Polly P – Sunlight of the Spirit (2023) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown

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Give you our great Polly, who has been a tireless servant her entire sobriety, and she'll tell you that. Come on, Polly! Oh, love you. Thank you. Oh, my goodness. My name is Polly P., and I'm an alcoholic. By God's grace and a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't had a drink since April the 11th of 1977. And for that, I am eternally grateful. I have a home group, and that's the West Connett Group in Jacksonville, Florida.

We meet on Monday night, and if you're ever in Jacksonville, come see us. I have a sponsor, and it's the amazing Rena Kay. And she has a sponsor, and I sponsor other people. These are the things we do in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be standing here. I am so grateful. I think about sitting at Ladybug all those years ago, 18 years ago, when Dolly wanted to do this.

And, honey, here you are, 17 years later, and look at us. Just look at us. 500 women, is that what you said? 500 women were here over the weekend. Kelly, you started us off. Thank you. I've known you a long time, sugar, and I think you are absolutely amazing. Thank you so much. Then we had Betty. Betty, I had never heard you before, but, sweetheart, you're a trip. I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much for being a loving Al-Anon. Nancy. Oh, my God, Nancy. I don't know, what have we known each other? 30 years or more? Long time, long time. Been hanging out together in this fellowship. My God. Mildred. Mildred's not here, but those of you who, you heard Mildred. What a great woman in our fellowship. 50 years sober. And she's still doing the deal. That's what happens. Hang around Alcoholics Anonymous and we just keep being able to do the deal.

And she's walking ahead of us. An amazing, amazing woman. Carla. Oh, my God. I'm very blessed because I get to be with you up close and personal. And I just think you are amazing. And, see, I know how much you do. I'm privileged to that. You are such a servant in this program. You are a servant. Thank you so much. Beautiful, beautiful AA talk this morning. Beautiful. I am so privileged to be here. I'm so privileged to be at a conference.

And this has been my life. I started going to conferences when I was about a year and a half sober. I went to my first AA conference in Austin, Texas in 1978. And I heard a woman speak by the name of Dottie Harris. And I thought if I ever am anywhere where that woman is, I will ask her to be my sponsor. And I was a year and a half sober. And I just was sober there in Texas for three years. And it wasn't until many years later, a few years later, that I was able to be with her.

So sponsorship is really important to me. But let me just tell my story. I'm so used to doing Zoom and we have subjects.

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So today I just get to tell my story.

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And that's something that I'm privileged to do. Because I have had a life beyond my greatest expectation. I cannot even believe I've been able to live the life I've been able to live. I am one of these people that come from beautiful, loving parents. I had parents who loved me and cherished me and wanted the very best for me. And not only that, I'm an only child. But, the big but, whatever it is inside of me that makes me mentally and bodily different from my fellows has always been there.

And I never even realized, until after I came to AA and I was 36 years old when I got sober, that I realized that I had a charmed childhood. I didn't even know that. Because what was inside of me was this restless, irritable child that my parents loved even though I was like that. Temper-throwing little girl is what I was. When I was 19 years old, I married an Air Force officer. And I tell you, I thought he was the most gorgeous thing you ever saw, especially in that uniform.

And what happened, we got married and then we headed for Sacramento, California. And that's where we were going to start our life. That's where he was going to go to flight school. And we were going to be in the military. And I didn't know anything about being in the military. And oh my God, let me just start. I forgot to start my clock, but I know I've been talking for about five minutes. Anyway, I knew nothing about the military.

My daddy had been in the Navy during World War II, but I was too. So I didn't even know anything about him being in the Navy. I've just seen pictures of him in his uniform. That's all I knew about him. And here I am, I'm going to embark upon a life. I have no idea what's going to happen. And it's because I know nothing about the military. But I can tell you that we spent 22 years in the military before he was retired.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about that because that was an impact in my life. And I will tell you, I absolutely loved it. I loved it. And I feel like when I came to AA, I got to go back to that because that's what we did. We gathered up together. We were like these people. We were in the military, and we were always amongst ourselves, and we were on isolated bases. I was at Loring Air Force Base, Maine, at the tippy top of Maine.

And I am a Texan, and I don't like cold. And there's where we were. And then we went down to Plattsburgh, New York, and we were there for a while. So it was a life that I loved. And one of the things I've always, as a little girl, had girlfriends and such as that. But as a military wife, what we did is we hung together as wives because the guys were gone. We helped each other have babies. We took care of each other when the kids were sick and all that.

We didn't have guys around. So I have always hung with women, and I love women. I love the energy of women. I love to be around women. I love it. I just love to be with women. And I feel like when I came to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was like when I was in the military. It was like a group of people who had a commonality, and we were all together. And it's just that I kind of like to live like that.

I just love it.

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And at any rate, I'm just going to talk about my first drink. And I don't know about anybody else's first drink, but my first drink is there as if I had taken it yesterday. It is as clear in my mind as if I had taken it yesterday, and I would never have known that would happen. And when I got sober, I never even thought about my first drink until I went to treatment, and that was as clear to me as it just came to me, so clear.

And what happened to me is we had moved to Sacramento, California, Mather Air Force Base, and we were just setting up housekeeping, newlyweds, and I got this invitation in the mail, and it had a big red mandatory stamped on it, and it was from the base commander's wife, and it was an invitation to a coffee. And I opened this up, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm supposed to go to this coffee. I didn't even know the protocol or what it was going to mean to me to be an Air Force officer's wife.

I didn't know. I had no idea. And my husband said to me, well, you have to go because it's mandatory that you go. And I went to that coffee that day, and the base commander's wife stood behind a podium just like I am this morning, and all of us little second lieutenants' wives were sitting out there, and she was talking to us. And she began to tell us what our responsibility would be as an Air Force officer's wife, that we would attend all Air Force officer functions, we would attend all Air Force officer's wives' functions, and that we would be expected to be a part of everything that was done in the military where wives were included.

And I left that day. I mean, she talked about we'd go to dinner parties, we'd have dinner parties, and I left that coffee that morning, and I went straight to a bookstore to get a book on etiquette. I'm a hick from Texas. We just sat down to dinner. We didn't sit down to play settings. And I didn't know how to do any of that stuff. And then a couple of weeks later was an Air Force officer's luncheon.

Now, I am raised Southern Baptist, and I come from Texas, and I'm raised Southern Baptist. And when they say thou shalt not drink, we didn't. My mother died sober, never taking a drink. My daddy did take a drink, but my mother never had a drink of alcohol from the day she was born until the day she died. And I sat there that day, and as we came into that luncheon, they had all these little tables set up with little tablecloths and everything for our lunch.

And in the back of the room, they had a long table, and on one end of the table were little glasses, and on the other end of the table was a fountain with clear liquid coming out of it. And I saw these ladies picking up their glass and putting it under the fountain. And I picked up a glass, and I put it under the fountain. And I took a drink, and that liquid was sherry. I mean, a really wussy drink, but it was sherry.

And I put that glass back up under that fountain that day. Now, I didn't get drunk and fallen down that day, but I can tell you this. I can remember what that felt like, as I said, as if it were yesterday. I can remember what it felt like going down. I remember what it felt like, how warm in my chest, and it just kind of like went out to the end of my fingertips, and it just, like I could just breathe, just take a breath.

And I did not become a falling down drunk right away.

[00:15:05]

I had a period of time that, I mean, I didn't even drink every day for a long time. I ended up with my first child, I didn't drink at all when I was pregnant with my first son. Now I did with my second son, but I didn't with my first son. So there was a period of time where I drank, I would say periodically, not every day, periodically, just when we went out. And when it started, I can remember that we had gone, my youngest son was two, my oldest son was four, and we were on our way to Loring Air Force Base, Maine.

And I can remember when the guys left, all the women would get together, we'd get together at night, we all liked to sew, we liked to play bridge, we liked to do things, and we'd get together at each other's places, and we'd have the telephone laying, you know, open so you could hear your kids if they were to cry, because we were leaving them, I mean wonderful parents we were, and we'd get together and we'd play cards and we'd drink.

And that went on for a long time. But my drinking did not just, I didn't just take a drink and then start drinking, it was a gradual thing for me. And my husband ended up going, he ended up being in the Vietnam War, and he was there flying B-52s for a long time, just being in station one place and going into Vietnam and then coming back to the air base. And then he did another tour, and that last tour was an advisor down on the ground when they were ready to turn the country over to the Vietnamese.

And being in the country on the ground, he was exposed to Agent Orange. And he came back home, and one year later he fell deathly ill, I mean deathly ill. And he was medically retired from the military, he was 100% disabled, we were stationed, he was stationed in Washington, D.C., he was at the National Security Agency as a military officer, and was retired from there, and he was retired from the military, 100% disabled.

He fell ill at work at the National Security Agency. And I mean it was like he was surrounded with all kinds of MPs and everything and taken to the hospital because of the nature of the job at the National Security Agency. And I was not even able to see him for a whole day. And this would, he would be in a military hospital in Washington, D.C. for a year, and then we would go back to Texas where we retired.

And by the time all that had taken place, by now I am a full-blown alcoholic, and I have, I mean I have no control anymore of my alcoholism. I managed to get a real estate license in Texas and become a realtor. And we moved to Hearst, Texas, and what I used to do is I would list builder's houses. And I mean alcoholics are so clever. Where do we get these ideas? But I would go in empty houses, hide booze and drink because my husband was watching my drinking really closely.

And I had to be very careful. At any rate, I ended up just becoming a falling down drunk. And my husband came to me and he said, Polly, there's a treatment center and it's not far from our house and I wish you would go. And it wasn't a treatment center, it was a detox center. And he took me to that detox center about 5 o'clock at night and they gave me some wonderful medicine. And I slept and the next morning they said get dressed and go

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into the day room with the rest of the patients. And I went into the day room and the arrogance, to my knowledge I did not even know another alcoholic. I did not know anybody else who drank like me and I could lie to myself about that. I didn't know anybody else who was like me. I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcohol and that kind was not in my family. It's not, I didn't see people like that.

And I didn't really know that our friends weren't like me. I knew something was wrong with me. I mean my kids would get up in the morning and I was passed out on the floor and they would step over me to get their breakfast. That's how bad, I mean there's no doubt in what was wrong. I was a bad alcoholic. And I ended up going to this treatment center and I went into that day room and I looked around and I thought I'm not like these people.

That's how arrogant I was. I'm not like these people. And after a few days of detox and feeling better and my libido is starting to return, I looked around and all those men in detox looked great. And I ended up running off with one of them. When we got out of treatment, out of that detox, I went to a lot of meetings at first. I just went to meetings. I just would go to meetings with him and then pretty soon we weren't going to meetings and the next thing I knew he and I were drinking.

And the director of that detox center rescued me out of a house and brought me back into that treatment center and that detox center. And I was so ashamed and I was so embarrassed that all I wanted to do was die. I knew that there was no way I could be sober. There was no way I could live sober. I just couldn't do it. I knew that I couldn't do it. And so what happened was I was just a model patient, did everything they told me to do and when they discharged me from that detox center, my husband picked me up, took me home, I got in my car and I got a bottle of whiskey and I got a bottle of Valium and I checked into a motel.

I absolutely could not live with the shame of being an alcoholic. I was so ashamed of being an alcoholic and what I had done. And I couldn't stand the flashes that would come to me about with my life. And so what happened is that I had a friend, she was a neighbor, and she said something came over her. And I know today that that something was God. And she said something came over her and she knew she had to find me.

And she drove around until she found my car parked outside this motel. And I hadn't shut the door all the way, it was just kind of just closed. And she pushed it open and she found me there. And on April the 8th of 1977, I was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Bedford, Texas. I was resuscitated and what happens is if you try to commit suicide in the state of Texas, you're going to get the detention of the authorities.

And what happened was, is I was going to be placed into one of those little 72-hour holes and put in a psychiatric hospital. And while I was in that psychiatric hospital for that 72 hours, was enough time for my husband to obtain a court order from a Fort Worth judge that I was a detriment to myself and others and I was court committed to treatment. Now I'm here to say, now I know everybody in this room today wants to be here.

I know you want to be here. But there are people that come into our meetings and there are people that we meet along the way

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and they may not want to be here. Well, let me tell you something. I am one of those people that didn't want to be here. I am one of these people that didn't want to be sober. I would rather have been dead than to be an alcoholic. I didn't want to be an alcoholic. And what happens is, is somebody interfered in my life without my permission. And I know who interfered was God, but he used my husband to get a court order to do it.

And I am so grateful because I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to be sober. It was too humiliating. I didn't know enough about AA. I didn't know what we do here. I didn't know how fabulous my life was going to be. I didn't get it. I just thought, oh, how do you live being an alcoholic for the rest of your life? And what happened is, is I got court committed to treatment. Six weeks I was court committed in a treatment center.

And what happened is, during that six weeks, I caught it. I got it. And I got the disease of alcoholism. I caught it in that treatment center. So I'm one of these people, it doesn't always work, but when the reluctant to get sober doesn't want to, I'll take every action I can to get them there. Whether they like it or not. Because I didn't want it. So I am one of these people that did not want to get sober, but because somebody interfered in my life without my permission, I'm here today with 46 years of sobriety.

So go see them anyway. If they're drunk and don't want to talk to you, go see them anyway. The worst you can do is they'll throw you out of their house. That's probably about the worst thing that'll happen. At any rate, I got out of that treatment center. And I had, while in that treatment center, and why I love that, the reading that Chris did, is because while I was in that treatment center, people would come into that treatment center and read this book to us and talk to us about the 12 and 12.

And then other people would bring their cars and they'd pick us up and they'd take us to meetings. And what happened is I got introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. I love this program so much. I love, I love being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am a member, a good standing in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. This program has given me a life that I can't even believe.

And I didn't even do it right when I got here. I didn't even do it right. First of all, I had a sick husband. And I didn't really like that. I was 36 years old and I was horny. And he was sick. And what happened was is I started getting around a lot of men in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I certainly wasn't a poster child for AA. And then I had met this man in AA and he wasn't one of the ones I'd been sleeping around with.

In fact, he came up to me at about three years of sobriety and he said, Polly, I'm in love with you. But I don't want to have an affair with you. I want to marry you. And Dave and I left Texas. We left Texas and he was putting in a computer system in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And we went to Grand Rapids, Michigan for a year, got married in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And a year later we moved to Southern California, 1981.

But what we did is I had married a man that loved AA. Married a man that loved AA as much as I loved AA.

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And that's one of the things that I want to say, is I have had a partner. I love listening to Carla, because I know Doug, and I know what her and Doug do in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I know your passion for Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's what I had. I had that, I had a man who loved AA as much as I did, and we did, we have done so much Alcoholics Anonymous together. And when we got to California, we got in, and I remember me talking about that lady I had heard talk in Austin, Texas.

Well I went, we were, he was going to, the job that Dave was taking was in Santa Monica, and that's where we were going to live, and so I went to the intergroup office there, we got there on a Tuesday afternoon, I think it was, I can't remember, I think I change the day every time I talk, but it was sometime when the place was open, and I went there and I asked, do you have the phone number of a woman named Dottie Harris?

And they did. And I called her. And I told her that I had heard her talk in Austin, Texas, and that I really wanted to meet her. And she told me that she would be at the Big Book Group, and down in California on Monday night, and for me to meet her there. And what happened was, is I went to the Bellflower Big Book Group on Monday night, and I met Dottie Harris, and I asked her if I could talk with her, and she said yes, I'll have coffee with you tomorrow, on a Monday.

And that day I had coffee with her, and I asked Dottie to sponsor me. And Dottie was my sponsor for 33 years, until the day she died. And sponsorship has been really important to me. And if you live in Southern California, and Carla can attest to this, you're going to be speaking at a lot of meetings, because that's what we do. We have a lot of step study meetings and discussion meetings, but primarily, way out there, ahead of the pack, is speaker meetings.

And my home group was a speaker meeting, because I was at the Bellflower Big Book, and that was a speaker meeting. And what happened was, is she started sending me to do speaker commitments for her. And that's what we do. That's how all that got started, that we did, and I know Kelly's the same way. She got sober in Southern California. That's what you do, that's what you do. And that's how all this started.

And we'd have car loads, and I'm sure you would with Clancy, with Dottie, we'd just have car loads go into a meeting to hear her talk. And we had that kind of fellowship. I mean, I just, I had, I got so involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. And Dave and I moved a bunch of different places around Southern California, and an incident had happened, and I ended up going to Seal Beach Speakers Meeting, where I would remain there for probably about 25 years, at Seal Beach Speakers Meeting.

And then Dave and I, we did, we got to travel just because I drank too much whiskey. Dave and I traveled the world, just because we drank too much whiskey. And I've met people all over the world. I sponsor women who don't even live in this country, that live in another country. I can't even, you know, I can't believe that this is my life. I can't believe that I have gotten to live like this, just because I'm an alcoholic.

And just because I love Alcoholics Anonymous. And just because I'm willing to come and do whatever I need to do for this fellowship, no matter what. No matter what. And there's, you know, I never even gave it a thought. You know, I might be asked to come here to speak.

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Maybe I'm asked to come to Ohio. I have come here while I was working. And what happens, you come here, you leave on Sunday, you may not get home till midnight, but you're going to be up at 5 to go to work Monday morning. Because I can't do this and not work. That's not what you do. And that is what we, and not only that, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It was an honor and a privilege. And Dave and I have listened to bankruptcy, Dave lost his job.

And he didn't work again in his field for two years. And he was just doing minimum wage jobs. We had a beautiful home in Fountain Valley, California, and we had that home went into bankruptcy because my salary couldn't pay the mortgage on it. And we had to do, you know, and we had things that happened, and I was embarrassed and humiliated because I didn't want things like that to happen. I'm sober and Alcoholics Anonymous, who's, you know, I'm going to lose all my respect if I had any because I'm filing bankruptcy and sober people and Alcoholics Anonymous don't do that.

But I did it sober. And what happened is you just do it and you keep on showing up at meetings no matter what. That's what you do. You just keep on showing up at meetings. And then Dave and I decided that we were going to retire. And we ended up retiring in Birch Bay, Washington. We ended up building a home there and moving to Birch Bay, Washington. And we had an amazing life there, an amazing life.

We got to retire. Dave was a big outdoors guy, so remembering him, he loved to rock climb and he loved to do all the outdoor stuff. He was a canoer. We got a canoe. We were living on the bay. And Dave started getting sick, and he just couldn't do all those things anymore. Plus, it was getting expensive to live in Washington State, and we had some friends in Florida, and they said, well, it's much cheaper to live here.

And so what we did is we sold our home in Birch Bay, Washington, and we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. And that's where I live today, is in Jacksonville, Florida. I absolutely love Jacksonville, Florida, but I was kind of going kicking and screaming. I didn't really want to leave my home and all that kind of stuff. One of the things that's just really fun, and Dave and I laughed about it, is that we sold our house, so we had to buy something in Jacksonville, Florida, but I had a speaking commitment schedule, and I was still, and I couldn't just, I didn't feel like I could just not do that speaking schedule that I'd already agreed to.

So Dave went to Florida and bought us a condo, which was fabulous, and we started a life in Jacksonville, Florida, and have had an amazing, we had an amazing life there. I'm going to digress a little bit and talk about when I was six and a half years sober, my youngest son called me on the phone, and he said, Mom, I want what you have. I said, well, James, if you want what I have, you're going to have to go to AA.

He hung up the phone and said, I don't want it that bad, but he went anyway. What happened was, I had a friend there, Anna Swansea, that was in Texas, and James was living there, and I was in California, and so Barbara needed this girl that she had. She said, I tried to find everybody to take James, to take her to a meeting, and she said I couldn't, so I called James and asked him if he'd take her to a meeting, and he did,

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and he said, which happens to us all, just when God wants to, that he was sitting there at this table, and the speaker was right across from him sitting there, and that speaker told his story, and James was only 21 years old. James and his wife right now are on a seven-week sabbatical. She is writing a paper on a sabbatical, she's a professor at Florida State, and they're on a seven-week sabbatical right now, and he's 38 years sober, and I have been able to walk this walk with my youngest son for 38 years, and we've been able to do big book studies together, and we've been able to do things together at Alcoholics Anonymous, and James has three kids, and what happened is, is he and his wife ended up divorcing, and he's remarried now, and those three grandchildren are grown now, and it's amazing.

In fact, another little story I'm going to tell really quick, because it's something that I don't talk about very much, but I just saw my grandson, Ryan, and he's 30. My grandson is 30. Unbelievable, and Ryan came to see us a little while while Dave was still sick. He came to see us, but what happened was, is Ryan was this gorgeous baby with this blonde, curly hair, and I had blonde, curly hair at that time, and everybody used to say, Ryan looks just like you, Polly, and of course I loved that, and when Ryan was two years old, we found out that Ryan was profoundly deaf, and Ryan has had a life, but I want you to know that Ryan today is 30 years old, and he is a civil engineer in Colorado, and I want you to know, because of parents who are also sober, and in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and this child was given every opportunity because they were out of themselves and could give to their child that this man is handicapped in no way.

He is an amazing, amazing individual. I am blessed to have five grandchildren, and I have been, they're all grown now, but because of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was a present grandma, and I was a roller coaster ride grandma, and I have had so much fun with my grandkids. I have eight minutes left, and I'm going to do the best I can to get through the next part of my life. Seven years ago, my husband was operated on for lung cancer, and he really did well.

He had lung cancer, and in fact, he did so well that he stayed with a friend, and I went on one of Snow's cruises, and after he had his surgery, shortly after, he did so well through lung cancer, but as time went on, as the years went by, about five years ago, he started to get sick again, and more stuff was going on with Dave. Three years ago, he became very ill, and a lot of different things were wrong with Dave.

He just had where he couldn't walk, he just had a He couldn't, he just had a lot of different things going on. Heart disease, it was just, it was just a deterioration.

[00:45:03]

He was just deteriorating totally. And Dave passed away seven months ago. And when I was married to my first husband, he was ill. He was ill and I could not take care of him. I was too selfish and too self-centered and I couldn't do it. My kids were doing most of it. But what I want to say is that probably, besides being sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I had the privilege of walking my husband all the way home.

All the way home. And you taught me to do that here. You taught me we can do that. And I want you to know that I had a fabulous marriage. We were so in love our whole marriage. We were married for 42 years. And I've done a lot of hard things in my life. And I've had a lot of pain in my life. We all have. But I've never had pain like this. But what I believe with all my heart is because of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I can walk.

I can be responsible. I can take care of my husband. I can do what I needed to do because I'm sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you have taught me how to do that. You have taught me how to do that. That I can do whatever I have to do. I have been surrounded with friends. I have been, Dave had so many things wrong with him. But the thing that took him out, and if any of you are familiar with it, I'm sure that some of you, is that he had Parkinson's.

And he not only had the Parkinson's that destroys your body, but he had Parkinson's dementia. So it was like it took the whole man. And this was a brilliant man. He was a member of MENSA. That's how smart he was. But what happened is that we both got to be together. My oldest son, I had a lot of, we just never could seem like connect. I would be in California, I said this earlier in our little 15 minute thing that we did on Friday, is that I would take care of my grandchildren and I'd have a relationship kind of like that with my son because I would take care of my granddaughters.

But I never had the kind of relationship with my oldest son that I had with my youngest son. And five years ago, it'd be five years in November, my oldest son called me on the phone. He's 59 years old and he said he was going to rehab. And my oldest son is sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous now. Very, he's Catholic, he's a musician, very involved in his church. He's a beautiful human being, absolutely beautiful.

And he had never, when we moved to Birch Bay, Washington, and then when we moved to Florida, he never came to my house. I would always have to go to California to see him. He would never come to my house. And he spent a week, two different times, two weeks coming to Florida and being with me to help me take care of Dave. What happens in here is precious relationships are healed. God wraps his arms around people in AA.

I believe that. I believe he loves us. He just loves us so much. And that we get the opportunity to work with the sickest of the sickest. We get that privilege because we're sober

[00:50:01]

in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And miracles happen when we don't even know they're gonna happen. My son is a musician, so he played the piano and sang at his stepfather's funeral. And so did so many other people that I sponsored and that are part of our life were there. And all I can say is I know that I would never be doing as well as I'm doing or be as happy as I am for all that has happened if I weren't in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.