Have a great day.

Well, good morning.

It's good to see you.

I had a great meeting with my buddy back here before the meeting.

I don't know if he warmed up, if he got me warmed up or drained.

We'll find out.

But it's good to see everybody.

I mean, what do you do with a dirty coffee pot? You wash it,

[laughing]

I'm glad I was the one.

And, uh, and then so it's grown from there.

So I did get a chance to see some of the, the, the, the evidence of the early origins.

I've able to meet some of the people who were involved in, uh, in starting, uh, Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bill had never met Bob, but he did become good friends with his son.

And, uh, one of, one of the mountaintop experiences...

[laughs]

[laughs]

If you leave here too blissfully supreme and, and you may get knocked out, you know? So anyway, I want to get you prepared.

And, uh, and I want to, I want to approach this in a way that, as Sam Sho- Shoemaker called it, shirt-sleeves spirituality.

I, I think those, these last three steps, I want to approach it as, as sort of the spiritual life in combat boots.

Uh, I, I want to not get into the poetic very much and not get into a lot of ritual worship or anything like that.

I, I want to, I want to sort of take a look at those steps not only because I like to do it that way, but because I think it's somewhat the, the, the message of those last three steps.

And I'll tell you what I mean, but I tell you one of the things so we can just kind of relax and enjoy it.

[laughs]

[laughs]

But I thought I was a, a, a, a, I thought I was a winner on the way to happening if I could ever get off on the right foot.

That's what I thought.

And, and, and, and so I, I came back, but it was just the spirit that attracted me back.

And so I kept going back.

And I'll tell you this.

You know, you talk about that isolation.

[laughs]

[laughs]

And, and that is exactly the description of him.

He c- he could absolutely con you out of your shoes and... [laughs] But, but he was a pure loser in the process and, and a challenge to work with.

Anyway, it, it's saying, I, I've seen this up close.

I had another good friend who was, um, a fella, I won't go into a whole bunch of detail about it, but he was a guy that, uh, I ate with quite a lot.

He came into the program, and unfortunately, we'll sometimes make a bad mistake.

And just because somebody has a lot of resources, that means we think they have a lot of ability, and, uh, we'll tend to overrate them and fast-track them into stuff they're not ready to handle.

[laughs]

[laughing]

And [laughing] And by the way, I was, uh, guided into this program- February the 2nd, 1957, and, uh, by the utterly amazing [audience cheering] Listen, I'll get you.

By the utterly amazing grace of God working through Alcoholics Anonymous, haven't looked back since.

And that's a, an absolute miracle for a, a runaway dude like me to be able to anchor and stay here and find a brand-new way to live.

We, we work with others not because we're good folks, you know.

We're, we're not just do-gooders or [chuckles] stuff like that who, who just wanna do loving gestures and be like Mahatma Gandhi.

We've got a little bit more real-life kind of, of, uh, of reason.

[laughing]

[laughs]

And, uh, [laughs] and he got a, he, he, he got a, a business opportunity, and he made that, that trip to not too far from here, to, uh, to Akron, Ohio.

And, uh, I think even in its heyday, Akron was a kind of a sad place, even when it was bustling.

Man, it's really sad now.

It's filled with empty buildings, uh, from where tire factories used to be.

They-- But Bill went there, and he went on this venture, and he had this scheme of some way he was gonna sell a bunch of stuff.

And as sometimes happened, nothing worked out.

[laughs]

I

had an instant reaction of fear because I'm locked up in a bar at 3 o'clock in the morning.

It was a fleeting moment of fear.

And then I thought, my God, I'm locked up in this bar.

I'd always had this notion of what it would be like to start at one end of the bar and drink something out of every bottle.

I don't know how far I got.

But I made a valiant effort.

going

No.

Smile.

[laughs] [laughing] Let's me know you're awake.

[laughs] [laughing] Ah.

Free at last, free at last.

[laughs] [laughing] Oh.

He took me shopping today.

[laughing]