Finding Family History Through Sobriety

My name's Marty, I'm an alcoholic.

I'm Marty, I'm an idiot.

All right, play along with me here.

Knock, knock, wardrobe, wardrobe by Bruce.

I'm wearing his coat, his tie, that's it.

But it fits so good, I'm thinking if I get the pants,

I might have a new suit tonight.

My sobriety date's November 10th of 1977.

For that, I'm grateful.

I've been doing this thing for a while.

I've had fun tonight with Bruce, he's a quality guy.

We went out to dinner beforehand,

and we were talking about old timers, old AA,

and I like conversations like that.

I have a lot of history here in Alcoholics Anonymous

with a lot of people.

I was born and raised in Riverside, San Bernardino area.

I'm the youngest of three.

My mom's Eskimo, my dad's German,

and I don't look anything like my dad.

That's who I thought I was gonna grow up and look like.

I didn't know my mom.

She left when I was 11 months old.

Like I said, I'm the youngest of three.

So that makes my sister about two, my brother about three.

Maybe four years old.

And I just learned more about my mom.

I met her at my high school graduation.

It's the first time I physically met my mom.

I mean, surely I met her between birth and 11 months old,

but I don't remember that.

But two years ago, she passed away.

86 years old.

She died of sepsis.

She died of sepsis because of the needles she was using

to shoot up fentanyl at the age of 86.

That's what you call hang in there, man.

She had to hang in, down pat.

She lost custody of a woman.

She lost custody of us three kids in the early 60s

because she was a bad alcoholic.

She had a problem with alcohol and drugs literally her whole life.

But what I found out just before my mom passed away

that I get to add to my story is that when she lost custody of us kids,

she kidnapped all three of us and took us back to Alaska.

I didn't know that.

So now I get to say I've been kidnapped.

That's my new part of my new story now.

And my dad's always struggled.

First thing, my dad passed away a year ago.

And when he passed away, he died with 50 years of sobriety.

Next month, he would have celebrated 52 years of sobriety.

And when he passed away, the lady he was married to had 49 years of sobriety.

So this is part of the time of the year for the last 20 some odd years

that he was married to Rita where me, my sister, Rita, then my dad all went in order.

So when he passed away, he had 50 years of sobriety.

Rita had 49.

My sister had 48.

And I had 47, you know, this.

So this disease of alcohol might be a family thing.

We don't know.

But we know that recovery can be a family thing too.

But I learned a lot about my mom and dad on their passings, you know,

and clearly my dad did the best he could the whole time he had us kids,

you know, because in the 60s,

it was not common that the women would lose custody of the children.

And so here he was.

He's a,

a young man because I'm the last of three and he had me when he was 24.

So he's only 21 years older than my brother,

but he was relatively young raising three kids on his own.

And he was busy drinking the whole time.

He had to work.

He had to raise three kids and he had to build his own story.

I mean, the guy was busy and my dad never laid a hand on us.

And I found out why I didn't know these things about my parents until they passed away.

Evident. My dad's the only child.

So I have no uncles and aunts.

I have no cousins.

But my dad was the only child and he saw his biological dad who passed away

when my dad was 10 years old.

He saw his biological father beat very severely.

Our grandmother, his biological mom.

And that's why he never laid a hand on us.

He swore he would never do that to his kids.

And I know for me personally,

he literally spanked me once and he was drunk when he did it because he don't even,

even remember spanking me.

And he said, had I known I was doing that,

I wouldn't have done it.

Why? Because that's what he saw.

And I don't know why,

but for the last few days,

a lot of behavioral issues and ideas and solutions have come to my mind,

you know, because I think we do a lot of what our parents did or we do none of it.

And I'm out here to take care of my sister.

I'm from Buckeye, Arizona.

I got good old Susan here from Tuckson, Arizona.

Arizona's invasive.

And but I came out here to take care of my sister.

You know, she has been literally,

I've had plenty sponsors and I've had great sponsors.

Don't get me wrong,

but my sister has been there the whole time.

She got eight months more sobriety to the date more than I do.

And she will tell everybody because for eight months of the year,

she gets to say that she has a whole year more than me.

And she always says it shows too.

That's some of the old AA humor Bruce and I were talking about at dinner.

Love that old AA humor.

Everything's got to be politically correct.

Right now.

We can't hurt each other's feelings back in the day.

We did not care.

No, I bet you talked to your sponsor had a bad day.

Got fired came home found out that I had to return the car.

Just bought to the dealership because they can't find me.

What did the sponsor say back in the day?

They used to go that sucks.

That's it.

You know, there's no discussion about what it meant.

And you know, is this a pattern from your childhood?

No.

Anyways, so I learned a lot about my mom and dad over the last couple years.

It might be provoking another round of the steps for me.

I don't talk anything about I don't talk about anything specific in my talk,

but I will tell you I've done the steps.

I've done the steps multiple times.

I've read the book.

I've read it multiple times.

I pray and meditate.

I still pray and meditate.

I've been introduced to God here.

So all that stuff has happened.

I may not touch on it during my talk.

Nancy, my greeter.

Let me know.

I can speak into 925.

So that's cool.

I appreciate her.

But anyway, I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous and I was the last one in the family.

I already told you my whole family has more time than I do, but I have an older brother.

Like I said earlier that I'm the youngest of three, but even my older brother at one time had more time than I,

but then he started slipping.

He went down the medical field because he's going to try to become a medical doctor.

Unfortunately,

what that introduced him to was the whole pharmacy and he was on his last exam to become a medical doctor and he caught got caught stealing from his own pharmacy and the medical field told him you will never be in this field again because it wasn't just a few pills.

It was shelves that he was stocking at home.

He had a lot of stuff.

So I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous by my family.

I got sober out in Simi Valley.

Not too many people have heard of that city.

Yeah, exactly.

Simi Valley.

I got sober out in Simi Valley at the ripe young age of 15.

I've stayed here ever since then.

I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because there used to be this thing called the meeting after the meeting and the meeting after the meeting and Simi Valley seemed to be at our house because at this time when I was getting sober,

we already had three people sober in our household,

my brother,

my sister,

my dad and my whole family,

my whole life has been really social.

So the meeting after the meeting seemed to be at our house.

And they would all bring home like two or three friends each.

So there could be upwards to 12 people in our living room and our living room was like this not with the chairs here,

but my dad lying down all of our walls and our living room with the couches.

I don't know.

He must have had some kind of deal on couches.

I don't know,

but we had couches galore,

but the meeting at the meeting and you guys would sit there.

Now,

I'm still trying to get my groove on in my bedroom.

You know,

I'm smoking whatever I got left.

I'm drinking whatever I can find.

I'm doing a lot to try to get a buzz.

Why you guys are sitting in our living room shucking and jiving about the meeting.

You just went to and when you're trying to get drunk and you all are chipping your teeth about this meeting,

you went to and see me Valley or Thousand Oaks of the San Fernando Valley.

It's sickening,

you know,

and you know,

oh,

I loved it when he said this or she said that or my God,

she knew the big book or he really knew the steps and I'm in my bedroom trying to get high and I'm like on these guys are taking lameness to

a whole nother level,

you know,

and the only reason I went to a meeting is it seemed like my family.

This is 1970s folks disco was in and polyester was happening.

My family seemed to put on their best John Travolta starter kit on Friday nights.

They wear wear the polyester shirts where the lapels are way down here.

You know,

they wore those platform platform shoes and shit.

That was just the front of the shoot bag of shoes that big,

you know,

and but they seem to dress up on Friday nights and go.

To a speaker meeting out in the San Fernando Valley back then.

It was called the Topanga speaker meeting on Topanga.

Not a lot of creativity there,

but the Topanga speaker meeting.

I said,

you got to go to my party.

You need to go to meetings because I didn't think I had a story.

You know,

I looked at my family's drinking.

They're really bad drunks.

You know,

my sister's like,

what do you think?

You don't what do you mean?

You don't think you had a story.

She says you don't even have a driver's license and you got two DUIs,

you know,

I had three break-ins.

And enterings.

The last one was a felony offense.

She says Marty,

some people don't even have one break-in.

And she's trying to tell me that I had a problem with alcohol.

Now that I moved us to Arizona.

I listen to country music and there's some great lines and country music.

My God,

I'm driving down the road two or three days ago.

And this country song had a line and it says everybody tells me I have a drinking problem.

And I think it's not bad enough to do anything.

The country song was like,

I may not get sleep tonight because I ran out of pills.

I can actually identify with that stuff,

you know,

Tony who my family would dress up on Friday nights and come to the speaker me and they used to have me so much about going to a meeting with them.

And I says,

okay,

I will go to a meeting with you guys.

I'm making this short story really short.

By the way,

I'll go to meeting with you.

I'm going to go that front on a Friday night because you all seem to dress up on Friday night and go to this meeting.

Now,

they all have been going to this meeting for a good six months by the time I chose to go to this meeting.

And so I went to this meeting and on the drive out from Simi Valley to Topanga,

Boulevard,

is that what it's called to make a thing and Avenue Boulevard Canyon Canyon Boulevard.

So on the way out to this meeting,

they kept saying,

oh,

you're going to like this speak.

Oh,

you're going to like this speaker.

Oh,

this speaker is great.

Oh,

it's pretty great speaker.

I'm thinking in my head didn't verbalize at once.

It's like,

no,

I'm not.

I'm not going to enjoy it.

Probably not going to be funny all this stuff.

And here's my blessing.

My blessing was I got to hear this guy named normality speak.

That was the very first speeding meeting.

I ever went to me.

That's a hell of an introduction to AA.

And what was what was impressive about this Topanga speaker meeting is that there was a TV star there.

There is a guy there that I've been watching on TV my whole childhood life,

which was well over 15 years,

but I saw him on TV every night and my family had already been going to this meeting for like six months.

They never once alluded to this the fact that this man goes to this meeting

because my sister been going to this meeting for six months.

She knew who he was and I'm not.

Nudging up next to my sister and I said,

oh my God,

that's so-and-so and she says,

yeah,

and she walked right up to him and said hi and used his real name and gave him a hug.

And I'm sitting there going.

Wow.

My sister knows a TV star.

More importantly,

this TV star knows my sister.

This is amazing.

So there is a double attraction on it.

Although it be really really shallow.

There is a double attraction to my very first meeting.

I got to hear this dude normality speak.

He spoke a mile a minute.

If you laughed at anything,

he said you're going to miss the force.

Next four sentences because that's how fast he talked.

So you couldn't really laugh while he's talking.

You're just like gotta listen, listen, listen, listen, listen,

you know, you know,

he's talking about talk a million spending thousands never had a doll in my part.

I drove them Cadillacs up and down the night bar up and down the bar every night.

He says I used to roll my windows up in the San Fernando Valley in September.

Make people think that I had an air conditioner,

you know, he had all these funny lines,

you know, and you're just like wow and a lot of us can relate to stuff like that,

you know,

so here's what I thought was a conspiracy.

I did not raise my hand as an alcoholic when I heard Norm speak.

I thought this was the conspiracy.

I told my family.

I'm going to come back next Friday with you guys because I want to hear Norm speak again

because the way that you guys talked about the speakers you heard in our household during the meeting after the meeting.

It sounded like the same speaker spoke all the time.

So I had in my mind.

I'm going to go back with you guys next Friday to hear Norm again Norm speak again,

and not once in that whole week.

Did my family let me know that there was going to be a different speaker.

That was the conspiracy.

Oh my God.

They got me to that second meeting because sometimes your second meetings the hardest one to get to

and I'm going to go here Norm again.

I'm going to hear Norm again.

And we were driving out there and this time when we're driving out from Simi Valley,

they weren't saying oh you're going to like this speaker.

Oh, you're going to like this speaker.

They were quiet.

That should have been my red flag because we had a different speaker.

Now, here's my blessing.

That's a hell of an introduction to hear Norm on your first night,

but my second night I got to hear Chuck Chamberlain speak

and there's not a better one-two punch than hearing Norm speak one night and Chuck the next.

I was hooked on Alcoholics Anonymous.

I came in like I said at 15 years old.

Actually, I came in at 14 and my sister who's a little rough around the edges.

She's got a strong personality.

She's not there.

She's a bitch.

But I remember going.

Oh my God.

I got to try this stuff.

And I didn't see.

These slogans one,

you know,

one day at a time first things first.

I didn't see those and somebody stood up at the end of that meeting of that meeting.

I finally raised my hand as an alcoholic with somebody.

It was a GSR group service representative and this is 1977 folks.

This is November 77 and this GSR stood up and gave a report and he said or she said,

I don't know what it was.

They said that there seems to be a lot of young people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous at this meeting in the front row was my dad,

potential mom number three.

He's had six of them and then my brother and then my sister and myself and when he said there seems to be a lot of young people coming to Alcoholics Anonymous.

He seemed to be looking down at us three teenagers and they came up with best that the general service office in New York and come up with a 1977 was the average young person coming in Alcoholics Anonymous was 32 and I'm sitting there thinking I've been through math.

I know a little bit about math.

I'm 15.

That means I can try what you guys have to offer for 10 years.

And if I don't like what you guys have to offer after 10 years,

I can still go drink for another five years and come back in under the average young age.

That's how I came into Alcoholics Anonymous conspiracy.

They didn't let me know I'm not speaking and I didn't see that one day at a time thing and I committed myself to 10 years in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was scared as a little kid.

You couldn't have told me when I was 15.

It looks like everybody in here has been 15 when you're 15 16 years old.

And if you got a kid that age,

you know what I'm talking about to they know everything.

And guess what folks?

I was 15 years old and I knew everything.

And you guys would come up to me with suggestions and go.

Well, I learned this.

I ended up being a therapist and I did a lot of group therapy and about a decade ago.

I'm doing an anger management class for the courts for teenagers.

And I've been doing this for decades and I'm just conducting this anger management class

and they're all under 18 years old and 15 kids all court ordered for anger management.

That means these 15.

People had to done something because the courts not going to refer you to someplace.

If you didn't go to rehab because you're goody tissues,

you did something.

So here's this whole group and this girl I was saying something and she interrupted me

and that's one of my pet peeves in life.

I don't like being interrupted.

She interrupted me and I don't forgot what her name is.

Let's call her Susie for lack of better words.

Sorry Susan, but we'll call her Susie.

I said, excuse me Susie.

I was talking and I was the best polite way.

I know how to say you interrupted me and she looked at me.

She kept talking.

I said, excuse me, Susie.

She went.

Oh talk to the hand and then I started talking.

She went and the way she did it when she moved her head,

look down everything just talk to the hand when I start talking.

She went you're on hold.

I about jumped out of my skin and strangled this young woman,

you know, never heard that one.

I've heard talk to the hand attention.

You're on hold called a break immediately.

I had to go into my dad's office who is a truly a psychologist

and my mentor and everything and I says Pappy got to tell you he raised me here.

He's my sister.

He raised my brother.

He knows what it's like to raise three teenage kids

and we're all drinking and using when we're 50.

So my dad knows the ropes and he's a psychologist

and he's a marriage family child counseling.

He's all I says Pappy.

I said you can't believe it.

This chick look at me said talk to the hand and then she went and I told I blew it up a little bit

because I wanted to let my dad know how mad I was running an anger management group.

I said Pappy and she turned her head and cocked it a little bit when you're on hold

and because my dad raised me and he had that old AA humor.

He just started laughing.

I was in there for counsel.

I was in there to hear my dad lay some kind of pearls of wisdom on me.

Like you got to go into acceptance.

You got to read the acceptance page.

I was waiting for one of those things and all he did was laugh.

I went wow.

That's pretty rude Pappy.

He says I raised you.

I know what that's like and it could be really anyways.

So I started going these meetings with my family

and because I was scared and I was young but yet I felt like I knew everything I didn't get a sponsor right away

because it sounded like you.

You guys were having rough times with sponsors

like they were telling you what to do

and they were making you do stuff homies not into that,

right?

So I'm not getting a sponsor,

but I started doing everything else.

You guys talked about from the podium.

You said you got a big book.

I went and got a big book.

Some of you said you had a 12 on 12 and you're reading that started doing that got commandments.

I started folding chairs.

I started doing a lot of thing,

but I was hanging on to this no sponsor thing and at 30 days sober.

My sister talked me into getting a sponsor.

She says you need a sponsor.

You can't do this alone.

And I mean,

okay, how do you pick a sponsor?

He says find somebody in the Simi Valley a hall that you like

and you like what's going on in his life.

There's that theory or go ask the guy you absolutely hate

because he's going to probably more like you than anybody else

and he can help you the most.

I'm weighing that out and I want I'm not going to ask the dude.

I don't like screw that because I don't like him.

So I went up to this guy and this is how shallow I was 15 years old with 30 days of sobriety.

I asked this guy in the Simi Valley a hall who had a cool name.

That was the only reason.

I asked him I didn't know how long he was sober,

but his name was stormy.

I mean, is that cool?

That's a cool name.

I'm going to ask that dude stormy,

you know,

and then I saw him leave a meeting one night and he walked out with one of the hottest chicks.

Oh, yeah, that's that's going to be good sponsor right there.

Cool name a chick and then the two of them got into a brand new Cadillac.

I went boom.

I'm picking a winner right here.

I went hey stormy would be my sponsor.

He says hey, you're that little 15 year old kid trying to get sober.

I said, yes, I am.

He says we'll try this sponsorship thing.

But first thing I'm going to ask you to do is I'm going to ask you to quit sharing.

You got 30 days and for 29 days,

you've shared every single day and we're tired of it.

That's the way we used to talk to people in the 70s and early sobriety.

We talked don't hold anything back.

Shut up.

I don't want to hear anything else.

Same and I so I learned real quick where he got his nickname stormy from it was like

and he was a stormy dude and he was he's barking stuff at me and I'm not digging the sponsor idea

and because I don't know anything about sponsorship.

I'm only 30 days sober.

I held on to him.

I think for two or three months.

Which is a long time to put up with somebody's crap.

He's my sponsor and I'm putting up with this crap.

Something's wrong there.

So I went to a meeting in Thousand Oaks and I ran into this guy named Joe.

Joe was cool. Joe has a simple name.

I think I'm going to ask Joe to be my sponsor.

And then this Thousand Oaks meeting, AA was at a church.

AA was in this room.

Al-Anon was in this room and down the hall Alateen was over here.

I'm only 15 years old, right?

And I'm over at the AA meeting and all these old guys.

About my age today were saying, hey Marty, you probably belong in that room down there in Alateen.

I used to take offense to that.

It's like I wanted to flip them off and say popular words, you know, and I said, no, I belong over here.

I'm an alcoholic.

But I went down to that Alateen meeting because that's truly where my peers were.

And I looked in this meeting and I saw this one cute chick and I just got a car because back then 15 years old.

If you got a learner's permit, you can also own a car.

So I got a car.

I'm sober.

I think I got it going on.

And then I met this little Alateen girl and she had, I'm still shallow.

She had a really cool name.

Her name was Gigi.

She pronounced it Gigi, but I threw a little French twist into it because she was hot.

I says, hey Gigi, would you, would you go to coffee after the meeting with me?

She said, I need to ask my dad.

Okay.

And so she went and asked her dad.

She came back.

She's lit up a little bit.

She says, yeah, I can go with you.

I can even ride with you in your car.

Cool.

We get to do parts where we're having coffee after the meeting.

I put on the inside of the booth.

So she can't get out.

And I'm sitting there with her.

She's cute as, oh boy, she's cute as a bug.

I put my arm around her and here comes walking in my brand new sponsor, Joe.

And I got my arm around her because I'm going to let Joe know what's up.

That he's got an AA baby that's got it going on.

And Joe walked right up to the table and Gigi goes, hi dad.

Oh, it was the longest movement of my arm in my life was to bring it back on this side of her.

And he looked at me.

He says, I'm watching you.

Man, I'm striking out on these sponsors, you know.

Fast forward.

I kept staying sober.

I kept doing the deal.

Got my first service commit in 1979.

I'm only 17 years old, just before I joined the Navy.

And they voted me in to be at GSR for a meeting.

And they said, we really want your input.

Because not only is there young people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous that maybe you can help us with.

But there's something else going on that we need to reel in somehow.

So I go to this GSR thing.

And back then they used to, they literally used to fight, you know.

Everybody knew the traditions better than you.

Better than the other person.

Everybody knew the concepts more than anybody else.

But what they were concerned about in 1979 were andes.

I'm an alcoholic and an addict.

And they says, Marty, you're a young person.

What are we going to do about this?

And I felt like the outcome of AA was on my shoulders.

It's like, why are you talking to me about this?

I'm an alcoholic, you know.

And it's not like we got to do something about this.

Singing is the purpose.

They went down this whole route.

I had a GSR commitment in 1981.

What happened in 1981 in the whole world?

PCs became available to everybody.

And there used to be a drifter's meeting directory.

And these are people that live in very remote areas that can't get to meetings.

And what they do is they write letters to GSO.

And they'd wait for us to write them back.

That was their AA meeting.

They'd send them the grapevine because that's the meeting in print.

And the rich people back in 1981 can afford a computer.

And they started this AOL, Friends of Bill W online.

And they started doing meetings online.

Boy, in 1981, there was a big stink about that.

Fifth concept covers it.

Segregation.

We cannot segregate ourselves.

We cannot segregate the people that can't afford a computer, that can't go online to a meeting.

It's a violation.

So back in the day, there was no meetings listed in any directory that were online.

Interesting facts.

So after my first two years of sobriety, I went and joined the United States Navy.

There's a whole bunch of stories in there.

Don't have time to tell them because I got the five-minute line light a couple minutes ago.

I went to 10 different countries in the United States Navy.

I went to meetings in every single country.

1981, I went to Byran for a visit.

The whole fleet went to Byran.

It's right next to Iran.

And they didn't like us back then.

They don't like us today.

But they didn't like us back in 1981.

And alcohol was illegal in Byran.

The Muslim belief is no alcohol.

If you get caught with an alcohol offense in Byran, they're going to cut off your right hand.

That's sentencing you to death.

Because their Muslim belief is so strong.

This is the hand that you eat with.

Your left hand you use for the bathroom.

You do not use, and their belief is so strong, they will not eat with their left hand.

So if you get caught with an alcohol offense, they're cutting off your right hand.

If you find out you're a self-admitted alcoholic, which I was in 1981 with four years of sobriety, they cut off your right hand.

So I call up this guy that GSO gave me a name and a phone number to over there.

His name was Mike.

I remember his name very well.

Mike, I want to get to a meeting tonight.

And he hung up on me.

And before he hung up on me, he asked me for the pay phone number.

And I gave him the pay phone number.

I was calling him from.

But when he hung up on me, he called me right back.

He says, please do not mention a meeting.

Every one of our phone calls are being governed by the government.

They are listening to everything we say.

And he hung up again.

I thought that was weird.

And he called me right back.

He says, by the way, each one of our conversations are going to last less than one minute and 37 seconds.

Because that's the way they monitor.

After one minute and 37 seconds, they figure you're up to something.

So let's chime in.

So all of our conversations are going to be about a minute long.

And it was.

It was the choppiest conversation I've ever had in my life.

And I was just trying to get to a meeting.

So I went to an underground meeting in Byran.

It's one of the 10 countries I've been through.

And it was for them because I didn't grasp it.

To them, it was life changing.

It was a life sacrifice just to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in Byran, 1981.

Got out of the Navy.

My time's up.

Got out of the Navy.

I met this girl in a Pacific group.

We had a couple of kids.

We moved to Temecula.

Living large.

Very successful businessman.

Bought the family business.

Everything's great.

A lot of sobriety.

Two kids and a dog.

That was the national average.

Then I had my little week from hell.

And I'll sort of end with this.

I got to end with my wife because she might get a recording of my talk.

So there's two stories.

But we were living good in Temecula.

And I had a little week from hell.

We had two kids.

And at this time, my son was 17 years old.

Bruce and I talked about our kids tonight, too.

That's how much history you have.

We both remember our kids when they were tots, you know.

So anyways, my son got jumped and beaten so badly, he needed facial reconstructive surgery.

That was on a Monday.

This is my week.

Tuesday, I found out that I was going to be losing an office building I bought for the family business.

That's problems of abundance, but it still hurt.

Wednesday, I was charged with two felony counts of tax evasion because I found out my office manager was stealing my money and not making my payroll employee tax payments, which is a felony offense.

And because she stole so much money, it reached two felonies.

So a little S.A.

Martine with 31 years of sobriety was going to go to jail for that.

I was going to go to jail for that.

I was going to go to jail for that.

On Thursday, we found out we were going to lose the house that we were living in, because that was the crash of the market in 2008.

And then Friday, I walked up to my wife to see how she was doing.

She says, I'm not doing very well, but I don't think you're going to be doing any better, because I just filed for a divorce.

It all happened in one week.

So the ten-minute speaker says, we can live through a lot of things.

And folks, this is where we get experience, strength and hope.

We're all going to have experiences.

Divorces, marriages, you know.

broken fingernails, lose a house, lose a car. We're all going to have experiences. Where the

strength comes from is if we don't drink over this stuff. That's where the strength comes from.

Experience, strength, and the last one's hope. And where the hope comes from is when we start

sharing about it. If enough of us share about what we've been through in sobriety, that'll give us

and somebody else hope. Because take something really simple. I know that Bruce just went

through something with his neighbors. Guess what? If I sponsor somebody else, chatting up with

somebody else later on in life, and Marty can't believe it, I'm going through this thing with

some neighbors. I've never been through that. But what I can say to them, because he's been good

enough to experience it, didn't drink, he got the strength, and he started sharing with me,

there's hope now. I can tell this person, it's like, go talk to Bruce. I have no experience,

but Bruce does, unfortunately. So here's my last story, because I said I wouldn't step down

without talking about my wife, and my time is way up. But I met my wife at the Wednesday night

Pacific Group meeting. I was out of my divorce, 11 months. I said I was going to be by myself,

for a year. God had different plans. He only wanted me to wait 11 months, because I met Julie.

I met Julie. I stuck my hand out, because that's what we do. We're goofy like that.

Hi, I'm Marty. She said, oh, I know who you are. I've heard you speak multiple times. She says,

I think I love you. I can't live another day without you. You're my end all, be all. You're

my sunrise. You're my sunset. We're destined to live together. You know, you got to submit to

words like that. So I said, well, let's get married then. Now, she gives a good talk. She's

18 years sober next month. When you hear her side of the story, she said,

when we met, that all she said was, hello. See, I heard all that other stuff, because that's

after 48 years of sobriety, that's where my alcoholism is. Still centered in my brain. I

heard all that other stuff. She can't live without me. Oh, my God. I was the end all, be all. But

she said, hello. So if I didn't cover it, trust me, I did it. So work with the sponsor. Do the

steps. Ride a little. Go to a few meetings. Don't drink in between. And your life will become

unbelievable. Thank you.