earlier conferences and, uh, I got, uh,

sent a gray book.

I was sitting in prison in Ohio and, uh, People took the book around to a bunch of meetings and people wrote messages and stuff in it.

And they sent it to me, I guess, from Joe's family's print shop.

So it came in without any headaches, even though it had been opened.

And if they had opened it up, they'd have figured out this didn't come from a printer.

But it did.

you know, that was like in the back of my mind,

And

one thing that I realized during the process of it, it was, you know, most of the people there hadn't been clean that long, but they were people that were really dedicated to recovery and unconscious anonymous.

So it became, like, this collective experience, strength, and hope.

And there were some people there that had some time.

Some people come from the West Coast.

Some people had gotten clean in other areas.

Most of us were, you know, like Al and I were right around that, you know, three, four years clean.

though I was not, you know, with that group, you know.

We hope that you enjoy today's speaker.

[applause] Thank you.

You want me to sit here, or you want me to leave? No, no, you can stay right there.

Okay.

Go ahead.

[sighs] My name's Mark.

I'm an alcoholic.

[laughing]