that's the hardest piece of this whole deal.

It's maddening. We're working with some people now, and I'm watching myself go through what I did. And I'm on the other side trying to help. And what his family's going through is terrible because they're still struggling to try to realize that he's going to do what he's going to do and that they need to, you know, be supportive, love him, but they have their lives they have to live. And that's tough stuff.

But it goes back to the stuff in the back of the blue book. I mean, you know, A, we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power, that's all of us, could relieve our alcoholism and that God could and would if he were sought. You know, for me, it's been kind of like the prodigal son parable. I mean, I came back and when I woke up, everything was still there.

My family was still there. We'll find a new career. You know, that's not always the case and I consider myself to be very lucky and I wish everybody that same luck. I've got 2 things I'd like to share with you and then I'll ask you for some questions. This was the best description I ever heard of what my decision was like.

When we walk to the edge of all of the light that we have and take that final step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe one of 2 things. Either there will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly. Well, I'm here to tell you, believe both of them because this place is something solid to stand on. You can regroup here. You can make mistakes.

You can figure it out. You can do the work here, and you'll learn to fly. I've got one more little recent note my daughter wrote I wanted to share. And this kind of goes to the promises. This is this, so to set the scene, it's Friday, June 3rd.

It's 10:20 in the morning. I'm in the middle school gymnasium. It's 8th grade recognition ceremonies. There's a class of about, I don't know, it was about 150. There's probably about 700 people in the in the in the gym all stacked up.

I'm I'm up on the bleachers and I've sat on some gum. I mean, those pants are ruined. I'm just stuck. I couldn't get up. It's hilarious.

You know, and I'm fussing with that. And I'm trying to, like, you know, just it doesn't matter. Just, you know, let it go as opposed to, you know, that could have triggered an explosion in the old days. Anyways, through the course of the program, the principal is kind of trying to put some life into the program. He's reading little notes from the 8th grade class that they wrote over the last week to like their teachers or the janitors or their friends.

And, you know, it's kind of neat. And I'm I'm kinda listening and and this comes over the loud speaker. Dad, I'm glad you're here today. Excuse me. I believe in you.

I trust you. Love, Aaron. I mean, that's all the emotions in the world in about 16 words. Thanks for letting me share.