Celebrating Sobriety: Experience, Strength, and Hope from a Long‑Term AA Veteran

What's up Quality of Life, Vas, Alcoholic.

So glad to be here with you guys tonight.

Happy Saturday night.

I wore this coat out of respect for Alcoholics Anonymous

and this meeting, Quality of Life.

I love that.

And now I'm gonna take it off.

All right, so I told Karen that, you know,

this is gonna be the best damn Saturday night talk

that you guys have heard all year, right?

But you're not supposed to do that

'cause you're not supposed to,

you're supposed to over-deliver and under-promise.

But, you know, at least I'll stop on time

'cause this man right here is gonna light up the lights.

I love it.

I feel like I'm in the PG.

Which is my home group, right?

We got lights like this.

I have been going to my home group in the,

hey, what's up, Zoom?

Right there.

And I've been going to my home group

since the first 30 days of this variety.

And my variety day is January 23rd, 1990.

And I've, I was sober over 30 years

and I've spoken twice at my home group meeting.

Once when I was 19 and the other one on my 25th birthday.

So, and when you hear my talk, you realize,

no wonder they didn't ask me to speak.

You guys are so good.

But I don't know what the hell I'm gonna say tonight

other than I can guarantee you this.

I'm gonna share my experience, strength and hope with you.

And then I'm also gonna share the enthusiasm

that I have for my sobriety.

So I'm not gonna sit up here and be all maudlin

and bitch and whine about whatever challenges I'm facing

because this is life on life's terms.

And we all have challenges that we're facing, right?

What's nice about Alcoholics Anonymous

is just one alcoholic talking to another.

So that we can celebrate the good stuff going on in our lives

and when our ass is falling off

or we can barely hold on with both hands,

we can help each other, right?

And we have this unique bond, right?

The book talks about it, well the 12 and 12 talks about it.

If we grab onto this thing like a drowning man

grabs onto the life reserve,

we got a pretty damn good shot

of staying sober one day at a time.

And when we do that, it's been my experience

that we're able to continue that our lives flourish

and good things happen.

And we suck it up during the hard times

and we share our experience, strength and hope with others.

And we get to keep it by giving it away, damn, right?

What Dan said, he doesn't want to drink again.

That's why he keeps telling me,

he's a quality of life for my sponsor, right?

Hell yeah, right?

Home group and a sponsor

'cause he doesn't want to go back out again.

I don't want to go back out again.

My life keeps getting bad.

But what's easy is to be complacent

and forget about our primary purpose

which is staying sober one day at a time.

If I can make sure that I stay sober,

all the other shit seems to fall into place.

What, whatever, is there like a, yeah, right?

Sorry about the curse word there.

But yeah, you know, it's funny.

I've been like, there's so much,

it's not enough time, people.

What is this, an hour meeting?

I mean, when you ask me to speak,

it's gotta be at least an hour meeting, man,

because it's like, I'm talking about me.

I've got a lot of ears that I want to share with you guys.

But again, it's that enthusiasm, right?

I have a sponsor.

I have a home group.

I go to weekly meetings of alcoholics

when my football team is winning,

when my football team is not winning,

when I got a promotion at work,

when I did something and my wife is really pissed at me

and it's very uncomfortable at home.

By the way, I want to thank the two ladies

for showing up here tonight.

Good job.

Break up all the test thoughts thrown in this room.

Yeah, and Frank says hello, by the way, Elizabeth.

I texted him, he's a good man.

AA brother and so for long.

And he's an AA brother and he's also class of 1990.

We're all home.

Everybody gets sober in a certain year we have banquets

and we get together, it's a whole thing.

Anyway, so PG works for me.

That's why it's my home group.

Okay, I don't know what the hell I'm saying tonight

because I woke up at 3.30 this morning

and I took about a 20 minute nap.

And Karen doesn't know this,

but I was going to ask one of my AA brothers

who lives in the Valley like,

"Dude, I'm doing a triathlon that morning."

You know what I mean?

And I said, yes, I would do it,

but I forgot I had signed up for this triathlon

that I've been training, continuously training for.

And Randy's a good guy.

He's got a better talk than mine.

So you guys would have been better off with him.

But that son of a bitch died two weeks ago.

And yeah, really good friend.

His service is on November 5th.

A good man, AA brother.

We went to the same Monday night men's staff

for 22 years together.

We carpooled to my sponsors meeting every other month.

You know, my sponsors are meeting all the sponsors

get together enough.

You know, so we went to football games.

We did so much together.

His wife found him on the floor of his side of the bed

on a Friday morning.

Took him to St. Joe's.

And a lot of AA brothers went Saturday night.

I was at a football game,

many of the same football games had Trojan fan.

Outside issue, but we would go to Trojan games all the time.

And we had, there's a big contingent of sober people

going to tailgating.

It was fantastic.

Anyway, a lot of my AA brothers saw him

at St. Joe's ICU Saturday night.

I saw him midday Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, they pulled the plug.

And, but he was current.

He was current with his wife, right?

He was current with his family.

He was a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And that's where you want to go, right?

So couldn't ask him to speak.

So I'm here tonight.

So grew up in Los Angeles to a dentist

and a concert pianist mother, just like Dan.

You know, I know why you drank

'cause your father left you.

And I know why you drank

'cause your mother beat the shit out of you.

Like, that's right, damn it, two twice.

The, my parents love me, man.

And they probably love me too much.

And they gave my brother and I everything that we needed

for sure and most of what we wanted,

which was problematic in Los Angeles growing up.

But they're non-alcoholic.

My brother's a heavy drinker.

Definition in the big book, you know,

definition of a heavy drinker.

He's a stressed out attorney,

really overweight on blood pressure meds.

And he's, you know, hits a bottle all the time.

But you know, hey man, it's, you know,

the difference as it's described in the book, right?

If the doctor says, hey man, you keep drinking,

your liver's gonna blow up.

Or the wife says, I'm gonna leave your ass.

Or the law firm he's been working for,

he said, you know, this is it, man.

They typically stop, right?

That's what a heavy drinker does, they stop.

But seemingly you could be indistinguishable.

Your behavior could be indistinguishable

from a heavy drinker,

but the alcohol just doesn't stop, right?

That's us, right?

We're, that's who we are, right?

A liver going out, the wife leaving us, giving up the job.

I like the effect produced by an uncle.

You know, it's funny, Dan was like,

hey man, I need to get sober on my 10 minute talk.

Sometimes I don't even get to the drunk a lot.

Sometimes I spend so much time talking about

the irritability and restlessness and discontentedness

I had years before I picked up a drink or a drink.

What's that?

What's that all about?

Well, it's a living program.

I mean, it's a living, it's a living problem, excuse me.

And it's a program, it's a living problem, right?

I haven't had a drink or a drug in a long time.

What the hell am I doing in an alcoholic's office meeting?

'Cause I have a problem living on life's terms, right?

Got a busy head, tells me crazy shit.

So, you know, it's not just a social lubricant, right?

Anybody drinks, everyone drinks.

Whatever they get, their inhibitions drop.

They can enjoy themselves in a social situation,

talked in the opposite sex or whatever.

It's social lubrication, right?

For us, it's not just social lubrication.

It's a, we are like men who have lost their legs, right?

It is a job, the feeling of a job well done.

You guys have heard this, job well done

without having done a job.

I mean, that's powerful.

That's not just being socially lubricated.

That's a game changer.

That's a perception.

That's everything, right?

Grew up in Hollywood, took these two parents,

restless, irritable, and discontent,

years before I drank and used,

started using and drinking when I could.

And yes, it was easier to get pot back then.

So I did smoke a lot of pot.

This is an apocalypse meeting.

I'm an alcoholic, but I did a lot of drugs.

I did a lot, that's my story.

I enjoyed them tremendously, and they were easier to get.

So when I used and drank,

did I feel taller, smaller, faster?

That felt just okay with me.

That's huge, again, huge, right?

So this thing that my parents warned me about,

I was a good parent, I didn't want to drink and use drugs,

and it didn't matter when I was in the tree house

with the kids, and I didn't know if it was a oregano

and a zigzag that was going around there,

but I hit that thing.

And then any other opportunity I had growing up

in this amazing city of ours, I took that opportunity.

And 759, there's so much to say.

I'd smoke pot, and I'd talk to my friends

and discuss the day's events in high school.

And one of them said, "Vas, if you don't slow down,

"you're gonna end up going to those meetings

"where they hold hands and say the Lord's Prayer," right?

What a trip, what a foreshadowing what was gonna come.

Do you guys see the Lord's Prayer and hold hands in here?

Yeah, so he could see it.

I was on this path.

My story is not one of a functional alcoholic.

It was like I convinced my parents that I needed

to go to boarding school, right?

That was it.

I needed to leave Los Angeles and needed to leave

this loving home that they were providing for my brother.

I needed to go to Colorado because it's a geographic, right?

'Cause most people, if they change their circumstances,

their physical circumstances, they can startle.

It's easier to startle, and it works, just not for us, right?

'Cause we bring ourselves with us, right?

So it's amazing, looking back on the Geographics, right?

I mean, it's just like, wow.

If you had told me then I wouldn't have listened

because it just wasn't, you know what I mean?

I was always a 50-yard man in a 100-yard race, right?

Life was a series of 100-yard races,

but I only had 50 in me, right?

So because I couldn't take the contrary action

and finish the 100, I just pull off.

Sometimes I start really fast.

It didn't matter.

For one reason or another, I couldn't finish the damn race.

Whatever it is, this is metaphorically, right?

A race is a relationship.

A race is an opportunity to go to Colorado

and go to boarding school.

Didn't matter what it is, a job, a friendship, a hobby.

I can never finish what I started, right?

So my life, even relatively young,

was just a series of burned bridges

and unfinished business, right?

Love all the cliches in the program, right?

I mean, there's like,

if you listen for the similarities,

the language of the heart,

when people talk about getting sober's like,

driving a station wagon or throwing all this stuff

in the back of the station wagon,

and you slam on the brakes and all this stuff,

you guys didn't know that.

More props for not saying that.

Yeah, there is one.

You know, it hits you all in the head, you know what I mean?

That's why it's so dangerous when you're newly sober.

Like, keep it simple, keep it simple.

Keep your head where your feet are, right?

Don't worry about all that stuff, you know what I mean?

Coming down on you.

'Cause typically people don't walk in alcohol to almost go,

"Damn, it's a beautiful day.

"I think I'm gonna check this thing out."

Or become more spiritual.

Give back.

No, it's because we, you know what I mean?

I remember, I remember coming home

from boarding school Christmas of '85,

and my mother was always good in her emergency,

and she was at church in San Marino,

and there was this bus where all these kids came on.

They had hospital wristbands.

From my very first meeting,

I heard the language of the Holocaust.

I heard the magic of the Holocaust.

I really did.

I'm like, "Okay, so this is the..."

I knew I had a problem.

I just didn't know what the hell my problem was.

Again, restless, irritable, and discontented.

Years.

I mean, earliest memories.

Didn't matter.

You couldn't love me enough.

It was just, you know, there was always a problem.

Complete lack of gratitude.

Complete self-obsessions today, right?

Made my day is up.

That's why it's so I can pick up on it today.

Again, my sobriety day is January 23rd, 1990.

What am I doing here with you?

I'm here sharing my experience, strength, and hope,

'cause like Dan, I wanna stay here.

I wanna stay here, 'cause my life keeps getting better.

Jumping all over the place.

Okay, so in that meeting in San Marino,

so be it, right?

In fact, it was funny.

I've never went back to that boarding school.

My parents were like, no way in hell

are you going back to that place?

And it was funny.

There were so many kids using and drinking,

and there was three-two beer.

Anybody know what three-two beer is?

You guys, half the amount of alcohol,

and you can get it when you're 18 and cold.

So you're just, you know, you're bloated as hell,

and you have to drink twice as much.

The, smoked a lot of pot.

It was one of these boarding schools

where you could sign this slip

and go skiing on the weekend or whatever,

and your parents would just pay the bills,

feel sorry for me.

What I chose to do, smoke a lot of pot

and just like drool on myself in the dorms.

You know what I mean?

I wanted a check-out.

I just, you know what I mean?

And took a lot of, I was talking to somebody about it,

and I said, okay, that's great, but that's all right.

You know, I mean, it, anything to get me out of me.

So these kids were going off the deep end

in this boarding school.

And they had this drug and alcohol counselor come in,

'cause all these kids were being sent to rehab,

you know what I mean?

Like, you, you, you.

And he came in and talked about alcohol cannabis.

So this guy, Bill and Bob, you know what I mean?

And I was given an assignment,

'cause he kind of made me saw something in me,

like this drug and alcohol counselor.

You know how we can pick each other out, you know what I mean?

But he's like, he gave me some assignment,

like, you know, tell me about the founding of alcohol.

So I'm gonna miss my next week when I come back.

Of course, did I do the assignment?

Of course I didn't do the assignment, you know what I mean?

So if I had gone back to that,

if I, my mother had come out for parents' week

and I had managed to get arrested

with the headmaster's son, fantastic, you know what I mean?

Then she's back on the plane to Los Angeles.

My dad's busy working, paying the bills.

You know, wide-eyed, like what the hell is going on?

So when I came home for Christmas,

making a fool out of myself, right?

Going to all those holiday parties, you know,

loaded and embarrassing my family.

And, you know, we were like tornadoes

through the lives of those who love us.

We can't even see it, right?

We got cancer?

You're not a tornado through the lives of people who love you.

But this disease you are.

We're gonna take everybody out, you know?

It's like cunning, baffling, harmful, and disastrous.

So grateful for sobriety, right?

One day, it's okay.

Christmas of '85, I went to my first meeting.

So my parents made this deal.

I admitted myself into a rehab program

on Fair Oaks in Pasadena Community Hospital.

It was just locked down in the unit

'cause I wasn't 18 at that time.

Now, if I had said no,

my mother, who was really good in emergencies, like I said,

would have gotten one of those rent cops

and thrown my ass in there.

But listen, at that point, it was like white flag, man.

You know, is this it?

Fine, fine.

You know, like whatever the hell it is.

I've tried other things.

I've tried to be good.

Do you think I, I went to boarding school

so I could go to like, I'm gonna go to Colorado,

embarrass my family,

have them spend all this hard earned cash

so I could just be a complete loser, lunatic kid.

No, I want her to start, I want her to do better.

It's gonna be different this time.

I'm gonna finish that 100 New York race.

So I didn't have the tools to do that, dude.

I didn't have the tools to finish, you know what I mean?

It was fascinating.

Alcoholics anonymous gives me the tools, what concepts?

Wherever the hell the steps are.

Those are the tools and the traditions.

Thank God for the traditions, thank God.

Or people like me would rip this place apart, right?

I was raised with the idea of the rugged individual.

My dad's like a rugged individual, you know what I mean?

Screw the group, you know?

If you take care of yourself, the only profit is,

any one of us is not more important

than the group of alcoholics anonymous

because for this thing to stay here,

you know, the group, you know what I mean?

I need you more than you need me.

Just my little tangent on the traditions, right?

Ah, thank God, thank God for those traditions.

The new secretary of your job is to uphold the traditions

of this meeting, right?

So we can stay here and say so and move the steps.

So the tools, right?

I didn't have the tools to finish the next 50 yards

or however many damn yards I needed to finish

when I just couldn't finish the race.

So my parents would come visit, the rehab,

Tuesdays and Saturdays, whatever.

This was in the mid 80s.

You know, now everybody gets an MRI.

You step your toe, you get an MRI.

My mom's like, my kid's got brain damage,

you know what I mean?

So I kept getting an MRI in the mid 80s.

I'm like, no, let's get an MRI.

'Cause I couldn't put a sentence together.

I was so scrambled.

I was like, I didn't know what end was up

and I couldn't find my ass, my backside with both hands.

And I remember getting an MRI.

And she walked me back to my dorm room

in Pasadena Community Hospital.

And I said, "Mom, I'm all effed up."

And she looked at me in a way that only a mother

looks at his son.

And it was this look of like,

there's something wrong with you, kid.

And you're the problem all like wrapped up into one, right?

And she put her hands on my shoulders

and she looked me in the eye and she said,

"Son, we're gonna un-eff you," right?

I'll never forget that, right?

That was '85, Christmas, Pasadena Community Hospital.

That was my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My sobriety day is January 23rd, 1990, right?

Where I got to my home group the first 30 days

of this current sobriety.

My experience in Alcoholics Anonymous,

one day at a time is a year's accumulate, right?

And I stay sober and keep marching along,

and trudging the road with you people.

It's been a process of un-effing myself, right?

Let's do it together.

Let's un-eff each other.

We can help each other.

We can do that, right?

One alcoholic talking to another.

It's like, "All right, you know, let me go to church.

My boys are altar boys."

It's got, no one's even going to church anymore.

Church is fantastic.

My program and the maintenance of my spiritual condition

with my higher power is rooted in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Going to church is fantastic.

My wife's not an alcoholic.

Trying to raise my kids in a good way.

The God of my understanding, I found here.

And just like it was read tonight by Elizabeth,

that we pray for the knowledge of his will for us

and the power to carry that out.

Let's keep it simple, people, right?

Like, in the morning, help me.

And in the evening, thank you.

And magical things happen.

Like I pay my taxes and be a good worker among workers.

And instead of embarrassing that family that loved me,

now a family member among family members.

Okay, the hell times ain't mean enough.

That woman who said, "We're going to un-F you,"

died February 1st, 2022.

And you hear it from the podium all the time,

that I was able to be there.

What a gift of sobriety.

I was able to be there for my mother and my father

upon her passing.

I was there that day, right?

I was current with her.

I had made a living amends to that woman who was alive.

It just, she was proud of me.

Oh, hold it together.

The, that's Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, my brother's an attorney, non-alcoholic.

Who's the executor of the estate?

This guy right here, this guy.

Why?

Because I'm so fantastic and, you know,

intelligent and good looking.

It's because of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous

working in my life.

My family sees it, right?

They see it.

So just like my buddy who died

was current with his wife and his family.

When my mother passed, you know, I was there for her.

I was there prior to her passing, you know what I mean?

So it's kind of a interesting thing.

You know, I've heard it for years in the podium.

And I'm so glad that that happened to me,

that that was my experience as well.

And listen, if we stay sober long enough,

these good things happen to all of us, right?

We can be of service to our families

and to the people at work

and maybe letting somebody cut in front of us

in the freeway.

These two alcoholic parents,

I'm still married, my dad's still alive, 94.

My father doesn't need to come

to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to take contrary action.

I do.

My contrary action is doing things that we don't want to do.

Imagine that, like I'm not a child.

I'm a man, right, who takes contrary action

with the help of the 12 steps of the program

and a sponsor and people like you in rooms like this.

Contrary action.

My sponsor always preaches it.

You know, it's we don't care what you think

or how you feel and just what action did you take?

Especially when you're uncomfortable

and you don't want to take an action.

You know, again, my father doesn't need Alcoholics Anonymous.

All right, I do, fine.

And I'm gonna stay here just like Dan

because I need the tools of the program

to help me take contrary action.

And ultimately, contrary action is gonna help me finish

that 100 yard race and I'm gonna grow up slowly over it.

Slowly in Alcoholics Anonymous, right?

So un-F-ing myself means growing up here

and growing up here is taking contrary action

and finishing one race at a time

and building a life here, a life worth living.

There's this place called Quality of Life, damn right.

I don't need to be someone who lives a life

of quiet desperation.

You've seen those people out there.

Do they have what you want?

Hell no.

We've got this opportunity of these amazing lives.

Look at the crap, whether you like motorcycle racing

or going to the opera or whatever it is, you're jammed.

You can find other people doing it so good

in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, right?

There are people that have gone before,

ahead of us where we can, the old timers, right?

And not just the old timers,

but not just people who have been sober a while,

but the people who have been putting this thing

into practice and their life is flourishing, right?

We know who is alive.

Listen, at any point in time, if I stop working the steps,

I get squirrely, my back's up against the wall,

I'm in a lot of pain.

I've got a low threshold for pain.

It doesn't sound very manly, right?

You know how it is.

Like these new people come in here and they're like,

"How are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine."

The next thing you know, they're loaded, right?

I'm not fine.

The pain of my actions,

when I'm not taking appropriate actions,

are so acutely felt by me

that I get so fricking uncomfortable

that it keeps me close to Alcoholics Anonymous,

keeps me in the sentence.

I want to get picked off, right?

I love the analogies in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I love them.

None of them remind.

Your boat is not tied to the dock.

In calm waters, it pretty much stays there, right?

In the marina, when I have a little, you know,

rough waters and that boat ain't tied to the dock,

it's out to sea, just like that.

So I keep my boat tied to the dock of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Right?

I mean, you know,

that's because the pain of my poor behavior

is acutely painful and I don't want to drink and use again.

So I've got to make amends.

I've been working for this company since 2010.

It's a large national senior living.

So I'm a director of sales, right?

Surprised, sales, good at it.

You know, I've been sober and I win all these awards, right?

Like, I won awards.

I was a drug rep for a drug company for years in sobriety.

Won awards.

Because again, why?

Because I'm so great and I'm good looking and intelligent.

Oh, because I do what we do around here, right?

I have commitment.

I have commitments at my meetings.

I show up.

I try to help others.

And when you do that in sales,

it's all about being of service.

It's amazing, simple.

I let my ego get in the way.

There was this woman who took issue

with signing one of our leases.

And instead of, I let my ego, right?

January 23rd, 1990, right?

Listen, if you follow me around with a GoPro,

do you think that guy's got like, you know,

shit, 33 years sober?

Sometimes I act like a jerk.

I was going to say a different one.

Ask my wife.

I can be very self-centered even in sobriety, right?

So I got into it with this customer.

Customer is always right, even when they're wrong.

You guys know that, right?

It's a principle of alcoholics.

Oh, you know, so like I stood my ground.

I couldn't stop myself.

And she didn't want to sign the lease.

And there was a responsible party clause.

And I said, what do you want me to do?

Sign your, what do you want me to be

the responsible party for you?

And she's like, my attorney said, I don't need to sign it.

And I said, I said, well, maybe your attorney

should be the responsible party of the lease.

You know, I shouldn't have done that.

So I was really into the sale.

It went to hell.

I ruined it.

You know, it was on me.

Walked into my boss's office.

It was on me.

And it's funny, I talked to a bunch of sober men.

One of them was like, dude, perhaps, why don't you just

text her and apologize?

Well, there is a concept, right?

So I texted her.

Texted her, I apologize for upsetting you on the phone.

You know, text, you know, whatever.

You know, the communication from this morning

never heard back from her, right?

It doesn't matter.

I knew I wasn't going to hear it.

There was a high probability that I wasn't going to hear back

from this woman, right?

Well, what did I do?

I took the contrary action.

I apologized for my actions, right?

And I said, listen, whether you move forward with this or not,

I want to apologize.

And I wish you well.

Wow.

One dude I called who's sober.

And I didn't even think to do that.

But I did it.

And I took a screenshot of the text.

And I sent it to him.

I had to make sure that he knew, like, thanks, bro.

I needed that.

I needed that.

OK.

I went to this fancy school when I was a kid.

Over here in Sherman, it was called Buckley.

Then you wore, like, ties and blazers.

Every year, they had this thing called Field Day.

Most kids loved it because it was like,

you got to play outside and free dress.

And the culmination of this Field Day

was a 4.40 race on the track.

4.40 means one lap around, right?

One lap.

I hated that damn thing.

So this whole 50-yard thing.

You know, I only got 50 yards.

And a 100-yard race isn't just figurative.

It's literal.

So damn it, I had to start this race.

And I would start fast.

And I had my heart in it.

And I was like, damn it.

I never quite finished.

I could pull off.

So it's funny how years in a sobriety,

you look back on things, and I ran my first 10K

in my first or second year of sobriety

with two guys from my home group that have long since blown out.

No idea if they're--

I hope they're still with us.

They're going to meetings elsewhere.

They're probably not, right?

You don't stand to me.

We're the lucky ones because we're in a meeting tonight.

So first 10K, like, dude, 30 years ago.

Why did I wake up at 3.30 this morning?

Why have I done anything?

I took a 20-minute nap and probably

didn't make much sense tonight because I

did a triathlon this morning.

So crazy weather.

It was raining through the whole--

so it was a swim, bike, and run.

The wife and the kids were there to support me.

It was awesome.

My fourth grader missed this soccer game.

They won.

So it was all right.

But to support me at this triathlon.

And why do I tell you that?

To brag.

Well, a little bit.

What about, it's like, I did a triathlon this morning

in the rain.

You guys want to talk to me afterwards.

I can give you all the details of my times and stuff like that.

But I'm saying it because I finished the damn thing

this morning.

Sure as hell it wasn't first, not even in my age group.

By the way, I turned 55 in July.

So I'm now in a new age group, 55 to 60.

So I'm like the youngest in my age group, which is bitching.

I'm like, you know what I mean?

I'm going to kick ass now in this age group.

But I finished, you know what I mean?

And I've been finishing a lot of races

because I've been here a long time.

This isn't, again, weekly meetings

of alcoholics on us with commitments.

So it doesn't matter whether I'm in a good mood, bad mood.

My team's one and not.

Did I?

Am I?

No, three minutes.

But it was like showing somebody how spiritual I was actually

finishing on time.

You know, what a blessing.

I've been given so much here.

I hope you find what I've found here.

And I hope we can stay together one day at a time

and our lives will continue to get better.

And we'll be able to help others.

And I'm a good father sometimes.

I mean, yeah, lay down.

For the most part, I'm a good semi-decent husband, wife.

Some days are better than others.

I try to put the principles of the program--

let me tell you something.

The hardest place to put the principles of the program

into work, into action, is in the home, right?

With my immediate family, like my father or my brother,

in my home, right?

It's easy to behave at work because who's

going to put up with all that BS?

No one's going to be in it.

So I'm more well behaved at work.

I'm really good in the meaning of alcohol exonamis, right?

I'm actually like a really great guy.

But I'm a little tired, hungry.

I can really act like a jerk because I'm human.

And we live life on life's terms.

And we get to take contrary action.

And we can grow up around here.

And that's what it's all about.

And not necessarily for me, but I've

laughed more on alcohol exonamis than any other place, right?

Somebody tells me a joke, I don't think it's so funny.

But if somebody trips in the cafeteria

and hurts themselves, I think that's funny.

It's just a weird, sick sense of humor.

But I've laughed more here because I

listen to the similarities.

And it makes sense.

You are my people.

We can grab on that life preserver together.

I want to thank you for helping me grow up here,

helping me un-F myself, and finish every race I start.