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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker or something like that. My name is Scott Redmond.

I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody. I was really annoyed and uh irritable until about 10 minutes ago.

I looked over my friend Bob Fischer and he stuck his tongue out at me. And uh and I love him. I love Bob F.

I I love him to pieces. I'll tell you why I love him. I love him because my wife loves him.

And my wife loves him because early on when we came to the program 19 years ago, my wife really really respected and held in very very high regard Bob's wife, Ellen. And uh and she came to know Bob through knowing Ellen. And he was one of the first, you know, drunks that my wife Nancy would say, "Geez, what a great guy." And made me feel great.

makes me feel great when a member of Alcoholics Anonymous represents us well. And I just I love them to pieces. And I'm sitting up here, I'm like ready to keel over.

I've gone down three hat sizes in the last 45 minutes. And um my depends are full and uh and I look over and he stuck his tongue out and I know he loves me. I love him.

When I when I see him, that's that's what happens to me. If you're new, I'm sure you're thrilled for Bob and I. Uh uh like to uh welcome the guy who who won the countdown look like you had been voted most attractive man on your cell block.

That really hope you never win again. Hope you never win again. And uh we're 2 hours into this so I'll tell my favorite story about being bored in Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you're new and you're bored, welcome to AA. I had a friend named Jeff D who used to go to my old home group, the North Hollywood group, and uh when he was new, he was shifting around in his seat at this meeting. And his sponsor said to him, "What's the matter?" And Jeff said, "I'm bored." And his sponsor said, "Well, you know why you're bored, don't you?" And Jeff said, "No." Sponsor said, "You're bored because you're boring.

That's why you're bored." And it was like an acid moment for him. He just went, "Whoa, whoa." freaked him out and he thought, "What a cool thing to say to a newcomer." He could hardly wait till a newcomer told him that they were bored. 13 years later, no newcomer has told him that they're bored.

And uh he was at a meeting at our old home group and he was with this young lady who was new and she was shifting around in her seat and he said, "Uh, what's the matter?" And she said, "I'm bored." He said, "Well, you know why you're bored?" She said, "Yeah, cuz I'm with you." So, if you're bored, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're a drug addict, welcome to AA. If you're a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you're a crack monster, oo, that's scary. Welcome. I like to welcome all the all the tweakers.

Welcome, Tweakers. Yeah. Right.

They they have no idea why they've raised their hands. They have no short-term memory, but we're w glad you're here. Glad you're here.

If you've ever masturbated till you're dehydrated, welcome to AI. We're glad you're here. You're so special and we love you so much.

If you've ever licked all the features off your own face, welcome to AI. But I love you guys. You stay quick for a long time.

Every part of your face is moving in a different direction. You're special. Special.

And I'm I'm not making fun of you. I'm coming pretty close. But uh but I'm not making fun of you.

I'm really not because I don't really care what you have. I don't care if you're the Bigfooted dope addicts, if you're a dope Goliath, if you're the dope juggernaut. I don't care.

Just catch alcoholism. Catch alcoholism. We'd love to give it to you.

You know, I caught alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I did not have alcoholism when I got here. So, if you're new and you don't have alcoholism yet, welcome.

And I I you know, the my sponsor used to say that the infection enters through the ear and uh it infects you. And um and that's what happened to me. But I certainly did not have alcoholism when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Uh number one, I'm uh I'm Jewish and Jews don't drink because it might dull the pain and uh you know, you don't want to You don't want to squander any agony opportunity that presents itself. But you know, it's a funny thing that that identification as a suffering Jew. We all have these identifications uh to these kinds of things.

And once they get held up to the light, they vanish. They can't they can't stand the light. They disappear in the light.

You know, there are these things that we cling on, we get attached to, and we make them who we are until we find out this incredible thing that we're part of this incredible thing. But my whole life, my alcoholism went below the horizon. It stopped presenting itself as a real and present danger and a real piece of business.

And I drank no matter what. It's a mystery. It's an absolute mystery.

There were several other reasons why I was non-alcoholic. I had also I had been in psychotherapy for 18 years. By the time I got to AA, I was going to be dead, but I was going to understand it.

And uh I am not putting therapy down. It says on page 133 of our book, if you need a doctor, go get one. I got no beef with therapy and I have no malpractice insurance, so I'm not apt to tell people what to do in that area.

Um my colossal mistake with therapy, because I've used therapy many times uh for myself and my family in in uh in sobriety. I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy, which is like showing up at a gunfight with a knife. It's just and getting these colossal ass poundings, you know.

Um, I mean, the idea of most conventional therapy, it Freudian based therapy is to uncover, discover, and and unravel to free associate. Maybe you'd even delve into your past. And if you're neurotic, if you have neurosis, a neurosis is you have anxiety and then you come up with a resolution for the anxiety, but it's worse than the anxiety.

It creates more anxiety. So, your solutions are worse than your problems. I I don't know if this resonates for anybody here.

So, I'm trying to get rid of this anxiety. So, I I'm in therapy. I I feel terrible.

Why? I was so drunk yesterday. I was too drunk to walk, so I drove.

Well, what are we going to do about that? Let's talk about it. Hey, I got an idea.

Let's talk. What were you thinking just before you did it? Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. My head got too big for my cranium.

Um, my mouth filled with saliva. The room spun. I went out for a pack of cigarettes.

I wound up in Baltimore. That's what happened. Treat that.

treat that with psychotherapy. So, I did not have alcoholism when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a terrible journey to AA.

I I was brought up in the Bronx in New York City. He is definitely here with the witness protection program. I know him and there's no statute of limitations on what he's done.

Um, and I was brought up uh to a in a completely insane family. My my wife never believed me about my family until she met him. And uh my mom threw an engagement party for us and my aunt Rose came to the party and wore her wig backwards and it had a bun on it and she wore it like beret style, sort of a jaunty a skew.

They're psycho. Um um if you got anything for free in my family, I meant it was stolen. Um and I had an uncle who used to get he was a welder and he used to get free bales of steel wool.

Like here's your paycheck and your complimentary bail of steel wool. And um his wife took a decorating course and made throw pillows and filled all the throw pillows with the free steel wool. So that stuff works its way through on you after a while.

So when when you were at their house, everybody was moving a little bit. You know, the the whole room was like a living pulsing uh organism. Um very troubled, very very troubled people.

And there was uh uh chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts and um mental and physical abuse. And uh if you're new here, all I've got is good news for you cuz my family didn't have one single thing to do with making me an alcoholic. I'm not telling you I wasn't injured.

I was terribly injured. And I'm not telling you I haven't had to do a lot of stuff about that. I have.

I'm telling you they they didn't make me a drunk. I have a bizarre physical reaction that makes it impossible for me to control and enjoy or moderate my drinking once I begin. I am cut out from the pack.

I am a group of allergic people. It this allergy does not exist in normal people. And if you're special and a drug addict, try some controlled crack smoking.

You know, just fill your mouth up with crack smoke. Say, "I'm not in the mood." And blow it out and uh and hats will fill the air and you'll be so very special. And I've got this wacky thinking.

It would be okay if I had this physical problem because I just wouldn't drink again. Right? People who are allergic to strawberries don't find themselves all puffed up uh because they just can't stay off the goddamn strawberries.

But I keep taking a drink cuz I got this wacky thinking. I've got it now. I've got it 19 years in.

I had it when I walked in. I've still got it. And that's why I do more now than I have done since I came to AA.

I've been hanging out with people since I got here who when things get good, they do more. When things get bad, they do more. They do more.

And um I was 14 years in, 14 years sober. I needed this surgery on my hand. And the doctor said to me, um, you know, Mr.

Redmond, you're going to need general anesthetic for this. And I said, general anesthetic? That's great.

Normal people don't get excited about general anesthetic. There's no normal person that goes, "Oh, oh, oh." But I do because I know about general anesthetic. I know that they when they hit you with it, they say, "Count backwards from 100." And you go 100 99.

I love 99. I love 99. But I won't chase 99 anymore.

I won't trade my life in for 99. One of the most misqued lines in the big book of AA for me has always been, "My worst day in here is better than my best day out there." No, no, no. Let's see.

A pound of cocaine in an all female jazz band or a panel at Redgate? I don't know. What do you want to do?

I don't know. What do you want to do? What the guy at the end of chapter 3 says is I wouldn't trade my worst day in here for my best day out there because I won't trade this way of life.

I won't trade it in for 99 anymore. I won't do it. A couple of years after I got the surgery, I was about 16 years sober and go to a different doctor and he said, "You know that surgery you had on your hand, you're going to need on the other hand." And I said, "Uh, guess we'll be having some of that general anesthetic." Well, And he said, "You don't need general anesthetic with this." And my first thought was, "No, I need another goddamn doctor." That's what I did fast.

So, I got this bizarre physical reaction. I got this wacky thinking, alcoholic thinking. It's the source of a lot of mirth at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

And I developed this cancer of the soul, this spiritual tapeworm that ate me up from the inside and left me hollow and insane and alone. I grew up in this family in the Bronx, this nutty nutty family. And you know, if you're new here, I'm not telling you that you don't if and you come from a bad place, I'm not telling you that you don't.

But I am telling you that if my problem had been my family and what was done to me, I wouldn't be talking here today. The I had good therapy. You know, I would have worked out my family problems and I would have been okay if I didn't have this weird thinking and this horrible spiritual illness.

And you know what? I knew what my problem was the day I walked in. Aaa, I didn't know it was my problem.

I hated you. I hated myself. I was terrified.

And I had done things sexually that I didn't recall. And most of them just involved me. And I certainly wasn't going to share them with another human being.

And you know what? I've That only gets a round of applause at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I'll tell you that.

The Rotary doesn't The hats don't fill the air at the Rotary. Um, and I hated uh uh me, but nothing compared to how much I hated you. I've I've always hated you more than I've hated me.

I'm I'm not a uh I'm not a suicide guy. I'm a homicide guy. I always have been.

uh you first and um I always had this fantasy that the paper would read Scott Redmond kills wife, kills children, and refuses to commit suicide. Uh and I'm I am not knocking the suicide people. Uh I'm not putting the suicide people down.

It's just the flip side of the same coin. And it uh you you before me. Um but I didn't know uh I I I felt those things very intensely the first day came in AA.

thing I didn't know was I didn't know that that was the architecture of the soul sickness that had plucked me beyond the possibility of being helped by well-meaning clergy, family, doctors, people who loved me, my hopes, my dreams, my desires, my children, anybody. You can't stack it up against that soul sickness. And um I didn't want to be an alcoholic growing up in the Bronx.

I was my father was a bartender and he was not a drinker. He was a great guy. And um um but we knew a lot of people who died from alcoholism in my family and I didn't want to be one of those guys.

I overcame my alcohol problem with marijuana. Like to welcome all the pot smokers here today. And uh you remember Wow, right?

Another round of applause for marijuana. It's it's unbelievable. You remember WOW, right?

Wow. Wow. And right after wow usually came what?

What? Wow. What?

Wow. What? Wow.

What? Wow. What?

Wow. What? Watching a pot smoker is like watching a dog try to run on lenolium.

There's There's like a lot of activity but no movement. They just can't get a claw in the rug. Man, I overcame my uh marijuana problem with pills and um I triumphed over pills with cocaine.

Cocaine is an excellent drug. It's particularly good for sex if you enjoy sex from the Neolithic period. And uh kick that god darn cocaine with with heroin.

Heroin is a very dark, complicated artistic drug. Then you cross the line and become a vomiting pig. I'm not I I got to tell you something.

I am really do not mean to offend or piss off anybody. I'm been asked to tell my story. Carol asked me to talk.

And uh so if you want to straighten anybody out after the meeting, please see Carol C. Carol T. She'll be more than happy to talk to you about it.

But I really I really do mean that. I don't mean to offend or I'm just telling my story. And one of my ways of avoiding alcoholism was to uh move my way through these other addictions and other substances.

And uh I was in my early 20s and my father had a massive stroke and I was I just shot some heroin and uh I couldn't show up for my old old man the night that he died. And uh oh, it was just mindboggling to me. I just felt like a pig, like an animal.

I had holes in my arms and the curtain was down. And I couldn't even go and give my pop a kiss and touch him on the cheek and watch him take his light into another room. I I uh it was horrifying to me.

I just couldn't imagine how I had wound up in that place. And I I had to do some quick thinking. I couldn't possibly be the guy who couldn't show up for his old man the night that he died.

And I uh I came I I did some quick work and I figured out it was heroin and needles. And all I had to do was never ever put a needle in my arm again. And I wouldn't be that guy.

I wouldn't be that animal who couldn't show up for his old man because the ice around my heart had already become so thick. I had so rearranged my life to accommodate the walk to the drink. My father wasn't moving on.

My father was dead and gone and he's going to rot because this was an aimless cipher wandering nowhere. I had I didn't even know how much I had rearranged my life to accommodate the sickness even by that time. And I was I was 21 years old.

Um, and I didn't I didn't put a needle in my arm for 13 years. And uh, shortly after that, I was acting in a Broadway play and I uh, this new usherette with long brown hair walked in and I took one look at her. I didn't even say hello to her.

I w I walked back into the dressing room and stood on a chair uh, in this dressing room and announced to the male members of this company that if anyone talked to the new usherette with long brown hair that I break all the bones in their hands and feet. And uh we celebrated uh 28 years of marriage on June 19th in part because we've never wanted to get divorced at the same time, which is there's a lot of timing involved here and a lot of love. You know, my my one of the defects of character that has been so troubling to me has been uh uh mind readading.

I I I I think I know what people are thinking. And um it's never done me any good at all. I I uh my wife once said to me, "You're not a mind reader.

You're barely a mind user." She said it very sweetly though. We had a great time. We were in our early 20s living in New York.

I was acting on Broadway. We had a great time. Great time.

I certainly wouldn't trade my worst day in AA for that time. uh uh and uh Nancy uh after a bit of time started becoming a little troubled and um uh and difficult and uh she became kind of pronouncedly sick after a year or two and uh I came home one day we had these 32 ounce iced tea tumblers in the house and I came home I popped a cork on a bottle of wine and emptied the entire bottle of wine into this glass and I turn my wife was giving me her pre-alanon rat face that one. And I said, "What?" And she said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I'm having a glass of wine." Can a man have a glass of wine in his own home?

We got so sick that at one point a guy lend us his car and we sold his car. I will never forget this guy's voice on the phone as long as I live. He said, "You sold my car." That's like housesitting for someone and they come back and you're in escrow.

You know, the alcoholic life becomes the only normal one. We didn't have rent. No, no, really.

And uh I looked into my wife's eyes and I said to her, "I am so sick of being a punk irresponsible kid. Let's stand on our own two feet. Let's not borrow money.

Let's do the right thing. Let's sell the car. And my wife looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Let's do." I was 10 years sober.

I'm talking at a meeting. My wife is sitting next to her sponsor and I tell that story and I see her sponsor lean over to her and and her sponsor's been her sponsor since her first month and go, "You what? That was fun." And Nancy went, "He he did it.

He did it. Just cuz I forged the pink slip. It means I did it.

At any rate, I know why I was able to sell that car. It's the same reason that I get excited when I'm told I need dental surgery. I leave out the middle.

I leave out the middle. I go right from you need dental surgery to Perkadan. I I leave out the middle.

I leave out the surgery. I leave out the sutures, the incision, the whole thing. I go let's do the right thing, pay the rent.

I leave out Grand Theft Auto. I leave out the whole thing. So, if you're new here, welcome to the middle.

They're really big on the middle here. They're obsessed with it. Um, we had our first son, Micah, and he was really uh really welcomed into the world by our our community and uh we were surrounded by friends and family and got a ton of phone calls.

And two years and nine months later when our son Jesse was born, uh there were no flowers, no phone calls, nobody came to the hospital. We had become completely isolated by the disease of alcoholism in just those two years and nine months. And it wasn't because people didn't love us.

It just hurt too much to be with us. We pressed oursel on the people that loved us like a thumb upon a bruise. It was too hard.

The ice around our heart had become so thick, it had just repelled our entire community. And Jesse got sick. He wound up in a a neonatal intensive care and I got a call from a doctor I had never met before that night and she said, "Your wife's in extreme psychological duress.

She's completely isolated here. Your son is sick. Where are you?" And I said to her, "You know, I can't find anybody to watch my 2-year-old kid.

I can't come down there." And this doctor, who I had never met before, said, "You know, my husband's home. I'll give you my address and phone number. You can take your son to my house and my husband will watch him so you can be with your family." And I said, "No, I couldn't.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't accept her generosity." And now my son, poor son Micah, had to be locked in the house with this insane man racked with grief and shame and guilt. I would have done better to take him down to the hospital and leave him with a coloring book.

And I didn't know it was alcoholism. I had no idea it was alcoholism. And uh and then things got worse.

and uh two years and and uh actually was uh so reminiscent of Bill's story where he describes this horrifying life he was leading too too scared to drink poison dragging his mattress down from an upper floor so it won't pitch himself out of the window waiting for his wife to come home so he can steal money for her then he says little were we to know and for us little were we to know that this was going to last for three more years I don't know what a how do you Well, if we could only engineer a bottom, that guy who took the book today, you know, in his first day, he might never take a drink for the rest of his life and he might be drunk by 6:00 tonight. It's a mystery. It's an absolute complete mystery.

And if you're new here, I want to I want to congratulate you for having this opportunity. If you've actually stopped drinking, if you've stopped drinking, the the not drinking deal is a is a moose. If it wasn't for the not drinking thing, we'd be a much bigger organization.

I guarantee it. The not drinking thing really screws a lot of people up. Um, but if you've if you've stopped drinking and you which means you've stopped treating your alcoholism with a drink and you're accepting the craving when the craving comes up, you're not treating it with a drink.

You're basically saying, "I will accept this craving. I'll take the whoop." And every craving has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And obsession doesn't.

If you can accept the craving and stop treating it, you can become available for the removal of the obsession through the 12 steps which bring about a personality change where your alcoholism will stop going below the horizon and it will stay above the horizon as a real piece of business all the time even when you're not concentrating on it because it'll be buoied on the shoulders of the men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous and the higher power that you're introduced to. It's incredible. Incredible.

And as it says in our book, sometimes we we come up with an appealing, compelling reason to stay sober for a period of time, but eventually if it's of our own will and our own on our own juice, it will go below the horizon. And it won't be palpable. It won't be real.

I'll fail to recall with sufficient force the memory of the pain and humiliation of a day, a week, a second ago, and I'll begin the cycle of spree and remorse again. And instead of being, and if you're new and you're accepting that craving to drink, we have a cycle here. It's called the cycle of surrender and commitment and it's a moose.

It's got huge, huge shoulders. It's just as powerful as the cycle of spree and remorse. And what we do is we present you with some spiritual tools, not spiritual weapons, spiritual tools so you can bridge the gap between those two cycles.

It's extraordinary. On April 22nd, 1985, I crossed the line I swore I would never cross again. I put a needle in my arm.

My sons were six and three and they were a wreck. My younger son couldn't stop pretending that he was a robot. My older son was reading and writing years below his grade level.

He couldn't complete small tasks. His small motor skills were all screwed up. And there was nothing organically wrong with my children.

They were so scared and so disrupted from being frightened all the time. They were suffering from untreated alcoholism. And I didn't know it.

And this is the wreck that our life was at that time. My wife had become a tongue- chewing, babbling idiot along with me. Uh, I'll tell you what, uh, uh, right before I got sober, this was a good day in the Redmond home.

We started on Broadway. This is where we wound up. Uh, I had an accident.

They took my blood pressure. It was like 160 over 110. And the doctor said, you know, Mr.

Redmond, you have high blood pressure. You're you're going to stroke out. We need you to lose some weight.

And I said, you know, I'd like to do that, but I drink alcohol and I smoke marijuana before I go to bed every night, so I'm not going to be able to. And uh the doctor said, "Well, why don't we prescribe some medication for you?" And I said, "What a country." And he prescribed meal hydrate. Chloral hydrate is a fast acting knockout drop.

It's a mickey. It's like getting hit in the head with a sap. And I love these pills.

I love love love my knockout drops. So Nancy comes home. I'm standing in the hallway eating handfuls of knockout drops and slamming my arms into the hallway walls to keep myself awake to enjoy my knockout drop cuz you don't want to waste a perfectly good knockout drop.

So I keep eating pills and whacking body parts into the wall until I just seize. I keel over and now I get into bed and now I'm incontinent like the rest of the 33year-old men in America cuz I can't I've got too much Mickey in me to get out of bed. So one night I got up and wet the wall and my wife was excited.

The next morning he wet the wall. He's headed towards the bathroom. You know this is progress not perfection.

And this is uh it's a wedies morning. Uh on April 22nd, 1985, I crossed a line I swore I would never cross again. I put a needle in my arm again.

My sons were shattered. My home life was a joke. My career had run out between my fingers like a handful of water over and over again.

And I called my therapist of record in my 18th year of psychotherapy and I told him what I had done and he said to me that morning the exact same thing that uh Carl Young told the man who 12step the man who 12step Bill Wilson. I didn't know this at the time but once I read our literature it really made me feel good. Carl Young said to this guy Roland Hazard after having psychoanalyzed him and Hazard drank again.

Uh Carl Young said, "I can't help you. You're beyond help." And that's what this therapist said to me. He said, "There's absolutely nothing that can be done for you." I said, "What?

What are you talking about?" He said, "I can't help you. The only thing I can suggest is you uh is that we have you institutionalized." And this is the only thing he said that Carl Young couldn't say. Or you attend a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

Now, why I went to the AA meeting, I I I couldn't tell you. I mean, I'm a guy who gets excited about dental surgery, you know. Um uh why I didn't choose to go uh to the mental institution, I I don't know.

It's an absolute complete mystery to me. But I set my alarm clock. I woke up at 5:00 in the morning.

I went to a place called Unit A, which at the time was on Victory Boulevard near the lovely Tonga Hut, Polynesian themed bar. I do believe if Satan is on Earth, he is at Polynesian themed bars in them big wooden heads. And I I walked into this room.

I took one look around this room and I said to myself, "Oh my god, how did I wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous? How lame is this? This is beyond lame.

This is beyond church, beyond synagogue. This is some plateau of lameness I never even imagined was available to me." And the room looked like it was the product of like 200 years of inbreeding. I I I swear to God there were like there were like uh identical twins carving their initials on each other's feet in the back of the room.

I mean from my point of view, right? And everything was a miracle. I'm a miracle.

You're a miracle. The coffee is a miracle. And I'm waiting for the Jew hunt to break out.

I know that's going to go right. Come on, Haimey. Strap these antlers on.

It'll be fun. We'll knock his beanie off. When he bends down to pick it up, we'll push him over.

Always wanted to run a big buck Jew. Oh my god. And then the AA unsolicited information guy.

He saw me after the meeting, right? You know him. He's got a belt buckle large enough to serve an entire fish on.

Do I want what you've got? No. No.

But thanks for spitting on me, Clem. I really appreciate it. I'll come back next week.

Should I bring my own bib overalls? Are we going to hook a rug? I couldn't believe it.

I I was My skin was crawling by the time I got out of there. I went back to that meeting every morning for a year. And I tell you why I think why I think I did cuz it really is a mystery to me.

There's another meeting going on over there. I was out of plans. If you're new here, I pray for you that you're out of plans.

If you're new and you have a plan, it's probably a be. Don't use your plan. Grab one of us after the meeting.

Tell us your plan. We want to know the plan. My favorite newcomer plan, and it is to this day the most utilized newcomer plan I've seen over the years, is the one more dope deal to set myself up financially for sobriety plan.

It gets more popular the closer you get to lemongr. I'll tell you that. I hated I hated Alcoholics Anonymous and I uh I was out of plants.

My wife Nancy reached out to the Alenon family groups and I uh so one of the great things about this conference is uh the Alanon participation. I'll just share you this with you because I'm speaking and I can um uh one of the most hurtful confusing things to me when I uh when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous is I attended a meeting now and again where I hear people telling jokes about Alanon and I'm not talking about good nature jokes. God knows we tell enough good naturature jokes about alcoholics.

I'm talking about mean ignorant jokes. And I would sit in my seat and I was so proud and so happy that my wife had reached out to this thing and I'd be very confused and injured. I'd say, geez.

I mean, number one, can you imagine going to a meeting and hear telling people telling ignorant, hurtful things about Alcoholics Anonymous? I mean, my heart would fall out. I mean, I know that the people would not have any functioning knowledge of the work done in AA, you know, and um uh and I'd sit in my seat and go, "Isn't this what we're supposed to be doing?" And you know what it is.

So, if you're new here, you know, I I used to have all the votes. I've been whittleled down to one by good sponsorship and uh and until I stuck around long enough to know that the people who were doing that really didn't have a functioning knowledge of of the work done in the Allenon family groups. But if you're doing that Yeah.

If you're doing that on a public level, that's your vote that it's okay. It's my vote that it's not okay. It's my vote that it's not okay.

And if you and if you are doing that, the thing I would really urge you to do if you're a member of AA is maybe pick up some Alanon literature. Maybe read Courage to change. May maybe listen to some Alanon talks.

You don't have to do that, but if you're going to talk about Alanon, you ought to get a little information. Call me a nut, but that's the way I feel. Um, and Nancy Zalen on sponsor uh has is the love of my life and she has been since uh Nancy started working with her a month and her name is Ruby and her husband's name is Milton and they've been around for a long time and uh and we had we were in really bad shape and uh we had these insane rules in our house.

Our kids weren't allowed to eat sugar, curse or watch TV. So Nancy would give him a big healthy breakfast and put him in the car with me, Dr. Death.

And uh and say, "Hope you live. You've had a hearty breakfast. You're going to die." But you the autopsy will show a lot of whole grains.

It was just insane. And Ruby would get the get him over and we were just made out of wood. We were gray, you know.

and Ruby would give him a big bowl of M&M's, sit him down in front of the TV, turn on the Love Boat, and curse, you know. And uh uh one day uh Milton, Ruby's husband, called him, he was, I think, 15 years sober at that time, called the boys over, and he bent down and he whispered, "Boys, your parents don't know shit." And the kids went, "Oh my god, we suspected, but now it's been confirmed. This is fantastic." and they have loved Ruby since they were little little boys.

She used to send him five bucks in an envelope every birthday. Uh and uh she she loves him to pieces. They love her.

And we uh we started making a beginning. I was about 6 months sober. I was enjoying the gift of step nun.

And um I was doing nothing and receiving the gift of nothing and becoming psycho. You know when you see a guy at a meeting and he's grind his teeth down to the gums and he's got a vein popping like a garden hose on his forehead and he's really getting the message and uh I was insane and I uh I wanted what my I saw it in my wife and she says she saw it in me and I saw it in her and I asked the guy to sponsor me at 6 months of sobriety. A great guy and you know what my favorite bumper sticker is?

Mean people suck. Yeah. And I have found that to be true in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm not talking about telling the truth, but I need the uh scalpel of truth with the anesthetic of love. And when I came in, there were some old-timers in my area who are saying, "Shut up. You're a Sit down." And I go, "Oh, this sounds just like home." Um, and the fact is is it took me a while to hang around AA and listen and watch to figure in because the the deal with some of these guys was they're very wise.

They've been around for a long time. They have a lot of information. They were just really mean.

A bunch of these guys. They and and the fact is there were a lot of other old-timers uh who were doing inventory, working with newcomers, carrying the message, and doing the thing. And I didn't want to be part of the frozen chosen.

And I stayed away from those guys and have stayed away from them for 19 years. Those guys have not been my sponsors, you know, and uh and I got this guy to sponsor me and he uh invited me over to his house. He made sure I'd done some reading from the big book of AA and uh he took me through chapter 5 and uh took me through the first two steps.

We got to step three, got on our knees and said a prayer, which I felt was embarrassing and unnecessary, but I did it anyway. And then he took me back and he uh gave me instructions on how to do a a fourth step in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I stopped feeling like I was stealing someone's seat here.

Uh three months later, I went back and I read on my uh my fifth step and uh nine months of sobriety. I did six and seven for the first time and I wrote up my eightstep list. And um I try to share this anytime I talk because it's simply the best reading of step eight I've ever heard.

And I heard it from a guy in my home group and I saw this when I was about I saw this guy do this when I was about two months sober and I've never seen him again. He was a guy named Nino. He had a heavy New York accent and he had never read chapter 5 before and he was there with a hospital group.

He had hospital plastic on and he was reading chapter 5 in front of this men's group for the first time and he got up to step eight and he read a list of all those we had hummed and became willing to make amends than them all. Jesus Christ. And he looked out into the room as if to say, "Have you seen this?

Do you know what the hell is in here?" And it was so beautiful. I First of all, it's the only thing I saw on the list. I didn't see anything else on the list.

You know, not those people. Not that money. I wouldn't have taken that much money if I knew I had to give it back.

You think I'm an idiot? If you're new, don't worry about it. It's eight steps from where you are anyway, for God's sake.

And eight's not even the annoying one. It's nine. Really, really annoying.

So, I I wrote up my eighth step and I uh I didn't know what I was going to do about it. I didn't know what I was going to do about my dad or my kids or my wife. I just didn't know.

I could not sit down with my sons and apologize to them. They were little boys and would have been a horrible burden to place upon them. Well, I was going to sit down with my wife and say, "Hey, hun.

Sorry about this eight-year suicide pact we've had. I couldn't." And and I was blessed with a sponsor who wouldn't tell me how to make amends. He said, "Do your job in AA.

Do your job, man. Address your inventory as your spiritual task. Do your job in Alcoholics Anonymous." And thank God I got that.

Anytime a guy I sponsor tells me that they are working on themsel, I always want to go, "Step away from yourself. Step away from yourself, sir." I It's terrible. It's a It's terrible.

It's one drunk talking to himself and my disease reacts terribly to a frontal assault. It it So, if you're new, this moral psychology, this self-examination with a moral application is engineered so that I can take action seemingly disconnected and unrelated to what I really think my problem is. and I'm changing a way of life, a way of thinking, a way of believing, a way of comporting myself.

All of it shakes down to the central stuff. All of it will be taken care of. They told me and I and I, you know, I didn't believe him, but I was I was out of plans.

I was out of plans. And faith, you know, I used to think faith was belief, but I know it's not today. Uh belief is belief.

I like my beliefs because I believe in them. They they feel good to me because I believe in my beliefs. But faith to me is the perfect expression of step two.

It's actually exposing myself to the truth despite the consequences. Uh that essence of step two where I've said I'm going to move forward on this. I am.

I think it's possible. I think there's a possibility here and I'm going to act on that possibility. You know, and that has kept me in goodstead in Alcoholics Anonymous for 19 years.

And I still, my sponsor and my spiritual advisor still make suggestions to me that I think are ill- advised, the product of a lot of brain damage and difficulty. And I continue uh I continue to do that. Um and I had to do some stuff that was really unpleasant with my kids.

I had to go into their school and advocate for them. I had uh uh my my children had terrible problems and I I I had to go into the school and sit down with these teachers and say, you know, my children have been very ill because they've been living with me. I've been very sick and we're making a beginning.

Can you help us? And not once has anyone said no. Not one time.

They said, "Sure, let's test the boy." The boys got tested and they needed help. They went to special ed, special ed classes, had fantastic suggestions, you know, and um they said, "Get him into sports. Get him into music.

Maybe the big motor stuff will shake down to the little motor stuff." And uh so I spent some dope dollars on buying my kid a mitt, you know, uh a few booze bucks on registering him in the little league. We had become so uncivilized. This stuff just wasn't part of our lexicon.

It wasn't part of our deal. And um Jesse wanted to play drums. So, I uh I didn't have any dough.

So, I went and uh bought him a drum pad, which is a piece of wood with a piece of rubber and two sticks. And I went to my home group and I told the guys what I had done. And if you got a home group like I had, you'll know why I told them.

Cuz they wanted to know, cuz they were interested in my family, cuz they were rooting for us, because they loved me. And um within two, three months, the AA drum set showed up at our house. There were like a lot of uh burnout drummers in my group at that particular time.

So guys were showing up with these mega death drums, you know, dude. And uh Jesse had a drum set so big when he sat behind it, he disappeared. Couldn't even see him.

And a couple years ago, my sons played the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. Both of them just burnt the dump down. 8 900 kids playing hip-hop music to this packed room and there's this group of weeping middle-aged alcoholics standing over on the side.

You know, kids are kind of going, "What is with the the crying old people, man?" Usually they bring backup singers. I was about a year sober and uh I uh was starting to kind of become a spiritual Goliath at this particular time. And I I was I was starting to sponsor guys and um and uh I got a overture made to me near that end of that first year uh to direct a situation comedy to be a staff director on a sitcom.

I did one episode and and I thought that if I got the staff directing job, I was up for this job, that it would really really benefit the men I sponsor cuz they'd really see the program work as they saw me prosper. And I didn't get the job and I almost drank and I went cuckoo. And my sponsor said, "Um, I guess you have the show business god." And I said, "What?" He said, 'Well, what keeps you sober?' I said, ' God keeps you sober.

He said, ' Okay, God keeps you sober. You didn't get a show business job and you almost drank, so I guess you have the show business God and he has abandoned you utterly. Now, when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous, I had heard God getting people into relationships, God getting people jobs, God getting people parking spaces.

Oh no, not the parking space, God. Not the parking space, God. What if you could get a space?

And if you have a parking space, Scott, and he gives you space, pass it on. Couple of years ago, we got nailed in the Northridge earthquake. We got really beat up real good.

Our house got wrecked up and I got a physical injury and it was really bad. And shortly after the quake, we were at a a function out of town, a AA function, and a woman who used to live in LA walked up to me at this function, and said to me, I'm so glad God got us out of LA before the quake. And I said, "Oh, he likes you.

He likes you, but we're crap. But he likes you." And she said to me, "I guess he just felt you had some lessons to learn. Thank you for mouthing that word.

That was right. I'm out of here. I can't live in a world with a god like that.

I can't possibly possibly want to stay sober and live in a world with a god that's gone. Get him. Get the redmond boy.

Get him. Get him. No evacuation plan for you, Jew boy.

Get him. Get him. Smote him.

Smote his ass. Smote anyone he talks to. I can't I can't live in that world.

I cannot live in that world. I got a guy I I used to sponsor who uh just a great guy was a crackhead. Lived on the on the uh You gave me a napkin.

Now I think there's crap all over my face. Is there crap all over my face? Okay.

Um they're moving in on me now. And our home group loved this guy. He came in, he was sleeping on his crack dealers's floor.

And he was uh like 10 or 11 months sober and I'm driving him to the meeting and he said, "Look, I met a girl 6 weeks ago. She's pregnant. Uh we want to have the baby and I want to get married.

What do you think?" And I took a breath and because I'm I'm pretty feel okay and I'm not blocked by a lot of resentment at this point. I'm I'm kind of smoking along. I said, "I'll do whatever you want.

What do you mean? You if you don't want to have the baby, I'll back you up. If you want to have the baby and get married, I'll be your best man.

Uh because I have the sponsorship I came from, there were no hard and fast rules. You took it on a case-byase basis. And that's what I did.

I I didn't play God with the guy. So, at any rate, um the group was really into it and excited about this, you know, and the baby was born and the baby was terribly ill. Uh the baby had one foot in death store.

She was rushed to the hospital. She was placed on an ECMO machine which connects a machine to the heart. The blood had to be taken out, oxygenated, and put back in the B.

I mean, it's just one of the most invasive, miserable things that can happen, you know. And uh and and uh we went back to the home group and the guys found out and they threw 900 bucks in a in a in a in a basket cuz this guy is a working guy. He he needs to be with his family now and he needs to not work.

And I've seen this happen and I you've heard about it this weekend. I've seen this in AA over and over and over again. Now, to go to neonatal intensive care, you got to be a relative.

So, now all the baby's relatives are showing up. 6'6 Ethiopian men. Uh overweight Jews, um Asian women, and the the the nurses after all went, "Don't pause to lie.

Just go." You know, then the the the call for blood went out. So 2 weeks after the baby was home and okay, they called this guy and go, "Look, they they're dropping blood off in jars." You know, I mean, f first of all, most of us can't give blood cuz we're ex- hypes or we got fresh ink, right? So, but we'll go just to get pissed off and why why won't you take my blood, you know?

And the fact is is that marriage uh didn't survive, but that baby did. And those two people are doing a magnificent, magnificent job of raising this gorgeous little kid. And you know what?

I don't know if I could have, but I might have I might have just decided to play God and crush that entire thing. And this whole demonstration of love and commitment would have been would have had to go somewhere else, you know. But there was a baby in that ward named Rachel Wang.

I hope I never forget her. And she sat right next to the baby who we were there with. and Rachel Wang came in and Ra Rachel Wang passed away.

I can't live in a world with a god that's a baby annihilator. My God expects me to do my job in AA whether it's to show a guy how to stay sober through the annihilation of a child or the survival of a child. I don't have a god taking children.

And I've seen my friends and the people I love and look up to a I've seen him do it all. I've seen them do it all. I can live in that world.

My God expects me to do my job in AA if it's to show a guy how to live in the house on a hill or in a refrigerator box. I don't have a God saying, "Let's key your car. It's boils for you.

You're due for a rash. I I I can't I It's" And I want to tell you something. I believe in the big book of AA.

I believe St. Thomas. I believe the mystics that God is absolute and complete mystery.

That to know God is to not know God. that no one can fully comprehend or define that power which is God. So every time I say it's God's will that I take this job or that job.

I make a tiny when any time I ascribe a personality to God for me I I just cut the ring on myself like a like a bad boxer, you know. So uh it's been a great relief to me. And I want to tell you it's also it's it's hard to deal with the mystery sometimes.

It's uh it's uh it's difficult for a lot of people and it's difficult for me. At any rate, um so um I I had to write this resentment against uh this company for not hiring me for that job and for myself for almost drinking. And my sponsor said, "You know, when you do six and seven this time, man, you are going to have to have some serious conversation with your higher power." And I I did six and seven that day.

And I said, "You know what, Pop, you got it. Take show business. I'm done.

I'm done with the show business. God, you can take show business. I will do anything you want for a living.

I'll do anything for a living. Anything. Just keep me sober.

And within 3 months, I was working as a cook on a catering truck. And I uh looked up and I said, "I did not mean this. I did not.

This wasn't even on the long list. We've had a grotesque misunderstanding. Now, in LA, when they make a TV show or a movie, they hire a caterer.

You follow them around, you make food for him, and you make great dough. It's Teamster dough. You're on a vehicle on a movie set.

It's great dough. But I'm Scott Redmond. And the first movie that I cater, the executive producer and star of the movie is a guy who I've worked with in the business.

And he stuck his head on the truck that morning and he said, "Can I have a burrito? Scott. And I said, "What's happening, babe?" And he said, "Is this your truck?" I said, "No, but but it's my spatula." I went home.

I I called my sponsor and I said, "Oh, we're getting the gift now." Oh, it's it's beautiful. It's beautiful sobriety. and he said to me, "Sounds like you've got a resentment." Now, I don't just hate things.

I reexperience the hatred. And I hate them in a way that when I wake up, I water my hatred like a little flower and I care for it. I want to make sure that it's developing properly and that it's safe.

The worst thing is when I forget to hate something and a guy goes, "Hi." And I go, "Hi." Oh, I hate him. Why did I do that? If I had just had a moment to think that I need to snub him.

Now I'm going to have to redouble my snubbing and glaring just to remind him that I I hate so that when my head hits the pillow, it becomes a rotisserie. It eats my brain and my heart and turns my life black. There's no room for me in my own life.

Resentment's no big deal. It's just the source of all spiritual illness. The great destroyer of all all alcoholics.

It'll cut you off from the sunlight of the spirit, drag your ass out, and kill you dead. But don't worry about it. Work a step a year.

Not a big deal. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.

So, what is it in me that if if God were to remove blue skies, God's got a magic wand. He comes and touches me on the head. What is it in me that if God would remove the resentment would be God?

I'm resentful at Scott for working on a kitchen truck. It affects my self-esteem, pocketbook, ambition, personal relations, and sex. A five bagger for sure.

What is it in me? I'm impatient. I'm greedy.

I'm ashamed. I'm not living in today. I'm not trusting in God.

I'm ungrateful. Terrible list. And this is what I had to take to my higher power to read to my sponsor and he gently and lovingly made a few additions to my list which I seem to have left off.

And uh and I cooked, man. And every week I wound up coming back to my home group with another tale of humiliation. I wound up like I wound up feeding people.

I I had directed in shows, people who had been my assistant stage managers and and assistant directors. And I'd come back and tell the guys and they just go and uh I cook for like three years. And you know what?

My son Jesse when he was a little boy asked me to teach him how to cook. He didn't wasn't interested in me as a writer and a director. We and he and I have been cooking together.

He's 23 and we still go to the market together and pick out what's fresh and make food together. And that's not how I would have chosen to be intimate with my son, you know. Um, and I I I started to be able to help some people who had felt they had fallen from a height when they came to AA.

They hadn't uh achieved the top rank in AA, which is child of God. Um and um I had a friend named Paul who felt he had fallen from a height and he used to say this prayer. He says, "God, I'm I'm so grateful.

Thank you so much. Please keep me sober. I'll do anything you want for a living, but don't let it be as bad as what you did to Scott.

Please." I was so glad to help him out. And I had been doing this for a while and I had an overture made to me uh by a big public relations firm in New York called Ketchum Public Relations. And this was for a big-time comedy writing job.

And you know, I felt I really felt very strongly that if I got this job with Ketchum, it would really benefit the guys I sponsor in in in a really unique way. in a very unique way because they have seen me suffer, but now they'll see the program really at work. And I went cuckoo before I even found out about the job.

My brain blew up. I I went mad and uh I had to write about it. Um I did a videotape for these guys and I had to write about it.

I read it to my sponsor. I prayed about it. And a couple weeks after that, I get the call from Ketchum that I did not get the job and I was cool with it.

And shortly after that, I get a call from my catering company to go up uh to Arrowhead up in the mountains and cater some commercials up there. So, I got in the truck, got up there, and I grabbed the call sheet, which gives you all the information about the deal. And I saw that the commercial was for Ketchum Public Relations.

I'm feeding them now. Now I'm I'm feeding them. I look down at the end of the truck, there's a guy videotaping me.

I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Oh, we're taping the making of the commercial." He's taping my humiliation. He's going to go back to New York. He's going to show the guys in New York and they're going to go, "Is that Scott Redmond with the meatloaf?

That poor son of a bitch." I go home and I call my sponsor and I said, "Oh, oh, we're getting the gift now. Oh, it's a it's a miracle. It's just a it's just a miracle.

Miracle. Miracle. This beautiful miracle." And my sponsor said to me, "I guess God had enough writers and needed a few cooks today." And then he said, "You know, Scott, you told God you wanted to work for Ketchum and you forgot to tell him what you wanted to do.

You told Nancy and I not to get involved in our first year and we didn't. We stayed the hell away from each other. We were really sick and really having a lot of difficulties.

I didn't have anything to bring to my marriage, anything to bring to my wife or my life. I couldn't fight. I didn't know how to fight.

I would scream until she shut up or I would cry until she shut up. Either one's fine with me. I've always loved the tyranny of helplessness.

I'm also a loomer. I like to loom. I'm big.

I like to get a light behind me and get her in the shadow. I like to get her in the shadow. It's like total eclipse of the Jew.

If I can get her like right in there, right? And if I can like a work a scream, a loom, and a cry into one fight, that's a hat-tick. It doesn't get any better than that.

So, these are the tools that I'm bringing. This is what I'm bringing. I'll give you the Scott Redmond couples workshop right now.

11 seconds. You ready? Here we go.

Talk to her until she changes her mind. Talk to her until her eyes roll back in her head and she kees over and on the way over she goes, "Oh, okay. That's it.

That's what I'm bringing to the deal." And I'm a slob. I don't clean up after myself. I don't feel like a grown man.

I never felt like a grown man until I came into AA and did the work. Grown men make their bed. But I don't know that.

Somewhere in the back of my twisted mind, I think that a certain amount of housework should equal a certain amount of sex. that there should be like conversion tables on the back of cleaning products of housework to sex. I'm bringing nothing.

Nothing. I'm And um and we got sicker and sicker and we hung in there and hung in there and my sponsor Paul used to say to me he he would suggest that we pray together. Now I'll pray with a puppy strangling felon who's been at a prison for a minute and a half in a public place.

Right. Have you taken the third step? We're in the We're in the Greyhound station, right?

No, I haven't. Get on your knees. We're men of God.

But but pray with my my wife, my lover, my buddy, my bride, with my companion seemed unnecessary and embarrassing to me. And we went to therapy. We developed some great tools together.

And then we came home and threw a Buick at each other because uh because and I didn't know it at the time, we didn't have a moral application for the self-examination we were going through. And until we finally in desperation started holding hands and just not taking the steps together, our prayers were, "Pop, can you please help me to stop taking everything personally?" Good morning. What do you mean?

Um can you stop? help me stop taking everything personally. Can you help me to have a sense of humor?

You can you help me to remember that I love my wife. And now we do sometimes we'll say you're forgetting that you love me which is very helpful. My wife and her allenon family and I'm sure it happens in a lot of uh uh families and uh cultures and in the program were encouraged to when things get spin out.

I don't know if in our house in the car they start to spin out when my wife starts stepping on the imaginary brake on her side of the car. I I get seem to get a little psycho. I don't know what it is.

And things started moving pretty quick. Things started moving pretty quick. And she would say, you know, honey, you could be right.

And one day we're going and we were pretty new and it starts moving really fast. And Nancy said to me, you know, sweetheart, you could be right, but not today. Not today.

It's not your day, big guy. I'll let you know. Now, I'm scared if I wipe my face, it's going to like turn black or something.

If you're new, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. The bad news is I'll give you the good news first. The good news is our problem mainly rests in our mind.

If our problem didn't mainly rest in our mind, we wouldn't be here today. we wouldn't be doing this gorgeous demonstration of the power of God in our lives. My sponsor used to say that Alcoholics Anonymous was the only uh recovery from a fatal illness that left the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they contracted the disease.

Wow, what a gorgeous, gorgeous thing that is. My alcoholism has stayed above the horizon as a real piece of business. You know, they say that our disease is out there doing push-ups.

I accept that, but turnaround is fair play. So is my recovery because even when I'm not focusing on it, I don't drink. And that's a miracle.

That is an absolute miracle. Even when I'm not concentrating on it because I believe that the basic idea of God does exist in all of us. I believe there's a connective tissue.

I believe that there is a desire to love and be loved. I believe everyone's got it. I believe Nazis have it.

Nazis love other Nazis. they they and our book says it even though it can be befoged by many many different things and um if you're new here I want to urge you to blow on the ember of that connective tissue to find a way to become part of to find the fellowship that you crave and that's going to be absolutely perfect for you and the bad news is is our problem mainly rests in our mind um some years ago was at a meeting I met a new guy and I went home he called me and he talked to me for an hour. I said, "Uh-huh." Four times, so he'd know I wasn't dead.

And he explained to me he had been stalking several women and they had restraining orders out against him, but he's two weeks sober. It's all different now. And um at the end of the hour, he said to me, "I I feel so alone." I said, "What are you what are you talking about?

I I don't even know you. I just listened to you for an hour without interrupting you." And he said, "Well, I mean, I don't have a woman." And I said to him, "What exactly would you be bringing to a relationship right now besides stalking skills? What what what what are you bringing to the party?

People two weeks into remission from leukemia aren't having dating problems. Alcoholics are because our problem mainly rests in our mind." Um, couple of years ago, my wife was walking through our bedroom and she knew I was talking to a new guy and she heard me saying to the phone, "Let's say the aliens are coming. And she stopped short.

She ain't missing a second of this. I said, "Look, man. I'm not telling you the aliens aren't coming.

That's an outside interest. They might very well be coming. But I have a question for you.

Why you? Why have they come for you? Why have they traversed a galaxy for your sorry ass?

You're 11 days sober. You have no life. Why you?

Don't you think they'll look call a cop, go to a post office, something? Plus, he's sleeping with a Bible on his chest to ward them off. So, they're going to traverse the universe, walk in his room, go, "Oh, no.

The Bible. Let's go home." I'm sharing this at my home group right after it happened. And the guy who I had the the conversation with walks in while I'm telling the story, I'm watching the cat.

I'm telling the story, and the guy goes like this. He goes, "Oh, oh shit." If you're new here, I want to I want to urge you as much as I possibly can to take this thing as seriously as you possibly can and go out there and have the time of your life. If the aliens are coming for you, welcome to AA.

Welcome home. Thanks so much for having me today. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.