The Hamilton Archives Breakfast in Toronto, Canada

I'm an alcoholic, a member of the Mediterranean group. My name is Yustral Campbell.

Especially on a day like today, I use my last name just in case I end up in the hospital and you want to visit me.

So around these parts, it might not be so hard to describe me in the hospital,

but I once went to the hospital to visit a fellow friend in AA and I said, you know, I'm here to see Al. She said Al who? I said Big Al,

she said. I was really looking for more of a family name.

Big Al who drives a truck? Does that help you

Big AL's with Sally as any of this getting me anywhere? She said. Your friend, huh? And she started laughing.

I,

I'm a big believer in the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and, and, and clearly there are places where we're supposed to maintain our anonymity and inside of Alcoholics Anonymous is not one of them. I, I don't believe, but I'm not here to argue with anyone. I'm here to, to say thank you, to thank you, to Mark for all your hospitality. Mark has been a wonderful host.

I was driven here safely today. I was driven to Niagara Falls and saw the falls as an alcoholic. I can't believe that's been happening every day without my knowledge.

I'm a little upset

that no one made me go. Before

I want to, I want to say thank you to the whole committee and to the Archives Committee. I think it's important that we remember where we come from. Somebody said that those who forget are bound to repeat. So I want to remember,

and I want the people that came before. I want to remember who came before me. I never want to think for one second that I invented this or I founded this or I did anything with this in in

innovatively. I just wanna be doing what everybody that came before me did because, because quite honest. There are those in the room who will see later in the countdown the giants that came before us and the giants that came before them.

I we had a little discussion at a little Friday night meeting we had in the hotel. I want to thank the committee for putting me up in a winery.

That's a vote of confidence. I didn't know I

Mark sent the e-mail that I would be staying at the Casablanca Winery in and my wife said is that a good idea? I

I said they can't possibly have enough wine for me.

That was nice.

I want to thank the IT doesn't seem so many that that our fellow members who have experienced an entire psychic change and decided that it was too dangerous to drive today. Those are the truly the healthy ones. The rest of us were like, I'm going,

I pay, I'm ready. What? I don't know. What was the ticket? What did the ticket cost, $20? I'm worth dying for $20.00, Of course. Risked my life for 20 bucks. Hell yeah

on a Sunday morning. Why not?

I don't get that many opportunities anymore.

Had a great alcoholic moment in the archive room. There was a jar of or bowl of of candy put out. Free candy, I might add.

Gum drops. And a man walked up. He took one, he ate and he said you ought to warm those up before you give them to people.

Well, yes, Sir, that's why we're here to get you a warm gum job. Let me just

sit on that for a moment and you come back in 5 minutes and they'll be all warmed up.

I

so I just thank you all for coming in. Thank you for for, you know, this is a remarkable thing, all of this

an archive committee. I mean, it's funny that we, you know, got who knew when we arrived in Alcoholics Anonymous that one day we're going to want to archive that emote that, that moment, you know what I mean? Who of us thought, let me save the parking stub to my first a meeting because someday this might be in the archives, right?

I mean, if you're new here today, if somehow you got in here and you're thinking, man,

Alcoholics Anonymous,

how lame is that,

right? I mean, you really didn't think 2 weeks ago when you were hammering it back wherever you were hammering it back? Jeez, I hope I'm at the Olympia Grand Ballroom in a couple of weeks

on a Sunday morning

listening to some freak.

I want you to know, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't look like this.

I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in early February of 1980. I was a 16 year old Irish Italian Catholic kid from Philadelphia.

I'm not saying that if you work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

you'll end up an Orthodox Jew living in Jerusalem,

but it has happened.

People fear a lot of stuff happening when they work the steps.

Most of it's never going to happen.

I had a sponsor, kind guy of blessed memory named Clint Hodges, and he was sponsored by Clancy Emerson and Clancy. Clint went to Clancy. Clinton had grown up

in an evangelical Christian family in Montana. He hated God and religion and everything about it. And he went to Clancy. And he said Clancy. I'm afraid that if I turn my will and life over to the care of God, in the third step, God will make me a missionary in China.

And Clancy said, Clint,

do you believe in God?

And Clint said no,

and it. Clancy asked. Do you speak Chinese?

No,

Why would God make you a missionary in China? You'd be horrible at that,

but ending up in Orthodox Jew living in Jerusalem has happened.

So be careful

and take my card.

I

am incredibly, I like to say when I speak in a medium Alcoholics, honestly, I like to think whenever I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics and I'm just that it is an honor and a privilege to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And particularly to speak because it's an honor, because Alcoholics Anonymous is not my entire life. I have plenty of things in my life that have nothing to do with the fact that I am a sober alcoholic,

except that I only have them because I'm a sober alcohol. The foundation, the foundation of my life, is the fact that I'm a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not that I'm sober

because I was sober when I started drinking.

If I had to look for A cause for my drinking it would be sobriety.

I believe I drank because I was sober.

So simply getting here and being sober is not the answer.

It's the reason

my sponsor likes to say that if you have a problem with alcohol,

that Alcoholics don't have a problem with alcohol, right? It's not. That's not our problem. Our problem is living without alcohol.

My problem is, how do I live my life sober

without that spring getting tighter and tighter in my gut and then just finally over something, anything, it really doesn't matter, Poppy. And I'm gone and I'm at it again. How do I not do that? How do I live comfortably?

First of all, how do I go one day without a drink? I did not believe that was possible.

I drank in the in the 70s and 80s. I drank alcohol and liquid form, pill form, powder form and solid form. I did not know that I was going to end up in Alcoholics Anonymous. Had I known I was going to end up speaking at the Hamilton Archives breakfast, I would have only drank.

But there was no promise

when I was doing the things that I was doing that I would end up here.

There was no sense that I was going to end up safe, sane and sober. And Alcoholics Anonymous. I drank from 9 years old to 16 years old. I believe I drank for as long as I possibly could. I believe I drank as much as I possibly could.

I could not I

I personally hate the real alcoholic sledgehammer that we use on each other.

I stake my drinking to this paragraph that I'm about to read to you.

The idea that someday I'm reading and I'm getting it wrong.

The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking as the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it to the gates of insanity or death.

I know this.

If I'm controlling my drinking, I'm not enjoying it. If I'm enjoying it, I'm not controlling it. Period.

Go with me for a minute. This is not, and it is Sunday. And

let's just say that the story of Noah actually happened. OK, just for the sake of this discussion, let's say Noah built an ark. Let's say God told Noah to build an ark, as wacky as that sounds. And Noah built an ark.

And when he was done building the ark, he put all the creatures in, right? Two by two by two. We've all read or heard the story somehow in some form, and he saved the world, The entire world.

Everybody and everything that wasn't on that ark died when Noah got back from saving the world. Do you know what he did?

That's right, he planted a vineyard and got drunk and naked in front of the kids.

Sounds like alcoholism to me.

First thing,

Where you back from, Noah? I just saved the entire world. Well, that's a big deal. Thanks. You're welcome.

What you gonna do now? Plant a vineyard? What you gonna do after that? Get drunk and naked in front of the kids? Sounds like a great idea, Noah.

Let's just say that that story is between 3505 thousand years old. Whether it happened or not, somebody thought it up and wrote it down.

Between that day and this,

recovery from alcoholism has been available.

I always should do the math before I get to this moment.

What is it? 83 years? 83 years right

since 1935, from 5000 BCE,

5000 years ago till now. Recovery from alcoholism has been available for 83 years. We live in an incredibly small window of time when recovery from alcoholism was available to the human being.

Even still,

the vast majority of Alcoholics will die without ever darkening the door of Alcoholics Anonymous,

and without getting into math or statistics or percentages of who work the program better. Them or us.

A fair number of us

will die after having darkened the door. A fair number of us will be given a seat in a room of Alcoholics Anonymous. And at some point after that moment, we'll get up and say thanks but no thanks. I'll give it my best shot out there. And they will die,

because that's what Alcoholics do. They will die ugly, humiliating, painful deaths both for themselves and the people that have the unfortunate task of loving them.

Alcoholism is an ugly, dirty disease and it trashes lives, drunk or sober. So whenever someone gets to Alcoholics Anonymous, please God, let me be the last person to judge whether they are alcoholic. And if I judge them to be non alcoholic, please God let me keep my mouth shut.

It's not my job, it's not my business.

And please God, if they say, would you take me through the book? Let me say yes,

and please God, let me make room in my life because I owe a debt to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm not the first person to say that. I read it in Doctor Bob's story. Doctor Bob felt he owed a debt to Alcoholics Anonymous.

If he owed a debt to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know I owe a debt to Alcoholics Anonymous.

The other thing I love about Doctor Bob's story is he talks about the idea of not much getting over the desire to drink for 2 1/2 years.

And you know what he did

in those 2 1/2 years? He didn't drink.

He stayed silver. He worked with another alcoholic. He found that Alcoholics Anonymous. In those 2 1/2 years, I don't think I'd wanted to drink for

really seriously wanted to drink for 24 hours in a row since I've been here

and I see a lot of people who want to drink and some drink and some never come back. So however we got here and however the people will get here to the meetings we go through this week,

I want to know that I will be a welcome.

It's not my job to decide if they're alcoholic,

it's just my job to say welcome to Alcoholics. Thumbs. That's what people did for me. I showed up at Alcoholics Anonymous on the 5th of February 1980 and a bunch of people sat me down. They gave me my first cup of coffee. An addiction I'll thank them for forever.

I'm not really addicted to coffee, I just drink it so as to not get a headache.

I don't have to drink it until noon,

but up until noon. It's a choice.

Choice I make every day, but a choice nonetheless.

A bunch of guys gave me their numbers and a bunch of guys wrote on their cards. One guy, I remember Gordon, he wrote call anytime. He underlined that. He put an exclamation point. He gave me that card. He shook my hand and I do that. I have cards in my pocket. You ask for my card, I'll shake your hand, I'll give you my card. I'll say you feel free to call me anytime. And I do that because I know he's never going to come.

That's why I drank, so I wouldn't have to call a stranger in the middle of the night and say I don't feel good.

I'm scared,

I'm nervous, I'm anxious.

I would rather be beaten with a baseball bat on this stage in front of all of you then call someone and say I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to get through the day.

I don't. I can't do this.

One guy took my number and he called me. He called me the next day and he said, hey, Chris, you want to go to a meeting? I said yeah, I didn't want to go to a meeting.

I wanted to say I went to AA yesterday.

You mean I got to go 2 days in a row?

But thank God I went to that meeting because that's the meeting where I got alcoholism.

Oh, really? I didn't have alcoholism when I went to. I mean, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because my best friend Lizanne had come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and Lizanne was the kind of drinker I always wanted to be. We drank in the suburbs of Philadelphia, mainly in a park, and

the Zen will wake up in New York City or on a bus bound for Ohio or in Atlantic City. She got some movement on her drinking. If I drank here, I woke up here.

Just

mark back to my feet, stand me up, and that's where I've been drinking.

Unless there was a puddle nearby, I might migrate to a puddle

or make my own. It's really,

I mean, people underestimate urination and.

It's warm and fuzzy for a long time.

I don't want to think about the horrors that were visited upon a 16 year old girl while she traversed the Northeast United States in the early 80s and late 70s and in a blackout.

But she got sober and I saw that happen. I saw something change in her eyes. And when when I had a hit and run accident with a Catholic priest and

which is close to a burning Bush as I'll probably ever get. I mean, if that's not a direct sign from God,

he sent like one of his hench men, you know, like like the Godfather, he wants to talk to you.

Okay, I'll be there in the morning. I went to school the next day would threw up in the hallway, which is not allowed in the Catholic boys school.

They'd be proud of me now, wouldn't they?

And there I was. I woke up the next day, I threw up in the school. I went back home. I slept for a couple hours. I woke up and I called Alcoholics Anonymous.

Call the number in the phone book. Turned out it was a clubhouse. Called the 319 Club. A woman answered the phone. She said Alcoholics Anonymous, may we help you? I said yeah, how do you get into AA? She said the door.

But you know, we don't need that kind of attitude in our phone workers,

she said. If you get here by 12:30, I'll take you to a board meeting. I thought a board meeting. I haven't even not even a member yet. Kind of shoddy organization of these people running.

I got there around 2:30. When I got to a A, there were three guys in a A. There were the 350 year old Russian guys from the Dan and Yogurt commercials in the 70s ago.

Barely move and then they eat the yogurt they do backflips and cartwheels with. Those three guys were in a when I got here and I looked at them and I thought, if I don't drink for as long as they've been alive, I can't have a drink for 134 years.

And then that afternoon, a bunch of people gave me the numbers as I described. And,

and this wasn't like today, kids

and I around, believe me, I when I got sober, I hated when the old timers would say, ah,

when we got clean without hospitals and detox. Good guy in a closet for a week, took him out, took him to a meeting,

Right? They're always going on like that. Cops. We didn't use cops. We put the grounds in our mouth and drank hot water

cups.

But this was back in the day when someone calling someone anytime, man, you had to figure out when they were home,

their phone wasn't in their pocket. It was in their kitchen.

You could take the phone with you, but you had to take the whole house too.

And so Paul called me and I went to Alcoholics Anonymous the second day.

And on the second day, I sat in the Paola Young People's Beginners meeting and I listened to a bunch of people talk about themselves. And at the beginning of the meeting, they went around the room and everyone said they were an alcoholic. And that was freaking me out. And they got to Paul. Paul was the 2nd, the last person and I was the last person. And Paul said my name is Paul. And he didn't say it was an alcoholic or I didn't hear it anyway. And I said my name is Chris. And I sat and listened to those people for an hour, and I caught

right then in there my friend Scott Redmond, of blessed memory, used to say alcoholism is a contagious disease. You catch it through your ears.

I listen to you talk about your lives and your feelings and your emotions and your spiritual condition

and what happened to you when you drank and the things that you were willing to do in order to drink. And I thought to myself, God, if they're alcoholic, I'm alcoholic. And by the end of me, I'm saying I'm an alcoholic. That's what's wrong with me. Believe me, in my family, if you come through the mental illnesses with alcoholism, you are doing very well.

In my family, having alcoholism is like going to Harvard,

really.

You come out with a simple case of alcoholism. You're like top of the class.

But I went and I started, you know, when Paul became my first sponsor and that and

that connection to Paul became

I jumped. I know I jumped because I didn't open the book yet.

I talked about why this is an honor, and I want to, just for a second, go back and talk about why this is a privilege.

Doctor Silkworth writes, and he's writing about Bill in the doctor's opinion, in the introduction of the doctor's opinion, he's talking about many years ago, one of the leading contributors of this book came under the care of our hospital while he acquired some ideas with which he put into practical application at once. And then here's the line that I love.

Later, he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to other patients.

That's what I'm being given the privilege to do this morning, to tell my story to the other patients.

And then the doctor is beautiful here, he says here. And with some misgiving, we consented.

In other words, they thought it was a bad idea but figured how much damage can they do?

And that's why we're here

for all the reasons. Because Abby went to Bill, Because Roland went to Abby. Because Doctor Young couldn't heal Ebby drooling. Because Doctor Young was humble enough to know that he could not provide the transformational emotional experience that Roland needed to stay sober. So that he could get Abby out of jail. So that Abby could go to Bill. So the Bill could bottom out one more time and go to town's hospital.

So the bill could work with people for six months and no one would get sober

except Bill.

So that Bill could go to Bob in early May of 1935.

Isn't it remarkable that the founding date of Alcoholics Anonymous is not when the first member got sober, but when the second member got sober?

It's about two.

Not about one. It's about two

What do I need? I need my book and I need another alcoholic to talk to.

I need that. Paul and I, Paul who talked me into my second meeting. Paul and I are a power greater than me. You said you won't want to die of alcoholism. You want to stop drinking. You have to access a power greater than yourself. Paul and I are a power greater than me. Mark and I are a power greater than me. Hoyt and I are a power greater than me.

Lenny and I are a power greater than me. That's what I need in my life to not drink today.

Access to a power greater than myself and me and anyone of you are a power greater than me. And that's one of the reasons I'm still an alcoholic. Synonymous. Sure, me and the gas station attended our power greater than me, but it's going to take some work till we realize that until we get on the same page. Sure, me and the, the, the

bartender or waitress at the Castle Casablanca Winery and our power greater than me, me and anyone else are power greater than me. But here we're attuned to that. We're, we're, we're starting out, which is not going to be a lot of having to get, you know, kind of synchronized.

And also my interactions with them. None of them are dying of alcoholism.

Here I come and I can be of service. When I got down calls and Gordon wasn't two weeks sober, he wasn't reading out of a manual trying to figure out how to give out his number and 12 step. Paul was sober some five years at that point.

Five years,

2627 years old, five years, and he was in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on the day I needed to meet someone who knew how to stay sober.

So yes, then new people are, I don't know if they're the most important person in them, They're incredibly important person, but I don't want to turn the program over to them.

It's not their job, quite honestly, nor are they equipped to do it.

That's why I want to be here. That's why I want to be here.

And so that privilege and that misgiving and that action, which was one of a series of actions which finally brought Bill and Bob together

and Bob stopped drinking,

right? There's AII once heard his son speak Bob Junior,

who was sitting him in the back of the car when Bob turned to Anne and said we'll give this bird 15 minutes

and they stayed five hours.

I know that feeling. I know that feeling of sitting with someone and talking to them and the time flies by and yet it doesn't seem the the clock doesn't seem to move at all.

I know that feeling.

I know that feeling of of both being told that there is a solution. I don't have to live like this.

And I know the feeling of looking at another man's eyes, another person's eyes, and seeing that they're learning that for the first time, for the first moment, they are finally getting the idea that they don't have to die this way any longer.

I got a lot of amazing stuff in my life, none more amazing than that.

There is something in a room when we are gathered together that is not in that room when we are not there.

Go to the meeting early, stay late, sit in the room by yourself.

The room feels different when we are gathered together and when we are gathered together for this,

for recovery from alcoholism, it is different than when we are just gathered together in general.

What's amazing to me is the feeling, how different the room can feel from the regular meeting where we are each and every one of us, equal in each other's eyes and here to save each other and to to grow together. We are. We are like those who are, you know, recovered from a ship

to 15 minutes later when the business meeting starts

and suddenly we're oppositional and reactionary

and defensive

and we're right

and we are just and we will be heard.

It's amazing how unspiritual we can get so quickly

and we do it time and time again, city after city, month after month.

No wonder more and more groups have steering committees then it's only like 8 people being oppositional to each other

anyway.

So I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I stopped drinking soon thereafter. I stopped drinking that day. I

snorted a little

alcohol and powder form of about eight days later, but I wasn't going to change my sobriety date because this was Alcoholics Anonymous and

it's kind of attached already to that first sobriety date. It's a long story and I won't go into it, but it was an important sobriety day. And so I don't know, eight or nine months later, I moved my date to the 14th of February, not realizing that that was Valentine's Day in the United States. I don't know if it is here. It's not in Israel, thank God. So there's no competition on my birthday.

My wife's Israeli. She doesn't even know what Valentine's Day is and I haven't told her

because the 14th of February is my birthday after all and should be celebrated as such.

So when it rolled around and I was 17 and oh that's so cute, you got silver on Valentine's Day. You're so cute. I wasn't willing to give up another day to move it to the 15th. So I was stuck

and I worked with Paul, you know, and I, and I was a junior year, my junior in high school and my life started to change. I started to meet new people. I apparently there was a whole like group of people at school that didn't drink alcoholically or smoke behind the dumpsters all day or, you know, do any number of horrible things I was doing. And, and they were living great lives and I met a lot of them and my life started to grow and open and expand. And

I ended up visiting Florida and then moving to Florida upon graduation and, and getting really active in Alcoholics Anonymous. They are getting involved in service. You know, someone said earlier that that you know, the the volunteering

is as slow as usual, which is great because if you're into this, you can do whatever you want here because there's always a job open.

And if it's not open this week, it'll be open next week.

So you're lucky if you're one of those people that wants to be enthusiastic about your involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's always place to do something because because they don't. You know, I remember I was, you know, they told me to get a commitment and I knew clearly that 13 to take advantage of the newcomer. I could see that a mile away. I'm not going to be taking advantage of. I'm not getting a commitment.

And so I didn't.

And then I finally did. I got a coffee commitment and it turned out I'm a great coffee maker. I'm one of the best coffee makers in a A. It turns out I didn't even know.

Turns out I make excellent coffee.

Few months later, it turns out everyone is incredibly jealous of an excellent coffee maker

and they start talking about rotation, which I know

is a buzzword for Let's get the excellent coffee maker out of his job

because we're going to get used to excellent coffee and it's going to be really hard when he finally decides to do something else. And they threw me right out of being coffee maker.

And it was years later, it was,

I was probably about

12 years sober and I was living in Los Angeles, and I was going to a Sunday night meeting called the Sundowners Group. And the Sundowners Group was basically populated by really rich people

or really good looking people or really famous people.

Pretty much everyone there was one of the three. I was none of the three

and I was really uncomfortable there and I decided I would leave because I'm 12 years sober and I don't need to be uncomfortable in my own skin. I've worked really hard as a member of Alcoholic Synonyms, done a lot of step work, done a lot of spiritual growth. I'm going to take care of me and I'm going to leave.

And I don't know, maybe that would have worked. I don't know. Because just as I was going out the door, another voice in my head said, what are you doing? Don't leave a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because you're uncomfortable. You get a job.

And I thought, yeah, I remember hearing at the Florida State convention when I was about a year and four months sober, a guy named Franklin Williams from Olive Branch, Ms. And Franklin was a little, it was tiny, 112 or something, and he had to stick Southern accent. And he said, my name is Franklin Williams. And I'm a member of the Olive Branch Ms. group of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Olive Branch group is the best damn group in AA. And then he said, if you don't think your Home group is the best group in a, A, don't go joining another one and screwing that up too.

Move to the front of the room and take responsibility. And so that's what I did. I got a job, I got the assistant candle buyers job. California gives out birthday cakes every week. Everybody gets their own candles.

That doesn't necessitate two people buying candles. I think either one of us was fully capable of buying all the candles. But we had two people. I was the Co buyer

and then after a while I was the

buyer

and then I moved up to the lighter and then the cake holder. I was ripping through that organization

and sure enough, I lost track of what had made me uncomfortable. And some like about a year and two years later, I was standing on the podium. I was the secretary of the Sundowners group, which in California is the highest job you can have in a group and or the lowest depending on how you see the group. And there I was, shushing the people and wishing they would go to their seats and complaining about the smokers and you know, the stuff we do.

And while I'm shooting them and wishing they'd be in their seats so we could start the meeting on time for once and give the speaker their full, deserved time,

it suddenly occurred to me.

I'm not happy with these people, but I'm not intimidated by them either. I am just a man among men. I'm not rich, I'm not good looking, and I'm not famous. But I'm a member of this group and I'm equal to everyone here. And I would have not learned that had I walked out the door. I might have gotten a massage that day, or gone to a spa or I don't know what,

but I wouldn't have learned that I was equal to all those people. I would have left with the feeling I had when I went out the door,

which was that somehow they were better. And so maybe you're thinking So what, dude?

Maybe that's So what? I don't know. It was a lesson for me. It was along the way. It was right about the time when I went to my sponsor, who was a, a big meditator. I, I've always alternated between poke you in the chest sponsors and called you to tell you they love you sponsors. And I was on a call you to tell you I loved your sponsor and, and,

and he, he was a big meditator. And I don't mention that except that because the reason I mention that is because he, what he told me is after we, you know, we were working and talking for a while, he said, you know, I, I really think you have to have another second step experience. You have to kind of come to believe in a power greater than yourself, you know, because.

Because you need something new there. You need something different, something more. And I was thinking about this morning, I think about it a lot. Because I really believe that me and anyone of you is enough on any given day to keep me sober. And it was certainly enough for me to start this journey 38 years ago. But that's not enough to make me.

The way I like to think about it is like when I got sober. I lived in a well when I first moved out of my Poly. When I first got sober I lived in my parents house. That limited the amount of things I had to do,

right? And now I live in my own house.

I can't, I can't say, well, I'm just going to do what I used to do when I first got sober because that was enough then and I wanted to be enough now.

I couldn't go to my wife and say, you know what, honey? I like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pretty much top out of making the bed.

I don't really, you know, that's what I used to do when I lived at home and that's what I feel comfortable doing now.

That was my first higher power, and this is my higher power today. It just wouldn't work.

Timothy Leary used to say if you're in discussing LSD, he would say if you he say LSD is rocket fuel. If you're a Volkswagen, don't take rocket fuel.

But it's the it's the opposite here. I have a big, rich, full, authentic life today. It's not going to be powered by that little bit of that I had 38 years ago. I've had to grow this thing.

I'm not saying become an Orthodox Jew. I'm not saying come to, you know, visit my Home group. You can speak at my Home group. Robbie did.

But you know I'm not asking you to become me. There's no room in my life for you.

Barely find parking now

I'm saying become you. I'm saying Alcoholics Anonymous offered me me,

not for the sake of me being me and having me. And aren't I great so that I could be an agent for my employer?

That's so that I could be of service

to the God of my understanding and my fellow human beings,

right? I ran around a A for years saying, but what kind? What does God want me for me? What does that want me to do? What does God want me to do? What does that You know? What does God want me to do?

Says clearly in the book what God wants me to be, do and be. God wants me to be happy, joyous and free and of maximum service

to God. And my fellows

realize who's missing in that statement? Me. But I'm not supposed to be a maximum service to me. No,

it's supposed to be a maximum service to you.

The downside of that means you're supposed to be a maximum service to me

so we can talk after the meeting because I have a list of things I'd like you to do.

We have this, I have this friend in LA, in Jerusalem and, and she drives me crazy because she's always saying A is a cult

and it just makes me mad. Like insane mad. Not angry because I don't get angry because I've dealt with my feelings through the steps.

Sometimes I have a negative emotion, but it's only so that I'm relatable to others.

I'm right and then sometimes I'm wrong, but I admit that I'm wrong, which makes me right.

And I always say to her, yeah, we're a cult. We're the only cult in the world that makes you get in touch with your family and won't take your money,

Mark pointed out this morning. We have cult like tendencies,

the veneration of our leaders and founders.

I don't know.

I'm proud. Did you go to the archives room?

I'm proud to be in line with those people.

I'm proud to be the extension of Bill Wilson and Bob Smith and Doctor Silkworth and Sam Shoemaker, Reverend Shoemaker and all those people.

Marty Mann and the early women of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm, I'm, I'm, maybe, I don't know.

I'm proud to be able to be here today. I'm proud to be able to say thank you to Alcoholics Anonymous, not just by doing this,

but by going to my regular meetings, by answering my phone when it rings, by going out with the new guy and reading the book, by saying this is how I got sober, this is what I did. These are the actions I took. You know,

my, my sponsors sometimes tells a story which I first heard from a guy named Bob D

and there's a guy is an alcoholic and he's down the ocean and he's paddling. He's he's treading water, but he can feel he can't see anything

for as far in any direction and he knows he just can't paddle water forever. He can't tread water forever. He's going to have to. He's getting tired and suddenly,

far on the horizon, he sees two guys

and they're paddling towards them. They pull up right next to them

and they don't have a boat.

They're just sitting there paddling and they say, hey, man, get in.

And he says, but you don't have a boat. They say, just get in, man, get in and start paddling, you'll be fine. And he's about to get in, but then suddenly he sees a big shiny ocean liner pull up and it says, I don't know, rehab.