La Hacienda Reunion in Hunt, TX

And my sober date is June 12, 1995. It's not when I came into the fellowship. I was introduced in 1987. That's a lot about what my story will be about. Thank you for asking me to come and speak tonight.

Thanks to Chris in the alumni department well, this morning, I should say. To share my heart. That's what, was written in the card that was left in my room, and it it touched me because that's what we do. We we share our heart. And I never knew how to do that.

You know, Chris said, this biker from New York, and, you know, that's the way I grew up. And sharing your heart was not what we did. We didn't really share anything. I see what comes out of out of here a lot is people who believe in being recovered. Or my home group, by the way, is in Long Beach, New York, the primary purpose group of Lynbrook.

So come visit there, please. Yeah. Where where we come for in our area, recovered is not a a good word to mention. And and and here I see that it's you know the truth that we can recover from this horrible disease. You know, it's a humble thing for us to say that our names and that we're alcoholic.

That's very humble. And and I don't like that really. I found it necessary that I have to introduce myself as a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous, because it is more humbling to just say that I'm an alcoholic. But there's two reasons that I always introduce myself when I speak as a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous and one is to give new people hope that they don't hear much, that you can recover from alcoholism. And the other reason is to remind myself because in 1987 when I came into AA, we read in how it works at almost every meeting.

Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Well, in 87, I stayed around for a while and I wouldn't, so I couldn't. You know, I just didn't recover. A matter of fact, I got sicker. In 1995 when I came back, I would and I did.

You know, it's that simple. You give yourself to a simple design for living, get a god of your own understanding, and you get a completely psychic change, a new person is born, life takes on new meaning. So it's important for us to give that hope that you can recover. I hate that there's a myth that, you know, we can't. I really do.

So a little about myself. Very shy. There's a huge miracle up here besides the fact that I'm recovered from alcoholism. I speak and I speak a lot. You know, I do a lot of big book studies.

I speak at meetings. I share, from 87 to 95, people offered me $20 just to raise my hand and say my name in the meetings, and I wouldn't. There was no way that I was even getting my hand up to say my name. Now people will offer me a $100 to shut up. Now you you find God.

You got to tell everybody about it. And that's just the way it is. So when I grew up, I grew up in a in an area where there were apartment buildings and looking out the window, I see the older people hanging out on the corner drinking and getting high and having a good time. And those were my heroes. Those were the people that I wanted to be just like.

I would look out the window and say I wanna be just like them. Guy who lived upstairs for me, Roger. OD from a heroin overdose, and I wanted to be just like him. You know, I just those were my heroes. People that live that lifestyle.

I don't know what was wrong. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I didn't think anything was wrong with me then. But it wasn't long. I'd say, you know, I'm bad with ages and numbers, and, you know, I can't remember what I did yesterday, today of sane sounds sober mind.

I don't remember much date wise of what went on then, but it was about 12 years old that I started indulging and drinking on the corner with them, and I loved it. You know, I, all of a sudden, was able to feel a little okay about myself, and I love to drink. I started going to school and drinking a little bit in school and, you know, looking forward to the weekends and going to little cake parties. And and I just absolutely loved the alcohol and what it did for me. It was very difficult for me to make friends, and all I ever wanted to do was fit in.

At all of these parties, I would always do something stupid. I would get in a fight with somebody or I would wake up the next morning with my pants wet, wherever the party was. I would always get into trouble, and the next day that I'd see these people, they would make fun of me for the things that I did or said or the condition that I was in. And all I wanted to do was fit in, you know. But I still loved what the alcohol was doing because while I was doing it, I was feeling like I was fitting in.

So I would just say, well, the next time that we do this, I'm not gonna do anything stupid. I'm not gonna gonna make it home on time, and that's not what would happen, you know. But I kept trying to do it right from an early age, and I didn't know I was doing it wrong. I was just thinking I still wasn't fitting in because I just never felt like I fit in. 5th grade, I was hanging out in the park instead of going into the school.

I was with all the much all the people and school grades were going down. And they had the first of many meetings about Barton, the school, and they were gonna leave me back. But my parents were moving, and they decided that they'd give me a opportunity at the new school that we were going to. So, they promoted me and, you know, that whole summer, I would ride my bicycle back to the old neighborhood and, drink and hang out with the old friends. I didn't meet anybody at this neighborhood that I was gonna be going to school with new kids.

And, when school started, I got real scared, you know. Now I'm walking into school and I'm not gonna know anybody but I remembered what made me feel okay. So I'll just drink the 1st day of school and and I'll be okay and that's what I did. I, you know, just went to school every day with a little buzz and, I met the kids that were hanging around the wall and drinking and then hanging out in the bathroom doing stuff instead of going to class. And it didn't take long before I was getting into a whole lot of trouble in school.

A lot of suspension hearings and meetings about me and, there was a woman that came from a drug and alcohol program, it was called project 25 and, she came once a week, I guess Wednesday or whatever it was and, they decided that I had to go see this woman once a week. And this woman, I'll never forget her name, she was really good to me. I mean, she really, really knew I had a problem. I think I believe she was one of us and, she would always tell me that if I didn't straighten out, if I kept coming to school drunk, if they found alcohol in my locker again, that they were gonna pull me out of the school I was in, and I was gonna have to go to the school she comes from full time. And that was a huge threat, because to me, that meant that I'd have to meet new friends all over again and I didn't want that to happen, you know, because I knew it was very difficult for me to meet people.

But I didn't wanna quit drinking either because I loved to drink. So I didn't and eventually I ended up in project 25. Project 25 really didn't put up with drinking at their program. It got real it was they were real strict about it and, and I started to progress and get a lot worse. I started to get arrested a lot for things that I was doing outside of school.

My parent my father worked very hard. He was very successful. They had I had a nice roof over my head and a nice home. My parents were divorced, but I had a nice home. And, I never really wanted to stay that much.

I was actually I'm thinking back. I would sleep in, like, elevator shafts in the buildings or whatever it took because my mother was a £120 soaking wet, and I hated hurting her. But and I had a sister who died very young, and my mother would stand in front of the door and say, you're killing yourself. I don't want to lose another child. Please don't go out.

And I would throw her away from the door, and I would go out to do my thing for a few days and then come home eventually. So at project 25, they started teaching her what she should do with me. They would start locking me up in shelters, in reform schools, never quite treatment centers like this. They actually never really said that I was an alcoholic. They used to just tell me that I was a piece of garbage.

I was never gonna grow up to be anything. That I need to start paying attention, you know. So it's a lot of discipline. They used to tell me that if I just didn't drink, I'd probably be okay because I seem like I'm a good kid, but they don't seem to admit that I have a problem with it and so they would discuss other emotional problems or whatever. So I never got better in any of these places and I and I went to a lot lot of them.

I remember calling to shelters in Brooklyn, New York, and I would actually they put me on pajama restrictions in these places. They would try to anyway, but as soon as they would mention it, because I wasn't even sleeping in my pajamas in these places. As soon as they said that I was gonna have to spend the whole day in them, I would jump out the window. I would go drink Night Train with the bums down in the corners and then try to sneak back in. I did whatever it took to drink because I loved to drink.

So in 1977, I think it was, I finally went away for 18 months to upstate New York. And at this place, they again, they were telling me the same thing, if you just didn't drink, you'd be okay. And again, it had no depth and weight to me because I just knew if I just had a drink, I'd be okay. What you're saying to me really doesn't have any depth and weight. I'm sure that's not the language I was using and I'm sure wasn't good language to them.

But, I started to think to myself that maybe there is something to the way that I'm drinking and living my life as such a young kid. When I get out of this place, I'm gonna go back and do the right thing. I'm gonna get my life together. I'm gonna go back to the regular school and I'm gonna do okay. And, I remember I was I wanna thank Ashley last night for speaking.

I think that was her name. And, she did a great job and she she reminded me of the way we when we're young, we can come up when she was talking about the amnesia. And I remember how many different doctors until I went to the head of neurology at Booth Memorial Hospital, because I had my parents convinced that I had narcolepsy, because I was doing certain other things for a little while, and I was falling asleep everywhere. And it lasted for a long time. Anyway, back to I was gonna do the right thing.

So I came home after 18 months and went to school for the 1st day, called into the dean's office, and the dean says to me, you know, we have your records here. We see what you're about. We don't want any trouble in this school. If you cause any trouble, you're out of the school. Well, anyway, I wasn't gonna be perfect and I knew that something good was gonna be happening.

I was gonna miss a day of school, something was gonna happen. So I just got the attitude, you know, well, then I don't really wanna be here. I called my father up, and at this time, I really was pretty angry. I didn't have much of a good rapport with either one of my parents, you know. My mother would scream, lock him up.

He's an animal. My father would come over and say, there's nothing I can do. Your mother has custody. I really didn't have much of a rapport with them, but I I decided to call my father and ask him that if he signed me out of school. And I I had a good sales pitch, you know.

I've been in reform schools and shelters for so many years that, like, I really don't know the schoolwork. Real school ended it by 5th grade. So I really don't know the schoolwork. I'm not gonna do real good in it, but I can learn your business and, you know, come work for you if you just sign me out of school. So he said he would think about it and discuss it with his partners and he did and, he called me up and he said that he would sign me out of school and I can come work for him.

So the 1st day of work, I woke up that morning and I was really happy, You know, I'm gonna change my whole life around. You know, I'm gonna be proud. I'm gonna make my family proud. It was the week of my birthday. It was a cold New York October morning, and I was waiting for the bus to go to work to do the right thing.

And a friend of mine came over and he gave me a little birthday present and a little bottle of Jack Daniels because I love Jack Daniels. And, I put it in my coat and I say, well, this weekend, I'm gonna celebrate my birthday and what I've done with myself now and, you know, being a working man. But I started getting a little cold waiting for the bus. So I took a sip. Figured that would warm me up.

And going to work, I got a little nervous on the bus ride, you know, how how am I gonna do this work thing? And, well, I finished that little ball of Jack Daniels and got to work, and I knew exactly how to run the business and what everybody should do. I made a complete fool of myself, my father. That wasn't my intention when I woke up that morning. That was the first time in my life that I am convinced, you know, they we talk about crossing this line.

I don't know about if there's a line or not because before that I always drank because I wanted a drink. This was the first time that I could remember that I drank and I really didn't want to. I woke up that morning with all the right intentions and this continued for a lot of years a lot of years and it got worse and you wanna talk 1 on 1, we could talk all about how much worse it got, but I spent a tremendous amount of years not wanting to drink and drinking anyway. Things I tried to not drink during those years, 20 years old. I married a 30 year old detox nurse.

I thought that would sober me up. Hated it. Didn't work. Lot of insane things to to try and get sober, and it just kept getting worse. Actually, she would, you know, thinking back, that that's about the first time too during that time that I actually did get introduced to AA.

I was hanging out with all of her friends that she grew up with at a house that, had a nickname, you know, if she would if she would call up I don't know. If any of my friends would call the house looking for me, she would say, you know, oh, he's just probably over at Heroin Haven. Just go over there. You could any one person can go on a round trip to Hawaii and back on 1 week's worth of our empties. Nobody nobody in the neighborhood walked on the same side of the street of this house.

And we all owned motorcycles, and they all never left the house. They all were in that garage and never went anywhere. But one of the guys that was coming that one of the brothers actually that owned this house, all of a sudden was showing up with new friends, and they were going in the garage and starting the bikes and taking off. And, I started to get a little curious. I had been in a bike accident and, I would go over to Warren every once in a while and say, you know, where you've been going on?

Just hanging out with these guys and, you know, you don't hang out and party with us anymore. And finally, he told me that he decided he couldn't live like this anymore and he's been going to AA and he got sober. And I just went, oh, yeah. That's nice, you know, and went back and did my thing with everybody else. But one morning, I don't know what made me call him up and ask him what it's all about to say a, but, I called him.

I asked him. He told me where there was a meeting that night and that he wasn't going. But he said, you know, I'm sure he knew the shape I was in, and he said, I'm sure, you know, I'll give you directions when you get there. They'll know you're new. They'll make you feel comfortable.

Just just head over there. So I stressed it all day and, you know, maintained all day. And I went there that night and it was at a school. And I was standing and walking around and around and around the school. I got there early.

I didn't know what to do with myself. And, a guy came over to me and he said, are you here looking for the AA meeting? And I said, I am. And he said, come with me. I'm I'm setting it up.

So I walked in with him, and I really was just scared to death and not sure I really wanted to do this and just followed him into the school and went to the room that the meeting was in. And he handed me a little blue card and he said, would you read this? And I said, sure. And I sat down, and that was the best thing that ever happened because I got to sit down and just keep reading this blue card over and over and over, and I didn't have to look at anybody. And he just kept setting up and people kept walking in, and I just kept sitting there, look staring at this card.

And they start he started up the meeting and he said to read the preamble we have, Bart. And my heart dropped right out of my toes. I had no idea he meant read it out loud. And I spent the next what felt like 3 days, what probably was 3 minutes, trying to figure out how the hell am I gonna get out of here Nobody's gonna see me. Because if this is what this is all about, it is reading shit in front of people and well, it ain't for me.

So after a few minutes, I was able to look around and make my way out of the room, and I got lost in the school. And now I'm like, oh, man. I'm gonna get arrested for trespassing. You know, they all look good. They're not gonna believe that I'm, like, one of them.

And, I finally found my way back to the classroom that the meeting was in, and I leaned outside of the room and I figured when everybody leaves, I'll just follow them and never come back. Well, the meeting ended and I got surrounded by you guys. I mean and they weren't letting me go home. I had to go back to the diner with them and, you know, I don't know if that's what you do where you come from, but they do a lot of diner stuff in New York. And they made me go back to the diner with them and talk and, you know, and and it was fun.

You know, I was feeling like I didn't fit in and and I didn't. But, you know, I kept going to the meetings with them and, you know, I kinda got a sponsor and, you know, we kinda went to the meetings, but we really hung outside the meetings and smoked cigarettes and made fun of the people that were in the meetings. And I really didn't get very involved. And, you know, my life was getting really miserable because I wasn't drinking or anything, and I was really getting miserable. And then I would grab you 1 on 1 and tell you how miserable I am and the best answer that most of the guys I was meeting would be why don't you go downstairs and share it?

And my answer was, well, my problem is really not their business and I really don't wanna sit there and listen to theirs. So that was the best thing, you know, so I wasn't really getting much out of these meetings. I don't know why, but I wasn't. I did this for a long time, and I was getting worse and worse. I got divorced, I got remarried, I had a daughter, I had good jobs, I had, you know, if you look on paper, you know, a house, a family, good jobs until the boss didn't treat me right, and then I go find another good job.

Because if I wasn't drinking, I was employable, I was likable, until you really got to know me and saw how miserable I was, and then you ran from me. And I started wishing for the end. You know, I I knew that going back to what I was doing wasn't really a good answer, but neither was this dry life. And I really just wanted to blow my brains out. Started going to therapy and started going all kinds of nothing was working.

I was just out of my bird. A buddy of mine called me up one morning and we had been sober for years together and he had gone out and he wanted to get sober. And he asked me if I would take him to a detox and I said absolutely, I'm glad you're finally coming back. Then he said, can we go into Brooklyn because they're not gonna give me anything tonight and I wanna get right. And I said, I understand.

Absolutely. And he was getting out of the car and I reached in my pocket and I said, why don't you get me some too? And then I woke up the next morning full of guilt, remorse, and shame and had I just throw this time out the window. That's the only thing that was probably keeping me sober at the time was my time and my own pride. I was miserable, but I was sober.

And I knew that now that didn't work. And now what do I do? Because I really had a horrible time yesterday doing this. So what do I do now? I'm never gonna do that again.

I called my boss, I told him I wasn't feeling too good because I have an easy day at work, he gave me an easy day at work and next morning I woke up and you know what, yesterday, 2 days ago wasn't so bad and I struggled with this back and forth and back and forth and I wore out the rug in the apartment that I was living in struggling. Should I go out today or shouldn't I? 1 morning I woke up and I was in a bodega that all the food was expired and they wouldn't give me what I wanted and I tried to tear the place up and I'm lucky that they didn't cut me up and put me in a dumpster but I was really pissed off and in this rage, I went from point a to point b. I ended up back in a meeting with you guys. And I don't know how I don't remember driving there, but I went into this meeting, there was a bunch of young people.

It was a meeting I was never in in a neighborhood that I never went to meetings. And a bunch of young guys there and girls and they were laughing and having fun and asked me to go out to clubs in Manhattan with them and they were serving liquor and, you know, we're going to regular bars where bands were playing. And I all in these years that I was dry, I would anybody that came with me knew that wasn't gonna be long before I said I gotta get out of here. I'm uncomfortable. You know, and I would say like, aren't you uncomfortable?

My attitude was, well, they must not be as bad as me because they could hang out here, but I'm uncomfortable. And one And one night, one of the guys was celebrating his year anniversary and, his sponsor was speaking for him and he said he was a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was talking about being happy, joyous, and free, and loving life, and he was just so full of life and talking about god and just I turned around to this guy, Artie, and I said, that's your sponsor up there that's speaking for you. Right? And he said, yeah.

I said, I think tonight you should find a new one. And he said, why? And I said, because I'm gonna kill him. And he said, why? And I said, because he has no right to lie to us about that you can be so happy and be sober.

And Arty smiled and he said, I'm sure he'd love to talk to you. So they set up to talk the next day. And, Eric was an older guy, and he he he wasn't really that sick yet, but he he wasn't, he he was scared of me. We'll put it that way. I was a lot bigger than him and I showed up to his store and the conversation went where we did a little shuffle.

You know, every time I step towards him, he would step away from me. But he kept talking about himself for about 2 hours. He described what it was like and gave me all kinds of great war stories and started making me feel really comfortable. And after about 2 hours, I finally said to him, well, what do I gotta do to be better? And then he grabbed me and he said, I'm fucking glad you finally asked.

And he wasn't scared anymore because he knew he had me. And, he told me to just read the first 164 pages of big book and practice what's in them for the rest of my life to get a guard of my understanding and that I could have what he has. And I said, well, I never read a book in my life so thanks anyway and he grabbed me. Now he was really not scared of me because he knew he really had me. And he said, I'll tell you what, I'll read it to you.

He said, the only stupid question is the one that you don't ask. Anything you identify to, let's talk. Anything you don't identify to, it's probably because they're gonna describe some shit you never done. So we'll just start doing it together and you'll see your life change to be just like mine. So that's what we started to do.

You know, we read that doctor's opinion and I finally didn't think that you were a bunch of wise guys that just said don't pick up the first one. You won't get drunk. That there really was a physical allergy. That that's why I did those stupid things when I was a kid. You know, that's why the kids made fun of me because I didn't drink like them.

You know, that's why I had a lot more than one and it made sense and I felt that relief. Then we continued to read that great book and, you know, There's a Solution and more about alcoholism and it talked about the alcoholic mind that having all of that knowledge about ourselves that we can't pick up the first one and we can't play back the tapes. That was true for me and that scared me because I knew I had that alcoholic mind and I couldn't fix myself and that the time that I can put together was only gonna be temporary time if I was doing it like that. And, that scared me. It was probably the first time I cried in a long time.

It was probably definitely the first time I cried in front of another man. But it made me desperate, you know. I I came to him with just a little bit of hope left and reading that I had absolutely no hope. He brought me that book and him brought me to that absolute hopeless. You know, it was no longer knowledge about myself, but it was admitting to my innermost self in my gut that I was an alcoholic, that I was absolutely powerless, that I suffered from that spiritual malady, that I was never gonna be able to fix myself and that if I didn't find a power greater than myself, I was going to die.

And it was going to be slow and it was going to be painful and I was going to take a lot of people down with me because now I had a daughter. We were divorced from my second wife but I still had a little girl. It didn't feel good, you know. It was it was as if the doctor just told me that I had a week to live and you know and that's the place that I had to get to to really admit that's the innermost self. In my gut, I felt sick.

I was willing to do anything. So with that, I believe that he believed and all these young people with this group believed and you know, I made that most important decision that we ever make in our entire life to turn our will in our life over to the care of God as we understand him. That if it works for us, we will bear witness to all those that wanna hear it, that God works, you know, through our own way of life, through our own problems and them getting, you know, fixed or at least dealt with, you know, that that God can take us through anything and and show that to everybody. That was the most important decision I ever made in my entire life. And the God of I understand, that's a funny story because he had me say, well, you know, what is the God that you understand?

And I said, you know, well, I really don't believe in God, but I believe that you believe. He said, oh, if you wanted a god, what kind of god would you want? And I said, well, how about a loving god? And he said, alright. Let's look at that.

You know, you got this wife that you're not sure if you wanna stay married to, that you're divorcing. You got this girl that's 13 years younger than you that you're living with. You claim you love them both. Look at your idea of love. And I said, you're right.

It's pretty warped. So God's not love. He said, no. He might be, but not your vision of love. Let's start from you don't know what god is.

And I said, good idea. So that's how I started. You know? God of my understanding, and I don't understand. To me.

Now I believe that none of us would be sitting here today if it wasn't for that God. Now so you hand me that pen and I wrote that inventory and you know the first of many and shared all that I could with him, you know, and was definitely willing to have God remove all the things that blocked me from having this relationship. And, we moved through those steps really quick, thank God because I didn't have too many more sober breaths without, higher power in my life. That's for sure. Started that that amends process and you know I was absolutely willing to make amends to everybody I had harmed and that was pretty much if I met you, I harmed you in some way, shape or form.

And I was willing go searching. There was a lot of people I knew were going to be difficult, but I was willing and I got real free in the 8th step. Those 9th step promises came true to me in the 8th step. I was able to look at everybody and not hide and shame anymore as soon as I became willing. And, then I went out.

The way I was looking at it was to set you free, you know, because there was a lot of people that hated me. There was a lot of people that resented me, and I needed to try and work that out and show them some kind of God that I understood. And that's what the 9th step was about for me and still is. Practicing that prayer and meditation life, you know, and I went through a lot with that. I still do sometimes and search and search and, it's a great journey.

You know, that's for me, 10, 11, you know, the disciplines and, you know, asking God when I'm angry. Like, I don't like, I can't remember the last time that I got angry for a long period of time. You know, I felt real good last couple weeks ago, I guess it was. Right, Tara? We went to it took us 5 hours to get home from an hour and a half trip because there was tons of traffic.

And I was definitely I was handling the traffic no problem. We we had to stop off at my job, and they were supposed to leave a van because I leave for work on Monday morning at 5 o'clock to 5:30 in the morning, and the keys weren't in the van. And now I was getting a little upset. And so I walked away from the car so Tara and my daughter and Tara's daughter wouldn't hear the conversation. And I was not talking friendly to my boss.

And, you know, what felt good was that when I got in the car and Tara's daughter said to Tara I mean, yeah, Tara's daughter said to Tara, I never heard anything more than the word shit out of art. I can't believe, you know, that. And my daughter said, wow, it's been a long time since I've seen my dad that mad. You know. So we're not saints, but, you know, this works because that was me every day, you know.

So these 10 and 11, you know, pause when agitated doubtful, it works. So my sponsor came to a meeting. I was a little less than 3 months sober and he came back to that home group and he was never there before, other than you know, to speak at that anniversary. And he walked into the meeting with me and, you know, there was somebody speaking and then they opened it up to anybody new. And there was a rehab that came into our home group and there was a young angry 6 foot 6 tattoo, no teeth kid telling everybody and they share how much he hated us, how much he didn't wanna be there, how he wanted to kill all of us.

And my sponsor said it after the meeting, I want you to go up and try and sponsor that guy. I went, are you nuts? And he said, that's what's gonna keep you sober. And I didn't believe him. He took out the big book and he said, you know because I I told him what do I have to offer to, you know?

And and because it wasn't really that I was scared of him or because of his size. I just didn't think he really wanted wanted it, and that's not like the first happy candidate, you know, for for me to sponsor. And he said he'd be good for you. And he showed me in a vision for you where it says, you're just one man with his power in your hand with his power with his book in your hand and you just tapped into a power grid in yourself. And you know what?

That book hadn't lied to me yet. He hadn't lied to me yet. You people hadn't lied to me yet, so I had to believe that. And we visited and we talked in the parking lot and we read the first 164 pages together and and he stayed sober for about 3 years and and worked with a lot of alcoholics and a lot of them are sober today. He still struggles to come back.

He decided he didn't wanna live this design for living anymore, And I keep him in my prayers and a lot of people do and, but that's what I've been doing ever since. I was working with others, carrying this message however I can. My heroes are a lot different today, you know. I used to look out the window when I was a kid and, you know, the the guys that were standing on the corner were my heroes, you know. Today, you people are my heroes.

Today, my sponsor who, you know, I look back and he got real sick at the end and he was he had diabetes, he was on kidney, I got dialysis 3 times a week. But you know what? People still came to his house and he read that big book to them from his bed. You know, we he didn't he had the biggest ego in the world to the day he died and we loved him for it but and he loved to speak and, you know, we really couldn't get him to too many meetings, but we had started a new CA meeting. And, they were having their 1 year anniversary and it was his anniversary and the group's anniversary was about the same time and so what we did was we told him that we wanted him to speak for the group's anniversary because we knew he wouldn't come have, us speak, you know, for his anniversary.

He wouldn't come to celebrate his anniversary. So we brought him down in a wheelchair and he walked in and he saw the room packed and he said, wow, I can't believe all these people come to this meeting and they kinda finally said, no, Eric, we're here for your anniversary. And what they did at that anniversary was they said, anybody that's been sponsored by Eric, please stand up. And a few of us stood up. And then they said, anybody that's been sponsored by the people that just stood up, please stand up.

And a few more people stood up. And then they said, anybody that's been sponsored by the people that just stood up, please stand up. And a bunch more people stood up. And that's until everybody except for, I think, 1 or 2 new people were the only ones that were sitting. And everybody that sits here today, same thing could happen with you.

You know, that's where it starts. You get the message and you carry it and somebody else carries it and to watch that happen is something you just don't wanna miss, you know. I mean, that's really what this is all about. And Don p, you know, that's a man who touched my heart more than anybody that I've ever known directly, indirectly, and carried this message all the way to the end, you know. And and those are people who had passion for this program that I don't ever wanna lose.

Like, I want that passion for my entire life, You know? I mean, I have a a purpose in life today. You know, we all do. If we're given this design for living, it's a purpose for life. You know, for anything like me, you didn't have a purpose for life.

So, you know, this design for living, there is no better. It's for anybody. It's absolutely the best thing going. I think that's all I got. Thanks.