The Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV December 9th

Thank you.

My name is Mildred Frank and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody.

Ah, it's wonderful to be here and wonderful to be in Las Vegas. I always liked the energy here. I like the excitement that I feel when I walk through those machines and so on. And I love the people here. Bob, thank you so much for making it possible for me to be here. I love you dearly. Bob's one of my heroes, and it's wonderful to be here with the rest of you, too.

GAIL said that she's you said you're recovering hippie, right?

Well I'm not a recovering hippie, I'm a recovering ex nun. How do you like that? She said that she was going to probably show up in her hippie attire tomorrow. Trust me, I won't be showing up in my nuns attire.

I you know Cliff, I love to laugh and you have helped me to learn how to laugh. There was no laughter in me. I can tell you when I got here and there was no laughter in me. Even after I was here, I was, I didn't know how to live.

I I always felt out of it. I felt I didn't fit.

You know, my image of life is this when I was about seven or eight years old, I just felt I didn't fit. And this image that I'm talking about is

running across the playground chasing a couple of little girls, and they were running away from me. And I'm running after them saying why don't you like me? Why don't you play with me?

And they just laugh.

That just kind of is such a great image of how I lived a lot of my life. And I'm telling you, this program is powerful because I remember then I'd pack my pocket and I would say I've got money if you'll play with me. Sometimes I can't even now tell that story without crying because it's so deep inside about the way I saw life, you know? And

I spent my life

chasing,

feeling outside, feeling I didn't fit. I didn't fit in my home. And I started drinking when I was five. I didn't start because I thought it was a good idea. I didn't start because I thought it was a bad idea. I started because it was there. And in my family, when people drank, they got

easier. I would say I come from a really good home.

You know, I'm not one of those who can complain and say I was denied that I was loved, I was babied. I was given everything that you could possibly give somebody. It wasn't their fault that I felt so out of it.

What I was was the baby of the family and my brothers and sisters, nine of them, were all older than I was. And so by the time I came along, they were already doing dating and all kinds of things, and I just didn't fit. You know, the whys and wherefores don't really matter. The thing is, what I did about it was,

well, I didn't pick up the drink because I thought it would fix it, but it did.

You know, alcohol was not my enemy. Even though when I finished here I was on a park bench, alcohol was my friend. Alcohol did for me what nothing else could do. I was OK when I drank and I was willing to pay whatever price was involved. And there sure as hell was a price because as I drank, I drank more and more and I got into trouble and so on. And

and then there was the issue of God, and I'm going to talk about that on Saturday morning. I've been giving that a lot of thought, Bob, because Bob asked me to talk about the progression. How do you get from being

a nun to into Alcoholics Anonymous? And I can tell you, having been a nun and done, you know, studied theology and all that kind of stuff,

you'd think, well, that would prepare me for this. Rather I would say it,

it was much more difficult because I thought I knew. And when people heard that I had been an ex nun, they thought I knew. I knew a lot of head stuff, but I knew none of the stuff of the heart. And, you know, when I think about it, I think one of the gifts that has come to me is the opening of my heart

because I learned to deal with life by shutting people out.

And

I think I've been sober now 37 years, 37 1/2. And I think the process has been a process of the walls coming down and letting people in. That has been kind of the way this whole thing has, has happened to me. I didn't get the program easily. You know, I went through the motions for a lot of years.

I didn't know that's what I was doing. You know, as a kid, I used to think I'm weird. I'm an oddball, and that's the way I'm going to die. And I have to tell you, my dreams have come true in Alcoholics Anonymous. For a while, I thought it was men I needed. Yeah, I I love the men, but that wasn't where my happiness was to come from. I love the booze. I thought I needed money. I thought I needed success

and I got all those things, but I was hollow inside and I was empty inside. And none of the stuff that I achieved or that I got could fix what was right in here. And that's the magic of this thing. You know, we come here and nobody ever sat in judgment of me and said you aren't growing fast enough. You know, they said keep coming back, keep coming back. And that's the process. Who cares how long it takes?

You know, it took me a long time to get to the place where

I could let people in and where I could really

feel a part of. In my Home group in Toronto, we have a slogan on the wall that says you are no longer alone. And sometimes people come in and they say, you know, I walked into my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I knew I was home. Well, I didn't. I didn't feel comfortable out there and I didn't feel comfortable in here. And that has been part of the process of recovery. It's one of the markers to be able to come into a room

and not feel apart from, but to feel a part of. And that's one of the big gifts. That's one of the big gifts that has enabled me to grow spiritually too. So

yeah, they don't put me in psych wards anymore.

I haven't been in a cold water bath in 37 years.

I haven't had a shock treatment in 37 years. Isn't that something? I haven't had a Thorazine fit either in 37 years. So there are all kinds of benefits to being here.

So I'm really grateful to be here. I,

I think that's probably all I'll say tonight, except that

I'm so I'm so grateful to be an alcoholic.

The first time I read this, I think it was Scott Peck who said it's alcoholism is a blessing, said we're all broken. See, I don't believe there are earth people. We're all just God's kids, whether we have alcoholism or not. But he says alcoholism breaks us visibly. You know, I was married to a psychiatrist and people somehow or other don't expect a psychiatrist and his wife to park their car on the

they don't expect to see the driveway covered with clothes that one or the other has thrown out.

They don't expect to see some of the weird stuff that we did,

he says. It breaks us visibly

and it forces us into community. And that's who you are. You're my community, you're my family. God bless you.

Well, I certainly look forward to getting from non status to Alcoholics Anonymous tomorrow morning. Thank you again, Mildred.

And from San Diego, we have Josie

Joe Conroy, alcoholic.

I do not belong up here. That's what my head's telling me, Bob, you know that my head's telling me I don't belong up here. Cliff Roach. My God, Cliff Roach is here. GAIL. I came out here to hear GAIL tomorrow night. And Bob, I asked him what's going on on Thursday night. He says what? We're going to do a little thing at the at the hotel Thursday night. You want to be a part of it? My head said no. And my gut said absolutely. I would love to. That's what that's what this whole joy of joy of living is. You know, it's and I have to take some action to get the joy. And I hate joy,

Christmas. So I hate joy, you know, and that that's is where my head goes. I don't like Christmas. So they have the word joy in the in the 12:00 and 12:00. And I hate joy because I hate Christmas and joy is to the world. And I hate all that and I hate it. And my sobriety date is January 1st of 1989. So I had a bad Christmas.

It I, I grew up in Boston and, and, and I got 12 steps on the, on the banks of the child's river in 1988, right after, I think it was right after Thanksgiving. I don't know. I'm really not too sure,

but it was it was it was a couple of months before I came out here to Southern California. I want to thank Joan who drove up here with with me from San Diego. If you didn't hear about the wack job that had all the bombs down in San Diego, you know the the guy, he was making bombs to God knows what and he they had to close down the 15 freeway down in San Diego. And I didn't know how we were going to get here. And we ended up going up to five up by cliffs in Oceanside through Camp Pendleton and came up over the Ortega Hwy., which I'd never been to the Ortega Highway

because I didn't know what it was. And it was just moments of bliss. You know, these, these AA, the journey in a a is, is helps us stop and see that there's some beautiful stuff out there. You know, the, the alcoholism. I never had the time to do that stuff. I just sat in bars and I pretended I was somewhere, somebody, somebody, some, somewhere else. And I had the had the had the great fortune to write up with Joan and I didn't really know Joan very well

until we got in the car and started talking and talking. Didn't have the radio on. We talked all the way up and

we just amazing how we clicked and how we understood and how our stories are very similar or almost the same amount of sobriety and same childhood sort of stuff and trauma and drama and all that sort of stuff. She's from Philly, I'm from Boston, big deal about Philly. I don't care. But anyway, it was it's just really fun when like Bob asked me to do this and to know that Cliff, I'm sorry, I got a little overdressed tonight, folks. It's like really weird to wear the tie in the jacket, but to have my friend Cliff here, you know, and to have have GAIL here. And I'm, I'm the archivist in San Diego,

really. And it's why I wanted to call because she's doing a great thing tomorrow night. But I had the ability, the opportunity to interview one of our old timers, You know, I think we don't give them enough credit, you know, people that have been around a A for a long time ago.

Jesus Christ. They go on and on and on, you know, and do they have anything? They got nothing I want, you know, And we had one guy, he's, he's 94 years old, 47 years sober, had a slip at 10 or 12 years. So he would had a lot of time. He looks like he's 65, ready to play golf. And we sat down, we wanted to know about the, the old time, you know, like men's meetings, any kind of meeting in anywhere they want to. We're the first meeting in town. Where do I wait a minute? So nobody knows

first unless it's actually written down on a piece of paper. This is the first one. So they had the men's meeting group wanted to say we're the 1st. So they said, let's get Bob out here. So we interviewed Bob and we had a list of questions for him and he goes, I don't want to look at those things. Just let me talk. So let me let him talk. He goes, let me tell you about something that happened. This is really cool. We're just sitting there. We got I got a call from Hugh McCoy. Hugh was one of the old timers, like long time sobriety when I first got. So he was just like, God, he knew he had met everybody and he was, Oh my God, that's Hugh's book. Let me

and Hugh gave us a call one day. This guy had two years over. He says, can you get a couple of guys together? We've got a guy over at the hospital over the Scripps Hospital that needs a meeting and he asked us to get a little meeting together. So we're going to get a couple of guys over the hospitals. So Bob said we all got a couple of guys. We got in the car, we go over the hospital, we get into the hospital and all of a sudden this guy comes in. He sits down the chair and it's talked to Bob. I was telling this to Cliff and Cliff goes Doctor Bob was in San Diego. I didn't know that. I go nobody knows it. Doctor Bob was in San Diego for for experimental.

It's a treatment at the Scripps Hospital. He said, here's me, here's my body. What do you need to do? And, and Bob said, I'm glad you guys came here. I needed a meeting. Would you just tell me your name, your sobriety date and your Home group? And everybody went around the room. They did that. And he goes, thanks gentlemen. You can all go now. I just needed to know I was OK. This is our this is one of our founders. I wouldn't have known that unless we had given this man just a moment of time just to be just to tell us his story. That's what we do here. We

story in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, what we like now. One of my favorite non AA history books is a Spirituality of Imperfection written by a guy named Ernest Kurtz. He wrote a really good history book called Not God. But this one book is about why we do this, why we tell our story, our oral tradition, why we pass it down from one person to the next to the next. We hear the same stuff over and over and over again, but it's the thing that gets people connected to this spirit,

connected to dispute. I was looking at this up here. I'm going, what do they got Gandhi up there for? You know, what have they got Gandhi up there for? And I'm going, that's Karl Jung and I'm going like you talk about slender threads, you know, Gandhi, look at them, they're almost look alike. Just a brief moment, you know, And this is the man that gave us the spirit we talk about in here, the spiritists and the spirit we talk about in the Gandhi. That was that namaste that everybody's talking about, that God inside me recognizes the God inside you. But I can't do that if I'm sitting at home drinking.

You know, I haven't had a drink in almost 22 years. And when I tell you I don't belong here, I don't belong here because that's what my head says, I just can't. I don't fit. I don't fit anywhere I go. And if I keep thinking that way, I'll be nobody, I'll be nothing. I'll be just at this like, you know, it's like the third step in the 12 concepts. Well, if I do all, if I turn everything over, I'm going to be like the hole in the doughnut

white sponsor. He just gets through everything he says. He says be the hole in the doughnut. The doughnut comes and goes, but the hole is always there.

I go, oh, yeah, yeah. See, we we have this perception that I'll be nothing if I and it's, you know, it's like I I drank for the effect of alcohol. I drank so I could go to a place like this. I've been eight days off cigarettes in Jones and Jonesing. I came and met Don and and Tim back there. And Tim, I went and I know Tim smokes Marlboro Reds.

And I was like, Oh my God. And he's like has one in his mouth. He's going

and I'm going, I quit smoking. This is where my head because I bought a new car and I don't want to smoke in the car, right? I bought it on Saturday. Sunday, Cliff did our archives meeting down in down in San Diego. And he told that good luck with the emphysema joke. And I said, I'm not smoking no more. And that was, you know, it's like, but I'm like, I wanted that, you know, that's a material thing. You know, it's like I'll smoke because it calms me down and I can go up and talk in front of these people

and I know that even if they're judging me, I won't care.

I care. Trust me, I care. You know, it's really I, I, I, I, I am so happy to be here this weekend because this, like Bob was talking about, he was talking about, he said there's something about this weekend that I get some energy. This is like, this is like almost like the, the, the, the AAA of a, A, it's like, you know, we get the battery charge. Boom. You know, when you go home, it's like really, it's just like there's something, it's not theory that happens this weekend. It's so experiential.

I love about it. It's not like we were coming with Joan and she's got books and notebooks and she's got her laptop and she's going to take recordings and records and I'm going, you don't need that. People are just going. She says, are we going to be like Brighton? But no, we're going to talk. They're going to tell us how they're doing this, what they've done, their experience. Whether you use it or not, it doesn't make any difference. But it's this, this, this, this. Mildred was talking this thing from the head to the heart. This, this, this experiential stuff that happens in a a that

you can only get the gift if you're here. See, I'm the type of person that wants to stay home.

Can you imagine if like we had a a live broadcast, Some places are doing it, but like live broadcast somewhere where I could just like I'm just going to stay home

with a hamburger and a coke and dial in to Tibet AA and you could probably do it. I'm sure you can, you know, and but there's nothing. There's nothing like there's nothing like reaching out. I hate the receiving lines in AA, the the greeting lines. I hate them.

Absolutely makes me cringe because I like I work up all this this this

hello. How you doing welcome. And what happens is this this my head is telling me I don't belong. And then somebody reaches out and there's there's there's a physical reaction when one alcoholic touches another. I feel it to me it's like that that that battery charge thing. It's like that that little Volt of electricity that just shoots through the other person who goes wow, this is really cool. But I'm the type of person when I first got here was with my arms crossed, with my arms, with my eyes down, walking into the back of the row, going. You

can't tell you what I was thinking, but you know, it was just just, I would sit there and just cringe at the thought of this person speaking again, again, again. The same happy, miserable, joyous freedom. Hate it. Please. Somebody,

Jess, will you? I can't Take Me Out. Just invite me to coffee. Don't. Please hug me. Please don't hug me. Don't hug me. You hug me. I'd love if you'd hug me. You know,

it was just just my head was just full of angst. That word that Bill use is angst. What a terrific word. Just just did you just you can just, you know, those, those newcomers that like you, they call and you feel it in the phone receiver you and it starts off with

you got a minute.

You know, you got to oh, it's those words they hate. Yeah, you got a minute. I had a guy that was calling me regularly at work, at work. And I used to queue up Vivaldi on my little CD player and I would go hang on a second and I would crank up the volume and hit Vivaldi The Four Seasons.

And I go go ahead, you jerk. You know, it was like, but it was like, it was like they, they, they come at me with their guns loaded,

firing all six cylinders like I have the solution to their problem. And sometimes I do. Sometimes it is hello. Sometimes that's the solution. Because that's the one thing I'm afraid to do is like ask for that help. And usually that solution is Hello, man. I'm glad you picked up.

I got. I just got. I just my, it's she, he, they, it's I. You don't know. I tell. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It's incredible. Really. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. You want to go to Denny's now? Can we go somewhere else? You know, it's like, it's like the Jenny Denny's, you know, it's like, come on, we'll go get some moon over my hammy. You know, it's like they want they you don't.

And I just like sit and I just stay. And it's like

just coming to a a hated it, hated it, hated it. And then overtime just love it. You know, this joy of living that we talked about is it with the action is it's key with the action is showing up all the time. The action is showing up. And then you know what, given this stuff away, you're going to learn some stuff this weekend. If you don't learn one thing, if you learn 10 things, try to give them away. Give them all away, give them all away. Listen, what I learned this weekend, folks, this is like, oh, I thought this for years and I heard somebody say this

and now I think this

and sometimes it's like, wow, I wish I was there and I go, you were there. I'm going to help it. I'm going to give it away to you. I can't keep this stuff. I can't, you know, and have the opportunity to come up here and share with these folks, have the opportunity just to be in the moment, just to be in the right now. You know, it's like so much fun being sober lately. That stuff that's going on out there means nothing to me anymore. Nothing, nothing, you know, the booze, I don't see it. The cigarette, I see, you know, because I'm just a couple of days away from it, but I don't want it anymore. I want sobriety. I love sobriety. It's like the greatest thing that's ever

happened to me and, and, and that that didn't happen overnight. You know, it did. I got sober on New Year's Day almost 22 years ago. And it was a day of absolute misery. Absolutely. I was I was writing in a journal and I wrote down this guy Dick D that 12 step me in the banks of the child's river. He said, Joe, they'll come a day when you're done with drinking. If you've ever asked, if you ask God for help, you never have to take another drink as long as you live.

Bam. You know, I was like, that was it. I was done. I had moved out of Boston and I was gone. New Year's Day 1989, I'm sitting on the on the little flop house in downtown San Diego. And I got a journal and I wrote down my God I am an alcoholic

3 words I've regretted ever since. I need help.

That was it. No big lights blowing through the room or nothing like that. I need help. I was like, Oh my God, what do I do now? I was living in downtown San Diego. New absolutely nobody, absolutely nobody in San Diego. And I called my brother and he was, he was up in Santa Barbara. He talked to his wife. Unbeknownst to me, she'd be an Alan Tina as a kid.

She got on the phone. She says, how long can it take you to get up here? I'll I'll have you all set up. And she had

me 12th step again down in the 12 at the what do you call the central office in Santa Barbara by some guy named Howard, had 29 years of sobriety, sat in a chair and he rocked, sat in a charity rocked. He said, tell me what's going on. And I wish I could tell you because it was probably nothing but BS, but it just went on and on and on. And I said, am I an alcoholic? Am I an alcoholic? Can I join your outfit? And he just said, I don't know if you're an alcoholic, Joe. I know that the people coming in here buying books, most of my know from meetings, I know they're alcoholic. I know I'm an alcoholic

drink for 29 years. You said you're the only one can say you're an alcoholic. And I said I'm an alcoholic and I need your help, what do I do? And he said,

I just go to meetings for a while. You're scared to death. I don't know what you're going to do. And I went to a speaker meeting that night and I have no idea what the guy said. And he said you're probably not going to really like discussion meetings because they're going to ask you to talk and you're not a talker. He says you haven't looked at me once in the eye. I know you're not going to be able to do it. Go to some speaker meetings and just settle in. And I did and I've been doing it ever since. You know, I didn't know I was taking action. I didn't know I was doing it. I didn't like a a I didn't like a a people been like nothing about it. Didn't like the hugging, didn't like the clapping, didn't like the

didn't like nothing. And yet over time, I'm a hugger, I'm a Clapper and I'm a Halo, you know, because that's the thing that helps me. That's the only thing. If I can't connect with my words, I can connect with my hand. I can help some newcomer. My buddy Paul is staying at my house. He lives up in Santa Cruz. He's the first real Angel that I met in alcohol. So nine months sober, I went to a little conference down at San Diego and I was determined. I sat in this meeting and I absolutely hated being soba

and I absolutely wanted to drink. I walked out of that meeting that night and this guy walked, watched me walk out, watch me walk out. He saw me in the parking lot. He goes, what's going on? You're new, I don't know who you are. He says my name is Joe, I'm looking for my car, I can't find my car right now. And he goes, what's going on? I says, I really want to get out of here. I don't like this stuff anymore. I'm done, I'm done. And he did what

you probably don't want to happen if you're thinking of drinking. He stood there with me for two hours and he talked about himself for two hours, for two hours, talked about himself. And at the end of the end of that talk, his car was over there and my car was over there. He says, that's my car. That's going to be your car, right? You're going to go drink. I said no, That was 21 1/2 years ago. I haven't had a drink. He's my best pal. He's staying at my house tonight. It's the joy of people like that

that make me come back here. And it's the action that they've taken that make me come back here. And it's the stuff that I try to give away to everybody else. I can try to get this deal through osmosis, like it says in a member's eye view of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can come around and sit around, stay around and not give nothing to anybody else and not do anything for anybody else, not do anything for a a, not do not sponsor, not talk to people. And I'll get nothing. Nothing that won't rub off on me, he says. But the seat of my pants,

you know I want, I want my hands to be raw from greeting. I really want my hands to be raw from welcoming people to a A,

you know, I don't do it enough. I saw somebody at a meeting the other day and I hadn't seen her in months. And I said, and I really said, I said I feel like a bad AA because I haven't called you to say where you been. And she says I just haven't wanted to come into meetings. And they said I want you here. I need you here because you got to be here. And that's the thing that I love about

RAA, our Woodstock, our joy and our love. And I hope you find it here this weekend. I hope you find it in the eyes of your people sitting in tables. I hope you find it in people you don't know. Because that's the thing that I have to do. I have to go out to other people and go, hey, I'm scared to death. How you doing? How'd you know? You know, And that's where I find peace,

PE, A/C, E I'm not finding out peace, I'm finding peace. I was always looking for our peace but what I've got in a A is peace

piece. Thank you.

Got to be here to feel it. Thanks, Joe.

And now we have Mr. Carl Morris from Covina.

Good evening. My name is Carl. I'm an alcoholic

and I am only here as a result of Bob's alcoholism. I was minding my own business on Monday and it's going to be a series of events have wound me up here. I was not planning on coming this weekend, but I I was going to be with my kids which I jockey and do a dance to to spend time with my kids whenever I have an open weekend. And that was going to be this weekend.

And my ex-wife called me on Monday and said I want to take the kids up to the mountains on Friday to see the snow. Can you get them Saturday? And I just said oh OK that's fine. I, it's amazing how well we get, I get along with my ex-wife when I do not start an argument.

It's a, it's an amazing thing. And immediately after that, my friend Denny calls me and says, Hey, I'm going to be up at the state line thing. You want to come up and golf on Friday? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. And so I look at the schedule and I see GAIL is doing the, the history thing. So I call Bob to pull in a favor. Bob I, I call it Bob. I know it's a sellout, but can maybe do me a great favor. Is there any way that you can sell me a registration and I'll just stand in the back or something? And he goes,

When's your tee time?

And I said, well, Friday at noon, he goes, well, if you bring a suit and show up 17 hours before your tea time, I'll give you, I'll get you a registration. So that's why I'm here. And it's obvious that Bob was on Monday fretting whether the flights were going to come in and GAIL would be here and Mildred would be here and Cliff would be here. And that's why he asked me to come and do this, right? His alcoholism, he was worried whether they were going to actually be here. So in case he could throw me in there. So I am completely unnecessary

night because it's almost already 9:00 for God's sake. But I'm I'm grateful to be here. I'm an alcoholic and the reason I believe I'm an alcoholic is really very simple. I've got a really bizarre relationship with alcohol. That's why I'm alcoholic. My relationship with alcohol takes on a couple of forums, a few forms actually. First part happens. First, part of my strange relationship with alcohol happens when I drink it.

A very strange thing happens when I drink booze. The book calls it an allergy. The best way I can describe this thing the book calls an allergy and a phenomenon of craving in my life

is that it seems like whenever I drink booze, the more I drink, the thirstier I get. It happened with nothing else, just booze. An example of that, as I have this bottle of water and over the next 11 minutes I'm talking with you, I will probably have a few more sips of water. But I guarantee you that once I finish this bottle of water, I am not going to go get a case of water and lock myself in my hotel room. Really, I'm not going to do it,

but if that was the only thing that made me alcoholic is this physical reaction.

If that was all that made me alcoholic, well then just say no would have wiped out alcoholism. Early 80s Nancy Reagan came out said just say no. I would have and I imagine you wouldn't no and just gone on and lived a happy successful life. But I have this other strange part of my relationship with alcohol and that happens when I'm not drinking it oven by myself. If I don't drink for a day, a week or a month, I seem to have this mind that is able to paint a picture that will rationalize and justify my walk back to the next drink at all cost.

So I can't drink successfully because this physical reaction that I get, but I cannot oven by myself, not drink successfully. I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't. The ultimate catch 22 we call alcoholism. I also seem to have this strange spiritual relationship with alcohol. And the best way I can describe that is to tell you this story from the year 2000. I was 13 years sober in the year 2000. My mother asked me to go to Iceland with her and then over to France to visit where my brother and his wife and his kids were staying for the summer.

And in fact, we had a layover in Minneapolis right during the International Convention. And I saw Cliff and and Pat there and they were at the Mall of Americas. And we sat and chatted, my mother and and and us anyway, we

Iceland was a whole nother story. But we get to the South of France to meet with my brother and his wife and his kids. We go out for a 13 course dinner. And if you've ever once in a lifetime experience, if you've ever had one of these 13 course meals that they have in France, you know that with each course, they bring a small little glass of wine and they will explain the vineyard behind that wine, the family that owned the vineyard, the history. It's all very interesting. So my brother and his wife, my mother are trying these little glasses of wine. I'm trying

the Diet Cokes of the region. There's no story behind those.

But after now, if there's ever an appropriate place to drink a little extra, it's there. I mean, we're sitting in this beautiful courtyard of this French Chateau. I mean, it's amazing. And my brother and his wife, indeed are having a good time. They're not alcoholic, but they enjoy alcohol. And they're having, you know, if they liked one, they had a couple more. And, you know, they're drinking more than normal. I'm driving, but after just two tiny little glasses of wine,

my mother says no more for me. And I kind of look over and I go, Mom, come on, I'm driving,

have a little more for God's sake. And she goes, really? No, Carl, I don't want to ruin the night. And I go, what do you mean? She goes, I don't like if I drink too much. I don't like the way it makes me feel

now. I should have left well enough alone,

but it really piqued my interest. So I said, how does it make you feel? And what she proceeded to explain, just in talking about her relationship with alcohol, I literally had one of those moments that just, I felt like, you know, remember that Memorex commercial, the guy sitting in a chair with his hair being blown back? It really answered a lot of questions for me,

she said. I am sitting here at a once in a lifetime experience, sitting here in this beautiful courtyard of this of this

building that has probably been here for 2000 years. And I'm looking at the beautiful colors of the countryside. And I'm listening to this string quartet and I'm talking with people that I love with the bottom of my heart. And if I drink a little bit too much alcohol, the colors start to get blurry and dull. I can't hear the music and I cannot connect with you.

You hear that

that is the exact opposite spiritual relationship to alcohol than I have. Because what she's saying is often by herself, she sees the colors of life. She hears the music and finds other people interesting,

and if she drinks a little bit too much it all dulls down. See me oven by myself. I cannot see the colors of life, I can't hear the music and you're God damn boring.

I get alcohol in me and I can see the colors they come into like HD.

I can hear the music. I'll tell you where that cello was made, whether I know or not.

And you become extremely interesting, but not as interesting as me.

And it's no wonder hurt my all my teenage years and into my early 20s. She would look at me go, why do you drink that way? And I would look at her and I go, why don't you drink this way, right? It really answered a whole lot of questions. And it also answers why I need to be an Alcoholics Anonymous. I need to be able to see the colors of life. I need to be able to hear the music and I need to connect with you,

and I have to. The only place I've been able to find that is either with alcohol or Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm one of these guys that just loves Alcoholics Anonymous. I just love it. I'll do as much as I possibly can. The only thing that stops me from just being in meetings and working with others and every moment of my life lately is my kids. Because my kids, next to coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, has been the most deeply profound spiritual experience I've ever had. There are three and six, and I'm right in the middle of this right now. Now, all my friends who have teenagers tell me

this experience I'm having is going to change very soon,

but I'm one of these guys that just loves to do a lot in a A. You see, I would far rather do a lot. And hey, just go to a lot of meetings, sponsor a lot of guys, go here, go there and die sober and go wherever it is we go. And whoever it is that meets us, wherever it is we go, say, hey, you did not need to do all that. And hey, you could have stayed sober on half of that. You really didn't need to do all that. In fact, you weren't even alcoholic. You didn't need to live a sober, successful life.

I would far rather that happen than to find myself sitting on a bar stool drinking, going. Maybe I should have gone to one more meeting. It's along the same lines of that. I'd far rather live my life as if there is a God and then die and find out. Wow I guess they were wrong.

I would far rather that happen than to live my life as if there is no God and then die and get over there and go oh shit you are here

damn it

right. So you know I just love Alcoholics Anonymous. I have never found anything as deeply meaningful in my life than my connection with you people. So it is already 3 minutes after nine and I was unnecessary. So goodnight. Thanks.

I just.