Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.

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. >> My name is Josh.

I'm an alcoholic. >> Thank you for the pelvic thrust. Um, before I uh forget uh and before I thank the committee and make fun of Alonzo, um I just want to say uh to to the newcomers that stood up during the sobriety countdown, uh congratulations for coming to an AA meeting at the conference.

Um I I say that quite seriously because it took me a couple years of coming to these conferences before I even realized that there was like AA meetings at them. And um also congratulations for your bravery because I don't know about you but when I was new if I had come up here during a conference you know come up here they're handing me like a signed big book and I'm all dang. So I'll put this with my dictionary signed by Jimmy Carter.

Um I know everyone's like clapping and I would just been there. Yes. Thank you.

I feel like And uh so so welcome welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember first coming into meetings and uh I would go to the Laguna Beach Alano Club in Southern California and in the Alano Club there's the the cursory two pictures, one of Bill W and the other one of Dr. Bob.

Some of you might be familiar with it. Uh you know the one with Dr. Bob where he won't even freaking look at you.

And um the one with Bill W where he's kind of got that Southside smirk where he's like nice work jackass. You screwed up and you're an Alcoholics Anonymous. And uh you know that was my introduction to AA.

So, uh, once again, if you're new, I mean, I love newcomers. I love newcomers. Um, I just want to welcome you to AA.

Um, I also want to thank the committee, uh, for having me out here, uh, and for the gayest gift basket I've ever been given. Um, and, uh, I want to, uh, especially thank my friend Alonzo. Uh just so you don't have any high expectations, I'm pretty much a second string speaker because Alonzo wasn't allowed to ask himself to speak.

Um and uh I uh I I came out early and spent Thanksgiving with Alonzo. And it was really cool because in his house there was a lot of love, a lot of laughter, and a lot of Spanish. Uh which is typically not a language I understand.

So um I have no idea why they were laughing. I assumed it was because of me. Um, but it was also the quietest Thanksgiving I've ever had.

But thank you anyway. And uh, uh, Alam has been a good friend of mine. Um, I, uh, I enjoy doing this and I'm also very aware that there there's I have friends out here and, uh, there's some people that have heard me speak like Chris and Katie right there heard me speak like less than a month ago.

And so I'm very cognizant that there's people who have heard me speak before. Um, and to you I say uh I have a very pleasant surprise for you, as in surprise, you already know what I'm gonna say. Um, but uh, so I I usually kind of say this in the beginning.

I always get asked if I'm nervous before I speak. And um, I've had, I guess, the opportunity to do this a lot, way more than my sponsor thinks I should. And um, I I don't really get that nervous, but when I do, one of the things I do is I just try to remember that pretty much each and every single one of you at some point in your lives have been colossal failures.

otherwise you wouldn't be in Alcoholics Anonymous. And um for some reason that always seems to kind of reassure me because you know when I'm speaking I'm not necessarily wanting to carry the message. That is not my instinctive intention.

What I want to do is I want to win. I want to like win and then at the end of the talk I want to just kind of float up and then awkwardly hang up at the ceiling and tell you throw the seventh tradition at me. And that's that's the kind of talk that I want to give.

And the problem with that is if my intention is to impress you, I I start distancing myself from the primary purpose of what I'm supposed to be doing, which is carrying the message. The message that was carried to me of the fact that there is a solution to the person who may not yet have been exposed to that message. And um I also want to say I go to a lot of young people's events and even though it wasn't quite an undisturbed reading of all the readings for our young people's convention, I want to applaud you for allowing the readers to read the the solution of Alcoholics Anonymous without interrupting it because there are some people here tonight who possibly may not have ever heard that.

And um I I mean, believe me, I'm a very unserious person, but I think there's a lot of ways we can have fun at these conferences besides screwing up the readings. And um I don't want to be that guy, but nonetheless, I just want to applaud you because I think you guys do a good job with that. Um anyway, I uh I guess I'm going to talk about myself.

Uh you know, I was thinking about like trying to say sometimes I get this pressure to say different things and especially when I know there's other people who have heard me at the meeting and you know, I thought about saying I'm an astronaut and I work on the moon, which isn't true. But um I'm just going to kind of tell you my story and uh it goes something like this that I'm a pretty pretty average drunk uh being a young people's meeting. I got sober uh pretty young as well which is really not that uncommon in here anyways.

And uh I was born in the Philippines and uh I was born to a very high up political family and I was something of kind of like a political scandal as in I wasn't supposed to be born and uh my parents were very young and my mother was an introvenous drug user and so was my father and so they uh put me up for adoption. I was quickly sent to the states and uh for lack of better words I was adopted by two white people. Um my uh my white parents or my parents from now I will call them.

They uh on top of adopting myself, they also adopted uh five other Asian children. So they had something of an Asian fetish. AND UM uh racism is always fun when you're outnumbered.

Um I uh so I was growing up in Denver, Colorado. And I just remember there was this kind of odd racial tension. Um because I had white parents, I was Asian.

I had absolutely no idea what my ethnic background was. And um I just I kind of wanted to be black. Um but I was probably like the whitest Asian there had ever been because of my whole upbringing.

And uh I remember kind of my first bout with alcoholism. Um, you know, I'm adopted, but even adopted, like there was alcoholism ran in my mother's side of the family. Like if you shook the family tree, there'd be like drunks falling out making excuses.

And um I had this one uncle and uh I remember we'd go to the family party. He'd get totally hammered and he had like this giant beard and he'd get hammered and tell us these wild stories and on the drive home I'd be like, "Mom, why did uncle so and so take his clothes off and fight the dog?" And uh she'd be like, "He's an alcoholic." And that was kind of the first time I'd heard that word. But I knew there was something special about that word because I liked my uncle.

He did some crazy stuff and he seemed to have an edge that nobody else in my family had. I like the fact that he showed up to that party, he got drunk and did whatever the hell he wanted to do. And he would kind of regail these like awesome stories about Vietnam like n and I assumed he was talking about the war, but apparently he just like went to Vietnam on vacation and smoked a lot of opium.

And uh these were his stories. And you know I I ate this stuff up. It was awesome.

And uh I eventually took my first drink when when I was 10 years old. And uh you know I I was kind of a late bloomer. I was 10 years old and I took my first drink.

And the magic for drugs and alcohol for me and I do talk a little bit about drugs mostly because my drug of choice was drugs and alcohol. Um if for some reason that offends you for any reason. I like what my friend Mosha says.

Like if you're offended by the fact that I did drugs and you drink over that, you're probably not going to stay sober anyway. Um, but uh I I'll say this one thing because this was kind of important for me in terms of relating to alcoholism. One of the things that I came to find is there is certain substances that I put into my body, whether I injected it, whether I smoked it, whether I inhald it, whether I snorted it, that seemed to trigger that same phenomenon of craving for alcohol.

And um I think that's what makes me an alcoholic. And I also know that when I was 17 years old and I was in an 8×10 cell kicking heroin, I think that was a direct result of my alcoholism. And um anyway, enough about drugs.

I uh I took my first drink when I was 10 years old. And again, the magic was it made me less afraid. And I remember taking that first drink.

It was very appropriately uh vodka and Kool-Aid. And it was at my friend Dan Dustin's party. And this was like the party of the ages.

This is like the kind of party that they make movies on for like the coming of age thing where they make it to that party and they're awesome. And I was at that party and I was drinking vodka and Kool-Aid and we were shooting fireworks at cars which is apparently illegal. and uh they had started pursuing us uh into the fields and they kind of cornered us and uh as they were going around and asking me my friends names they were kind of giving them they were all shaken and and nervous and something happened to me.

Normally in a scenario like this, my blood would just run cold and I began to feel the effects of alcohol and everything set fire within me. And when the cop turned and looked at me and he asked me my name, I said, "Sir, my name is Richard Head." And he kind of cocked his eye, looked at me and said, "Son, you're trying to tell me that your name is dickhead." And um I said, "Sir, I've always preferred Richard." And he laughed and he let us walk free. And as we were walking away, my friends were patting me on the back and I knew it was if God had come down himself and given me a high five.

And um and they said, "That is the coolest thing I have ever seen." And I knew that was true. And I would be an absolute not to chase that effect to the depths that I chased it. And that was my first drunk.

And um when I came into this program and I was told that I was immature and grandiose, I was deeply offended. Just because I tried to recapture a moment that I'd had when I was 10 years old for nine more years did not make me immature and grandiose. I was just more nostalgic than the average person.

And I chased that moment until I was 19 years old. And um what happened is something happened to me. Um, I mean, I would sometimes hear people say that, you know, uh, they're an alcoholic because they drink because they like the effect and they drank to get drunk.

Like, I was 10 years old. I didn't have pubic hair. Of course, I drank to get drunk.

I had not acquired a taste for rye or whiskey. I was drinking to get drunk. And so were all of my other 10-year-old friends.

But very quickly, something began to happen where their drinking began to differentiate itself from my drinking. Because what occurred is every time I took that first drink, I had to get drunk. And that was not so much the case for all of my friends.

something began to separate me from the rest of my friends. And I found that I crossed that invisible social line 20 minutes after I took my first drink. And from that point on, I entered alcoholic drinking.

And I don't know if it was because of genetics. I don't know what it was because of. I mean, it really doesn't matter because I'm an in AA already.

So, but nonetheless, I had the phenomenon of craving from the very get-go. And um and one of the other things I liked about alcohol was I've always had a very difficult time with feelings. I mean, I I kind of believe that I actually do not experience a full spectrum of feelings.

Like, everyone will be crying and I'll be sitting there thinking, I wonder if they like my shirt. And um and uh I mean, I use this analogy. It sometimes offends people, but I'm an offensive person.

I apologize. But the best analogy I've come up to come up to decide with my feelings is if you can picture a priest in a speedo with an erection in as much that my feelings are always grossly inappropriate for the social fabric of any given context. and I was constantly overreacting.

That was my feelings. And the only thing that seemed to level that playing field was alcohol. That seemed to put me on even kill with everybody else.

And that's what I wanted. I just want to be on even kill. And um that was the thing that alcohol did to for me.

And at the age of 19, that just simply stopped happening. And um I went downhill very quickly. Um by the time I was 14, I was quite deeply into drugs.

I did a lot of amphetamines. And um if you've ever done amphetamines or if you're on them tonight, you know it's difficult to sleep at night. And uh more like for the time I've been sober, I've come to realize that any drug that would make a 14-year-old kid clean his room as a recreational habit is probably inherently evil.

And um so you know, I was I was drinking and I was tweaking and I was cleaning stuff, which was, you know, really my parents were really happy about that. And uh I was late up at night and I was chatting on the internet and my other favorite thing to do was lie. And uh I would get on the internet and chat with these crazy people because that's the only kind of people on the worldwide web is crazy people.

And I would tell them these horrendous lies and being sympathetic and crazy, they would say, "That's horrible. Come run away and live with us." And I'm easily influenced. So I did that.

And um I ran away and I moved to a small city in Texas called Amarillo. And no offense to anyone who's from the city, but the only thing to do in the city is drink vodka, smoke pot, go bowling. So, I was uh 14 or 15 and I was living the high life of pot smoking, drinking vodka, and going bowling.

And I'd more or less resigned myself to the fact that when things got really bad, I would kill myself. And at the time that I had resigned myself to this idea, it was not because I hated myself. Of course, that would come much later on, but I didn't really hate myself.

The reason I thought I could kill myself is because I realized that I could do whatever I want, and when things got bad, I could kill myself. And that seemed to allow me to act without conscience. And I constantly grabbed on to anything that allowed me to act without conscience.

And um you know eventually I was apprehended by my father. And as we were flying back from Texas to uh California uh which is where I got sober, uh we we did a layover and my father was talking to the ticket agent and I was standing next to him and I had to use a washroom much like Serena. Um and by the way, very good job.

You have now been recorded as the PE lady. Um, but I had to use the washroom. So, I wandered off to use my the washroom and my father didn't see me go.

And as I came back into the airport terminal, I saw my father running around with this absolutely desperate, frantic look in his eyes. And for the first time in my life, I suddenly realized that my father cared about me quite a lot. And immediately after finding that out in my head, I quickly forgot about it.

Because to for a moment believe that my father cared about me deeply interfered with my ability to act without conscience. And if I were to suddenly become accountable for all those actions, I could not do it. So, I forgot about it.

And that's one of the things that the alcohol did for me. It allowed me to forget about anything that seemed to disturb me. And I have constantly been a blackout drinker.

I mean, I love blackouts. In fact, I still wish I could have blackouts. There was something magical about taking a drink on Monday and then coming to you on Thursday and realizing that I had done stuff.

And um I mean it's it's kind of like the poor man's time machine because I would come to on Thursday and I'd be like, "Dear God, I've lost like several days." And then that alcoholic optimism would kick in. You know the alcoholic optimism, the one that says, "Yeah." And I would think I think either I've lost a couple days or I've traveled through time. And um you know, that's why I've loved blackouts.

I mean, being roughly the size of a large owl, I spent the majority of my life in blackouts. I was constantly drinking past my weight limit. And um I I often say this, but it's pretty apppropo.

When before I got sober, like right before I got sober, I was still a blackout drinker, and I was apparently a very remorseful blackout drinker. So, what I would do is I would get drunk and go to AA meetings. And I didn't realize this cuz I was in a blackout.

One of the last meetings I attended was the Pacific Group in Los Angeles, which is a very large meeting. And I just remember hearing and I suddenly came to and I looked around. It's like 1500 people.

I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm in an AA meeting." And um the reason I say this is because if you're anything like me and you're just now coming out of a blackout, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. This is an experience you must not miss. I totally forgot where I was.

Um so anyway, like uh my father came and found me. I did some time in rehab. I'm going to kind of just uh skip ahead.

By the time I was 16 years old, I reached a point in my lifestyle where I thought the only way out of things was suicide and I attempted suicide. At this point in time, I absolutely hated myself. And one of the common factors of the alcoholic is we all seem to hate ourselves by the time we come in.

Most of the time, there's ample evidence as to why we should hate ourselves. But what I truly believe is when I came in here, what I have to remember is I was suffering from a form of self-centeredness so severe that it was quite literally killing me. And that's why we say the root of all our problems is self-centeredness.

There's something very important about how self-centered we are and the fact that I wanted to kill myself so badly has something to do with that. And um when I talked to my sponsor sponsor and oh you know what I totally forgot to do I got to do this before I continue on. Uh my sobriety date is October 22nd 1995.

Um which puts me at a little over uh 12 years sober which is impressive if like that was the most amount of time sober in here which is not. Or if you're impressed by numbers lower than 13 and greater than 11. Um, my home group is the primary purpose group in Toronto, Canada.

I'm Canadian. Um, if you ever find yourself in Canadia, uh, you know, I encourage you to come look us up. I have a sponsor.

His name is Dan F, and his, uh, home group is a Hill Group. If for some reason you hate me, uh, come to Canada, attend the Hill Group, and kick my sponsor's ass. Um, I love my sponsor.

I've had him for a number of years, and if it was up to my sponsor, I would never open my mouth. Um, shortly before I ever talk, he gives me like a pep talk. And at the pep end of the pep talk, he's basically said, "Don't say anything." Um, that's the kind of sponsor I need.

Um, and uh, I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, from the bottom of whatever, I love Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're new, I'm sure that thrills the hell out of you, but you know, maybe you think you're different.

And I understand thinking I'm different. This is the kind of disappointing thing about thinking you're different. I've come to find that pretty much every alcoholic when they first come in here thinks they're different.

So if you think you're different, you're actually doing what all of us do, which means you're the exact same as all of us. If you really wanted to be different as an alcoholic, you would have to come in here, sit down, shut up, listen to everything we say, immediately identify, and then do it without question. That would be different for an alcoholic.

So if you really want to be different, I encourage you to do that because people will look at you and go, "Damn it, that guy is different." But if you just think you're different for all the normal reasons, you're basically doing the same thing we all do. So welcome to AA. Um, anyway, back to my story.

I tried to kill myself because I hated myself. And uh when I first told my sponsor the uh details of my suicide attempt, he told me if God forbid I'm ever given the opportunity to share this story to relay it back to you verbatim because he felt it was a wonderful example of God working on my life. And a time that I did not believe in him and nor would I have wanted to.

And uh what had happened is I had tried to kill myself to carbon monoxide poisoning. I'd stolen a friend's van which was something of a habit. I had taken it to his what I thought was an abandoned business complex.

I taken a hose, put it in the exhaust pipe, put it back into the van, sat in the van, turned it on, sat back and waited to die. And I remember as the fume started creeping into the van, and I started losing consciousness, I had this kind of feeling of peace and serenity still over me for the first time in my life. That feeling that everything was okay.

Ironically, that feeling came moments before I thought I was going to die. And I've come to find that you can only really feel like that living the way that I was living at the age of 16 if you've completely lost the ability to open dream. And that's where I was at 16.

And when I came into this program and I cracked open our um big book, the phrase that jumped out to me was pitiful incomprehensible demoralization. And at one point in time during the suicide attempt, I realized I wasn't dead. And I took the hose off the floor of the van, put it into my mouth, and started sucking directly off of it in the hopes that it would kill me faster.

And there I was at the age of 16 with a hose sticking out of my mouth, waiting to die, hoping it would kill me faster. I knew intimately what pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization was. And I know that each and every single one of you can think back at that moment where it defines pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.

And that's the similarity that we walk into this program with. And um what happened later is I'd done a really shitty job looking at the hose cuz I wasn't dead. And um this group of people decided to come into work for their first working lives ever on a Sunday morning.

Uh they went in through the front. Now this is what they told me, by the way. And this one guy went in through the back.

And he said as he was opening the door to step into the office, he saw the van and had a strange feeling come over him. So, I went and investigated and um very quickly he found out what I was doing. He dragged me out of the van and brought me into the office and these people started talking to me.

I don't really remember what they said cuz I was in and out of consciousness. I remember being very pissed off that they'd screwed up my suicide attempt. But I also remember the guy that had pulled me out of the van told me that sometimes he believed God gives us the opportunity to write what was once wrong and that years before his brother had committed suicide.

And um those words would resonate in a way that I will later talk about when I talk about my my amends. Um I remember my father walking in with the paramedics and he was crying and that's the first time I'd ever seen my father openly cry. And I remember just absolutely despising myself and wishing I could drink because the thing that's important for me to remember is at the time that I tried to kill myself, I did it stone cold sober.

Currently with 12 years of sobriety, I know only two alternatives to this disease. either suicide because dying shuts off this disease or this thing. Um, if that's what your life has come down to, that those seem to be the only two alternatives, I want to really welcome you home.

Um, and I went to the hospital and the doctors are trying to explain what I've done to myself. And they said an average person would have a carbon dioxide level of two or three and um, a smoker would have double that, which means you're all ass. And um, when I came in, my level was at a 35, which they said was literally moments away from dying.

And um I kind of believe I'm somewhat on borrowed time. There's really no logical reason why I should still be alive today. And the reason I like this particular story in the fellowship of AA, especially with how many stories I've heard of yours, is I know that this is by no means an uncommon story.

Each and every single one of you can think back at a point in time why there's no logical reason why you should still be alive and fortunate to be sitting here tonight with us. And um that's the beautiful thing. We're all on borrowed time.

And uh one of my favorite speakers is this guy named Norm Alpie. And one of the things he was kind of infamous for saying was seconds and inches. And what he meant by seconds and inches is that for most alcoholics by the time we arrived here, it was by a mere seconds and inches that we escaped death if not worse.

And for me it was simply what if I had been in the van just a little bit longer. It was by seconds and inches that I arrived here. And I know it was second in inches that you arrived here as well.

Um, at that point in time, my parents realized if they didn't do something drastic, that I would kill myself and they relinquished custody me of me and I was put into a long-term juvenile psych ward for two years. And um, I'm just going to kind of quickly get over this so I can get sober. Um, I was in this place for 2 years and at one point in time I decided to escape and um, I was caught and put into solitary confinement for 3 months for what they called unlawful flight from a state institution which is apparently illegal.

Um, and while I was uh in this place, I remember I wouldn't stand the merits. The merits were their form of punishment. You'd stand against the wall for eight hours for in my term uh 3 months.

And um I was also detoxing from drugs. And I was refusing to stand against the wall. And there's this one uh counselor that we all hated and he was beating the crap out of me.

And I remember just him beating me in and out of consciousness. Uh both my eyes were black, my nose was broken, all my knuckles were bloodied. And I was thinking to myself, I would kill this person before I was ever afraid of him again.

and that I would not let the bastards break me. And the somewhat comical idea about the whole thing of the bastards breaking me is, of course, they couldn't break me. Long before I had walked into this institution, I had been broken by the disease of alcoholism.

And I believe that brokenness typifies alcoholism in our lives. I couldn't be broken by anyone. I'd been broken already.

And um I would eventually be released when I was 18 years old. And I say this one thing that I'm I'm glad I was put into this place. Had I not been there for those two years, I would have killed myself.

There's something about the alcoholic tenacity where we're either trying to kill ourselves or desperately survive. And there is something about the daily conflict that I faced in there that seemed to keep me alive. And I was released when I was 18 years old.

And I'm also glad I was there because I graduated from high school. I was expelled from high school very early on in my freshman year and I would never again go back. Um I was also not allowed to touch computers because I was doing things that were illegal um until I was 18.

And so while I was in this institution, I hacked into their school computers. And as a result, I graduated high school with a 3.56 GPA. Uh which I'm still pretty damn proud of.

When I told my sponsor about this during the course of my amends, he said I had to make some sort of formal amends about this. So I called up this place and I talked to a guy and I said, you know, this is what I did. I have a fake diploma.

Sorry. Um and he said, well, you know, I figure if you're smart enough to do that, you probably could have graduated from high school. Good luck in college.

And uh you know as a result I I've gotten the opportunity to pursue pursue a higher education. Um and I was released there from when I was 18 and um I ended up homeless in the streets of Seattle. Uh and I also tried to stop drinking because I was afraid I was becoming an alcoholic.

And I need to qualify what I mean by stop drinking. What I had done is I had barricaded myself in this crappy hotel in C in downtown Seattle right off the a and what I would do is I would sit in this apartment like partying in dead silence cuz that's the kind of way I party. Um and I was on a strict uh diet of methamphetamines, crack cocaine and heroin and I was not drinking.

And what I would do for recreation is I would listen to the song Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley on loop over and over and over because I was convinced Hidden Within the lyrics was a special message to me. Uh somewhat ironically, I was not far from the truth. If you're unfamiliar with this song, the opening line is we're caught in a trap.

And there I was at the age of 18 trying to quit drinking through the wondrous diet of methamphetamines, crack cocaine, and heroin. And that was my solution. And uh I just remember I would stand by the door which literally had planks and look out the keyhole because I was convinced the DEA was going to come by and you know crash my party.

And I was also convinced that the way they would do it is they would approach me all wearing their nice DEA jackets, knock on the door and say Drug Enforcement Agency. And at that point in time I would be given the choice of whether or not I wanted to leave or stay there. That that was my party.

Again, this is how I roll when I'm not sober. Um, eventually I became homeless and I would polarize every single relationship. And I remember at the depths of my disease, I found myself sitting in a car next to a guy who I thought was my friend who was holding a gun to my head and threatening to kill me because I had liberated some of his money.

Um, which he was not taking kindly to. And I remember sitting there and as he he was telling me that he was going to kill me, I thought to myself, please pull the trigger. I'm homeless.

I'm living in a dumpster. I haven't had a significant relationship aside from when I was living with my girlfriend in a car. Um, my parents hate me.

I have no education. I can't seem to stop doing what I'm doing. I can't seem to stop doing what I'm doing and I hate myself.

I wake up every single morning despised with disgusted with the fact that I lack the courage to blow my own head off. Please pull the trigger. And at the exact same time that I was thinking that, I was also thinking, I wonder if I can open the door and get out fast enough before he shoots me.

And that was my internal dilemma. That was the dilemma that I faced. And what he said was, "Get out of the car.

You're pathetic. Do your own work." And he was basically telling me, "Kill myself." Like, "You're pathetic. You can't do it yourself." That was one of the darkest days of my life.

And I try to remember that. And I only kind of recently started talking about that because for some reason I found it embarrassing, but actually it's kind of funny. Um anyway, I uh I hit bottom when I was 19 years old.

And uh the funny thing is is at the darkest moment of my drinking and using, I could not have gotten sober because at that moment I had absolutely no desire to stop drinking because at that moment the alcohol was still working in my life. And what I came to find it was not always the external circumstances that defined my bottom. Certainly they help.

I remember one of the things that I heard early on is that it is not a requirement to lose everything in your life in order to get sober, but it helps. And I've come to find that there's basically kind of two types of alcoholics. There's the type of alcoholic who as a result of their drinking will never gain anything ever.

And there's the type of alcoholic who will build up this great momentous life and tear it all down as a result of their alcoholism. I was the kind of guy that never gained anything as a result of alcoholism. By the time I was 19, I had lost everything.

And granted, at the age of 19, it's not very difficult to lose everything, but um I hit bottom at the age of eight 19. And I just want to talk about one of the last jobs I'd got I'd had that my father had gotten me. Um I was working in Southern California, frighteningly enough, building bridges.

Um because my father was an engineer. Don't worry, they're in California. And um I uh this the last day of employment or the second to last day of employment, I had essentially overdosed on drugs.

And I had been called into my boss's office, ironically, to discuss my poor job performance. I walked into his office, felt a strange kink in my neck. So, I cracked my neck and the pain radiated down my arm.

I had a stroke and I went into convulsions on in his office uh during the time that I was supposed to be talking about my poor job performance. Um, they rushed me to the hospital and treated me for drug overdose. And they informed me that we're going to either fire you or you can go to a drug rehab.

And I said, I would rather be fired than ever go back to any form of institution. And so, I went home. Now, it's important to remember that I'm also a blackout drinker.

So, I got thoroughly himerred, forgot about everything that had occurred that day. Uh, came to the next morning forgetting what had happened. And immediately upon awakening and thought to myself, something doesn't feel right.

I better get to work on time. And I came into the office to much of the surprise of my former employees. And because of the position of my father in this company, they took me aside again and they said, "Hey, uh, dude, we're going to go ahead and give you two alternatives.

We can either fire you again or you have to go to rehab." And I remember saying when I was 18, I said I'd never go back to an institution. You're going to have to fire me. They're like, "Yeah, you told us this yesterday.

You're fired, dude." And I got fired a second time from the same job. Um, if you have ever been fired twice in the span of 24 hours from the same institution, you are probably an alcoholic or you should never have an employment. Um, and I remember coming to with face down in the Mojave Desert, not quite sure how I had gotten there.

I remember that I'd been at a party. At this point in time, the word party just brought chills to my spine cuz at these parties, I could not remember what I was doing. I know that often I woke up like inappropriately dressed as in I was naked in public places.

And um suddenly something occurred to me where it was like I can't do this. And uh for me hitting bottom was simply the painful undeniable realization that I wasn't who I thought I was. The drugs and the alcohol had ceased working in my life in the way that they used to.

In as much no matter how drunk I got, I knew exactly who I was and exactly where I was going. And for some ungodly reason, I was no longer okay with that. And that was hitting bottom for me is the drugs cease to work in my life in the way that they used to.

And the beautiful thing about this program, especially a young person's conferences, a lot of us come in with different bottoms. A lot of come in with different varying degrees of how bad our lives were as a result of our drinking. But the thing that seems to typify the majority of our last days out there is it becomes very clear to us and it definitely became very clear to me that the alcohol had stopped working in my life in the way that it used to.

If you are here now and you believe you even have a suspicion that the alcohol has stopped working in your life and you cannot do this any longer, we have a solution for you. We have a solution for you. And what happened was a moment of clarity which was a painful undeniable realization that there might be another way to life.

And I suddenly recalled Alcoholics Anonymous and I thought maybe there was a solution here for me. And the other reason I came into this program is because I was positive that the pain of being sober and being an A would give me the courage to kill myself if I couldn't do this thing. And that's why I came in here.

So if you hear about coming to AA for the wrong reasons, I came in here to kill myself. I cannot think of a worse reason than to come to Alcoholics Anonymous than to blow your head off. So if you're here because you think that girl is hot or you think that guy is hot, welcome to AA.

We do not care what it takes for you to get here. We only care what you're willing to do to stay. And that's the beautiful message that was passed to me when I came to this program.

And I'm going to talk about all 12 steps, how they've applied to my own life. When I talk about this, this is simply my own experience. if you have not yet had an experience with the 12 steps.

I encourage you to get one. And I was kind of listening to Serena speak and and the funny thing is is I would actually say the the steps are very important. But I totally do not disagree with what she said.

I think we're totally on the same page. I just would use different words to verbalize that. Um but what I came to find is the only solution that was afforded me was through the 12 steps.

And before I do that, I'm going to quickly talk about the traditions. You know, the tradition is the best kept secret in Alcoholics Anonymous. Um, I also want to quickly thank the guys and the girl ladies that were on the panel of the traditions here today.

Um, when I make it when I go to conferences, I try to make a concerted effort to always go to the traditions panel. And it's always that panel where there's more people on the panel than in the audience. Um, the reason I do this is because over a period of my sobriety, I began to learn about the traditions.

And if there's anything that more marks the existence of a higher power working in this program, it's the traditions. And what I love about the trai traditions is these whole things were born out of our own mistakes. And even simply looking at the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous when Charlie Towns first offered Bill Dub the opportunity to professionalize Alcoholics Anonymous.

And Bill W was stoked at this idea. He was pretty much broke and he went back to his AA meeting and he approached the newcomers and he put it up to what would become the group conscience. And he said, "This guy offered me a job basically to do what we do for free." And the newcomers in their great wisdom said, "I don't think that's a good idea.

You've always told us, Bill, that the uh the good can be the enemy of the best." And we think if you professionalize that this thing, it will kill it. This has to be something greater than simply something we do for money. And Bill W in what would been an incredible move for him, he consented with the group conscience.

And the other thing is this group conscience was formulated by a group of newcomers. I don't know about you, but in my home group, like most of the newcomers that come in here don't know like their ass from a hat full of sand. So, I couldn't imagine a group of newcomers coming up with the wisdom of that.

That's incredible. And that's just a small snippet of the the history of the traditions. Um, and what I love is I'm going to paraphrase this, but one of my favorite things that Bill W said about this entire program was he felt this thing was not so much a success story, but rather the chronicling of some of our greatest weaknesses and greatest failures being used as a momentum to propel us into a loving relationship with a higher power.

And I paraphrase that, but that's essentially what he said. And that's kind of what the traditions show me that as a result of our failures, we have been brought together and this thing has been formed in the greater common welfare and unity. And I don't know about you, but for most alcoholics, the idea of doing the common welfare before our own must be counterintuitive to our own instincts.

Because when I was at the crack house and it was getting busted and I was standing by the door, I was not thinking if I jet, is this going to be okay for the rest of the guys? Like, am I totally looking out for the common welfare? That was not something I was thinking.

And what's incredible is as a result of the spiritual awakening and kind of being here, I think about the common welfare sometimes. I think about the fact that this thing saved my life and I want it to be around for the other people who have a desire to stop drinking. I think about the fact that I want this to be around for other alcoholics much like it was around for me.

And uh now the steps uh step one I uh I love this program and one of the things I love is in the the 12 and 12 which is an incredible book by the way in step one it talks about the fact that most of us will arrive to that point where we realize that we have two choices either live life based on simple uh spiritual principles or die a horrible alcoholic death. And most of us will hesitate like oh I don't know. Um, and that's I like analogy.

So, here's my analogy. That's basically like being bankrupt, going to the bank, trying to take a loan out, and they come back to you and say, "Listen, uh, you have no credit. Uh, the only money you have, you stole.

Um, we're going to go ahead and give you this loan. Um, and you don't even have to pay us back. All you have to do is take this money, better your life, and then give it away to other people in the hopes that it might better their life." That's all you got to do.

The other alternative is we can kill you with bats by hitting you in the crotch. Um those are your two options. And then the good alcoholic would say like define crotch.

Do you mean below the belt or above the belt? And see this is the great dilemma for most alcoholics. Um I was one of those fortunate few that decided hey basic spiritual principles maybe not the worst thing.

And um I love the whole phenomenon of identification. When Bill Duby was kind of first trying to spread this message of Alcoholics Anonymous before it even existed, this is how he would do it. He would approach what were probably a lot of lowbottom drunks and he would kind of come up to me.

He's like, "Hey, uh, who here of you have had a Bright Light spiritual experience?" I have. And that was his message. And um, he's like, "And I'm going to be around the corner.

If you guys want to talk to me, look at myself in the mirror." Um, and I don't know if he really said that, but that's what they heard. And he went back to uh, Dr. Silkworth and he said, "I don't know what the hell's going on, but none of these guys are listening to me." And he was like, "You know what?

Stop talking about your religious experience. Talk stop talking about this bright light spiritual experience. Talk about your drinking.

I mean, talk about the way it was when you took a drink. Talk about the fact that you're dying from a disease of alcoholism. Talk about that.

Don't talk about this bright light experience. And so, he approached these drunks and what he found was they identified with the drinking. And he passed that along that identification and then they became willing to listen to the solution.

And what happened for me is I came into the program, they asked me very three simple questions. And don't get me wrong, I love the the 20 questions. Uh there's some great questions on there like, "Have you ever found that you've lost a job as a result of drinking?" It's like, "No, I'm not employed." Um and but there's kind of like this hidden question in the 20 questions.

That question is is like, "Hey, what's going on in your life that you're in an AM meeting taking a quiz about whether or not you're suffering from alcoholism?" That's kind of that really important unasked question in the 20 questions. But the questions that were asked of me was, "Do you find that when you take that first drink, you have little to no control over the next drink?" And I was like, "Yes, I understand that. When I take that first drink, I know I have to keep drinking.

Even if I don't want to, I know I have to keep drinking. I don't know why I am compelled to do that. I don't know why when I take that first drink, I know the second one's coming even when I don't want to.

And then the second question that was asked of me, when you find that you honestly want to, do you find you cannot get sober by yourself? And I knew that every time I tried to get sober, like I was doing heroin, smoking crack, and doing amphetamines. That was my idea of sobriety.

And so I knew I could not get sober on my own. And then the most important question that was asked of me is, "Do you like the way that you're living?" And no, I didn't like the way I was living. I mean, God, I was in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I mean, you're like, do anything, you know, go to any lengths to get what you have. And I'm like, I don't know, turtlenecks and sweater vests, that's I don't know what you have. And I was in Alcoholics Anonymous because I did not like the way that I was living.

And then I moved on to my second step. And um, my sponsor often used simple analogies to help me understand these steps because I was stupid. And um when I first approached the second step and started reading about it, there's a couple words that sort of red flag like God, higher power, faith.

And I was like, whoa, faith. Uh I've never lived my life on faith. Uh I don't believe there's a God.

And if I do believe there's one, he's out to get me. So I mean, I don't think that's going to work. And I was like, I cannot do this step.

And uh my sponsor used the story that I told him about when I was in this two years of lockdown. And um what I had told him was that when I was in lockdown, the general rule of thumb is if you were in the doctor's office, you stole the prescription medication. So I was in the doctor's office and I saw this box of medication and on the box it showed two old people walking down the beach hand in hand and it had the words for the ease of pain and discomfort.

So I stole it assuming it was muscle relaxants. Brought it back to it, shared it with my friends, got ready to party. And uh an hour later I suddenly realized that two old people walking down the beach hand in hand in the words for the ease of pain and discomfort.

me and my friends had just overdosed on prescription strength laxatives. And um for the next couple hours we turned our will in our lives over to a power greater than we understood. And the reason my sponsor used that particular story was he had said it was not the quantity of faith that I had lacked.

It was the quant it was the the quality. The only evidence I had needed to turn my will in my life over to something was a picture of two old people walking down the beach hand in hand and the words for the ease of painting this comfort and instantly I turned my will in my life over to it convinced that it would take me where I wanted to go. That's faith.

I had lived my entire life based on faith. It was not the quantity of faith that I had lack. It was the quality of faith.

I needed to find something that was worth having faith in. And the thing that I love about the particular wording about this step is our fellowship numbers in literally the millions. And the only requirement we suggest on your higher power is that it have the ability to restore you to sanity and it be something you can understand.

And be by default that cannot be you. That's it. It have the ability to restore you to sanity and it be something you understand.

So if you're here today and you say you cannot do this because your conception of God does not work, change it. That's it. Change your mind.

And that was absolutely foreign to me. the idea that I could come up with my own conception of God. And to be honest, my initial conception of a higher power that could restore me to sanity was my sponsor and Alcoholics Anonymous.

And that's all I needed to keep doing this thing because as a result of coming to believe that I could be restored to sanity, I began to move on to the rest of the steps. And I started on to my third step and uh making a decision. You know, we have a lot of these things in this this program kind of these esoteric sayings like uh keep coming back, let go and let God uh easy does it.

all these things that sometimes trick me into believing that don't do anything. Now, certainly as a stupid alcoholic, not doing anything is often a good measure, but it's not really what you're supposed to do all the time. And um I remember this particular time I was going through a traumatic breakup, as all breakups in sobriety are traumatic.

If I'm sponsoring you and you're going through a breakup, I say, "Get over it." And um this other uh girl, now God bless everyone that dated me in my early sobriety, like they give them like fruit baskets or something. Um you know, we had this thing about like don't date in your first year. I didn't date in my first year.

Not because that wasn't intentional. I was like ugly and stupid. I was not really high up in the dating pool.

No one dated me. But um you know, if they really were to be serious, it's like don't date forever really. Um and uh I I had broken up with By the way, like the only suggestion I can give on you.

I think that's great information. Don't date in your first year. I don't know if that's going to give you a successful relationship, but just wait until the hospital bracelet's like like off the wrist.

If you start there, like that's that's a good one. Um, so I had broken up with this girl and I was going to meetings and um, I was just thinking, just thinking and I was greeting because I wanted her to walk through the door as I greeted and as my hand would touch her hand and I would shake it, I would say something to her and she would say something back and then I would say this and then she'd say something again but then I would say this and she would shake my hand and she'd feel really bad and get back together with me. And that's what I was thinking of and I was not hearing the message.

So I went to my sponsor and said, "This is what's going on in my life. I can't do this anymore." And he need to let go and let God. And I was like, "What the does that mean?" Like, honestly speaking, what does that really mean?

And he said, "Well, off the top of my head, you could stop stalking her." And what had happened is I had approached my sponsor and I had said, "I have made a decision to stop living my life this way." And immediately after making that decision, he presented a course of action that I could take. And as a result of that, I became dependent on him. And um I'm going to borrow from my friend Mosha.

He did not make this analogy up and I'm pretty much going to completely rip off his delivery. But I don't know where the whole idea of being dependent on stuff has become bad. Um, you know, I'm dependent on stuff all the time.

I'm dependent on Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm dependent on my sponsor. I'm dependent on my friends.

God forbid I'm dependent on Alonzo. I'm dependent on a lot of stuff today. And the only thing is if I lose this stuff, I can still stay sober.

And it's not like if you see a guy on crutches, you would go up to him and say, "Hey, what are those crutches?" Um, like Alcoholics Anonymous is a crutch for me because I can't walk like normal people. Um, I am like someone who has lost their legs. I will never grow new ones.

Of course, I need a freaking crutch. Um, and uh, after making this decision, I was presented with a course of action. That course of action was the fourth step.

If you have made that decision, you know you have finished your third step when you begin making that inventory in the fourth step. And I began making that inventory, listing all those secrets that had kept me sick. Where is my watch?

Oh crap. Um, that it kept me sick. I'm going to go over a little over.

Sorry about that. Uh, and I I I made this inventory and I got to that part where was my part in it which was totally foreign to me. I hadn't believed that I had a part in anything and uh I did that and I brought it to my sponsor and uh my inventory took me like 6 months to do which was four months of blowing it out of proportion and two months of actually sitting down and writing it.

And um I did that with the help of other people people in AA to do what was a a thorough inventory. And if you have not done a thorough inventory you can always do another one. Like there's no hard and set rules that if you do a bad one the first time you're screwed.

Um, and I took this thing to my sponsor and I began doing my fifth step and I told him these things and at the end of the fifth step, my sponsor looked at me and said, "Now tell me all the things you didn't write down." And um, it was great because there was things I hadn't written down. Um, when I had been in lockdown 2 years, it had been shut down by child protection agencies because of all the accusations of physical and sexual abuse. And I had a lot of secrets involving around this place and about being homeless and all this stuff.

And I had these secrets that I was thinking that there's got to be no reason why I should tell another human being about this and stay sober. I mean, why would that possibly serve my best interest to tell another person these things that I am deeply ashamed of and humiliated by? I'm not going to tell anybody.

And at the end of that inventory, when he looked me in the eyes and said, "Now tell me all the things that you didn't tell me." It suddenly occurred to me that if I truly wanted what he had, I had to come clean. And I mean absolutely clean. And I've come to find in my sobriety that I hold secrets at the peril of my own sobriety.

And um for some ungodly reason, I told him those things. And at the end of me telling him that stuff, he got uncharacteristically quiet. and he said to me, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry these things happen to you.

Uh perhaps in a perfect world, these things wouldn't really happen to anybody. Unfortunately for you, these things are no longer an excuse to live the way that you were living." And at that point in time, I suddenly became accountable for everything that had happened to me because I realized I'd had a part in it. If not large or small, I realized that I had a part in everything.

And what I came to find is nobody needed to change in my life in order for me to stay sober. I didn't need to forgive anyone. No one needed to forgive me.

The only person that needed to change was me. nobody needed to change in order for me to stay sober. And at that point, I was somewhat liberated from the bonds of alcoholism that I' had been living and the resentment that had been controlling my life.

And I remember having a difficult time knowing what instinctive rages and resentment. And for example, like when you hit yourself on the hand with a hammer and you a god hammer, that's instinctive rage. When you spend the next two weeks thinking about when you find that hammer, you're going to get up and you're going to find all the other tools that hammer hangs out with and destroy them.

That's a resentment. That's not instinctive danger. And that's what I lived with.

I lived with this resentment. And you cannot live a normal life. You have to drink.

You have to medicate yourself. You have to numb yourself from that kind of way of living. And when I exposed this stuff to my sponsor, some of it went away.

And it opened that door for me to continue the rest of the steps. And I started on six and seven. And six and seven were simply coming to that realization that I was such a defect of character that nothing would remove these shortcomings aside from divine intervention.

And um for this particular analogy, I borrow heavily from a guy named Sandy B. But you know, sometimes you reach that place where you think, surely there's some things in my life that must be useful, such as pride. I mean, I must be allowed to feel prideful about some things.

For example, I sponsor a lot of jackasses. And in spite of my best efforts to kill them, some of them stay sober. And you know, they get them to die and they get up there, they say something like semi-intelligible.

People clap because you have to. And I'm sitting there like all sponsor-l like looking at them and kind of nodding. And I'm thinking to myself, the reason the sponsor is sober is because they have a sponsor.

Uh I happen to be that sponsor. So really, all the credit you're giving to him should be coming to me. Um that's my definition of spiritual pride.

What I'm looking for is gratitude. What I'm looking for is the gratitude that I actually have something that's worth imparting to another human being. What I'm looking for is the gratitude that I have people in my life that can take away something that I have because I was so freely given it.

What I'm looking for is gratitude. What I'm looking for in the sixth and seventh step is to transform those defects of character that I have been ruling my life into something that can be of service to another human being. That's what I'm looking for.

I am looking for that psychic change where I begin to have these things used to be of maximum service to another human being. And that's kind of the sixth and seventh and a simple terminology for myself. And then I moved on to my eighth and I took that list of the people I owed amends to and I started doing my ninth and started making amends to those people.

I'm going to kind of quickly hurry through this. I usually use this as my one example of the amends. Um, the amends that was really important in my life was I was asked by my sponsor to make amends to the people that had saved my life when I tried to kill myself.

This was an easy amend. All I had to do was find the people that had tried, you know, saved my life and say, "Hey, thank you." That was it. That was the amends I had to make.

I made that amends at 6 years sober. And um, at 6 years of sobriety, I was going through something of an existential crisis. And it occurred to me that I had never made that those amends to those people.

And again, this is such an easy amends. There's nothing bad that could have come of it. And it occurred to me like maybe this whole existential crisis and the fact that I would refuse to do this amends have some sort of association.

So I went out and I tried to make this amends and I went back to that place where I'd kill myself and I couldn't find the people and I went into my car crest fallen and I did a short prayer and Alonzo was the one that told me about this prayer and the prayer was God if it be your will I think it's really important that I make this amends today. If so please give me a sign and make it really obvious cuz I'm stupid. And immediately after saying this prayer, it occurred to me try one more place.

And so I got out of my car and I walked into one more office. And sitting behind the desk was one of the ladies that had been there when I tried to kill myself. And not yet quite willing to give it up even though I recognized her.

I said, "The reason I'm here today is because years ago my brother tried to kill himself." And she looked at me and started crying and she said, "No, it was you." And she came around the the desk, hugged me and brought me back into the office. And I met all the people that had saved my life years ago. And I talked to them and I remember the guy telling me that sometimes he believes God gives us the opportunity to write what was once wrong.

And I got to tell them what my life was like that day. And it was good. It was really good as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I got to thank them. And immediately after making this amends, that existential crisis ended and I knew I had a God in my life that I could do business with and had only the utmost unconditional love for me. I do not know why this happened.

I don't know why that effect happened to me. I mean, the crazy thing about these coincidence that we always hear about from people is like it's like these millions of light like flitting through the universe and ever so often they intersect and collide in such a bright flash as to be undeniable in their existence. And to me, that's God looking down and saying, "You're going the right way." And um again, I don't know why this happened to me.

All I know is I took an action and something changed in me. And the reason I love these steps is you do not have to believe in these steps for them to have an effect. All you have to do is work them.

We don't care if you believe in them. Oh, damn. God just cut me off.

Uh oh. We don't care if you really I think that's God telling me to wrap this up. Um but just to get back to this because I think this is important.

It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in these steps. If these steps required you to believe in these things, it'd be a placebo. We are not offering you a placebo.

We are offering you a very real solution to a very real malady. If you do these steps, something will happen. And what I've come to find, if you do these steps and you have that psychic transformation, nothing spiritually will be withheld from you.

That is the experience of myself and the experience of my collective group of friends. And I have a lot of friends in this program. And uh I moved on to my 11th step and through prayer meditation, I try to improve my conscious contact with God.

Um you know, I pray and meditate some days and I improve my conscious contact with God. And the funny thing about this prayer is I've come to find that this isn't even so much about God. This is about my connection with you.

I've come to find that my connection with God seems to be intrinsically connected with my willingness to be with you. I don't know why that is, but the more willing I am to be a part of you, the more closer God seems to me. And that's my own experience with this.

And then I moved on to my 12th step. And I'll tell this last story and shut the hell up. Um, at one point in time, a friend of mine asked me to help him get sober.

And um, I used to drink with this guy and he asked me to help him get sober. And, you know, I took him to meetings. He's still sober today.

And one of the things him and I were really into was H&I. That's we were into H and I. And we would go to these H&I panels and talk to these kids.

And my friend would often credit me with his sobriety. And when the kids would ask us questions, they would ask me how I felt knowing I'd gotten this guy sober. And the funny thing is at the time he asked me to help him get sober.

I hated Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't want to hear about your miracles or anything like birthdays. I hated a I thought my sponsor was mean.

And I was more or less sneaking out the back door. And at the time that he helped me to he asked me, I just went ahead and started helping him. I took him to meetings and started listening again so I could translate what you were saying to him.

I started working my steps again because I thought it'd be embarrassing if he surpassed me in the steps. And I started doing all these things that eventually kept me sober. And at the time that he thought that I was saving his life, he was quite literally saving mine because he could have asked anyone in a to do exactly what I had done and they could have done just as good if not better.

But the miracle is is I did it and I got to stay sober. And what happened is my actions superseded my intentions and I got to stay sober. I believe that's a 12step in its best form.

And what's kind of happened is the very things that I need to do to stay sober have I enjoy the most. They are some of the things that I derive the most pleasure from. These things that I need to do in order to stay sober.

And I can't think of a better deal than that. And um I just want to say again that you know it I'm really glad to be here. If if you're new, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous.

This is such an incredible thing. I'm going to end with this just because I can't think of anything else to end with and this is kind of one of my endings. Uh I've always loved the whole concept of home.

I mean I was homeless. I was adopted. So this idea of finding home has always been this very deep interest for me and um eventually I found home in Alcoholics Anonymous and um recently I was speaking at a conference in Eastern Canada and um I was sitting up on the stage after the conference during the dance and I was looking over during the dance and seeing all my friends dancing and it just I was overwhelmed by all these emotions and again I don't really feel emotions so I take note when I am feeling emotions and it just suddenly occurred to me how incredible it is to have this host of friends to have this experience in my life to have this thing in my life to be part of this.

And at the time that I was thinking this, um, much in the way that music conveys emotions and ideas that I myself can't express, the words that floated over the auditorium were, "This feels like home." And I can't think of any better words that can express my entire experience with Alcoholics Anonymous than this feels like home. If you're new here today, whether you know it or not, welcome home. THANKS.

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.