The Fellowship of the Spirit in Conyers, GA

All right. Welcome back

our fourth speaker meeting.

And I am here to promote

speaker CDs because that's how I stumbled across Mr. Shane here.

Over the years. I've just been very blessed. People have sent me or I've received at a meeting.

I mean, how I ended up with Scott was through a speaker CD and I said I got to find some people in Atlanta that know this guy. And I stumbled across a gentleman named Big Frank and I've just had an infatuation with him and I know he's a drunk like the rest of us.

And Mr. Marquez sent me some CDs and Mr. Shane listen to them and I absolutely love them. It was a very soft spoken, Big Frank

aspects and

you can be touched. You know, God uses anything he wants to touch your spirit and see these are amazing because they'll if you have the capacity to question and doubt, and then you're able to question your own experience with certain things and say, you know, maybe I should set this aside and look at it from this perspective. And then you start to have an open mind and you can really listen to the experience

people talk about and have your own and maybe go seek somebody to share with, you know, say, hey, let's, let's talk about these guys are talking about. And so I, I enjoyed, you know, I, I don't know Mike very well yet, but

Bob is a big fan of Mr. Shane and has nothing but good things to say. And

I give you Mike Shane.

My name is Mike Shane. I'm an alcoholic.

I've really enjoyed this. Thank you very much for asking me to come out here. I I love the talks. Before your talk, you describe the dark night of the soul,

and that's part of the process of the spiritual law.

Because I have to go through that every once in a while because my ego wants to start to believe that I have something to do with this.

I like Carl because I was wondering if I dropped the F bomb at a monastery

I was going to get in trouble. Carl took care of me.

I've got a nail and I I'll probably drop one before the weekends over. And David, I love you.

Yeah, on the other side of before I get into my story, I'm going to make a suggestion to you

have an intent for this weekend.

Don't come in here, just I'll get what I want

and I'll tell you what my intent is

is to maybe say something

that one of you may be more

can find what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous promises me and I'm going to tell you what that is. It promises me that the drink problem will get removed totally. I don't think about it. But here's the other promise that the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous gives me that I live for.

It promises me peace, power, happiness, and a sense of direction,

and I believe I can have that no matter what's going on out here.

And then that's on page 50. And then on page 52 it talks about the Mad Hatter, right? You know,

which is what I came in here as and sometimes even go back to

my sobriety date is April Fool's Day 1975.

I had a birthday Tuesday,

39 years sober, true gift.

I didn't really have a whole lot to do with it. I signed up for

this birthday has been sort of an eye opener for me and not because I'm emotionally attached but my daughter called me a week before my 39th birthday and she said my mother just drank herself to death.

It's the woman I was with when I came in day and she left me so that she could go with another drunk because she thought I was in a program that brainwashed people.

And she died in a trailer in Arkansas.

She was about £85 and

she the story that my daughter told me was that she choked to death on oxy and her blood alcohol count was .38 or something like that

and her drunk husband was passed out next to her when she died. And then what happened was, is he came out of his stupor and found her dead

and couldn't deal with it. So he went to the bar and got drunk for a couple of days

before he called the authorities.

That's alcohol, that's alcoholism. And I think sometimes we forget that we're dealing with a life or death matter here,

you know? But I hope somebody in here, you know, here's something this weekend from somebody

to where you can go out and you can live your life and be happy in this skin. And in the spring, see, I never could. I never could. I never was happy in my skin or in my brain. I always wanted to be somebody else. You know, I was born in a family and Madison, WI, I like to say alcohol was one of the four basic food groups.

They were drinkers. They were hard drinkers. You know, a crazy weekend

was just the norm. And

I never really understood it. I just knew that what happened was, is that my father would turn from this kind of a man and he'd bring home his bottle every night. And he turned into this kind of a man, right? And he was a monster. He became a monster. And I never wanted to be like him, never did. I was 13 years old and we, I went to a junior high school dance. And I don't know what it's like today, but back then, all the girls were on this side of the room

and all the boys were on the other side of the room and guys were trying to act tough and, you know, and all that. And, and this kid said to me, he said, I brought a pint of my dad's whiskey with me. Let's go out back and drink it now. This is Madison, WI in February.

OK, it's cold. We go out back, he takes a sip, I take a sip, I give it back to him. He takes a sip, I take a sip, I give it back to him, and all of a sudden this stuff starts to

melt into me, Right? You know that feeling? You know, that feeling of

ah, everything's OK,

all the fear goes away, all that loneliness, all that, all that craziness, you know, all that thinking you don't fit just goes away and you become anything you want to become. See, there's two sides. The big book talks about to find out if you're alcoholic and it says it real. Simply, it says if you suffer from the phenomena of craving.

OK,

do we know what the phenomenon of craving is? Heck yes, I know what the phenomena of craving is. Every single speaker that has spoke tonight has talked about the phenomena of craving.

Once I start to drink, sometimes I'll have a couple, sometimes I'll be able to pull it off, but I never know when I'm going to take off right? I had that the first time I ever had all the booze I wanted to drink at 13 years old. I had the phenomena of Craig,

but there's another side to what the big book says is alcoholism, and that is the obsession of the mind, right?

I didn't get that until I was in the military.

See, let me explain that to you.

When I drank, I went out to drink and get drunk.

But I was able to. For a few years I could say, no, I don't wanna go out and get drunk. I knew when I drank it was it could get crazy, right? But it wasn't until I got into the military it became the obsession of the mind. What I mean by that is I could not think of anything else. It became the highest priority in my entire life.

Somebody asked me before this meeting. We were sitting down stairs and this lady asked me. She said

do you think that genetics plays a part in alcoholism? And I said yeah

plays a part in the phenomena of craving, but I don't think it plays a part in the obsession of the mind.

The obsession of the mind is selfishness and self centeredness. If you read your big book,

one of the things Frank did for me and he was my sponsor was he said read the black in the book.

Simple statement man, but it's just true. So, you know, I was raising this family and I found alcohol at 13 years old and I was putting a boys home by 14 years old because I was incorrigible and I would run away with my friends and, and we'd go get drunk, right.

I got out of the boys home at 17 years old. I was put back with my parents. My dad was a very abusive man. He was a, he was a very bad drunken. When he got drunk, he hurt people. And when I was just a little kid, he'd pull me or my brother out from under our beds because when he got that drunk, we'd hide underneath our beds and he'd pull one of us out and he'd sit there and bring us out and tell us we're losers and we're never going to be anything.

That kind of stuff. And he'd hit my mom

when I got put back with them. He tried to hit my mom once. Never again.

I just about killed him and

the race was on. I was pretty good in sports.

I my folks had moved to Columbus, OH, I hate Columbus, OH. I've got to tell you right now, that is the dingiest town I have ever lived in in my life. It is always like this outside, you know, it's just all, and

I made Allstate in high school football and I got a full, full boat football scholarship to Ohio State or couple other schools that I could have gone to. And,

and I went to Ohio State University and, and because of Woody Hayes and because of what was going on there.

And you take a kid who comes from where I come from and you put him in that scene. Well, let me tell you what I did. I drank, I didn't show up to practice. I never even made it. I, you know, I made it like 4 1/2 months and they kicked me out.

And once you lose your scholarship, you know you got to pay for it. And I didn't do that. So

I ran sort of hard. But what happened to me was Vietnam was going on and and my buddy, my best friend since I was that high, Jimmie Johnson, Jimmy was a Golden Gloves boxer. And actually his family used to take me in all the time and try to protect me. They actually tried to adopt me. But back in those days, black family

could not adopt A white kid. And I, I love these people. I just loved them. They treated me better than anybody had ever treated me. And so Jimmy and I joined the military and joined the Army, and

we went over to Vietnam and came back a year later.

And here's alcoholism. You want to know what power my powerlessness over alcohol was about? It was here. I'm going to give you a good example. One of the things Frank used to do with people, and I do it today, is when I'm talking to a new drunk and they're not sure if they're alcoholic or not. I asked them about specifics. I don't want generalities, right? You're not a bad person, you know?

Oh God, I go out and I fuck up so bad, you know, they're just bragging. I mean, seriously, that's what they're doing.

But Frank would ask me specifics. He'd say, Did you ever go out to have a good time

and keep it going even though you knew you shouldn't? Well, here's what happened to me. I came back from Vietnam and they gave me a 48 hour pass. I'm at the Oakland Army Terminal. So I go into downtown San Francisco, right? And I met some wonderful people at this bar

and they were trying to persuade me to to join their crew and started drinking. And I came back like 26 days later.

So here's what happened. They bust me, they take my stripes, they give me barracks probation. They put me in the barracks. And they said don't do it again. You're out of here. You're out of the US military with an honorable discharge in about 3 months. Can you just keep it together? No problem. Who said that earlier? No problem. I'm going to keep it together.

Well, somebody brought some whiskey into the barracks and I started drinking the whiskey.

All of a sudden I needed to go see my friends in San Francisco.

I came back like 20 some days later. They busted me, threw me in the break for three months, Let me out on general under honorable.

There was five of us that had come back from Vietnam together and we all got out about the same time and we went running and gunning in downtown San Francisco. And we were, we were down there in the area. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the city, but there's this area called Tenderloin District. It's it's inner city. I think they counted 246 hookers and A10 block area or something. It was my kind of place. Trust me.

And

we were, we were down there and there's a strip club down the street on Turk St. And it was like 10:00 in the morning. We're broke. We don't even have money for breakfast. And all of a sudden this ambulance and cop cars are coming up to the strip club and people are running out and cops are running in. And I grabbed this guy and I said to him, I said, what's going on in there? And he said the bartender just got shot in the head.

Now in this sick alcoholic mind,

that's a created job opportunity.

I walked in there and I was asking for the job from the owner before the guy got off the floor. Not that I'm self-centered.

I don't want anybody to believe that, okay,

where that's going to come in and and tonight we're here to talk about powerlessness because we're going to date. You're going to hear more of Dave and Ivan. You probably ever wanted to know, but here's the truth about it is that we get to tell you how to recover from this disease tomorrow and Sunday, right?

But this plays a very important part in my recovery because I got in with these guys and I started running these clubs down the Tenderloin District. And here's what my life looked like. I was doing speed every day just about. I was drinking. I was 10 in bar, I was partying, I was playing with Loose Women as often as I possibly could. And

I was, I was just a wreck. I mean, I was an absolute maniac wreck

and I was running with some biker crowds down in that part of town. And you know, it wasn't because I was badass or anything. These were just the people that accepted you. That's all it was. These people did not care if you got really insane.

And so that's what I was doing. And

I was running over people. I was just running over people. But what happened was, as I met this woman, she was our head stripper in the bar that I was working at. And it sounded like a good time. And we started partying a lot and she got pregnant. And then I got arrested. I got busted on five things all in one night. I hit a cop and just all kinds of stupid stuff.

And

so we decided to take off out of California and go to Denver because her folks live there.

Well, I sound like a good idea at the time. So we came to Denver

and here's the interesting thing. Coke was not a big deal when I was doing this thing in in California in your early 70s, coke was not something that that you really knew about. Crank was meth was big white crosses and then you come down 3-4 days later on Valium and Percocet and anything else you can get your hands on. But the thing was, is that I used drugs in order to drink more. OK,

Now the interesting thing about my drinking story is, is that when I moved to Denver, I had no connections here for any of that stuff, right? And I knew the law was after me because I, I, I literally ran on these warrants. So I played it really low keyed and got bartending jobs in Denver. But what ended up happening to me was I gave up drugs and just started drinking.

And my consumption went from basically,

you know, I don't know what, but you know, people say they drink this amount or this amount or this amount. Let me tell you, I drink it all.

That's what I drink. If it was there, I drank it. And by my mid 20s I was not employable. I couldn't work.

I'd get jobs and they'd run out as soon as, you know, I passed out in a bar and they found me at 3:00 in the morning,

you know, and

booze became a battle for me. I don't know if you can understand that, but it became a bad it. It was work. The fun had gone. I got arrested in a bar fight. And how they didn't find out about California, I'll never tell. I'll never know in a million years. And I end up making amends to those all that stuff later in in my sobriety.

But

here's what happened is I got out of jail. It was December 24th. It was Christmas Eve of 1974. I got arrested. This is just a bar fight, no big deal. And then back in those days, they'd let you out on a PR bond the next morning. It was you know, and I don't know. Yeah, the we used to call it the 13th and champ at Hilton. It was in downtown Denver in the in the jailer said to to all of us that were getting out that morning. He said, well, we're going to let

six, so are you out? Keys can get home before the bars open at 7:00. And I thought to myself, what dare he call me? An Elkie,

right?

I was drunk by 3:00 that afternoon. I was back in that same jail that night. See, that's what alcoholism does to people like me. You know, I am drinking to overcome a craving that I have no power over whatsoever. And I knew I was done. My biggest fear was that wasn't gonna die soon.

This was gonna be a long drawn out affair, right?

So this woman who passed away a couple weeks ago, we were in this house and it was a drunks house. I drove a drunks car. You can always tell a drunks car, right? And you can always tell a drunks house. I had no motorcycle. I was a biker without a motorcycle.

Those things would go right away when I needed money and I was drinking every day and she said to me one day, she said this was right after my daughter was born. And she said,

she said, are you going to come home tonight? And I said, yeah, I'll be home tonight. She said, I want you home for dinner. I'll be home for dinner.

Well, there's a bar down on Broadway called The Blue Bonnet,

and they had three for once, from 4:30 to 5:00. Only now it's a real nice yuppie bar today, but back then it wasn't. And this guy said to me, he said, why don't you come on in here, I'll buy you one drink. 3 for one, right? I came staggering in the house about 2:00 in the morning, and she said something to me and I said something to her. And I couldn't tell you to this day what it was.

And she all of a sudden I look up to my right and I see the biggest rolling pin I have ever seen in my entire life coming straight at my head. And she hit me and she knocked me down and she literally beat the hell out of me. And I'm laying down there on the floor and she called her mom, who today loves me like you can't believe

she calls me her son, her her mother,

who's 95 now.

And

I'm sorry, but she's lost two daughters to alcoholism and I feel so much for her.

But I'm laying on the floor and these pictures are coming into my head and they're like color pictures of me as a little kid just wanting to grow up to be a football player. That's all I wanted to do.

Then there was this picture of me where I was, and then there was this picture of me

on Skid Row because that's where I was heading. I couldn't work, you know,

And I thought the next day I went down and I got stitched up, and I called Alcoholics Anonymous and this gal named Mabel answered the phone and at central office. And she said, oh, honey, where are you? We'll send some guys to get you. And I said, no, you're not going to do that.

I really thought, see, today A is very cool to be in. OK, I'm here to tell you, I know this is fellowship of the Spirit and this is encompassing a whole lot of people who want a spiritual answer to life, which I think is absolutely marvelous. But AA, at the time I came in, was not a cool place to be.

Bob and I and others have done workshops out in Santa Barbara and and Los Angeles, and they literally put it on their resumes that they're members of Alcoholics Anonymous, so they get hired. I couldn't even believe that when I came in. You didn't want anybody know, right?

And I thought these guys were going to show up in AAT shirts, you know, and stuff like that and, and try to take me away and, and I wouldn't let that happen. So I ended up going to some AA meetings and the people were very nice. They were

they were kind and that I weighed 320 lbs. I had 16 stitches in my head, 2 black eyes, busted nose, sweat a lot. And I walked into this meeting and I remember it had couches. And I went and I sat down and everybody moved away from me

and they came up and they'd say things to me like keep coming back

and you never have to drink again.

Now I'm going to tell you what I've learned since. Groups that do not have an answer

are scared to death of real drugs

because they have no answer for them.

And this was an alcoholic synonymous meeting where nobody had an answer, but they'd buy me dinner. So I kept going back and I played them and I, I went back and I bumped 5 bucks for cigarettes and I'd get, I'd buy booze and cigarettes for that back then. And, and I played these guys until, and I kept getting drunk until all of a sudden I went on this three-week Bender. And here's what happened to me. I went on this three-week Bender and I put a gun in my mouth and all kinds of stupid stuff

and I was going to kill myself. And the gun didn't go off. And I threw the gun up against the wall and it went off and, and I passed out. And I woke up the next morning and I remember somebody saying there's a place downtown, downtown called 1311 York Street. And it's for people like you.

So I ended up taking my 72 Pinto

down to 1311 York Street on these bald tires

and I walked into 1311. It was like 10:00 in the morning. Nobody was there. And they, they got me and they, they sat me down at a table and got me a cup of coffee. And I'm shaking. I hadn't had a drink that morning

and I'm I'm just starting to shake and I didn't want to go to A and be drunk that day for some reason.

And all of a sudden this guy comes walking in to 1311 York Street. He stood 6 foot eight. He weighed about £380.00. He had a big old Pall Mall hanging out of his mouth. He had plumber butt on his pants

and he focused right in on me.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't want to talk to nobody when I'm in that shape. I want you to stay away from me, right? He just focused right in on me. Now I've been around a long enough to know this. How am I doing on Oh, I'm good, aren't I?

I've been around a a long enough to know that drunks love sober. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous really enjoy going up and talking to a really hurt and drunk. They just love to do that. It's not because they want to help the hurt and drunk. It's because they want to feel better about themselves, right.

And so I knew this guys going to come up and he's going to pat me on the back. He's going to say keep coming back or some stupid, idiotic thing like that. And he comes barreling into me. This is big Frank. And he comes barreling into me and he sits down at the table I met and he goes, goes like this.

You're fucked.

He gets up and he walks into the kitchen Right now. If I could have gotten up from that table, I was going to take a swing at him.

Here's what the man did. He comes back from the kitchen

and he has this great big thing of orange juice and honey, and he puts it down in front of me.

And then he did something that I'll never forget.

He put a straw in it and he moved it toward me. Why did he do that? Because he knew I couldn't get that boot, that orange juice and honey from that table to my mouth without spilling it. So he made it so that all I had to do is bend over and suck on it.

By that one act, he showed me he knew exactly where I was,

and nobody had ever known exactly where I was.

I used to hear like you. You have so much potential, right?

This man sat down with me. He took me home. I stayed on his couch and he was my kind of guy. He was divorcing his wife and marrying his mistress,

so I knew he was no St. And I'm going to tell you something about people in a A. I've been around here 39 years. I've never met a St. The people that you mentioned, Don Pritz, Gary Brown, Frank, these are all buddies of mine. Nikki. We were all in the first big book workshop after the 75 International Convention. Together.

They're in the Saint among us. I got to tell you right here, right now,

but we are people who are always trying to enlarge our spiritual condition.

Always, because there's so much more here than what I came here for.

I stayed on Frank's couch. I went in DTS. He got some food in me. Finally, he got some some. He didn't give me any alcohol

but he would take me a lot. Back then. We used to win people with boost lot of the time. 1311 York always had a pint in the back to wean people off

and back then there weren't a lot of treatment centers.

And one of the things that I have about treatment centers David talked about so well, which is they want you to believe that you can get well by human aid.

And in order to really and truly get well, I've got to know that I'm beyond humanity.

As I have to know when I'm five years sober. As I have to know when I'm 20 years sober. As I have to know when I'm 39 years sober,

this stuff never stops. I asked Prince one time. I said, what do you think the sobriety thing is really and truly all about? He said. You know, Mike, I think is just simply going from surrender to surrender.

Absolutely true,

absolutely true. That and his truth without love is cruelty, or the two best things Don ever said to me,

you know? And he and I were good buddies.

Here's what Frank did for me. Frank was the guy who I could understand

because he was like me. See, I didn't believe in God. I didn't believe that there was a God. I didn't believe in getting well through a God. I didn't believe in any of that stuff. But what Frank was able to do with me was he he was able to share with me that he was the same kind of drunk as I was.

And here's my hook, the hook that got me into the program of a The idea is staying sober did not enlighten me at all.

The idea of Do you have what we want? I looked around the room. Not really.

I I thought it was pretty stupid, boring and one bunch of people quite honestly. Come to find out, it's totally different if you if you want it to be.

But what he was able to do was he was able to say that he gets to go through his life,

through his UPS, through his downs, through his divorce, through is this through his kids not talking to him, through good times, through bad times. And he didn't even think about taking a drink.

That's freedom.

I literally was that. I was sitting at this table. I was like, I, I can't put time together very well in the first couple years because I was so nuts.

But Frank and two other guys were sitting there. One guy was losing his lighting company. Another guy was getting divorced. Frank was doing whatever he was doing and, and somebody else was doing some. And I looked at him with all sincerity, and I said,

doesn't that make you want to drink? I mean, I thought when you're going through that kind of shit, you gotta be able to go get a cocktail, right? And they looked at me and went, no,

we don't even think about it.

That's what hooked me into coming into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was that I can go out and I can live a life with everything it's got to offer, right? All the UPS, all the downs, all the sideways, and not even think about taking a drink. Are you kidding me?

And then Frank did this. I, I was sitting on the front porch of York Street that same day and I walked in and, and I knew deep down in my heart that I had this disease, that it was never going to get any better. That the first step tells me folks, that I'm going to drink again. That's exactly what it tells me. There's no hope in the first step. There was a guy that recently died in Denver.

He was like 36 years old and he drank himself to death. Like people, those of us that have been around for a long time, we've seen so many people die behind alcoholism, right?

And somebody came up to me and they said, Mike, why do you think this guy died? And I just sort of looked at him. The guy says to me, well he never must have gotten his first step.

Not true. He had a great first step.

He didn't have a second step.

He was not willing to sign up for this deal. See, I believe in God's grace. I know that I'm here. I know that I got directed to where I belong. I was born and raised to be an AA. Now, that's not something you want to brag about.

Like Dave was saying, we're all kings and Queens when we come in here, right? But I was born and raised to be here in Alcoholics Anonymous, talking to a group of people

who want a spiritual answer to their life. On April 4th of 2014, I was born to do this. This is what this is where it got me, right?

Frank was able to, I was able to listen to him and I was running around with all these guys that you were talking about and and we went to that 75 International Convention and I

I was going through the steps with Frank at the time. And there was sort of a fight going on between the Brown camp and the Frank camp. Everybody in a gets pissed at each other, right? I'm better than you or you're better than me. Both groups were saying the same thing. And I knew that Mama raised a drunk, not a dummy, OK?

And I knew that, so I was going to both. And we went to the 75 International Convention

and

actually this is this is really funny because there was a guy laying on the street and I remember two of us went up to him and we grabbed him and we said, come with us, you're going to get sober. And he was just, you know, and he goes, why do I want to go through all the free coffee and Donuts? Okay, he went

and we listened to a guy by name of Matt Cheater. Bob was Olson was there, Brown was there and I was there. Frank was there. Lois Wilson spoke at that convention and Mac Cheater talked about a group called the Golden Slippers

up in Canada who couldn't stay sober until they all of a sudden decided to sit down and read the book from the very first page

and do what it says to do. And then they stayed sober and they continued to do that. They continued to do that. It wasn't a one time thing because T Bot talks about the ego rebuilding and I guarantee you if you're around here, the ego will rebuild. I absolutely guarantee you it. It's a given.

And so then all of a sudden we started this big book workshop and there was I think 14 guys who went through that workshop and Frank was pissed off. I was in that workshop and the guys in the workshop was pissed off. I was sponsored by Frank, but it's no big deal. And

but of the 14 people who went through that workshop, thirteen of us either have died sober or still so.

So tonight I'm supposed to talk about powerlessness.

I think I've conveyed to you pretty good about what my powerlessness look like. I think you need to know what your powerlessness looks like because you cannot catch sobriety. You have to work for sobriety. But my thing is this, It's not just about staying sober. This is not a not drinking contest.

This is a getting well contest. Since I've come in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has not only the drink problem been removed, my entire hearts been changed.

I am not the man today that I that walked in the doors of 1311 York Street. I'm not the man today of 10 years ago. I'm not the man today of five years ago

because of those guys that went before me who had an enthusiasm about helping drunks recover. You want to know what Frank did his last week of sobriety before he passed away? If any of you have heard of him,

he was in the VA hospital. He was dead broke and he had all of us coming down there to see him, and he only wanted to see a few of us.

And he was having us wheel him in a wheelchair up and down the halls and he'd sit there with that gleam in his eye and he would go. I wonder if there's any drunks down here

and we'd go into rooms and he'd talk to him

if there, if they had alcoholism because he loved helping new drums. I was at Don's last talk the night before Don died. Don died the next day and he gave a talk on one lung

at a District 9 convention. And I walked out to die and I said I love you, Don. He grabbed me. He was in a wheelchair. He grabbed me and kissed me on the floor. He said I love you too. And everybody in there loved Don.

These are people who did not come in here, good people,

but not only did they come to Alcoholics Anonymous and get the drink problem removed, but they got their heart changed.

And if you're sitting there and I don't care if you knew, I don't care if you're five years sober, 10 years over 20 years sober, 30 years over 40 years sober.

There's hope right here that you get to live with peace, power, happiness, and a sense of direction in your life no matter what's going on out here. And then for the next day and a half, you got to listen to Dave and I tell you how to do that. Thank you.

OK, I know we've had several people that have come throughout the four speakers. And so at the beginning, I read this, this line, because

if you're an addict, or maybe you're not an addict or an alcoholic, and there's something that is going on in your life that you want to change and you haven't had the power to change it. So lack of power is your dilemma. It's become unacceptable. You want it to change. And so leading into tomorrow, leaving aside the drink question or the drug question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory

and sure how the change came over them. You know, we're the ones making heavy going of life. So as we move through the rest of the weekend,

this is

something we want to keep in in the forefront of our minds, right? Leaving aside these questions, where is it in my life that I want to see change? Because remember this, this, this conference is open. Not only the alcoholic in the addict. We're looking at Al Anons and Co anons, you know, or they're dope, right?

Or their drink. But there there's other that, you know, the layers of the onion. I know it's something we hear a lot, but maybe we can peel a few back today because everyone in this room is an addict.

And the first drug we got introduced to was approval, right?

And we do funny things for that, things that we don't have any choice over. So that's, that's the intention for the rest of the weekend. It's 1/4 after right now. We're going to take a 15 minute break and then we're going to come back. We're going to wrap off a few items and have a meeting. Call it a night,

all right?