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 Good evening, I'm Josh. I'm a real alcoholic. Today is the best day of my life.

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 Grateful to be here. Nate Dogg, thanks for asking. Appreciate you.

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 Nate Dogg. Want to welcome the newcomers? We don't have any newcomers tonight. If you're new,

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 we're in Alcoholics Anonymous. Welcome. Thank you, Christina, for coming. I wasn't able to

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 be here last week, but what's that? Serena now. Okay. Thanks, Abe, for kicking it off.

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 A lot of similarities in the story, for sure. I love the similarities in the story.

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 My sobriety date is June 1st, 1991. My home group is the Stags of Sobriety,

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 held at the Cabrito House. And my sponsor is a man named Jesus Aguilar. And let me see,

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 about 35, 36 minutes. Good deal. Welcome to our friends on Zoom. And there's a lot of friends

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 in the room that I know and people that I'm acquainted with through service work and other

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 things like that, which I appreciate, and other meetings, and friends on Zoom as well, as well as

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 some friends that I just haven't met yet. So I'm really, really glad to be here. Let me tell you

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 about my day. I couldn't wait to start right there. I go to another Stag at Woodland Hills

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 Community Church on Saturday morning. Great, great meeting. Great way to start the day on a weekend.

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 And I got to answer some phones. Easy, David. I was answering your telephones, man. Come on.

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 Got to go answer some phones at central office. I got to take my sponsor to lunch. And I get to

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 be here tonight. I was talking to my girlfriend about that. I'm like, "Dude, I am going to be

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 like, it's like the opposite of the old days. I want to be too sober. Man, wow." And it's

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 awesome. And when I first came in here, I initially didn't understand the concepts that were

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 presented. Well, I understood. Well, I didn't understand, but I balked at some of the concepts

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 like go to three meetings a day. Wait, what do you mean three meetings a day? Yeah, Josh,

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 go to the meeting before the meeting, the meeting, and the meeting after the meeting, right?

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 Immerse yourself in this program. Be of service. Take on commitments. And fortunately for me,

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 I was kind of in the yeah, but club. They'd make a suggestion and I'd say, "Yeah, but it's not

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 going to work for me. I get it. It works for you. Not going to work for me." They'd say, "Just shut

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 up and do it." Pick up the guy, take him to the meeting. He needs a ride to the meeting. "Yeah,

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 but I can't fit him in my car. I mean, he's in a wheelchair. Don't worry about it. The wheelchair

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 folds up. Well, how do I get him in?" "Don't worry about it. He can put himself in the car."

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 And I was so grateful to get volunteered to do things like that. Then I had no idea how

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 those things would help me stay sober. But giving that guy a ride to a meeting that I was

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 balking at six months later when they wanted to give it to another new guy, I wanted to keep it

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 because I was still self-centered. I'm still self-centered today. You can only imagine,

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 but we'll rest his soul. Yeah, absolutely. Got a lot out of riding with John to meetings,

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 right? What a guy. What a guy. So I'll kick it right off sort of like Abraham. You told my story,

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 so that saved me the 10 minutes, right? I mean, yeah. Born and raised here, third generation

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 Angelino. Born and raised in Hollywood. Nice what I thought was middle-class folks actually never

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 had a lot of money, but you would have never known it by my upbringing. I spoiled the heck out of me.

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 Josh got whatever he wanted and cried for and everything else, which would turn out later

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 through inventory and ongoing process to be kind of one of my biggest liabilities. I'm not blaming

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 them. I just grew up with a sense of expectation and the notion that was really all about me.

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 Turns out I would grow up to become the black sheep of the family behind drugs and alcohol,

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 and I know drugs are part of my story, but alcohol was the first thing that fixed me.

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 It put that piece of the puzzle together, right? Everything clicked. I had arrived, as you said,

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 as Bill said. And unfortunately for those nice parents, being the black sheep of the family,

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 I'm an only child. They had no idea what to do with me and how to handle me. By the time I was

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 a teenager, I was just hell on wheels doing what I want, when I wanted, with no regard for the

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 consequences or the people around me. And I couldn't have articulated that to you at the time,

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 but that's, looking back, exactly how my behavior was. By the time I'm... One of my earliest

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 experiences with alcohol consumption was a buddy of mine, both my parents worked, a buddy of mine

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 and I at 11 years old, went to my house after school. And my parents were normal drinkers,

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 and I'll prove it to you right now. They had a liquor cabinet that had like half full bottles

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 of alcohol in it, a bunch of them, a variety of stuff. They liked to entertain. Looking back,

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 I couldn't relate with that at all. I never had a half bottle of anything left over. If there was a

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 half bottle of something, it was somebody else's and I was finishing that off, right? That's what

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 we do. Wasting alcohol is alcohol abuse. And me and this kid, Marcus, we filled the giant tumbler

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 with a little bit out of each one of those bottles and put that away. It was black, this black stuff

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 that we were drinking. And I was feeling great and he pooped in his pants. And I should have known

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 then that my relationship with alcohol was different than my fellow's. But I did become

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 aware of that by the time I was 17. What it did for me was it was that ticket to popularity.

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 I was the kid that had a little bit of hair on his face. There were certain liquor stores where I

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 could buy the liquor at 14, 15 years old. And I'd go around and collect all the funds and buy up all

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 the liquor and we'd go party. And it fed that ego. It fed that sense of community of being a part of

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 something. It was really gratifying. And alcohol itself felt great. I loved it. I didn't stop

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 drinking because I didn't like it. I just didn't like the consequences anymore. I couldn't keep up.

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 As my sponsor's sponsor says, we run out of time. I just ran out of time. I couldn't continue

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 drinking. And so by the time I'm 17, I'm a blackout drinker. I'm the guy that similarly

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 got very belligerent at parties. I'd go hit on your girlfriend and want to fight you because

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 you're pissed off about it. And somehow this is all my fault? Man, right? I'm the victim now,

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 right? I wasn't a very good fighter, especially in my inebriated state. I was the guy that just

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 started trouble. And somebody else would finish it. And they did so pretty mercifully in most

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 cases. I remember coming to one day, I won't go into too much stroke a lot, but probably will,

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 but stop me. I came to one morning, again, not remembering how I had gotten home and talked to

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 somebody and they were telling you, you don't remember what happened the night before. I'm like,

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 well, the last thing I remember was whatever. And they said, oh dude, you were hitting on this

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 dude's girlfriend and he was a Marine. And you kept trying to get in his face and he was just

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 trying to push you away. He knew how messed up you were. And finally you wouldn't stop. So he

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 popped you in the side of the head twice and tried to put you down. And I said, well, how come the

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 back of my head hurts so much? He goes, well, you kept coming at him and some other dude hit you

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 over the head with a beer bottle. Don't remember any of it. Those are the good old days. Those are

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 the good old days. The destroyed relationships, the crashed cars, et cetera, et cetera. Somehow

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 through my party, I met a nice girl through another mutual friend. We start dating. And

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 the short version of the story is her parents didn't like me and they forbade us to see each

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 other. And so the next time they did see us together, we were four and a half months pregnant.

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 And it was time to plan away. That's how it rolled. That's how it rolled. But I had managed

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 somehow in that period of time to at least curtail my drinking enough to get a decent job at a little

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 company in Burbank, work my way up in that company. A lot of us will do that. We show up and they're

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 like, hey, you're smart. Come on and let's, you know. And they gave me a bunch of training and

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 that kind of stuff. And I continue to work my way up in this little family business as it continued

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 to grow. And so life was going good. We were able to, you know, it was when you could afford to buy

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 a house, you know, back in the good old days. We were able to buy a home up in the suburbs up in

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 Santa Korea and set up shop and do the deal. And while my then wife was pregnant with somebody who

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 would soon become called Serena, when my wife was pregnant, you know, we were partying together and

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 everything else. And when she got pregnant, she stopped. And I wanted to be a very, very supportive

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 husband. So I stopped too in front of her and it continued to do my thing. You know, I worked late.

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 I worked long. I worked hard. And I deserved to, you know, when it was Miller time at work,

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 man, we'd crack it open and I'd, you know, I'd get home at 10 or 12 PM and not having worked,

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 you know, and put in the hours. But I got to go on a business trip back in 87 after sort of

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 ramping down my drinking a little bit, went on a business trip back East for a couple of weeks.

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 And it was just me and doing business and nothing else to do at night, but drink. And I came home

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 and I had, not that it was fully extinguished, but I had relit that fuse, relit that fuse.

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 And for the, for the next couple of years, it was, it was on and happening and was beginning to take

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 a toll on our marriage. We thought that the best thing to do about that, one of them was potentially

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 have another child that didn't happen, but we were going to buy another house, right? We're going to

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 move. And that, that didn't work out so hot. And finally the day came where, you know, it was one

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 of the most rational discussions I had ever had in my, in my drunken stupor was that would probably

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 be best for us to split up. And it was a sort of a mutual agreement. She didn't have any problem

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 with that. You know, so there I am, 27 years old, moved back into my, my former bedroom at my

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 mother's house that had been redecorated for a six-year-old girl. Does a lot for your self-esteem

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 when you're in this cute little girl's bedroom. And, and I'm still in full-blown alcoholism and

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 drug addiction. I'm still doing my thing, trying to, trying to hold it together at work barely.

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 And came the fateful day when I, I'm trying to condense my, I've usually got about 45 minutes.

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 I'm trying to do it in 35, right? I want to get the good parts, right? Came the fateful day when

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 I had yet another altercation with a subordinate employee at work. They had placed me in a position

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 of supervision and management. And I had become that guy who you didn't know which side of the

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 bed I got up on. Right. And you know, when you're managing staff, that doesn't tend to do so well

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 for morale among other things at work. And this woman who also worked at the same company with

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 me for about 11 years said, Josh, I'm not taking your anymore. And she picked up her purse and

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 turned on her heels and said, I quit. Needless to say the next day, I'm in the boss's conference

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 room. And I never want to forget what Ron said to me. He says, Josh, we think you ought to do

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 something about your anger. Now I was in this period in 1990, in the couple of years leading

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 up to 1991 where, you know, I had gotten a couple of DUIs in the past and I'd gotten sentenced to

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 meetings and I would go, that particular boss called me at one point, not because of this,

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 but for other reasons, too smart by half. I wasn't smart enough to sign my own card. I went to the

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 meetings and I get my card signed, but man, those meetings were uncomfortable. You know, you've got

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 all this smiling and laughter and people wanting to hug you and welcome you in. And man, when you're

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 in self-imposed exile and desperately antisocial, that is super uncomfortable, right? And then,

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 you know, those nice parents were nice churchgoing people. They were involved in the church. They

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 were part of a community. And so I was raised in the Episcopal church until I was 16 years old and

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 was able to debate my way out of it with them. And as I said, at that time of my life, they didn't

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 know what to do and just like Josh is going to do what Josh is going to do. And so there was that

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 other God component that really put me out on the meetings that I had attended. But we had been,

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 and so I had been going to, we had some company health insurance and I had been going to this

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 one night a week group that they had, a men's group at Kaiser when it was in Granada Hills,

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 one of their facilities. And there's about 20 guys in this group and we just share.

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 It was before they had a formalized program and did a formal intake and a structured thing,

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 but they were putting together this group. And I had been assigned a counselor, Dr. Joe Nobles,

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 heck of a guy, renowned in the treatment profession I would later learn. And he was the

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 leader or lead counselor of this group. And so I would bounce in and out of the Kaiser group.

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 I started out going pretty consistently for a couple of months, but then it became a good

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 night for an excuse to drink as long as I could get home on time. And that was always the challenge.

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 Because the problem when I drink, if I take one drink, I lose the ability to count and I can't

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 tell time. So I don't know if I'm going to stop at two or 20 or at two o'clock in the morning.

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 I don't have any control over that. I immediately lose all control. I know, not unique. But I

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 thought I was. I thought I'm the only guy with the problem. And I'm trying to control and enjoy

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 my drinking. We know how that works out. And so I'm bouncing in and out of the Kaiser group and

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 Dr. Joe intercepts me one night. And I know I'm jumping around a little bit, but I'll pull it back

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 together here. He intercepts me one night trying to go into the group and he says, "Hey, Josh,

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 I can't let you into the group." And I said, "Well, why not?" He says, "Well, you haven't

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 really demonstrated any consistent commitment to come to the group and we've restructured the

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 program now. And we have a more formalized thing where you would do an intake, determine where you

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 should come in." Because they had developed a 14-day treatment program where it was what they

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 call today IOP. Then you phase up after that and you go three nights a week for aftercare.

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 And then after whatever, for three months of that or whatever, then you go into the one night a week

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 kind of a thing. And he says, "I recommend you come into the 14-day program and start this thing."

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 And I said, "Well, I was white knuckling it at the time because I just didn't want to go to

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 the meetings and you people." And I said, "Well, I've been dignantly, I've got more than 14 days

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 now. I don't need to go to your 14-day program." He said, "Well, I'm not going to let you in the

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 group." And that started a kind of a weird cycle of from time to time when I would get desperate,

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 I'd call him, leave him a message. He wouldn't call me back and call him again and leave a

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 message. So back to this morning in June of 1991, part of what that incident that happened in the

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 workplace was I hadn't been drinking for a couple of weeks. I hadn't been medicated. I was trying

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 to hold on again with all of that angst that comes along with that, the dry drunkenness of a

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 brand new dry drunk. And he says, "Josh, we want you to do something about your anger."

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 And for some reason, that filter that used to turn every good idea into crap inside my head was

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 working the right direction that day. And I said, "I need to go into treatment." He said, "Do what

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 you got to do." And all the willingness I had in me, I said, "Yeah, but I don't have any vacation

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 time built up or anything." He said, "Dude, don't worry about that. Take care of yourself. We got

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 you covered." And so I called Dr. Joe right then and there. And the nice lady, the receptionist by

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 the name of Florence answers the phone and she says, "I'll see if he's available." And she comes

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 back on the line and she says, "He can't talk with you right now." And he said, "I know we've been

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 down this road before. Please tell him I'm ready." And he gets on the phone and he says, "Are you

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 really ready?" He said, "Man, I just can't do this anymore." You know, I had gotten to the point where

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 I could not look myself in the eye when I shaded. I was just disgusted with the man that was looking

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 back at me. And he says, "Great, man." He goes, "We can start you in the 14-day program tomorrow.

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 We'll get you all set. We'll phase you out." I said, "Outstanding. That works." He goes, "We're

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 going to need to do an intake and we'll have you come down this afternoon and do the intake." And

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 again, with all that willingness I have in me at the time, I said, "Dr. Joe, yeah, but see, I'm at

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 work right now and this afternoon just doesn't work for me." And he says, "Josh, I thought you

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 said you were really ready." And I held down the phone and I said to my boss, "He wants me to come

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 in today." And he says, "Go!" I'm like, "Josh, you're right." I felt a little uncomfortable on

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 the moment, right? I got on the phone with Dr. Joe and I headed down there. I had no idea. That

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 was June 17th and I had 17 days dry at the time. I had no idea from that day to this I'd be sober.

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 That would start off this fantastic road that we all get to experience. It's the miracles that

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 have come along with it, despite my best efforts, sometimes to do the opposite. My 12,200 and

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 something days of sobriety have not been perfect, all of them. As I go into the Kaiser program,

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 I think I'm sidestepping one of those things that kept me out of here. I'm going to go get the

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 educational variety. We're going to go through groups and relapse prevention, and we're going to

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 watch some film. Hollywood Henderson was really popular back in the day. What was his name? Father

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 Tom with Chalk Talk. Anybody remember that one from back in the day? Yeah, that was one of the

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 old recovery films. It was awesome. I wish I could describe it better right now, right? And then they

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 hit me, "Hey, while you're here in the 14-day program, we want you to get this card sign. You

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 got to go to a meeting every day." There you go. I go to a meeting every day. But the good news,

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 somebody in the group says, "Yeah, over at the Valley Club at this Kaiser table. We don't have

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 to be here until 8.30 in the morning. We'll go to the seven o'clock meeting. It's only an hour.

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 They'll sign our card, and we can get over here by 8.30." I'm like, "Perfect." So like 20, 25-listed

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 Kaiser every morning from the Kaiser group every morning at the Valley Club doing the deal over

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 there. Little things start happening that I was completely unaware of in my life. A guy approaches

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 me one day, and he says, "Hey, I've seen you've been coming around. I've got a book study meeting

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 on Wednesday nights at my house. We'd like you to come join us." And I didn't really have anything

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 else on my dance card in the evenings, you know, or for that matter, any semblance of a life.

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 So I'm driving to this guy's house in Woodland Hills. And actually, I want to jump back and tell

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 you one thing. When I was in those first groups at Kaiser before going in the 14-day program,

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 a man came in in February of 1990. And this dude was shaking and crying and sweating and

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 articulating all this fear about what he had just left, you know. Some fine ladies, I'm sure,

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 on Sepulveda Boulevard in a little motel room who he didn't know very well. Leave it there.

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 With a bunch of product was dry goods that he didn't actually own that belonged to someone

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 else. He walked away from all that, and he couldn't do it anymore either, you know. He was

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 articulating all this fear about what he had left behind and what the future looked like. He was

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 living anywhere but in the present. I later realized he was actually still sort of coming

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 out of detox while he was sweating and crying and everything else. But he was also articulating all

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 this fear. And I remember sitting directly across from him thinking, "That guy really needs this

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 thing." And I had no idea. I had three fingers pointing back at myself. I tell you that to tell

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 you this. When I go to this guy's book study in his backyard, I'm getting there and I've got all

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 of this stuff rolling around in my head, man. There's gonna be a bunch of guys there and a

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 bunch of BS talk and bullying and all this kind of stuff which I didn't know I had issues with

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 at the time until I would do some work to uncover it. And I get there and there's 25, 30 guys there

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 open the loving arms of Alcoholics Anonymous and welcome me. But what was really profound is I

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 walked in and I meet a man who I had met in February of 1990 at Kaiser. And I meet a

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 completely different guy 16 months later. He's got this big smile on his face. He holds out his

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 arms and he gives me a big hug and he welcomes me to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, "Hey Suze, what

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 happened?" And he said, "Josh, it was God." And I went, "Oh, there you go, man. There's the God thing."

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 That's what went in my head. What came out of my mouth was, "Hey Suze, I need you to take me through

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 the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous." And by the grace of God, we got to have lunch today, right? So that's

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 how that works. He hasn't been my sponsor consistently through that period of time and that's

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 a story for another day just because our meetings started to go different directions and eventually

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 it got to the point where it didn't matter if those meetings went different directions.

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 Here we are together on this road of recovery for, in my case, 33 plus years. I'm the only guy he works

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 with, and I don't let him forget it, that got to see him coming as a newcomer. I just had one more

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 research to do before it was time, you know. But what I got to see was a demonstration of what

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 this program can do. When I got to listen to somebody tell me what to do about my perceived

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 problems, I just had a great laugh with a guy I get to sponsor now who's got roughly 120 days. I said

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 one day a couple of months ago, "Man, I'm sorry to keep calling you so much about all this stuff."

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 I'm like, "Dude, that's my job. That's what you got me for, man. Call me about all this stuff that

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 comes out." And I said, "When I was new at 30, 60, 90 days, I was calling you, Suze, three times a day."

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 And one day last week Vince called me three times. And we had a laugh about that because it was

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 awesome. I'm like, "Vince, you've arrived, man. You've called me three times a day. I love it." It was great.

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 And we're doing some step work. We had coffee the other night, and doing some step work, and I said,

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 "Thank you." And he goes, "Man, I still don't understand that." I said, "Dude, one day you will.

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 When you're sitting here taking another guy to coffee, taking him through some steps, you'll get it."

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 Right? And I certainly hope he does. One of the amazing gifts of this program is getting to pass

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 it on to others who want and need it better. As I mentioned, this whole road for me hasn't been

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 perfect. My behavior and my decision-making hasn't always been great. When I came in here to get out

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 of my then six-year-old daughter's bedroom at my mom's house, I thought that if I had committed

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 enough of my disposable income into buying a condominium, that'll keep me sober. On June 1st

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 of 1991, I also had to close escrow on a piece of property. And I get in there, and the door

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 proverbially slams behind me. And I realized I got no furniture. I got nothing except my clothes,

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 which literally said that on our divorce agreement. Mr. Smith gets his clothes. That's how

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 well I negotiated that whole thing. She got the house. She got the car that I paid for. I mean,

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 all of that, right? It was a good resentment I had building there. And I had nothing, right?

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 But somehow I was able to cobble it together. And I realized in the program, as I was working

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 the steps and whatnot, there were some things that I had left out. I'll tell you how I found out.

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 By the time I'm about three and a half years sober, everybody in the rooms, they're getting

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 their lives together, right? And they've got a nice partner. Excuse me, a nice partner in

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 their lives. They're living in a nice house, driving nice cars. And they said, if you're

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 willing to go to any length to get it. So I maxed out my credit to get it. I did everything I got.

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 I'm spending all my disposable money on this house. My car broke down. So I got a new one

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 with a guy in the program. Hey, got a good deal there. And I later would come to realize I'm

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 comparing my insides to your outside. And I wasn't able to hold that house of cards together very

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 well. One night I'm coming back over the hill from a party with my sober girlfriend. Well,

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 I just talked to her. I talked to Tina the other day. It's this time she lives in North Dakota now,

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 poor girl. But I'm glad she's still around. We were coming back from a party. It was like

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 one o'clock in the morning. I'm coming back up Laurel Canyon, driving like a 28, 30-year-old guy

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 who's acting like an 18-year-old. And I take the car up the middle of the center divider on Laurel

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 Canyon Boulevard. And airbags deploy. And fortunately, nobody else was involved in the

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 accident. Tina wasn't hurt. I wasn't hurt. There's a whole scene. All the neighbors are coming out

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 because this car is sitting on this foot high tall center divider. The car looks like it's

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 sitting on a showroom pedestal, but it's totaled because the underneath had been completely ripped

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 out of the car. And I'm overcome with fear. I knew this financial house of cards that I had built is

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 going to come crashing down. I wasn't able to keep my auto insurance up to date. I'm so grateful no

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 one else was involved. It could have gone really, really badly. And it was really strange. It was

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 like, this may sound crazy, but it was like, and a couple of you heard my story, it was like this

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 little voice whispered in my ear, Josh, I know you think this is going to suck, but I'm here to help.

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 And from that day to this, I believe that's God revealed himself to me as I believe he truly is.

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 You know, he blew in my ear and I commenced to take some action to become more financially

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 responsible. You know, it sucks to declare bankruptcy, but I had to do what I had to do,

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 you know, under sponsored direction, you know, and own my stuff and be responsible and earn what I,

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 what I want to have as opposed to max out my debt to get it. You know, I'm grateful to tell you that

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 there's no, no identity themes in here. I hope, right. You know, today I've got an 828 credit

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 score, right? I struggled for the next five years to get it above six, you know, but anyone had to

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 do did what I had to do just by being responsible. But you know, I hadn't dealt with all those

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 character defects. I hadn't dealt with all those fears. I hadn't dealt with all that self-centeredness

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 and impetuous behavior and all of that kind of stuff up to that point in time, you know,

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 and so yeah, I lost it all. But as, as I used to go to a mixed meeting and a great old timer

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 by the name of Shirley used to say, don't worry, honey, it'll only hurt for a minute.

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 Right. We walk through stuff. That's what we learn how to do. And I'd like to tell you that my,

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 that my driving got perfect. About 10 years later, you know, I've got a good job with an

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 international company. Things are going great. I mean, I'm not making more money than I ever

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 thought of. Don't get me wrong, but I'm doing all right. I'm being responsible financially,

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 you know, and my then wife and her daughter and my daughter and her best friend, we went

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 up to the snow one day. We were up there sledding. We're having a great time. And you know, as we're

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 leaving this parking lot, we were having a little fun doing some donuts in the parking lot in my

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 truck, having a great old time. And I thought, Hey, if a little is good, more is better, right?

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 That's our mantra. Yeah. Oh, you can drink for a dollar. Give me $2 worth. You know what I'm saying?

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 And so I get up a little more speed. We're on this icy parking lot, spin around. And I flipped

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 that truck three times. First time was in the air, landed right on the roof of the truck, right on

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 the driver's side. Fortunately, this time, no one else in that vehicle was hurt. I later learned one

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 of them was furious and screaming at me, but I'm in a complete blackout and a concussion. I had no

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 idea because the truck landed right on top of the driver's side. I had 44 staples in my head,

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 tore my ear halfway off. But the one little flashback, if you will, that I remember was

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 getting loaded in the ambulance. And that little voice in my head said, "Maybe you didn't learn

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 the lesson last time, but I'm here to help you." I had to walk through some legal stuff because I

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 took the life of several people in my hands, including my stepdaughter. Her father wasn't

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 really happy about my behavior. And I'm 13 years sober. At Stags of Sobriety, I walked in and one

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 of Gary says, "Man, I didn't know you relapsed." I didn't, right? You can still act like an a-hole,

305
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 an idiot in behavior in this program. So we can do whatever we want as long as we're willing to

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 accept the consequences. But those aren't the consequences that I wanted to accept. And I had

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 to really take another reflective look on my behavior. And I'll wrap it up with two more

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 quick things. Along those similar lines, I'm driving one of my sponsors to a meeting one night,

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 and I had just had it out with my wife. So I'm a little bit irritable, shall we say, right? And

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 it's about 6.30 PM and we're going to this meeting on a weeknight, heading straight down Roscoe,

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 doing about 100 miles an hour. And George is tense, to say the least. And we come to a stoplight

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 because I'm not on a police chase or anything, right? Come to a stoplight, I come to a stop.

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 George says, "You doing okay?" And I went, "Yeah, I'm doing better." He says, "Good, man,

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 because I don't want to be part of your next spiritual experience." And that took me off

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 the ledge. That really was helpful. I'm grateful to tell you that I think part of it is aging and

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 maturity, but also reflecting on my own behavior that if someone's cutting you off in traffic,

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 it's easier to just let them go. If someone's cutting me off in life, it's not personal,

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 right? You just go with the flow and take it easy and let people do... People are going to do what

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 people are going to do. And so knock on wood and by the grace of God, I'm driving a nice little

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 Prius cruising down the road, drove my sponsor to lunch today. Life is good. And still get the

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 spiritual experience without having to crash my way into it. I'm grateful to tell you that.

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 There's so many things I could go on and on about. I've discovered on a personal level,

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 more of a lust for life. I love nature. I love the outdoors. I hike every week. Was that five

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 or one? That's the one. Got it. I'm heading right there. Thanks, everyone. And I love to hike,

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 discovered backpacking, love to get out there. And I wouldn't have even... Like many people,

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 when you're sitting there over a joint on a ball with somebody, it's like, "Yeah, we're going to do

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 that one day." And one day never comes. One day never comes. And I'm so grateful to get to do that.

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 Thank you, Chrissy, again, for being here and for sharing last week. I'm sorry I missed you,

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 but we've gotten to hear each other's story. And I always wrap it up with this.

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 I'm so grateful that because you got to hear it last week, when Christina came into these rooms

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 and she went up to rafters, the Loving Arms of Alcoholics Anonymous wrapped around her and

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 welcomed her into the program. And she went through that Indoc program that she described,

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 and she was on fire for this program. And about six months sober, she asked me, "Hey, dad, if you

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 had two weeks to live, would you drink?" Without hesitation, I said, "No." She said, "Why?" I said,

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 "Yeah, why?" Thank you so much for giving me a life worth living, and please, please keep coming back.