The 23rd Lake Murray Men's Conference in Ardmore, OK

My name Mike is Mike Lorenz. I'm an alcoholic. My dry date September 7th 1985 and that amazes me. I was though one of those reluctant to recover and as a matter of fact I started over enough times that they when they gave me my last start over token they told me the next one would be in Suppository form if this one didn't work.

So there is hope. If you're struggling, I,

I think,

well, I want to thank everybody. Putting on an event like this is takes a lot of work and a lot of effort and the Larry and the committees and everybody that's had a hand in and I want to thank. And so let's give those guys a hand now.

And it's been wonderful this weekend. You really have the reading was talking about creating the fellowship we crave and you've obviously created a wonderful fellowship here in in. I want to thank you for sharing it with me. It's been a wonderful opportunity to connect with some old friends and to make new friends and to just kind of bathe in the in literally in the fellowship of the spirit this weekend. And

I didn't know that's what I craved when I got here.

I didn't. Well, let me back up. Let me start out with the hard part

here.

I I got a first step that I could hang on to

as a result of finally writing an inventory. And I'm going to share with you the piece of the inventory where I really understood

to the core of my being exactly how powerless I was.

And this piece of inventory is about my, my college sweetheart. I was engaged to her. She was, she was the love of my life, the girl of my dreams, the woman I wanted to have my children with, spend the rest of my life with, grow old with. I loved her parents, I loved her siblings. I loved everything about it. I, I loved her dad just like a rainbow. He was he was a wonderful friend.

And

with all of that, here's the best I could do.

It's about Ellen. Where was I selfish? I wanted to enjoy sex with her regardless of the consequences.

I dishonest. I told her not to worry, that I'd always be there for no matter what. I dishonestly refused to consider my ability to keep that promise.

I rouse jealousy. I told her if she didn't have sex with me then I'd get it elsewhere. I paid undue attention to other women in her presence and told her how attractive I found them. Isn't that a wonderful way to treat the woman you love?

Suspicion. I arouse suspicion. I often spent time alone with other women. And she finally at Holly's apartment

and I roused bitterness when she became pregnant. I told her that I doubted that it was my child. I told her mother I was too young to get married and I didn't want to marry her anyway. And when she was in California having our baby, I made drunken phone calls to her anger. And because she was in California and I was back home, I I told everybody that she'd run off and abandoned me.

And

who or die harm while the baby, Elle and her family, my family, our friends?

Then we get to that critical turning point here. What should I have done instead? Don told me, by the way, that about anything would be an improvement over what I did.

But this is important because this starts to give me a vision of what what life could be like if I'm willing to put it in God's hands. And it says I should have treated sex as the sacred gift that it is. I shouldn't have engaged in behavior that I wasn't willing to be responsible for.

I should have honestly faced the consequences of my actions. I should have been honest with myself and others. My harms were all rooted in dishonesty, particularly about how afraid I was. Self-reliance is always going to produce fear and pain.

Now I wish I could tell you that's the last problem I had,

but it wasn't. But it was the beginning of the answer when I

when I ask for help with this work.

And it wasn't the first time, but at this particular time when I approached Don, they helped me with this work. He says, why do you want to do this? And I says, oh, Don, I want to get better. And he says, oh, please, he spent you spent your entire life trying to get better and it's nearly killed you. Why don't we see if you can get free? And I realize that I've been a guy. I'm like a man that's a prisoner in a jail, and

my vision is so limited that I'm just trying to trade for a a better sell with a better view of the yard and maybe some more privilege

and everything else. But I'm still in jail. It never occurred to me that I could be free.

I had my first drink when I was about 11 years old, and that's the first drink that did anything for me. There wasn't a ship off Daddy's wine or Mom's beer or something like that.

And I, I need to pause and tell you that I'm,

I don't know that I'm from a normal family, but I'm from a functional family.

The family had problems, you know, we, we, we'd have problems from time to time frequently generated by me. But what happened is that family didn't go crazy. They faced up to the problems and dealt with them and more pretty generally talked honestly about them and work through them. And the reason it's important for me to tell you about that is that I lied about that family for a long time

because when my life started going off the rails and people asked me what was wrong with me. Well, you know, my parents were older, you know, they, I got postponed because of World War Two. And by the time they, they had me, they were, they were older and, and they didn't understand. And then they were inconsiderate enough to have three more children. I should have been enough. And

yeah, part of my my sister will tell you that

she came along when I was three years old. And my request that from Santa Claus that Christmas was that he make her disappear and take her back to wherever she'd come from. Because,

and the sad part of it was, is that although I had two brothers and sister, I lived in that family like I was an only child.

So I'm eleven years old and I don't know, but I'm eleven year old that needs a drink.

And come to find out, I've always been a power seeker up until that period of time. I'm getting my power by pleasing adults. I'm the guy you don't love. You don't like having to come over to your house because I'm going to suck up to your mother and your dad. Oh well, Missus Cleaver, can I help clear those dishes for you? Can I, You know,

Yeah. And I'm not doing any of this because I'm a good kid. I'm doing it because I, I intuitively get that there's some power in pleasing these adults that seem to have power and decide what's going on. And the same thing. I work in the principal's office in school as a volunteer. And, you know, I belong to the normal array of organizations. And I made a mistake around an Al Anon once described to myself as a people pleaser

and and he set me right. And he says, Mike, first of all, he says, give me a list of all those people you've pleased till they just can't stand it anymore.

And then

and then he went to describe the truth of my condition, he says. You're not a people pleaser. You don't really care about what you're doing is you're an approval sucker,

and that doesn't sound it nearly as nice as people.

But what happened to me, I found out later when I was 11 years old, was described on page 27 of our textbook

where Carl Young is talking to Roland Hazard. And Roland's been having some difficulties here. And

essentially Doctor Young has just told him he's hopeless and he's there really isn't a solution for him. And he pleads with the doctor, say, isn't there anything? And he says, well,

once in a while, from time to time, you know,

these men have what are called vital spiritual

experiences and ideas and emotions that have governed the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side. A new set of conceptions take hold. And see, I didn't realize that that's what happened to 11 year old Mike when I got that first vodka down and I felt the effect of it. I didn't know that I was an 11 year old that needed a spiritual awakening and a spiritual experience. And I accidentally got one out of a bottle and I kept trying to steal them from a bottle ever after

to fill that hole that Gary was talking about.

And

my drinking pretty much bores me, but I'll give you a couple snapshots and to prove that I belong and then we'll kind of maybe move on to some things that might be more valuable. But

Sam, 15 years old, I know I'm not old enough to drive. And I, I grew up in a little town in Iowa, college town, about 50-60 thousand people. Then about 25,000 at the University of Iowa. Iowa City was the name of this little town. And it was kind of a in the 50s, it was a Beaver Cleaver kind of place. You left your, your doors open unless you went on vacation and you, you know, often is not the keys were in the cars and, and all that sort of stuff. And and

around our block on Friday or Saturday night. Pretty, if the weather was decent,

all the men had gathered the BBQ grills together where the yards met in the back and, and you know, whoever had had caught some fish that time or had some ribs or whatever, we we'd have a neighbor neighborhood gathering.

So that's the town I'm growing up in. And then we got the university there

and it's middle of the week, maybe a Wednesday night, and my friends bring me home and do a drive by and just kind of roll me out of the car in front of my house. And I'm making a bunch of noise getting in the house. And

my mother's got the sharp ears, you know, Why is that? You? And I lost my mind and I swore at her and now this was a bad idea. I'm, as I told you yesterday, I kind of favor my mom. My father went to Drake University on a footballer scholarship to play tackle for them

and so when I swerved my mom, that got my dad up.

Now,

he's a big, powerful guy, but he was, he was a gentle guy.

And you know, he came, he'd come out and he'd say, Mike, you're not going to talk to your mother like that. You need to behave, son. And I do the next insane thing. I take swing at him

and thank God he had mercy on me and he just didn't flat deck me. You know, he he try and restrain me and So what would be happening? And I'm 15. I'm big enough to cause him a little trouble to try and hold down. So next thing, Dad and I are rolling around on the kitchen floor and I'm trying to slam his head into a cabinet and it's all this noise has gotten awakened My sister and brothers. And they're up and they're crying and they're afraid their daddy and their Big Brother going to hurt each other

and give you another little snapshot. A couple years later, probably. I think I'm maybe a 17 by this time 'cause I'm driving but I'm not having graduated yet.

We're having a little family meeting around the kitchen table and my sister's hope chest is sitting in the middle of this table and we're having the meeting. The subject of the meeting is what happened to the money in Carol's hope chest.

And

they seem to be focused on me

and I, I did what I, what I learned to do my whole life. I looked him right. I knew you had to. If you're going to lie, you got to look him right in the eye. I looked him right in the eye and said, I can't understand why you're asking me about any of this. How would I have any idea what happened to Carols money? And of course, your Big Brother had taken her money

and I'd gotten going out the weekend before and bought a keg for my friends so I could be the the big guy throwing the party out of the light that weekend.

And the reason I mentioned that stuff to you is because I got here thinking that I'd enjoyed a period of normal drinking, that I was this young executive that had had this, you know, this Great War record and then kind of a little meteoric business career. And I'd somehow just been tripped up by alcoholism in my early 30s.

And that was, of course, a lie. You know,

I man that one of the men that helped me, he pointed out, he says, Mike, he says,

way I see it, that you were bringing violence into your home and you were stealing to support your habit when you're as a teenager and that doesn't fit any description of social drinking I've ever heard. And

so I think I was pretty much always, I was like a freeze dried alcoholic just waiting to have the alcohol added it so I could blossom

into my drinking. I've

all this stuff is gone. I, you know, thank alcohol did things for me. I could, I could, I could get, I could go to school. I could get out of Well, I couldn't stay in school. Unfortunately, I, I made a very terrible error. I went on spring break in 1966 and decided not to come back and take my finals because the party was too good. That was a grave error in 1966. And that got me introduced Uncle Sam,

but I'm still an alcoholic because they

they drafted me and that would have been a two year commitment and you weren't going to tell me what to do. I went down and signed up for three years.

Yeah, yeah. At Keene Alcoholic mind, you know,

I

every

I was able to go to New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville in places in engaging business. I was able to. Oddly, Vietnam was probably had more sober time than any period of my life up until I got sober 'cause I was I was an infantry man down in the Delta and you can't walk around in booby traps and be stoned and and survive.

We had the expression that time is the guys that were stoners on that. The stoners were back in the motor pool for the most part because if you were walking around in the booby traps and you were messed up, you were going to self select out. Was this description for it

and I I had that graphically demonstrated that we I I wasn't in country very long. We were pulling into a little night defensive position and I knew one of our medics like to keep

stuff in his kit and I, we were setting up that defensive perimeter and I heard this wolf and I turned around and I saw Doc's boot with part of his leg in it doing it. Just a slow cartwheel in the sky

and I got it.

I was at that time, I had enough control and I was scared enough that I wasn't going to. I was able to control my drinking

into my drinking. I'm

all those, all the houses gone, the car is gone, all this stuff.

I'd come to a a once at this point, or a couple times actually, to save a relationship. The first time I I showed up, I was I was driving a new car and wearing a cashmere coat and you know, and all that. I entertained a bunch of old timers to no end. I tried to actually explain to them that I was a high end drunk. This was a different kind, and in old Rick,

in old red, says young fella, I reckon you are, since your ass is where your head ought to be.

And, and, and, and Needless to say, I, I didn't stay sober, but I'm now, now I the jobs are gone. Everything is going. And I'm, I used to say I was living with a woman. I was living off a woman is the truth. And I'm a functional alcoholic. She's got a job and goes to work and pays the rent.

I didn't realize it till later on that she had me on an allowance. She she'd go to work and when she'd come home, before she'd come in the apartment, she'd decide how much money she was going to let me steal that night. And that's how much she leave in her purse. And the rest of it go under the carpet in the trunk of the car. And she'd come in and

we pretend that we had a relationship and then she'd go to bed because she had to work and I'd be in her person, out the back door and off to do my thing. And by the way, you got to live that way to one day at a time. You can't you, You can't really be looking out too far

and live like that.

My day started, I get up whenever I could get up and I had to have a drink in order to do anything to get dressed.

And so I'd go out the kitchen, I'd make a drink and I'd go sit on the edge of the tub by the toilet and try and get the first drink to stay down.

And some days it did, some days it didn't.

And day after day and I've been treated in my friends and my drinking buddies, the one to Nina. I'm I'm the last one of the crew that doesn't get this. I've tried to go to every happy acre spot they've been to and and find the magic and it didn't work. It I something wanted, maybe it was Tim that was saying it the other day. I I was very compliant person when you treated me. In fact, that's one of the things that scared me. I started to realize that I was beginning to institutionalized well,

and

I'm go walking around this treatment center and I've got a legal pad and I'm taking notes on everything anybody says, you know, and you know, because I'm going to this is this is the answer. I'm going to somebody's going to drop the secret and I'm going to get it. Finally, this one counselors got my number. And he says walks up to him. He says, Mike, he says you need to understand. He says you're a patient here, not a consultant. And.

So with that, I had no reason to hope that there was going to be any future for me at all. But on grace of God, one day my sail caught the wind on that bathroom floor and I I got an idea that I got to try and get sober again and there's no more insurance and stuff. The I I tell the gal about it when she comes home, she thinks that's a great idea. She goes, fills my tank up with gas, gives me a $20 bill and a pint of light Bacardi Room and she

sent me off to find sobriety.

Now I'm, I'm living in Indianapolis by this time, but I'm, I'm, I'm confused enough

that you know, the, I know the only thing that's going to place is going to take me is going to be a veteran center. And the only one I can remember is in place called Knoxville, IA, about 500 miles away. And so I, I set off for Knoxville, IA and it's September Labor Day weekend, hotter than hell. And I've got, I've got a drunk car with no air conditioning and

I run out of the room and I can't make it the last 100 miles. And where I pull up is I'm, I'm at, I'm at the exit on Interstate 80 by my old hometown. Now my dad's dead by this time, but my mom still lives there and two of my brothers live there.

And I know today they would have gladly helped me,

but I couldn't go to them anymore.

Something see the peace in me that it broke is I all of a sudden knew that if I loved you, I was going to hurt you. And what happened was that up until that time, I, I could, I could lie to you and I could hurt you with impunity. And I lost my ability to just look at the people that I knew loved me and and, and continue to hurt him.

So where I ended up there was on the front porch of my,

the father, my best friend and drinking buddy from high school, old Buck. And Buck had been a paratrooper in World War Two. And I, I'd been down at Benning and, and so Buck and I had an affinity for each other. And Buck, when I was in the service, he'd a week or so before payday, I'd get a I'd get a letter from Buck and then have a $20 bill in it and a note, usually along the lines that says I know damn well you're broke by now. Here, take this and have a party on me and

beer was $0.10 a bottle then. So you know, $20.10 a bottle. You know, you do the math. And

so Buck was my

he was not only the father, my best friend, he was a drinking buddy. I mean, I liked Buck stuff. Buck got taken to jail in his own car.

Buck rear-ended a cop car and disabled it. And so they had. The officer had no choice but but to take him to

jail in his own car, and the terrible thing had happened. Bucket Buck and his wife had gotten sober a few years before

and I thought they'd gone religious, you know, because they even went to church, if you can believe a thing like that. And they prayed and, and all this stuff. And I had no use for him. I, I, you know, I think probably church puppies was the nicest thing I'd call them.

And I'm dying. I can't make the last 100 miles and I'm on their doorstep and

and they were both there in that living room in Buck and Nettie both came to the front door. They looked at me and then they looked at each other and then they both reached out together and just drew me into that living room.

And right then and there, without anything further being said, they both put their arms around me and said a prayer for me to get better.

And then Buck was a practical man. He gave me a drink and put me to bed

and got me up the next day and gave me another drink and drove me the last 100 miles.

And he and I, he's gone now. But we, we talked about it many times. But about the only thing we could both agree on and remember from that trip was that I'd keep reaching over and grabbing his shoulder and I was crying and I'd say, buck, Buck, how do I get this God stuff? How do I get this God stuff? Please tell me how do I get this God stuff

and if he answered me? We didn't. Either one of us remembered what the answer had been.

What I believe today to the core of my Dean that my I ended up at the treatment center and there's all the stories that go with that, but they hadn't changed anything. They still had the same pretty much 12 steps and and it was all it was all the same deal. What had changed and what it changed for me. I see. I don't think my journey was so much a journey to that treatment centers. It was a journey to that prayer.

For the first time, I was willing to stand still and not push you back or swear at you.

I just I, I just let you. OK? If you're going to pray for me, pray for me.

And

I was, I made too vital decisions there in that treatment center. One was that I somehow needed to have a relationship with God. And the other one was that I I needed to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, not somebody who just kept a seat warm in the meetings. I've been plenty of times. I'd give you my opinions and everything else,

but I'd never really been a member.

And

I

tell you another little bit, when I got out of that,

you know, the family that I said all those bad things about

at the end of the day that that one brother of mine that I put down, he'd take his days off while I was in that treatment center and come 100 miles

on a little motorcycle. They have lunch with his brother

and they'd all come see me and they take their time and you know, and it was, it wasn't easy

when I got out of that treatment center,

I, I did what all good 30 something successful Alcoholics do. I went home to mommy's and

I couldn't get back to Indianapolis right away. And I in case you think you need special conditions in order to get sober. My first night out of treatment, I I was back in my old bedroom at my mom's house. But my youngest brother, who's not one of us, none of them are, had just started his career

as a wine distributor and my old bedroom was his first warehouse. And so my first night out of treatment, I'm

my mom put a rollaway bed there and I've got cases of wine stacked to the ceiling on three sides of me.

But I've surrendered and I'm safe and protected

and I went back to Indianapolis eventually and I began my career as a junior guru in a A

I am,

I met Gary when I was about, well, net would be too strong a word. I encountered Gary when I was about 90 days sober and I'm 90 days sober and he's 45 years old and getting a 21 year token and

he's up there getting that token in, you know, you got to understand he's like a GQ model and, and, and all these women are going, Oh my God, it's him. Oh, he's so tall and gorgeous and and handsome and,

and and he sobered 21 years and oh Jesus, you know, give me a break.

And what really upset me was my married girlfriend thought he was cute too.

I I got to mention this,

my second sponsor did me a great favor because he fired me. I I'd come into alcoholic, I'm staying sober and Alcoholics Anonymous. But I'm I somehow find myself I'm dating a married woman. I'm sponsoring her 16 year old son

and I'm playing euchre on the weekends with her husband and he's a gun toting federal agent

and

and my second sponsor George grabbed me in the parking lot after meeting one day and he says, Mike, he says I got to let you go. He says every time I confront you about your behavior here, he says you start, you manage to explain it to me in such a way as I think it starts to think it's God's will. I know it's insane

I can't be around you.

Now my teachers require me to repeat that humiliating that I'd like to airbrush that off the resume. I, I think there ought to be a statue of limitations on that, that, you know, or like your credit report after so long, it kind of drops off. But

they, they, they tell, they tell me that there may be other people like me making mistakes like that in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And you need to, you need to know, in my experience, that you don't have to get drunk. I was fortunate enough not to get shot, but I did have to change my behavior.

And our book talks about that, you know, is if if I'm one of the few negative promises in the big book is in that piece of mind our our sexual conduct inventory. And it says, you know, if we continue to harm others with our behavior, we're probably sure to get drunk.

They don't threaten us many times in that book, but that's one time that they, they put it pretty much put it out there and

I made that mistake. But with your help and God's help, I, I remedied that behavior.

I, I met and married after that, not that woman, but another woman in a, A and I've got a family going. I've got a son, I've got a, you know, it, it's, it's a picture. I've got a new career. I'm approaching my fifth year in sobriety. Never even imagined I could have five years of sobriety. And it's wonderful. I mean, I've I'm on every committee you can ever find.

I grab ahold of all the time go 10 or 11 meetings a week. I,

you know, I never miss a dance, you know, a function, anything.

And you know, I'm dying inside.

I got the happy face. Oh, I founded my own meeting. Of course, everybody needs to found their own meeting

I. It's part of the humility stick.

I,

I,

you know, I'm a complete fake in Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh,

I'm like one of those big, we used to get them those big chocolate hollow Easter bunnies that you'd see at Easter and, and, and there, you know, they look all big and puffy, but there isn't anything inside of them.

And the best I can do, I, I love my wife, I love my son, but I know I'm failing. I'm doing stuff like

I remember yet Andrew was four years old. And I'm backing out of the driveway on Sunday

and he comes running up to the car and he says, oh, Mike, he says, can't you can't you stay home? Can't you stay home and play with me? We can do, you know? And I said, no, I really, Andrew, I wish I could

ISIS, but I got some work I got to do.

And that was a lie. I went to the office and I sat there playing solitaire on the computer and shuffling paper. I didn't need to be there, but I didn't know how to be with that family.

I had no clue.

I loved him, but that wasn't sufficient.

So where I am at this point in time is I'm a my, this a a success story is I'm I'm really just the best I can come up with is try and figure out a way for me to kill myself so it doesn't embarrass the people I sponsor. And

this is not a vision for you.

And about this time,

I bump into Gary. Here again,

God's got a sense of humor.

I'm there's a Sunday meeting up on the Northside at the hotel, a fancy hotel at this time. And it was one of those white tablecloth deals in China coffee cups and all this kind of good stuff. And of course, being a junior guru, I've got my table with my crew down front and we're getting ready for the the meeting and I'm holding court up there and I find out that I'll be, damn, Gary's going to be the speaker.

Now, if I, if I had found out before I got into my table that Gary would have been the speaker, I would have never showed up for that meeting.

I couldn't stand and couldn't stand anything about it. Hated his story, particularly that story about financial amends that, you know, that was made me real uncomfortable and

but my ego kept me in the chair. See, my ego told me that if I get up and walk out of this meeting like I want to, everybody will wonder what's wrong with me.

And I can't have that going on. So I sat there and I listened to the man I didn't like.

Now, here's another spiritual twist he mentioned. He of course laid out that whole story, and I'm sure that was a lie, by the way. And he mentioned where his Home group and his Home group was about 30 miles away, clear on the other side of town from where I am. But I being a spiritual giant, I decided what I'm going to, my new plan is I'm going to go to his Home group and I'm going to observe him and I'm going to get the goods on him and expose him for the liar and fraud. He is an Alcoholic Anonymous.

I, I arrived at his Home group and, you know, some of you noticed this weekend, Gary's got that wonderful grin. You know, he, he's the first one to greet me at the door. And he says, I've been hoping you'd show up down here and I'm going. Well, they need me, you know,

and I went and I, you know, the I don't if there was anything special about the meeting, I don't remember it, but there is was something special after that meeting and and Gary, Gary grabbed me after that meeting and said that say, hey, I'm I'm supposed to chair next week, but

I've got a business commitment. I may not be able to be here. Would you chair for me? And so, well, now they want me to run the meeting. I got to come back. See, I was never,

and I found out later, see, I thought I had to be good and pure and all these things for, for God to be present and work in my life. And it's not that at all. If what I give God is, is resentment and hate and everything else, he'll work with that. He can do that just fine. And so I got drawn into that Home group with Gary and pretty soon there was one of those workshops organizing

and I was going to be a part of it.

And see, I'd never, I'd I didn't in Alcoholics Anonymous, approximately what I'd done when I went to college years before. I went over the field house, registered for all my classes, went and bought my books, joined a fraternity through the books in the closet and started to party. Now, if you ran into me on campus and asked me what I was doing, I'd say, well, Sir, I'm a I'm a pre law student here at the University of Iowa. Well, that was technically true, except I wasn't almost ever going to class

and

shame thing here in Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't miss a commitment, didn't miss a dance, didn't miss a roundup, didn't miss any of that stuff. I just missed the program of Alcoholics Anonymous

and somehow I've survived this long.

And so we're getting ready to start that workshop and

even I can't be this phony for this long. So I called Gary up a couple days before then. He had an office near mine at that time. And I, I asked him if he had time for a cup of coffee and he said, well, he's, as a matter of fact, I'm free for lunch today. So we went and had lunch and

I eventually we chatted and eventually got down. I said, you know, I understand these these workshops amongst them in they're very intimate things. And, and before I start doing that with you, you need to understand I don't like you at all. And he and he laughed and he told me that story told you last night about Ernie and waving at each other with the the finger salutes and all that kind of stuff.

And he says, I reckon I'll be able to deal with you.

And

and he did and see, this is this is when we're living in the world of spirit. The guy that I believe

is ruining my life, who has nothing to offer me anything else saves my life. It's the difference between me living in God's world and my world, you know?

And what happens is the man, the man I, I didn't really resent him. I envied him and I envied his freedom.

I wanted what he had. I couldn't say it, but I wanted what he had

and he was generous enough to give it to me

and I further from the drink than I ever expected to be. I got my life changed in Alcoholics Anonymous

and he's obviously dear friend in a, in a, in a treasure in my life today. And

part of the way I, he's taught me about how to be a man and Alcoholics Anonymous

and what he did for me. There's a signature point. He was talking about some events yesterday, one of those events

where he'd had a little dishonest transaction at work and I'm the new member at the group. At this time. I'm the new member, the new guy and the old timer. The old guy screws up. Now he does a 10 step. He doesn't go do it with the guru someplace. He goes and grabs the new guy and says look at this shabby thing I did today

and laid it out for me. And I can't believe it

that he's telling me this and being this open about his shortcomings and then and go through it and here's what I think I'm going to do about it when I go back to work. He asked me for my input. I was smart enough not to give it and I,

and then he talked about, you know, some people we could help.

And it turns out that's, that's a real piece of our Home group. See, we use, we use the 10th step as an active 12 step tool. If it's part of me being part of God's recycling plan, See, I go out and I try and try my best to do what I need to do and with my best intentions. I, I, I produce a bunch of garbage and I'm age to harm people. But if I'm willing to, if I'm willing to put that in God's hands like Gary was

and carry that to the Newman, what I've got is a demonstration of how you're going to live a spiritual life,

not a problem free life, not an error free life. And you know what? That draws people into a group and keeps them there.

Now that's that's the point where I knew I really belonged there because I had an intimate confidence from one of the old timers in there and I really learned something.

I,

I want to tell you

about

prayer

and then maybe an amend if I've got a chance.

I

that marriage didn't last and we we divorced

and eventually that all

we've got to my ex-wife and I have a good divorce today. We're good friends today.

And as a matter of fact, once we were able to be past the divorce and everything else she and I went to, the first thing we really did to each other with each other was go to the APTA meeting. And on the way back, I turned her and I said, you know, a man's had been she's a member of the program sober a year longer than I am. And I I says, Lori, I says, you know, I think about the only bad feeling I got left about the divorce is that interrupted our friendship. And she smiled at me and she looked and she's

get it. She says it was the marriage that interrupted our friendship.

And that got put right. So I've got, I've got my, I'm now being part time dad and I, I've, I've Andrew 6 and I've, I've got him over the weekend and he says dad, he says I'd like to go to a grown up restaurant tonight. He says I, I'm, I'm tired of all McDonald's and Applebee's and all those kids joints. He says take me to a real restaurant tonight.

And so I did.

Now you need to understand, by the way, this is this is this is 1 sharp kid. Don used to say he was a very old spirit. He and Andrew would go off in the corner together and chat this boy, I'm 40. When he was four years old, I picked him up at daycare and I'm bringing him home and, and I'm telling him about something and he turns to me four years old and he says, well, Mike, don't you think things might work better for you if you said the second thing that comes to your mind?