Nipawin Roundup in Nipawin, SK, Canada

No. It's not tight. Oh. Iraq? Well, yeah.

That's all with the house. Sure. Sounds good. Yeah. You're welcome.

Okay. I'm not sure I wanna hang on to this. Nope. No. Anyway, welcome.

My name is Pat and I'm an alcoholic. I didn't prepare for this, speech or this talk and I said some prayers and that's all I do with anything I do in 12 separate coveries. I say a prayer. I don't, I don't say rosaries and I don't go to church 50 times. I say a prayer and and it usually happens pretty good.

I, I'm also an adult child of an alcoholic. And, I've I've felt inadequate all my life. And I I really, that was apparent tonight, listening to Richard. He he had an excellent talk. He's, he's worked on his stuff.

He knows his program. You know, so all the time I listen to him, I'm just thinking, holy shit, I feel inadequate, you know. Yeah. I'm totally inadequate. And, I know I'm at AA meetings and I listen to so many people talk.

I think, God, I wish I could talk like them. And, and the present sponsor I've had now for 7 years, I just give anything to be able to talk like him. And but I can't. I can just talk like me. So, so, here we go.

My my daddy died an alcoholic. And, and he never ever admitted he was an alcoholic. And, and, you know, there's been talk today about, grandpa and uncles and like they they say you shake a family tree and at least 1 drunk will fall out of it. And you can shake our family tree on either side and and there won't be any drunk there won't be any sober people fall out. You know?

And if they were sober they were really sick spouses. You know? Like we've heard about that and the adult children and Al Anon's. They all had this disease. And you know I have all the effects also.

I'm an adult child. I'm a supposed alcoholic. I'm a child of an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. What else is there?

Yeah. Down in California, they got alitot For for the little toddlers, they got alitot. I could have gone to alitot. You know? What else is there, you know?

But, anyway, all I did was, I experienced my first high on alcohol when I was 4 years old and I can remember that day as clearly as I got out of bed this morning. I got high on alcohol and, mom and dad were there and the family and grandpa. And they thought I was just the funniest guy in the room. And, I I was stepping up into this trailer and I went right back flat on my back and everybody just came to the door and said what's the matter with that? You know?

Well, I was drunk. And then they thought that was all funny and I got into the living room and they were just laughing at me like crazy and I was just really enjoying us getting all this attention. So I remembered that. And, and every time I drank after that, and it was often. You know, a little boy.

Like by the time I was 6, me and my older brother were making wine together. You know, we'd still screwed off my Why are you laughing? You're recognizing this, aren't you? Anyway, we'd steal a jar of, you know, canned berries. And about a week or 2 later we'd steal another jar.

And eventually we'd get 4 jars, that makes a gallon. Get some yeast. Cook off a gallon of wine. Yeah. That's when I was 6 and he was 11.

And we were constantly stealing booze from dad and you know, getting drunk every chance we could. And every family dude was a bash. So they stole booze and you know. Anyway, had all these adult child issues and you know, child and alcoholic issues and just the insanity in that home was just like it was just like it was a 24 hour a day 7 days a week insanity. They talked about that spouse.

I can remember when I was like 4 or 5 years old. I'd See, mom I'd think mom keep your goddamn mouth shut. I'd think that, you know. Dad would be out drunk and and come home and he wanted to pass out. And she wouldn't stop nattering at him.

Until he blew. And then once he blew, we lived in hell for the next 15 hours. You know and I'd think why did she keep her mouth shut? But she had the she actually I asked her a couple years ago. Why did you do that?

Well I don't know. She said that's what my mom did. That's what her mom did. Yeah. So so where else do we learn?

Yeah. And it is. It's just a bloody big joke if you live through it. Lots of people don't. Lots of people don't.

Anyway, anyway, growing up in that home, I, I, I didn't trust anybody. I didn't trust anybody. One time I expressed some anger at my father and and he gave me a left hand across the face. He said if you ever talk to me like that again, I'll knock you. He used a bunch of foreign language in there and he said, Head off!

You're gonna knock my effing head off! Holy man! Oh, he knocked my head off, I can be dead. No. So I knocked I walked around on 8 shells for the next 13 years not not to piss this guy off.

He's gonna knock my head off. You know, so you walk around on eggshells trying to not scare you or get this guy mad. And know, watch watch that mom doing all this crazy stuff. I've been trying to remember the last couple of weeks when I quit trusting my mom, but it was very young. I didn't trust her either.

I didn't trust the craziness that mom and dad were doing wasn't getting dealt with. So the kids were doing it, you know, and I didn't trust my only sister and I didn't trust most of my brothers. There was only one brother I I grew some trust in. And he abused me severely. You know, but it was like it was like it was like the only person in that crazy home to hang on to was that one brother.

And, yeah. He abused me in many ways. I didn't find that out till years later. And, one way he got me smoking cigarettes when I was 6 years old. And now I'm 50 and I'm still smoking.

You know, and I've quit 25 times since I've quit about 20 times in the last 25 years, but I'm still smoking today. You know, in about a couple weeks after him and his friend got me smoking at age 6, the older boy was like about 13 or 14. He took me out in the bush and sexually abused me. Now that laid the blueprint for my sexuality for the rest of my life basically. Yeah.

And, yeah. It's just on and on. Crazy shit. Crazy people, you know, doing crazy things to little kids and just crazy results. The crazy results were, when I was 10, I heard I heard quite a few people talk about age 10.

A lot of stuff happens, little boys or girls at age 10. And at age 10, this this only brother in that family of 8 people, that only brother that I I felt like I could trust and I could hang on to and be with. He told me to get lost one day. Just get lost like piss off your little one. He was going with older boys by that time.

He was 15. I was 10. He was going with 18 year old boys and they were gonna go on the convertible and chase girls and they didn't want me along. I was just a little runt. And oh man, I went into a really negative spot.

And I didn't know, I didn't find out until I was like 45 years old but I wanted to die that day. I really wanted to die. And instead of dying, the disease of alcoholism took full control of me. I was living to drink after that. And, my life got really crazy.

And, I was living to drink, 10 years old. A lot of people, I've run into lots of AA members that didn't get high on alcohol till they were 18. Well, I got high when I was 4 and alcoholism took full control of me when I was 10. I was living to drink after I was 10. So, so my drinking thing got really crazy.

Lots of shit happened. I I was convinced I was convinced I was going to be dead before I was 20. I told myself I'm going to be dead before I'm 20. And I went from from a 94 average in school and, in the summer of, 1960 I think it was, I told myself I was gonna be dead before I was 20. And that next year I didn't pass an exam.

And and I I just failed and failed and failed after that because I I didn't think I was gonna be I wasn't gonna gonna live. I was gonna be dead before I was 20 so why why apply myself to anything, right? And, yeah living to drink. By the time I was 13 I was bombed drunk at least twice a week. By the time I was 15 I was 15 I was bombed drunk 3 or 4 times a week.

When I joined the workforce I was bombed drunk 7 days a week. I lived to drink and I was gonna do her good because I only had a few years left to live. I'm gonna party. I'm gonna rip her up because I'm not gonna be here long. Here it is now 60 years later and I'm still here.

Not quite. Anyway, it's been hard to create a life and a future and a package and all that stuff. Because I thought I was dying all the time. So nothing ever got accumulated. Anyway, yeah.

I had a very very crazy life. And you know when you start smoking when you are this big like they don't come to you every week with your allowance and say here's tobacco they say now here's your allowance. Well, that's not enough to buy tobacco so you learn to steal. And so I I learned to be a thief. And, as as the as the addiction to smoke grew and the addiction to drink more booze grew, I learned to become a better thief.

Yeah. And, so by the time I got to be 17 and I had to be drunk everyday to cope with this crazy life I was living. And smoke 2 or 3 packs of cigarettes. I had to steal lots. I had to work lots.

I found out you could work and get paid money and you could buy all that stuff. So I by the time I joined the work force, I got into a trade, but I still couldn't make enough money to drink the way I needed to drink. So I got a part time job and worked 12, 14, 16, sometimes 18 hours a day. So I could afford to drink the way I wanted to drink or needed to drink. And confirmed that I still didn't have enough.

Didn't have enough money so I you know I stole from my my nieces piggy bank. I stole from my brother in law's business. You know, it's just like nothing meant nothing. I had a drink. You know.

God, it makes me sick years later to look at all this. But that's what I had to do. I guess very self centered. I didn't think about nobody other than me. And avoid everything I guess.

Anyway, that age 20 kinda came along and holy shit. I wasn't dead yet. I thought I was going to live a little longer. But not much longer. Because the pain was welling up in me.

I carried that pain around all the time and and, my life was totally insane. I was I was definitely afraid to go to a doctor. I didn't go to a doctor till I was 32 years old And I went through lots of disease and didn't deal with it. And, anyway, I can remember one morning I woke up I woke up in a puddle of puke. I think I heard some puddles of puke talk around here today, but I woke up in a puddle of puke on my kitchen floor.

At age 19. And I I can't take anymore of this. And, I was living in Edmonton, and, I looked up in the Edmonton phone book for for a clinic. See if I could go to a clinic and talk to a doctor, you know, get some help of some kind. Because this is why I got drunk every day.

I was sickly. And, so I found the clinic, and it looked like it was near where I lived, so I jumped in the car and went over there, and the damn door was locked. They were closed on Saturdays. So 13 years later, I went to another clinic. Yeah.

It is just a big joke, really. That's what it all is. You know that I'm standing here still alive, saying sober and straight. It is, it's a miracle and it's a joke and, whatever. But I'll tell you there's lots of places in that time where I could have killed myself or somebody else or you know lots of low low places.

Anyway yeah I got into drugs when I was 19 and then I was drunk and for the alcoholic you can get pretty messed up on booze but add a little drug to it I'll tell you it's like 10 times crazier. And, I run into lots of people that lots of guys my age that turned on to that same drug scene but then they found that if they mixed the 2 everything got too crazy so they quit 1 and most of them quit alcohol because they they enjoyed the experience of the drug or the pot or whatever. But not me. I did it all. I did it all and overdid it all and, everything just got magnified and, and, etcetera etcetera.

Anyway, you know, I'm, I'm positive I'm dying. I'm in big business. I'm signing on the dotted line. You know, I signed my name on lots of dotted lines. Always thinking well I'm dying anyway.

You know, it don't matter. Yeah. Yeah. 100 of 1,000 of dollars signed here. Somebody will benefit by it.

And man I got into lots of jackpots. And you know I didn't have a clue about nothing in life. I was just like brother was going that way so I would go that way or somebody was doing this so I'd do that. You know, it's just like I didn't have a brain of my own. I just I was a follower I guess.

And I I walked into lots of traps. And you know, I got set up for lots of things that I've paid for for many years. And but anyway, through all that pain and anguish and suffering, it brought out this guy. This is what I ended up and I'm I'm pretty happy with who I am today. And I had lots of lots of fun along the way.

Met this beautiful young man. Met my beautiful spot, sir. Got to know my mother all over again in a different way. It's just been good. I'm really glad I didn't write anything down.

I'm relying on God. Where are you now? Oh there it is. Yeah. Where is he here?

Oh. I owe everybody in here an amen. I realize that. That wasn't Santa Claus I saw out there. I'm Santa Claus.

Yeah. I like you. Close. What's up? What did they say?

That's a good one. Yeah. I always wanted to be a Santa Claus and now I've been one for this will be my 19th year. And I could never find a suit. They were all way too big and way too short.

So so when was I about like I don't know I was about 12 years sober and my mum who's been seamstress all her life said that if I got the material and cut out the pieces she'd sew them together. So I got the material and it cost me like a $130 and I got it on sale. So it cost lots to go and make a Santa suit. And I cut for 20 hours and she sews for about 25 hours. Now I got a Santa suit with this beautiful golden body.

Fits it perfectly. I'm a skinny Santa. All the rest of the time I'm Fat Pat. My kids they call me Fat Pat. But, when I get my Santa suit on everybody says, Oh, you're pretty skinny to be a Santa.

Oh, yeah. Life is a joy. Did they, tell you about quitting banking yet? Anyway, it got really crazy. My life got really crazy because I was sure I was dying all the time.

So I never dealt with nothing. I just, you know, signed in the dotted line and stayed drunk and stoned. And, and life just got crazier and crazier. And at age 25, I didn't die. So I gave myself 3 years.

By this time by this time the pain is getting pretty heavy and pretty serious in my body. So I gave myself another 2 years. I'll live till I'm 28. And, my life is really nuts at this point. And, and then, when I was 27 years old, I I dated lots of women.

I, but when I was when I was 27 I met this woman and she was with 4 other women And I was attracted to the other 3 but not her. And when I and it was her sister that introduced me to all 4 of these women. And yeah, I like that one. And I like that one. And I like that one.

And she said, and this is my sister. She might not even look at you. She hates men. And, anyway he said, that's my sister Janet. She looked at me.

I just thought, okay. No. I want I don't want nothing to do with her. Anyway, guess where we were a few hours later? We were in love.

Is that what adult children do? Yeah. Okay. Okay. This wasn't my alcoholism.

This is my adult children issues. Anyway, yes, I gobbled on to a I gobbled on to a sick woman and we created lots of sickness I'll tell you. But anyway you know, I didn't realize it at the time when I met that woman for the first time in my life I had a desire to live. Yeah. So I know to this day that God put her there.

Because, if I wouldn't have met her, I would have been dead a long time ago. So, for the first time in my life I had a desire to live. And a couple months after I started dating her, I met her father. And, and after meeting him, I thought if I was ever to grow old, God, I'd like to be like him. Just he was just a beautiful man.

And, yeah. So, so I'm still that guy that can't make a decision and don't know what to do. So I just whatever somebody says okay I'll do that you know but anyway, I dated this girl for like 7 or 8 months and one day I was in with my jewelers getting all my diamonds washed and shined up and my chains and all that. And he says to me, you're still dating that whatever her last name was. I don't want break her out of liberty here.

Anyway, you're still dating that girl this again. Yeah. You know what he said, you should ask her to marry you. She'd be a good woman for you. He says, I live right across the street from her parents.

They're good people. I said, yeah, I met the old guys. He was a really nice guy. Oh yeah, they're good and they're they don't drink and they're you know, loose ends and they go to church. Anyway, I walked out of his jewelry store with all these clean diamonds and chains and I had another one in a box.

$20 down and a $750 engagement ring. Room. So I went home and smoked a joint. And I'm sitting there looking at this 7 $50 dime and holy shit, I could see my whole yard in the top. Anyway, I thought, hey, I only got another year to live.

I'm gonna ask this girl to marry me. Set her up. Because prior to that I had my father as my beneficiary. I hated my father's guts all my life. I hated him with a passion.

Like I couldn't stand to touch the guy, I hated him so much. But anyway, I had him as my beneficiary. So I thought, hey, I'm gonna ask her to marry me. When I die, I'll set her up. At that point, the government and FarmStart and a whole bunch of other lending agencies had me believing that I was worth like about $350,000 In reality it was only about 110, but They had me all pumped up, financed up.

Anyway, yeah. So, wow. That's a plan. That's a good plan Is that a good adult child plan? There we go.

Anyway, so I went and asked that girl to marry me. She consented immediately. She thought I was a really neat guy. I had a beard down to here and hair down to there. I was, you know drank once in a while.

Anyway, she consented and she said I'll plan it all. You just show up that day and that's all that matters. So, that was in February. We were to get married in October. And in July, 2 months before that wedding, God came to me in a dream.

I had a dream. I had a dream that I died on the altar. So I woke up the next morning and I went, oh, I actually dreamt that I died on the altar where we were when we were getting married. So I went back to my girlfriend. I said, hey.

We gotta call this off. Like, like I couldn't tell her why. Like nobody I was 28 years old and nobody in the world knew that I was dying except me. And I wasn't gonna tell nobody either. But anyway, I had to call that wedding off because I had this dream and I couldn't tell anybody I had this dream.

But anyway, she, she was, an adult child of what did you say there? Anyway, she said, well, come on. It's all a plan. There's people coming from all over the states and Canada for this wedding, like, and they're planning their holidays around and everything. So, she said, let's get married.

And if it don't work out, we'll get divorced in 6 months. Oh okay. Okay. Love it. Yeah.

God this guy keeps nodding me. Anyway, anyway, so we went through this marriage and, the guy that we went to see, will you marry us? And he said no. Well, why? You know, well, he says I know you and I know her.

I know your family. I know her family. It can't work. It can't work. And he had been the pastor in my community where my alcoholic family lived for 15 years and he baptized my my wife when she was born.

So he knew their family and knew our family. He said it can't work. Anyway, we told him if he didn't marry us, we'll go elsewhere. No. No.

Okay. I'll marry you. But he said it can't work. So, I think we set out to prove to him that it could work. So we we stayed together for like 11 years.

And it could end the day it began. It could end the day before it began. I'm glad it lasted as long as it did though. As crazy as it all was, we did have lots of joy and lots of fun and lots of pain and sorrow it ended up. And, we brought a couple of beautiful boys into the world.

Both of them in my sobriety. And, there we go jumping around a little bit but, you know after I met and married this woman in 3 years I went on this one drunk and, this drunk, this drunk amounted to a, a Texas Mickey. I think pretty well all of the alcoholics know what a Texas Mickey is. And I drank one of those the last night that I drank. I drank equivalent to a Texas Mickey.

I had a major capacity for lots of alcohol. And my brothers did. And I'm sure there are some alcoholics in the room that have that same capacity. There's one guy right there. Yeah.

My brother used to drink a half of 40. Put her down and a few minutes later he'd drink the other half. And I I could never do that. I had to put a couple ounces of Pepsi in it to just get it a little bit of sweetness, you know, and then I'd do it, you know. Yeah.

10, 12 ounces an hour in a bar. 12, 10, 12 hours. It's a 100 and some ounces, you know. Anyway, that last night I drank over a 130 ounces of hard liquor. The last place I was, the guy was apologizing.

You didn't have any more liquor. Feed me. But he had some Colombian. That's high grade marijuana. So we smoked that and, it was about 10 after 6 in the morning, September 17, 1981.

And, I had all I could take. I didn't want any more. And I went out side. That's how my heart was going. Can you hear that?

That's how my heart was going. And I went outside and I got this thought light. My God damn heart is going to jump out of my chest. And I put my arms like this. I closed my eyes.

It was a beautiful autumn day. September 17th day. Beautiful day. And I closed my house and I started crying I said, Don, I can't take any more of this Like I lived in that goddamn pain since I was a kid Drinking that shit until I ate and drank it until I puked and drank it until I hit the ditch. You know?

Just nothing but insanity. So, I can't take any more of this and man. Okay. I didn't have to say the rosary. I didn't have to go to church for a whole bunch of times.

I just said, god I can't take any more of this. And, couple of hours later I was in the psych ward. And that sounds like a frightening thing but it wasn't. It was the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. And, I ended up with a student psychiatrist and what would a student know?

Well, she knew how to sit in front of me and encouraged me to talk about how I felt. And how did I feel when I was this big? And I cried and I talked and the more I talked the more I cried and she just oh I know God put her there for me that day because I talked and tried for 2 and a half hours. And when I was done talking and trying, she stood up and she said well Pat, I'm gonna go to my office and I'm gonna assess what you told me and I'll I'll come back. And and she closed the door and I sat there.

You know, 2 and a half hours earlier I felt like I was going insane. And I felt like I was going insane for many years before that. I felt like I was dying. And after talking to her, I felt like totally reborn. I'm reborn.

I felt as good then as I feel right now. I was reborn. Holy God. Yeah. Holy God.

And, so she gave me a card to Larson House and she said you go there. No. She told me that she came back. She said she came to the conclusion that I was a chronic alcoholic and a drug addict. She gave me this card to to Larson House and said you go there and you do what they tell you.

You'll detox for probably 6 or 7 days. And then you'll go to a place called Calder. And that's 3 weeks stay. You do what they tell you. Then you go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

She said in a year or 2 from now you'll never have to drink alcohol again as long as you live. I thought, okay. I'll do whatever they say. I'll do whatever they say. Because I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I lived in a puddle of puke all my life. And you know, grew up in it and lived in it and wanted nothing more to do with any of it. So I went to Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't do everything they said. I fought it all. Yeah, I didn't, I hated the guy that was chairing my 1st 8 meeting.

I hated it. And after a short while I hated pretty well everybody in the room. I'm a hater. I'm a hater. But I stayed sober.

I stayed sober and in some ways it got better and in lots of ways it didn't. Not many people changed in my world. I quit drinking. I started working those steps. I did everything I could to change me.

But nobody around me did anything to change. The woman I was married to, I phoned her from detox. I said I'm in a detox center. What? What?

She argued with me for half an hour on a collect call. What? She couldn't believe I was in an alcoholism treatment center. Yeah. And you know what?

Now it's 25 years later and she still can't believe that I was in an alcoholism treatment center. Wow. Figure that one out. Yeah what a fabulous disease this is. I'm telling you.

Anyway, so I went to AA and didn't do anything they told me to do. Made up all my own rules. And I really liked what, Richard said about God. I I wasn't an atheist, but I didn't like anybody else's God. I just wanted nothing to do with anybody else's God.

And, in Alcoholics Anonymous, it took me 20 years to find God as I understand God. And it was the same God I had when I was this big. Same God. And I still don't know where he is. And I don't care.

I know he's always there. Because I've been going over cliffs. I've been going over this way and that way. And tens of thousands of times I've reached out for him and he's there just like that. You don't have to go to church.

You don't have to pray. You don't have to say rosaries. Just reach out and he's right there. How am I doing God? Oh God.

Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so, I found some sobriety. Just loved I loved, I loved sobriety. I loved, I loved AA pretty much. I had lots of problems with lots of people in AA but I went there and had lots of fun with lots of people and, and the woman I was married to wanted nothing to do with it.

Not a thing to do with it. She wanted nothing to do with the AA. She didn't want to have anything to do with my friends. She definitely wanted nothing to do with Algonquin. She wanted nothing to do with round ups.

So I would go off on my own and when I was about 3 and a half years sober I went to an AA round up in Kindersley. And I met an Al Anon girl dance. I had a dance with an Al Anon girl. And, she was married to a guy that was drunk at home that night. And I was married to a woman that was didn't wanna be there and she was at home.

So me and this little honey had a dance. Jesus Christ. It felt good. So good that it's amazing. I went home that night.

You know? But I loved my wife. I wanted it. I wanted my marriage to work so badly. I had 2 little boys.

2 little boys I just loved. I just wanted them to grow up in a sober home. You know? And, And my wife wanted nothing to do with it. So, so I lived in, that was a pretty crazy crazy place too.

You know, I was sober. She wanted nothing to do with AA Almond. Anything to do with any, anything. I'm trying to rear the boys in that. And and that went on for 8 years.

8 years and I tried to change her. You know? And there was lots of change and it was all in me and I ended up in the psych ward shortly after the marriage ended. Yeah. I had a nervous breakdown.

And, to this day she hasn't changed. Not a morsel. So, it's amazing. But anyway, the marriage did end. And, and that was like, I don't know.

What was that? That was 17 years ago. And I've never really been to the woman since. And, not that I went the other way. I was I found out 10 years later I was still in love with my wife 10 years after she was married to another man.

I was still in love with her. Yeah, I wanted that to work so badly. And my boys, you know, my boys grew up. Their stepfathers are drunk. You know and after 10 years I could finally see my wife was an alcoholic.

I know I hadn't broke her anonymity so nobody knows who I'm talking about here. But she was an alcoholic. Yeah. Oh. Not like I was but like she is.

So my sons grew up in that swill pale. My sons that were conceived in my sobriety grew up with 2 alcoholic parents. And now the one is stoned 24 hours a day and the other one is stoned half the time. But the guy that conceived them is still sober. So, and they're attracted to me and yet they're shy at times.

But we get together and do our dad and son things every once in a while in Saskatoon. Who knows what'll happen, but I I really learned lots about, you know, letting go, accepting, love them as they are. Yeah. What a thing to learn. What a thing to learn.

I learned to love my father. But it took me till I was 35 years old and he was 2 months before he died. He had a pretty major stroke and, I was told don't bother coming because he's gonna be dead in a few hours and I was 18 hours away and I said I don't give a shit if he's dead or not. I'm going to make my final amends to this guy even if I make it to his corpse or anything I'm going to get to his bed and make my final amends to him. And I got there and he was still alive.

And my mom said, oh you shouldn't have bothered coming. He's brain dead. And my brother said the same thing, there were 3 of my brothers and they said, he's brain dead, he won't understand the word you said. Well I sat down and I hung on to the side that wasn't paralyzed. And he understood every word I said.

I could feel the energy, I could feel the the emotion, everything. Every word I said he understood. And when I walked away from there I thought, no he can die or I can die and we're free. And 2 months later I was visiting with my family and we had already left and I know that God spoke to me and he said go back and give your dad a kiss. So I bent over it.

I gave my dad a kiss on the cheek and I told him I loved him. Holy shit. He came off the bed and I came off the bed. Crap. It was a spiritual experience.

It was. That's where God was. God was there. Yeah. I didn't realize it at the time but I forgave my father that day.

I forgave my father. Yeah. And also I realized how sick a man I was. My dad wasn't my dad didn't have a bad bone in his body. He was just a really sick man.

And he suffered from alcoholism and depression. He was treated like a piece of snot. I met lots of people after my dad died that knew his dad, my grandfather. My dad was treated like a little runt. He was grandpa's little runt.

And that's what grandpa would introduce him. He said this is burning my little runt. My dad was lame. He walked all his life like this. He was lame.

And so he was introduced as his dad's little runt. So yeah, he had a few complexes all right. But anyway, anyway as we trudged our road to Happy Destiny we kept plowing along in that thing called Alcoholics Anonymous and, I don't know. I think I ruffled lots of feathers in that program. Are we still at A8 now?

Okay. Talking about so many recovery groups here tonight, I didn't try. How's my sponsor doing down there? Oh yeah. Right on.

God I love my sponsor sometimes. Yeah. I tried laying him off a few months ago and, I had to come crawling back. I had to come crawling back a couple months later and there's nobody on this planet that understands me like he. So he's the essential ingredient to my well-being today.

Anyway, I don't know how long I'm supposed to talk or but I am coming close to my end. I, I'm a severe adult child, an alcoholic co dependent. I want to please everybody to hell with me, you know. I managed to stay sober one day at a time. September 17, 2006, I celebrated 25 years of sobriety.

For about for about 6 months before that, I was gonna put on a big party. I'm a good cook and so I I put a deposit on a deep fryer. I was gonna I was gonna get some good northern fish and I was going to make like deep fried fish and chips. And I was going to make like all kinds of homemade cream pies and get some cream from the hutterites. And I had a whole week's holiday around this 25 year sobriety.

And I was going to invite like about a 125 AA friends and, have this big party. Big celebration. And as the day grew near I thought Holy Christ! You know like I could see like 4 days 4 or 5 days of work preparing for this. And then I'll invite a 125 alcoholics and 60 of them or 16 might show up.

You know, it's happened before. And I thought, you know they're only going to be left with a 150 pounds of fish. No. No. I decided I decided I'm going to do something just for me.

I decided to cancel that idea. I'm not going to do that. I want to do something just for me. And you know, I'm 56 years old. And the only gift I've ever really gone out and bought a gift for me, I bought myself a pure steer ring when I was 53 years old.

That was the first real present that I bought for myself. So I thought I want a present just for me. That would be something special just for me. Christ I spent 2 weeks and I couldn't think of one thing. I couldn't think of something that would be good just for me.

So, I think God was working there. I was reading I was reading my, my August edition of the Grapevine. I've subscribed to that pretty well ever since I sobered up. And I just finished reading it. And I, to this moment, I can't remember what triggered it.

I'm going to go to Akron, Ohio. That's going to be my gift to me. I'm going to go to Akron, Ohio for my holiday. And so, oh, then this fear overwhelmed me. Like I'm not going to do this.

Like I don't know how to do any of that. You know? And so so I thought hey well I know people they phone a travel agency. So I looked up travel agencies on the phone. Like I've never done anything like this in my life.

So I phoned this travel agency. This is like on a Tuesday. And she said, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We can yeah. We'll serve you. I'll get back to you on Friday, she said. Friday? Like, I wanna go today.

I wanna mow today. Anyway, so I hung that line up, and then, I phoned another one. I thought, give another one a try. And she said, well I can get back to you in 24 hours. And I hung up and I thought 24 hours is too long.

I want to know now. Can I go now? You know? So then I thought, what does the travel agency do? They'd phone the airport and find out what the tickets cost.

And they'd phone the car rental and see what it costs to rent a car. And they'd phone a hotel and see what it costs to rent a hotel. Then they'd stick $300 on the bill and they'd give me that price. So I thought, tell them all. I'm gonna phone the I'm gonna phone the Saskatoon airport and see what they say.

Shit. There's a direct flight. Or not a direct flight. But there's a flight leaving Saskatoon in the morning and you end up in Akron in the afternoon. I found out the price didn't sound like too much.

I said book it. So and then I said, well, you know, how can I get a car or a hotel? Well, we have those through us. You can get discount places. So from them, I got 218800 numbers.

I got myself a motel and a car rental. And I went to Akron, Ohio for my 25th year of sobriety. What a great gift. I tell you, every alcoholic that's sober and alcoholic synodum should go to Akron, Ohio. It is one spiritual experience.

And, you know, I'd read about this and seen a picture of that and, over 25 years. And then you go there and you you see it all. It's all real. And, you know, we don't I don't see any pictures of them here or their names but Bill and Bob they shared. I was in the room where Bill and Bob shared for 5 or 6 hours moments after they met.

And that's where this thing came from. It was that room. Yeah, I sat in that room and I just felt like Bill and Bob were there with me, you know. Yeah, I touched the light fixture. I thought maybe they touched that when they went out of the room.