The New Mexico Fall Assembly

I'm a slowly recovering Al Anon. My name is Rick Chatook. Good evening, everybody. Hi, Rick. And as they say up in Omaha, by the grace of God, the power of a program called the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous, a fellowship called the Al Anon Family Groups, and the loving but very firm guidance of a big book black belt Al Anon sponsor.

It's not been necessary for me to plan any kind of death, yours or mine, since the 10th day of April 1987 and for that, I am very, very grateful. My hometown is Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My home group is the Saint Claire Al Anon Family Group. We meet in the church hall of Holy Rosary Catholic Church every Tuesday night at 8 o'clock located on the Saint Claire Avenue between Bathurst and Spadina. So if you ever find yourself in Toronto on a Tuesday night, just happened to be a little trip from Albuquerque.

Toronto's a lot easier to spell than Albuquerque, by the way, so it's easier to find on the map. By all means, come in and and join us. I wanna thank Norm for extending the invitation for me to come and, really wanna thank Tom and Juanita for the fantastic hosting job they've done. There's all kinds of wacky stories that happen when you arrive at the airport and there's someone there to meet you. The most embarrassing one happened, I'm afraid I'm really sad to say in Canada.

I was out at a conference in Vancouver and I picked up my bag and looked around and really didn't quite recognize anybody, but there was a guy standing there with a blank piece of cardboard. It was kind of like the flap from the top of a box that he had ripped off. And I look around thinking, I wonder. So I went over into him, and I said, hi. My name's Rick.

May you be here to pick me up? So he looked at the back side of the cardboard and said, yes, I am. He had the name facing him. So that didn't happen yesterday. There's just these these two smiling faces, that give me a great hug and picked me up and brought me out for a for a lovely bit of food, and it has been a great day.

And and like Juanita said, it's not too often that you get the alcoholic to host you. But I can say this, you know, stick around Al Anon long enough, and there is vindication. It will happen. So after I straightened him out with a few things, really, it was a quite a nice afternoon, and he he takes directions very well. An outstanding recovering member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And, Tom, it's a delight to, to know you actually, and it was a a great day. And Dolores, it was great to see you even though we haven't had a chance to connect. Dolores, I had an opportunity to work with her. Back in 2005, I I was the host committee chair for the a a Al Anon host committee chair for the a a international conference and so I had an opportunity to work with Dolores and and her, colleague Marsha. And that that was really a great experience and I really value that in the in kind of the context of all the service work I've had an opportunity to do and people have had to meet now and I I really value the experience that we had working on that, working on that convention.

And I'm certainly looking forward to going to Pittsburgh in, in the summer. Booked my hotel room just last week. So, it's gonna be a could be a fun time. I have really enjoyed being at your assembly. I I I've been at Al Anon a good long time, and and I've never been to an assembly, an election assembly.

I've been to one other one outside my area, but it's the first time I've ever been to an election assembly you kinda cut to the chase right away. The last election assembly we had, it took took 2 hours to elect the delegate, And we still had 4 to go, and then thank God we didn't elect the coordinators who would still be there. The term would be over. Anybody wanna volunteer for a website? Okay.

Another 15 people. Okay. Go through the ballots. But you guys didn't do that. It it was really, really pretty cool.

So I want to I just wanna say to all the people that that were willing to stand for what is a very significant commitment in Al Anon, your delegate, your alternate, all the other officers, the coordinators. I really wanna congratulate you for being willing to step forward in this fellowship and say I will serve. So let's have an applause for all of them. Does that That is an important and a beautiful thing. And I've had an opportunity, to do a number of things in service.

I too did DR and GR and coordinated this, that, and the other thing and, ended up as area chair. And when I was finished my job as area chair, one of our trustees was at an assembly, and he tapped me in the shoulder and said, I think you'd make a good delegate. Really? Puffed me right up. So howdy thinks I'll be a good delegate.

He must be right. Howdy's never wrong. So I went home and on Monday night, I called my sponsor and my regular Monday night call and I said, hey. You're never gonna guess what Howdy It's at the assembly in the weekend, and he's tapped me in the shoulder and he said, I think you'd make a good delegate. You should consider standing.

And there was that pregnant sponsor pause. And I waited, and out it came. And she said, well, Rick, don't you think your delegate deserve I mean, don't you think your area deserves a delegate who's practiced all 12 steps? And I said, what's your point? No.

I didn't say that. I said, but she was right. For you see, I am embarrassed to tell you that after being involved in service for a good long time, there is a part of that that I I misplaced spiritual recovery working those 12 steps, coming to that spiritual awakening, working with others. I replaced that with activity in service. I'm not saying you're doing that.

I'm telling you that I did. And when it was all over, I felt hollow and empty instead of full and satisfied. And that's not because there's anything wrong with service. It's because there's something wrong with Ricky Duda. And what was he doing in there where I needed to have a title so that I felt like I belonged.

I needed to have a job so that I could think for a while that, hey. I belong to this thing. And that's where I was. And that thing that my sponsor said to me was very, very powerful. It meant a lot, and she was totally right.

So I am here to tell you that I have never been the delegate, and I don't see doing that in any in the near future at all. But I have had I have had some great experiences, and I'll tell you their experiences that I've had in service since I've done those 12 steps have been far greater. And whenever I finished one of the jobs, the last job I had in our area we do this thing where all the officers get together separately from anybody else 3 times a year. And so our area asks past chairs and past delegates to serve basically as a sponsor to the area officers, so we call them an advisor. So they asked me to be an adviser.

And so after this 3 year term of being an adviser, when it was finished, it was the first time I had finished a service job where I felt it's done and I'm not empty. Where can I go? I can go back to Sinclair Al Anon because that's my home group. And because any title we get is has a beginning, a middle and an end except this one title, Rick Jay, Al Anon member. And that one does not have to have an end and I like that and that's the one thing that we always get to go back to.

So that's just my experience with all of that. In, we have that tradition that says, you know, the only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend. I guess that means that if there's alcoholism but it's not a problem, you can't come. So if there's alcoholism but it's not bugging you, go go go to a movie because this isn't gonna this isn't gonna work for you. But if it's a problem, you're in the right place.

And in in in Toronto, we do this thing we which we say qualify based on what that tradition tells us that that we qualify, because as we all know, anybody can join AA, but you gotta know someone to get into Elena. And I'm here to tell you that I've known 5 of them. 2 by birth, father and a grandmother. But more germane to the story I need to share with you is that I have chosen 3. 2 of the 3 I chose, I met in Al Anon.

So I just wanna say this to you if you're here tonight in Al Anon. And, you know, we have had Al Anon members come in and realize that they have a problem with alcohol somewhere along the way. Well, I'm here to expedite the process for you. So if you're here tonight and you're female and you're an Al Anon and you think you have a problem with alcohol, ignore anything that AA shows you or ignore talking to any alcoholic and simply, at the end of this meeting, come up and say to me, do you find me attractive? And if the answer is yes, run like hell, AA, because you're in the wrong place.

Go be a GSR. Infallible. And I see a few of you. It is so great to be able to laugh. Do you remember when all we did was cry?

We all remember that. We all remember when we felt like there was not another living soul on this planet that lived with what we lived with. That could get we were the shame was is, like, down to my toes. And if anybody knew what was going on, that would be the end. I'd have to kill myself.

That would just be the end. And here we have this God given fellowship, this program that can bring us to God that says, let it all out. And we can laugh and joke and giggle about all those things that we could not even utter before. And we come to rooms like this and we talk about this stuff and people go like this. Yeah.

You get that head nod. If I was to say things like this to my people at work, they'd go, what? If I used to stand I I teach high school. So if I was just to meet my parents and, you know, the parents are the kids I teach and say, hey, parents. Hi.

My name is mister Jatuk, and you'll be happy to know I haven't had to plan any kind of death, yours or mine, since April 10, 1987, they would not laugh. But we laugh. We get it. We get that particular insanity that says, my life is awful, and the and it reaches a point we reach this kind of insanity where killing you or killing me seems to be a rational substitute for living. We reached that point of insanity, and we get that.

Normal people don't do that, but we get it. And that's why I absolutely totally love coming here with you people, because everywhere we go, it's the same thing. We understand what that is about. I have a disease that's apart and separate from any alcoholism that any of those people that I have been with has. My disease is called alcoholism, the family disease.

I don't drink, but I have alcoholism. I have something wrong with me that is not dependent on an alcoholic's condition, whether the alcoholic is drinking or sober, alive or dead, in my life or not, is irrelevant to the steady marching on of the disease that plays itself out in my life. And is it not the greatest fallacy that we bring? Is it not our greatest fantasy as members of Al Anon that if only they will stop, I will be okay? And that is what it's all about.

It's even a kind of our our public information stuff. It's like kind of the Al Anon Khan. Is alcohol a problem in your home? Yes. It is.

Well, you just come here, little girl. And we all come in here and say, tell me how to get them to stop. And it's not that we want them to stop because these people we love are killing themselves with alcohol. It's because our lives are a mess. And the only way that I can figure out in my limited intelligence when I'm forcing God out, the only thing that I can figure out in my way of looking at life is you're the problem.

And if you stop doing this, I'll be fine. Thank you very much. It's kinda like saying, I have a headache. Take a pill for me, please, and I'll be just fine. I cut my finger.

Here's a Band Aid for yours. And that's what that's like that's what that's saying. But is that not the greatest greatest fantasy that the Al Anon member holds? And then there's a bottom for the Al Anon when you kinda realize or when they do stop, Yes. We got exactly what we wanted, and life still isn't working right.

Then what? We were giggling last night, maybe it was at lunch, about Lois. What a phenomenal story Lois has. When you read Lois Remembers, look at what she did with Bill. I mean, he put her in a sidecar and a motorcycle and drove her all around the United States of America.

He didn't even have enough money to put her up in a hotel, so they set up a tent in fields and left her there for days, and she stayed. And then he came back, and she was happy. And she repeated that again and again. Then his drinking got so bad that she went to work to support him. And then he got sober, and she threw a shoe.

And here we are. How friggin' weeny is that? Bill had this great white this experience in a white light. Our founder threw a shoe. Kinda embarrassed, Really.

But take a look at what that is. Take a look at what read read Lois Remembers. It is an awesome book. I mean, awesome book. Our founder talking about it.

She's an amazing human being, Lois. I love her story. But when you look at it from that side of here's her disease running rampant through this, like, bizarre alcoholic in her life, and she stayed. He got sober. She got my damn year old meetings, which meant was they're doing for you what I couldn't do.

I wanted to do that for you, and they're doing it. Damn you. What about that? That the people we love get better and we say, damn you. Because our life isn't getting any better.

Because you see, I have a disease. And my disease is called alcoholism, the family disease. And it has nothing to do with the condition of the alcoholic or alcoholics in my life. And that's a hard one to swallow. A hard one to swallow.

But when we do it, those 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which we practice ourselves like it says in our tradition in italics, practice that ourselves, become ours. Because those steps won't work for me if I'm here for you. If I'm here because you're doing something, those steps aren't gonna work. I gotta find a fellowship that's fun, that's friendly, that, you know, we can giggle, we can do all that stuff. I'm gonna find that.

And I can stay in that fellowship for a long time, and I did. But I didn't get better. Matter of fact, I got sicker, but I thought I was getting better. You read the words in the wall, and you really just need to have, like, a a minute amount of intelligence to pick up what this program says, the words and the language and the vibe. You can kind of spout it off.

And I start thinking, well, hey. I'm getting it. Well, really? No. Because I wanna step in front of a bus.

Am I really getting it? When I'm standing in a sidewalk and a bus is coming down and a thought pops in, one step, Rick, and it's over. Is that about an alcoholic? It's about me. And that's why this thing works and that's why I'm so turned on to what this thing is.

I was an odd, weird, little kid. I was just frightened. You know, it wasn't it wasn't really odd. I was doing what people do when alcoholism is present in a home. A disease comes in, a disease takes hold, and people do things that are diseased.

Nobody's doing that on purpose. I don't believe for a second that my father ever woke up and said, I'm gonna go out tonight, get rip roaring drunk, come home, and tear my family's house apart. I don't believe he ever said that once in his life. But I do believe that on many, many occasions, he said, I'm gonna get my work done today. I'm gonna have a few beers and then just come home.

But as we all know, those people we love who are alcoholic, they have the 1 and the phenomenon kicks in and they can't stop. And it happened. And so we live in that disease and I picked up the disease. I was affected by alcoholism then I became inflicted with it. In regardless of the condition of the alcoholic in my life, the fact that I am inflicted with it does not go away.

It doesn't end when they stop. I used to hide in my closet when I was a little kid. I loved it. I would clear out all the clothes. I would clear everything out and I'd put a little table in it.

I'd hang a light over the bar, bring in a little chair, bring in some paper and a pencil, and I'd write this great big sign that said, keep out. And I'd paste it on the outside of the closet door. And I'd go inside the closet and shut the door and wonder why nobody was coming in. Where I built this little enclosure, I was always kinda hiding myself in places to protect myself. That's what happens in disease.

When you're threatened, you protect yourself. And as a kid, that's what I did. I didn't know that as a kid. I just did it. Kids just do it.

Adults just do things. So that's what's going on. So I made up another little sign, hung it on the outside of the fort, keep out. And I'd go inside that fort and wonder again why nobody would come in. And is that not a great metaphor for what I did as an adult?

For you see my eyes, my my my kind of part of me would say, yeah. I'd like to I'd like you to come in, but my eyes would say, get lost. There was a part of me that was terrified, terrified to have you come in, yet my heart's yearning that the deepest level was for you to come in, please. But I was incapable of allowing you in as I grew up into an adult. My brother brought me to the doctor because I was doing all kind of crazy things and nothing came back, and it was just odd.

But a beautiful thing happened in 1965. My mother joined Al Anon. My mother remains to this my mother is a 42 year member of Al Anon. Beautiful thing. That that deserves applause.

That's right. It does. Take a look at who we are as Al Anon. We say that. Somebody's an Al Anon 42 years.

Some goofballs in AA for 30 seconds. Yeah. And as Al Anon's, we do that. We completely and totally minimize what our recovery is and celebrate that. Now I'm not saying don't celebrate the alcoholic.

Yeah. But let's celebrate us as well. Why not? There was a point where we made a decision for health over sickness. There was a place where we came, and those people that are here have stayed.

And that is a beautiful thing, and that is something to really shout from the rooftop that this works for us, the family members of alcoholics. I can live a happy, fulfilled, joyous life regardless of the condition of the alcoholic in my life. Now that is a message that we need to shout and that's why we're in service so that we can make this available. So when that person that's next door to us here, that doesn't even know we're here, makes his or her way into an Alon meeting, he and she will find there is a way, my dear friend. You can live your life in a happy, joyous, fulfilled way regardless of the condition of the alcoholism in that person you love.

And matter you know what? Continue to love them. And you're not bad because you do. Oh, what a great, great message that is. 1965, my mother went to the I came down and went to the international convention in Allatine in in Toronto, and Allatine was introduced there.

2 years later actually, 3 years later in 1968, they needed places for Alatin members to stay. This is before requirements. Right? You go into the Al Anon meetings and say, hey. The Alteens are coming to town.

We need some places to stay. Okay. I'll take a few. It's not like, do you have a police check? Yes.

Can you sign your second mortgage over to us? You didn't have to do that then, but, you know, you do now. Hey. I'm not no comment about that. All I can say is that I come from the only area in North America that rejected the guidelines for a year.

Now that was a trip. I'll tell you that. But we have embraced them, but, man, that was a year. That was a tough, tough year. Dolores will know that.

That was a tough year for all of us there, but we were we've kind we worked that through. Anyhow, in 1968, that wasn't going on, so these Aloteans walked into my front room, literally, from your country, Kalamazoo, Michigan. And a beautiful thing happened to me, this weird, wonky little kid that was hiding in the closet saying keep out, was that I felt okay just being with a fellowship of those people that kinda got it. Now they weren't words I used at the time. I was 11.

It's like, okay. It was just cool. And I went to their Alatine conference and saw people up there talking and crying and people were saying hello and I liked it. And I started going to Alatine when I was 11 years old. I did.

And I'm here to tell you that I stayed for 10 years till they kicked me out when I was 21. They said, Rick, you can't be bald and have a beard and be an Alatine. Now get out of here. But they kicked me out anyhow. Come on.

Why do you mean the oldest living Elatine? Oh, stay. I'll be good. You have to go. So I became a sponsor.

I don't recommend that. Anyhow, I did. That's what I did. But when I was in Alatine, they told me some really great things. They said when I got to Alatine, they said this beautiful, beautiful thing.

They said, Rick, your father is an alcoholic. He is not a bad man. Listen to that. Rick, your father has a disease. He is not a disgrace.

Oh, thank you. Thank you for that information. I needed to know that. Because don't we, as the family members of alcoholics, demonize the people that have a disease called alcoholism? That we paint them 100% with that brush.

But we don't do that to people that have other illnesses. Matter of fact, we kind of embrace them when they have other illnesses. But we tend to reject and ridicule and shame the people who have this disease called alcoholism. And that happened in my family. My mother, before she went to Ellen, she didn't have anybody to talk to.

I was the oldest son, so at 5 years old, I was her confidant. At 7 years old, I was her sex counselor. At 9, I was given her advice. And that's what happens in a diseased home. My mother was not doing that on purpose.

My mother was reacting to a disease in there. She was acting like all of us do. And in in the active out state of alcoholism, there's just horrific things that happen, and we all know what they are. And I'm like, we don't even need to talk about those things anymore, but we know that it happened. And it's disease.

And disease comes in and we're affected by it and then we're inflicted with it and we take it on as our own. We really, really do. And at Alatine, they said, Rick, your father is an alcoholic. He is not a bad man. As a matter of fact, Rick, he is a beautiful man who loves you.

And he's and I can see today that my father is an intelligent, humorous, loving human being who has a disease called alcoholism, and I don't need to take the alcoholism and obliterate everything else of out everything else about him. And at a glorious thing that I to to know that and to be able to enact that in my life. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. So I loved my time in Alatini and they really did kick me out when I was 21. And I went to an Al Anon group and found this little harem of women and, you know, they kind of embraced me, you know, as their token male and, you know, graduating from Alatini.

Oh, isn't he so cute? Yeah. Yeah. I just loved it. You know, I kinda owned them, and another guy would have the gall to come into our meeting.

You know? And my my hand would go and say welcome. I should say, get lost, find your own harem. Sick as a dog. Just sick, sick, sick.

But I did that. And I hung around in Al Anon for 5 more years, and then then I I stopped coming. And I stopped coming because I met somebody who is terrifically more exciting than anybody I'd met Al Anon. On. I'm here to here to tell you.

And that really is the story. Their story really is about the choices that I make from my illness, not the things that happened in an active alcoholic environment. That stuff goes on. But the tragedy of alcoholism and family disease is what people like me continue to bring into his life on a daily basis. The choices that I continue to make on a daily basis, the things that I think on a daily basis, the revenge that I want on a daily basis, the murder I wanna commit on a daily basis, the suicide that I wanna commit on a daily basis, that's what the problem is for an Al Anon like me.

And I was in a fellowship, but I wasn't practicing a program. I had not embraced these 12 steps of recovery. I was just kind of showing up, enjoying the people, having a good time, but I had not embraced those 12 very specific actions that lead us to God. And I had never said to another human being, never said, will you be my sponsor? I never said it.

I used people. And the thing about using someone as your sponsor is when it gets tough, you can leave because there's no commitment. And I need a commitment, and that's what I have now. Because with a commitment, you're gonna go through the tough stuff. And It's when you go through this tough stuff that you get the gift.

The singular promise, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. So what does our literature say about this problem that we have? On March 12th, this is what it says in her Odette book, the longer I'm in Al Anon, the more clearly I perceive that alcoholism is indeed a sickness, a compulsion, and obsession, but have an eye tube and are afflicted with a sick compulsion. Wasn't I determined to save the alcoholic to the same degree that he was addicted to alcohol? On May 4th in our Odad, it says this, many of my punishments are self inflicted.

Not by somebody else, self inflicted. In some way unfathomable to my human intelligence, my suffering could be the consequence of my own attitudes, actions, or neglects. My own. On July 27th, it says, Al Anon's prime purpose is to help us deal with the problems that alcoholism is aggravated. My sponsor says it like this, adding an alcoholic to a person like me is like sprinkling miracle grow on my defects.

Am I who I am because I am with an alcoholic or am I with an alcoholic because of who I am? Why did I choose 3? Was that because of them? I don't think so. Bill wrote a book in 1939.

Anyway, wrote wrote it in 1938, published it in 1939, and this is what he said. He knew this all the way back. He said our design for living is not a one way street. It is as good for the wife as it is for the husband. It is as good for the family as it is for the alcoholic.

They knew that in 1938 that this program, these 12 steps of recovery were as good for the family members as they are for the person who has the disease called alcoholism. And all that we have to do is this one thing, if we want this gift. We need because we come in most of us come in on this side that says, you're the problem. And if you'll still stop, I'll be okay. And we come into Al Anon, and we say, no.

No. That's really not true. And somewhere along the way, if God if we allow God to pull us across, we get to this other side that says, oh my God. The problem is not them. It's me.

And when we get there, when we reach that point where we can accept that the problem is the reflection looking back at me in the mirror, not the reflection of that other person, that when I die, I see my life pass before my eyes. When I could reach that point where it's me that I that my actions, thoughts, behaviors are the problem, we have available to us the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which we practice ourself like our tradition says. That's what we practice. And we then have available to us this potent, powerful tool for bringing us to the power. Because I thought I was a power, and it tried the best in my power to make things work, and it didn't.

Couple of weeks ago, the woman that I see, she's in Al Anon, and she said, you know, I never quite realized how powerlessness in the kind of the fighting against powerlessness so long for so long eroded my sense of confidence, my sense of self esteem, my sense of well-being. And I never looked at it that way before. Because, you see, even if we're not admitting we're we're powerless, we are. But if we think we're powerful and we continue to power up and fail, it erodes. And we power up and fail, and it erodes some more.

And we power up and erode and and fail and erode. And we continue to power up. It continue to fail and it continues to erode away at who we are till we reach that point where sometimes we can't even speak. We are so far down. And that happens to us.

And is that them doing that to us? Or is that us doing that to us? Is that and when it's us doing it to us, we can get better. Because you see, we are powerless. And the flip of the powerlessness is as soon as we admit we're powerless, we have access to the power.

And that's the flip of it. But to get the access to because I'm not the power, and I will never be the power. But there is a power, And I have access to it only when I admit that I don't have it. And as soon as I'm able to say that over here, it's there for me to use, done sequentially with a sponsor that God can and will save our lives the very way it saves the lives of the alcoholic people that we love. It's as powerful for us as it is for them and it is here in our meetings, in our literature, in this glorious fellowship that we call the Al Anon Family Groups.

It is here for us. And that is the great news for us. There is a way out. And they don't have to stop drinking for us to get out. Beautiful.

Beautiful. Beautiful. How does it show itself? I'm gonna tell you a little bit about how it showed in me. You know, politely, we say, you know, we have low sense of self esteem.

Well, you know, really, I I don't know that that's what it is. Or, you know, we're people pleasers. I never really wanted to please you ever in my life. Like like, you you were irrelevant to me. The only thing that had any relevance was how you would perceive of me.

And if I could, for a brief moment in time, believe that you were approving of what I was doing, that would be my higher power for an instant. It's kinda like a sick step 2. Step 2 says, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. I believed that my entire life. If you approved of me, I wasn't so insane.

If I had more money, I didn't feel so insane. If I had prestige or property or p or position, position. How about that? I would not feel so insane. Because you see, I made each and every one of those things the power, and none of them are the power.

That is my manifestation. That is my self will running riot, trying to find a way to get power because I am rejecting this notion of powerlessness, and I am rejecting the fact that there is a power who will not barge into my life, but who is there with arms wide open when I finally say I'm ready. And so I did all these kind of things in this 6th step 2, in this approval sucker. You're looking for your approval everywhere. I don't know.

So I wasn't a people pleaser. I was an approval sucker. Try this with me. Try this with me. I want you all to make listen to the sound and I want you to make it.

Let's hear that. 123. Beautiful. There it is. You see?

So when people say, you know, we're people pleasers, you're gonna go. No. No. I'm up. And the thing about that is that it kinda works for a little while, but then it goes away.

And that's what's scary. But there are other things and let me tell you about a few of those in the in the time. I gotta tell you that the the taper and Norm said something very dangerous to me. They said, we really don't have a timeline, so you just keep on going. I said, that's a very dangerous thing to say because I am in Al Anon and on and on and on.

So I do have this little white timer here to give you some comfort. It just really tells me how long overtime that I go. Anyhow, I have I have this thing, like, the number 1 in my hit parade, the number one behavior that I have is that I need to have people need me. And if you need me for a brief moment in time, I can feel like I belong. I can feel like I'm a part of this race.

I can feel like I'm part of humanity. I feel like I feel like Bill when you read, like, Bill's story about him taking that drink, you know, and you hear our alcoholic friends talk about it took to drink and I could dance better and I could talk better and, you know, I wasn't as ugly. Well, hey, I got news for you. We were there and you were. And you couldn't dance before you drink, and you are worse after, baby.

The delusion of our alcoholic relatives, Don't you think it'd be a great comedy skit, you know, to have the alcoholic telling story in the Allynon right there? Oh, really? Let let me tell you what it was really like because because I was there. Anyhow, I know we can't do that, but god it would be fun. Sign me up.

Anyhow, you know, like I I grew up in that home where my mom everybody needed me. See, everybody kind of came to me and I liked that feeling. I like that feeling when you come to me with a problem and I can help you fix it. It makes me feel worthwhile. Because you see, I really felt like a nothing.

But if you need me, how can I be a nothing if you need me? And that's the way it went. And I didn't I didn't articulate that at the time. It was just like yeah. You just asked.

Right? Like, you're kinda like dumb. Just kinda walking through. What are you doing? I'm doing the best I can do.

And you think you're not you know what's all we do? You're diseased and you just do the best you can do. It's on reflection that you see all this goofball stuff, and that's what I did. And so here's the situation as it rose for me. I was in university.

I was in my 2nd year of university, I've studied music. I teach me I'm a high school band director. And so I was studying music then and I applied to go to a school in Western Canada. I got accepted to go to this school. That person had accepted me and said, why don't you contact some of the other people that are gonna be in your group and have a few rehearsals?

Great idea. So I contacted 3 others. It was a group of 5. And then I contacted the the 5th the 5th I was the 1, but, like, the 4th person I needed to contact. And I'm here to tell you that the kind of attraction I have to alcoholics, I don't even have to see you.

That it happened for me through the phone. And I had never said eyes to this woman before, but I phoned up to say, hey, you know, we're we're we're getting together to do a little rehearsal before we go out to this program. What do you think? And and an hour later, we'd had this, like, lust fest on the phone. And she had been been to all these great places, and she had played music with people that I wanted to play music with.

And she was exciting, and she was energetic, and she was bubbling. I was kinda like like like, I was breathing heavy on the other side of the phone, and it wasn't like one of those calls. It was just kinda and it was amazing. And and so I I kinda started doing some research. You know, I kinda I'm like, I like to know what's going on.

A little bit of control going on. So So I kinda found out some things about her. I found out she was very cute. Well, hey, that's good. Found out that she was a terrific musician.

I said, well, hey, that's good too. And I found out she was experienced, and I really like that because I wasn't, at least not with other people. It was a lonely life, baby. Besides, nobody like, people were reading the sign in the closet that said keep out, so I had to do something in there. It was safe.

Anyhow, did he say that? There's nothing better than the laughter of identification, really. It's just beautiful. Do you have closets too? So anyhow, you know, it came came this came this fateful day, you know, and we we'd talk more and more on the phone.

And I mean, it was glorious. And one day she called me and I was working. I had a summer job. I was working in the liquor store. That was my summer job.

That's the God's truth. And she was drunk. And she said, my boyfriend was supposed to come over. He didn't come over. Why don't you come over?

Now let's put this into perspective. I've been in Alatine for 10 years. I was in a hanging out in Al Anon, and a little part of me went, bad. But then there was this other really sick part of me that went, yes. I can help you with that.

I get it. That makes sense to me. Because in these in these these conversations that I have on the phone, she was telling me about all kinds of things that happened to her and what the people were doing to her. And little did I know, but at the time I'm going, oh, I I can help you with that. I can help you.

I can help you. Then she phoned me drunk. I go, baby. This is it. But I got it.

So it came time. We went out to out to Western Canada. You know, she comes into the airport and guys, I'll tell you, she was bouncing. She was just glistening black hair, and she was tight little package. Oh, she was gorgeous.

And she had a suitcase and her trumpets, and she was like, we watched her come up the air, you know, the terminal, and like, I was like, man. And she kinda stood right in front of me, and my mother was there, my dad, and, you know, she bent right over. And, you know, my mother had mild cardiac arrest on the spot. The eyes popped right out of my dad's head, and I was in ALTEE long enough to know I was about to have a spiritual experience. I'm here to tell you that.

And we got on that plane, and it was awesome. And and so I had a beer. Now when when an Al Anon says they have a beer, they mean 1. But she had 1 and 2 then 3, she had 5, and you can take it to the bank she had 5 because I've never met an Al Anon that can't count, Or measure. Or mix colors.

Let's see. What color is rye whiskey? Let's see if I put a little bit of we all know how to do that. You know what I was good at? I was good at taking the cork from a champagne bottle and shaving it down so you could put it back in.