>> 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-sunrise.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. >> >> Hello, Montana.

My name is Michael McKee and I'm a recovered alcoholic. And these people have score cards over here. Recovered uh from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

And I need to thank you for that possibility in my life. Uh Doc was telling the truth there about he and I being on different sides of the fence, and it was uh 20 to 30 years ago, and uh he didn't like my type, and I really didn't like his type. And it turns out that I came to realize after some time in Alcoholics Anonymous that his type was the better.

So, how's that for a transition, huh? I thought about not thinking about Hi, Ed. what I was going to say all this week and and get my mind jammed up, and then I come to realize that there's really only one thing that I do talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous, and and what that is is my belief about the first step.

And uh a kind of a question for you. How many people knew they were alcoholic before they got here? I mean, something was wrong.

There wasn't much of a question for a lot of us about that. And then there's then there's those that really do have a question and a fight. I was one of those who knew that I was alcoholic for 12 years before I got here.

There was no question in my mind. I want to tell us uh one little story that my sponsor likes the best of all and then I'll get that one out of the way. I was uh living over here on the north side of the fairgrounds for a number of years and dealing drugs and drinking whiskey lots.

And it became a a habit. I had a a routine. And the routine was to be up by 10:00 10:30 in the morning and have hopefully still a half a fifth of Granddad's left.

And then that would get me through about noon or 1:00 in the afternoon. And by that time I felt much better. And then I could kind of go down to either the finish line or the Stockman's and even the liquor store sometimes, but I wanted I had this thing about state and federal operated facilities.

And so I went to the Evergreen one sometimes and I went to the one by the B&B sometimes. But not all the time cuz I didn't want them to know I was alcoholic. It was okay for me to know it.

And And I would pick up the next uh actually the first fifth of Granddad for the day. And take it back home. I like to drink in private.

Uh it was just too bothersome to be social. But it was important to be social at 4:30 at the Stockman bar here in town. Because the first three drinks were free and then they were 90 cents a piece after that for an hour and a half.

And being thrifty at the time, I'd go too. It was important to keep with that schedule. And then uh I would finish off the night and sometimes I'd make it till 10:00.

Sometimes all the way to 2:00 in the morning and a person never knew that this problem had been increasingly developing and that was blackouts and all. I didn't know the term blackouts or And you know what the correct term for blackouts is? The clinical term is called palimpsests.

No, I didn't know I was having palimpsests either, but I had >> >> I had a friend who did lots and lots of Valiums with me and we would go around to the doctors and and from Kalispell to Polson to Missoula to Spokane coming back through Sandpoint and like that to all all these doctors and pick up on the important things in life. And and the first blackout I ever had was on Valium. And not knowing what else to call this state of mind, we called them Valium holidays.

No, I mean we wouldn't pay much attention to that there was something wrong with that other than if you eat these Valiums by the handfuls that you will probably forget everything for four or five day period. And we became adjusted to that. Then it started happening with the booze.

And it got real scary. So, I would try to This was great, one of my faves, is I would hide the car keys from myself while I was reasonably sober. In the house.

Out in the garage. And then I'd go, you know, get down get a ride downtown or get to town and then get wasted. And then realize that I didn't have my car.

So, I'd go right back home, didn't matter what condition. Somehow I wasn't in a blackout about that. I could go right to the keys and then a 4,000 lb weapon on the road.

Hmm. >> >> And it got so horrifying after a few years that each morning I woke up, I would after I had the first couple of pulls off the bottle, go into the next bedroom and look down out the window in driveway to see if there weren't some little kids bicycle wrapped around the grill of my pickup. And And this is when I was getting real scary.

Well, one of these days I was uh I had hidden the keys from myself and walked all the way to town. And you know how it is sometimes when you just absolutely get blasted on three drinks and you can't figure it out. The three What is going on here?

I only had three drinks. Did somebody put something in there? And so, it's like uh it's summer night early, 5:30, 6:00, and I had to go home.

And I was so drunk that I could barely walk. So, I came down a block and a half and I decided to take a shortcut through uh Norm's news there between Norm's news and the Conrad bank. And I I couldn't make it anymore.

So, I sat down by this telephone post that's kind of on the corner of the bank at the alley. I just sat there. And I was thinking, you know.

Well, there was these kids There was these four kids in a car and they were down They were drinking beer and raising hell and having some fun. And they were in this car behind Western Outdoor in the same alley half a block away. And they saw me uh sitting there about ready to pass out by this telephone post.

And they came whooping and a hollering and driving down there and screeching on the brakes and all four doors were open and the thought that I had at that moment was Oh, I hope they don't pee on me. I don't know why that's funny because that's, you know, at that moment that's that's kind of was the synopsis of my entire life. I'd already uh been incontinent several times at at the bars and everything and woke up one time off the bar in Whitefish with the Barney stuck to my forehead and my pants were wet and that was very shameful, but this one was above all the most shameful.

I was 35 at that time. It wasn't over. It went on for another 2 and 1/2 years after that.

So, in uh in the history of my alcoholism, which is still ongoing, the earlier history, it was about leading a life of degradation such as is written in the book. And uh I never really thought that I was going to live past the age of 37. There wasn't There was no reason to believe that.

I spent 6 and 1/2 years of my life behind bars. And uh I lost two wives and two children, two beautiful daughters, in the process of the alcoholism. I lost everything there was to lose, and I tried to convince myself that I did not care.

That it didn't matter. That I was going to die, and the sooner the quicker would be fine with me. And then when it got to that point, uh there was a little teeny glimmer in there that says, "You really don't want to die." By this time, I had crashed eight cars in uh major car wrecks and and motorcycles as well.

Broken 39 bones in my body, and I never broke the first one until I was 31 years old. So, it was like, "What was I trying to prove?" And it was like a It was like a thing to go in the bar and get just that one notch past feeling good and kind of ornery, and then go take on the biggest guy in the bar. There were some of those guys who are friends to this day who took mercy on me.

One of them was is my next was my next-door neighbor for a number of years and and he told me that I had better settle down, little buddy. He called You better settle down, little buddy, or I'm going to spank your face. And it was obvious that he could do that.

Probably with any five people. I don't know you know, we're so lucky it talks in the book about us crying over the good times and laughing over the horrors and stuff like that. And it's amazing how we can do that.

And I think that's this transition that we talk about and live in Alcoholics Anonymous. So, it brings me back to this whole business of step one. That's my uh it's my favorite topic in the Hear me say it that any meeting I go to on the topic of step one.

That's why I ask you a few. You were either an alcoholic before you got here. Every step in the book after the second half of step one relates to the second half of step one.

The unmanageability. See, any fool can quit drinking. Anybody can do that.

But then what? Oh God, it really gets good after that, doesn't it? So, in the last Well, at least the last 6 7 months of my drinking, it it ended up in hospitalizations a lot of time.

Now, I'd already shot all the veins out of my body and it was difficult for them to give me a glucose IV in the hospital and one time it was surgically implanted in my thigh then they could find a vein so that I could live. And the dying was from the drinking. So, when I got here first of all, it was a judge that helped me make the decision.

And then uh when he told me to go to treatment, I asked my attorney, "What is treatment?" He said, "Never mind, you just need to be there." He He apparently knew what it was. And then we got over there to an abandoned air force base in eastern Montana and they had this this beat 'em up therapy stuff. I mean, just God almighty, if the counselors didn't have enough time to beat you up, then they would encourage all the clientele in there to to get with them.

And they did. I mean, we were some angry people and we needed we needed to vent this crap. And so, we made each other targets over there.

And so, and it was really fun as long as it was somebody else going on the hot seat the next day, it was a good time. When it was your turn, uh-oh. Well, I made a statement to a friend of mine after I'd been in there about 10 days with him and I said, "You know, one of these days I'm going to do this.

I'm going to get into this business of alcoholism and I'm going to fire anybody that ever treats an alcoholic with disrespect." And I did. I got into it and I did some training and I got some education and And got into the business and I counseled for a couple of years, and then as ego would have it, went up the chain so I could get in the position to fire these people who would treat alcoholics with disrespect. I still think I was right, even now.

I mean, didn't we live enough disrespect out there before we got here? And then have to be treated with it in a way to recover. I just kind of went against the grain.

Well, I had my time in that business, and I had a pretty good time in that business until corporate America took over, and it was time for me to leave and get back to some sane and happy usefulness. And I wanted to come back to my hometown of Whitefish, and just grow up and be somebody. And so I did that.

And I keep thinking about my years of sitting at AA meetings, and the topic is the first step, and the whole business is about my resentments, my hundred forms of fear. I just wanted two, but a hundred of them. And my sexual behavior.

I had that stuff going on before I took a drink. I had it certainly going on during the drinking time, and then I wasn't a very nice little boy when I got to the Alano Club in Kalispell, Montana for a couple of years after that, either. There was a lot of things that needed to be modified in my behavior.

And what did that have to do with alcoholism? I mean, I quit drinking. And then I I've been so fortunate to to just be around the right people.

At this moment, what comes to mind is I need to thank God for you. I need to thank you for God. I need to thank my sponsor who shall remain nameless because I may quote him and if I say something that he didn't say, then you don't at least know who he is.

And I want to say that uh I'm remembering at this time a fellow that some of us knew named Ivan Hanson. Ivan Hanson uh was a friend of ours who picked up a 27-year medallion and said, "I was drunk for 27 years. I've been sober for 27 years.

I'm just starting even with the board." I thank him a lot because he uh was just one of these stable guys. When he said one day at a time, he lived it. He meant it.

It was serious. And his favorite saying was to keep on keeping on. Always with the keep on keeping on.

It's like going forward. He's a wonderful man. He, my sponsor, and some others pointed out to me that maybe my resentment started at 4 and 5 years old.

And that some of my deceitful behavior started that early. And and then it went on through the whole gamut of the pre-drinking years and then the drinking years and then the after-drinking years. Some of that stuff's going on and that's the ism.

My friend Chuck over there, I've heard him say it many, many times that selfishness, self-centeredness, driven by a hundred forms of fear is the root of our problem and the word alcohol is not on the page. It's not there. And it isn't.

And so, what we needed to have was this thorough house cleaning. Now, about that, I want to tell you about my experiences in sponsorship. Not me being the sponsor, but seeking out and getting the sponsors.

I had Well, who knew? Who knew? All's I knew was, first of all, when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not deserve to sober up.

I did not deserve to have that life, and I truly believed it. There was nothing in me that should merit such a thing. But I had some animosity.

And I had some resentments, and I wanted to fight. By God, cuz it was easier to fight than to settle down and do what the people were telling me at the meeting. So, the first time that I picked a sponsor, well, it was interesting.

I I didn't sober up right away, you see. After leaving the air force base, I had to find out a little bit more about the unmanageability aspect of this this program. So, I did some drinking and and the one of them, first or second time, ended up in the hospital up here.

And they were uh Well, I broke Dr. Armstrong's jaw. I didn't know it was him.

I thought it was this other doctor in town. I didn't know it was Jim. He's a friend of ours.

He's he does a lot of work with uh alcoholics in getting them in uh in the hospital for detox. Hadn't a clue that it was him. I got drunk this one night and passed out in the snow bank.

And uh the hospital I mean the ambulance came. I was all blue. I'd been underneath the car.

And the coat was off of me and under me. I don't know what I thought was going on but I was having one of those holidays, you know. Anyway, I got to the hospital and he was there obviously and I broke his jaw and then I threw this little nurse and I still don't know to this day who she was is across the room.

I wanted to break her neck. So, they put me in restraints in one of these hypothermic tubs until I could come to, you know, and thaw out or whatever defrost. I don't know but And at the end of the bed here sits a friend of ours.

I haven't seen him for years. Big guy, bald head and and I'm waking up and I'm in restraints. Hm?

And I see this peaceful guy sitting across at the end of the bed in a chair and he's got this big book in his hand. And I'm I'm becoming more alert, you know, by the second. I'm trying to sit up in the bed like this so I can be attentive.

And it was just the neck going up and and what I did was I quoted the 12 steps perfectly. What what else is there to do? He's got a big book.

I'm going to quote that thing. I know it. And then I passed out.

I picked him for a sponsor because he was nice. And he agreed with me that the counselors that I were working with were treating me unfairly. And so, because he agreed with me, he should be my sponsor.

And then I got drunk again. Well, then I picked another sponsor there for a while. He was even more violent about the counseling profession and he really not only agreed with him, but he was ready to go kill sons of >> >> Then I went to the counselor that was threatening me with to go back to prison.

You see, the last time I was in the courtroom and the ensuing trip off to the treatment center the judge gave me 100 years. You see, in Montana, if you commit five felonies, it's 100 years. And we're sitting in there and the the judge, he's dead now, a wonderful guy, and he was supposed to be the hard court.

He said, "Young man, do you think that you can stay sober?" I said, "I don't know." The first time I ever told my the truth in my life, I think, was right at that moment. I said, "I don't know." And he said, "I'm going to give you every opportunity to find out. And if you blow it, you're going down the road for 10 years." I'm thinking, "Hmm." I said, "But, your honor, the charge only carries 5 years." I mean, in the midst of all this, I'm arrogant with the he He slams the drawer open on his desk and pulls out the book and he says, "By God, you're right." I got 5 years out of the deal.

But, it was not the deferred kind, it was a suspended kind. That That's worse. And the proviso was to not drink and poke holes in my arms and do this you know, seizing behavior, seizing behavior.

Probably a good time to point out that I'm also a recovered criminal. And I spent a lot of years as a criminal. Thank you very much to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I don't live that kind of a life either and haven't for 18 years. But it all gets back to this business of step one. And when when do we clean it up?

How do we clean it up? So, what occurred to me to get the guy that was after me, who was my counselor. He was also going to AA.

And so one day after an AA meeting I asked him "Would you be my sponsor?" He said "Well, yes I will." I said good. And now from now on everything I tell you will be of a fifth step quality. It will not go to the courts and the probation officers and anywhere else.

You son of a you know. I was kind of in the process but he had a job and he could not devote 24 hours a day to my recovery and so he pulled in two other people. And said the three of us will sponsor you.

And you will not do anything unless you get joint this a triple decision here. One of us is not going to be good enough. God almighty the pressures of AA.

And and major decisions in my life at that time was like maybe getting a job. I was unemployed and unemployable. I didn't know what to do.

I was uh frightened. I was mixed up. And I had all kinds of energy what to do.

So my friend and I decided that we would uh build an Al-Anon club. It had been on paper, but it had never been So we did that. And in the process of doing that, I realized over you know, this went on for a couple of years.

We finished one up uh over there by the Senior Citizen Center. And as soon as we outgrew that, we got an opportunity to move down to uh 10th and Main. And we did all kinds of physical work in there and we did all kinds of Al-Anon club kinds of things.

And it was very successful. I wasn't employed for money, but I was able to find out if I could really work and be worth something. Just to do something.

To take out the tools and build something. Be a builder instead of a destroyer. That was another thing that I even talked about early on when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Be a builder and not a destroyer. The business about I'll come back to that. I'm going to save that.

Then uh I even talked about He went to uh Portland one time. He had terrible skin cancers that he got on Midway Islands in the Second World War. And below each shoulder blade there huge craters.

And each time he'd go in to surgery, they'd take more out. And so he made quite a few trips to the West Coast to deal with that cancer problem. And he came back one time.

He'd been Portland and he got together with a bunch of us who I'm happy to see here this evening and said, "I heard about this this greatest thing. It's called Intergroup." So, he pulled a bunch of us together and sat us down and explained what it was. And none of us really knew anything and all of us were relatively new at sobriety, but it was exciting and it was like building instead of destroying.

And so, we got into doing that. Been doing it ever since. So, it's just kind of more on on the principle of building and staying healthy.

In the process, it took about uh 8 months. My friend Dale and I decided to go have a drink. So, I'm 8 months out of the treatment center.

8 months in and out of AA. I was going to 11 meetings a week over there in uh the parish house of the senior citizens center. And the three meetings that I would miss, I'd be out there.

But my mother lives right across the street. 80 yards away. I could not be trusted to make it 80 yards to an AA meeting to stay sober.

On this evening, uh old Dale and I decided to go have a drink. We went down to the hole-in-the-wall bar, pretty fitting. And I sat there with him and I had two, three, probably three pretty healthy doubles.

And I'm kind of looking this place over. And And "Dale, it's the same old sitting telling the same old lies and I'm out of here. I had the I had the drinks.

I wasn't blasted. And I went home. That was a Saturday night.

He and I were going to go Sunday morning I don't We were going to go Sunday morning to Glacier Park. It was about 10:30 in the morning and I got up and I called him up and he was angry, angry, angry. I said, "What are What are you so angry about?" He said, "I wasn't supposed to wake up.

I took 100 Valiums and 100 beams of barbiturates and washed it down with a fifth of vodka. And I was not supposed to be here today." He says, "But it doesn't matter. I got one more bullet in the gun." Well, we had been saying that to each other for 8 years, the two of us.

Got another bullet in the .44, not to worry. But I knew that he would not do that with a .44. I had the .44 for a long time, but he just got his.

And I knew that he wasn't going to do that with his .44 and it was just more of this, you know, mouthin' off. So, I went to a meeting across the street then at noon. And uh for some reason I never called him back.

I don't know why. The next Monday night went to a meeting over there and we go went sitting upstairs in the lounge area and then we decided to go down for the meeting. And uh, Jerry H asked me if I wanted to chair the meeting.

I'd been sitting upstairs in the in the lounge reading the newspaper. And it said Dale, and I was surprised. Dale Holmberger, I think I can use his name.

I was surprised to see that he was 32. I thought he was as old as me, and and he's he was 6 years younger than me. And I'm reading the obituary.

And I'm flipping the newspaper back looking at the date, and then I'm flipping it back and forth like this in in disbelief. I went down to the meeting. And Jerry asked me if I wanted to chair the meeting, and I said I said, "I don't think so.

I I'm just reading about my friend's obituary, and it couldn't be." He said, "Oh, I thought you knew." confirmation. I was devastated, absolutely devastated. I buried him the next week.

And on a Saturday, and on a Sunday morning I went to a meeting in Whitefish. And as it was just one of those things, you know how you're around for a while, people start to know your stuff. They can read your face, they can see what's going on with you.

I've known these people for 8 months now. I'm just I'm getting to a place where I'm as comfortable with them as I was with the old bunch on the streets. Kind of a one of those things, you know, 50/50.

These guys saw that something was wrong, so they invited me up to the house after the meeting. I said, "No, I got something to do." And what I had to do was go home and blow my brains out with my .44. I'd shot it a lot.

Well, they talked me into going up to the house and there were four grown men there. And the most arrogant of all of those other four, I do not exclude myself here. Hands on the hips says, "Do you want me to be the first one on my knees?" I put my hands on my hip and I said, "Yeah, you damn right.

You first." And he did. And then the other three did. And there was this gulp there in the throat like, "Oh-oh, I've had it." And so I did too and I got down on my knees with those four men and did the first, third step of my life.

Actually, it was a first, second, and third step. And in an instant, I knew that it was over. It was over.

I had lived that life. And the whole thought in my mind was, "Take this compulsion away from me to drink and poke funny little holes in my arms and I will do the best I can the rest of my life to live this way of life." It's been uh well, actually in August, this coming August, if I uh don't get too serious about anything, I will not have had a drink in 18 years. You guys You guys get the credit for that, not me.

So, this whole thing about step one You look at step two and see this thing about restoring to sanity. Now, what does that have to do with drinking? versus what does it have to do with unmanageability?

Or turning your will and your life over to the care of God has a little bit more to do with the unmanageable lifestyle. Or doing a fourth step about your sexual behavior and your resentments and your 100 forms of fear is about the second half of the first step. The fourth step is about that.

And the fifth step is about that. And then just to bring it all back around again in case you're not really convinced, here comes step six and says, "I know there's a couple of these things you'd like to hang on to. Want to hang on to your lust for a little while.

Want to hang on to your power monger stuff for a little bit longer cuz it's going to get you so far." And then the seventh step, you know, and you get choked up with it and you realize it's not going It's not working. Then there's the seventh step to let you out of that. Then in the eighth step which if you've done a fourth step properly, you've already got the eighth step list done.

It just says you got to be willing willing willing to go there. I got to tell you that sponsorship probably is at its biggest worth when it comes to step nine. Now, I have some friends here in the audience who have been with me from day one.

Uh Chuck and over there, he and I have been together since we're 5 years old in the Presbyterian Church in Whitefish. He went dutifully and as far as I know he was a pretty nice young man. I went to steal the pencils.

I mean 5 years old, what do you want? No, no, I money didn't come till a little later. Well, I had some pretty abstract ideas about what the ninth step really meant.

And so I was going to do this ninth step with my ex-wife. And I wanted to start immediately. This was even before we had the final drink.

Start immediately, go tell that woman how sorry I was. I'd been telling her how sorry I was every time I got drunk for for at at least 14 years. I'd call her up and tell her how sorry I was.

Anyway, now by golly we're sober and we're going to go tell her how sorry we really are. I was about 6 months sober, had done the the fourth and fifth step and I was ready to go, I think. But there was no job and there was no car and there was no money.

God prevailed. About a year later I had finished building this convertible. Um Randy took some wonderful pictures of that convertible.

So now I had money. But I was still building walls in an Al-Anon club and for no I had a car but no money, I mean. God prevailed.

I was a year and a half sober, mind you, after doing intensive, exhaustive step work according to my sponsor. Doing it and feeling good and reaping the benefits, and doing all that stuff. In a year and a half sober, we're getting ready to go.

I got a car, I got money, I got it all, and I'm clicking. Chuck over there asked me, he says, "Okay, uh and he and he Chuck wasn't my sponsor. But he says, "Okay, he says, kind of tell me what you're going to do." I'm sober now, and it was easy.

I'm going to get in the convertible, drive to North Dakota, knock on the door, and tell her how sorry I am. And he says, "Oh, and then after that, he says, maybe nice tablecloths and a roast beef dinner." Yeah. Why not?

He says, "Maybe after that, a little trip to the bedroom to spend the evening." And I thought, "Yeah. Why not?" And then he pointed out to me that I may have to do a ninth step for the way I did the ninth step. So, you know, I'm talking a year and a half being without the booze and this stuff, you know, so I said, "Well, what should I do?" But then it became perfectly clear that what I needed to do was call her up on the phone, she and my daughter both, make an appointment, say that I'm coming to town, when would be a good time for them.

I had some things I needed to talk about. It was very important. Get some scheduling done.

Then go get a motel by myself. And then do the amends and then get out. Well, okay.

>> Okay, I'm going. >> Okay, I can do that. I'll do it.

Well, there's this other gentleman who thought, "Mhm, well, he's still a little skitsy." And he had just bought a brand new car himself. So, here we were, two of us driving around in brand new cars. And he says, uh "We're going to flip a coin as to which car we're taking to North Dakota." Now, both of us knew why he was going with me and that the flip of the coin or the car really didn't mean much.

And off we went, by golly, he won. We drove his. And we went to North Dakota and checked into the motel.

They knew we were coming, got there, called them up, had the appointment with my daughter. At that time, she was 12. And then the next morning had breakfast with her mother.

And we're sitting in a restaurant in Bismarck, North Dakota, of all places. And she said, "Michael, why are you telling me that you're sorry? You've been telling me that you're sorry for 14 years." I said, "Well, I just needed to be sober.

I needed to look you in the eye and apologize to you for all the things that I did. I did not have to categorically name them and beat her up piece by piece on those incidents." And when I did do that, and she said, "Why are you doing this?" I said, "I just need to do this." She says, "What do you expect?" I don't expect a thing. I got to get going.

And we're out of there. That's the way that was supposed to have been done. So, sponsorship is kind of the thing for step work.

Especially four step, really, really especially nine step, sponsorship. So, if your sponsor hasn't got you doing those kinds of things, ask him or her why not. Life does get better, and life gets to this place where it is sane and happy, and you feeling useful all the time.

All the time. And we all have our moments. I mean, we're alcoholics.

And it says that we are self-centered, and it says that we got 100 forms of fear, and it says this and that. And all of that stuff is true, and it doesn't go away because it is part of the ism. It is part of the second step.

I mean, the first the second half of the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what it's all about. But the thing that changes is that we don't react to it anymore.

All those things that we're driven by and insist on having and demanding and all that stuff, the whole working of Alcoholics Anonymous is about changing the behavior. I would have none of this. I would not be breathing air today if it weren't for you guys.

I think about Ed. I've known Ed a long time. I'm glad you were there when I was there.

Thank you. Chuck and Dale, some of us that came together in the beginning. I brought down some uh meeting schedules there uh this evening.

Just had them for hot off the presses. And in counting them up last night, do you know, folks, for those of you who are not in uh living in the Flathead Valley, that there are 92 meetings a week in the Flathead Valley, six meetings a week in Eureka. That's 98 meetings in the whole in the whole Valley.

And of that, 19 groups in the Flathead. We remember the days that there was two in Whitefish, two in Columbia Falls, and uh five or six in Kalispell. And we would go to Libby to get to an AA meeting on the day they didn't have one around here or Polson.

Go go go. And at that time it wasn't because we were motivated to do all this service work, we were terrified that we were going to get drunk. And so we were willing to go whatever it took to get to the meeting.

We're very happy that uh things are easier now for the newcomer. Excuse me, and we're very happy for the newcomers, and I'm real glad to have been here tonight. Thank you.

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