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Source: George H – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2026-03-26.m4a File: george-h-box-of-chocolates-2026-03-26.mp3 Duration: 00:50:20
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Well, well, thanks, Ramona. Hi, everybody. My name's George and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is September the 15th of 1991, and it's so good to be here. Hi, Kim. Who else is here? Oh, I can't see anybody else. But anyway, isn't this great? This, this Zoom, I love this Zoom still, eh? And, and, and I think, you know, I'm just, I'm just, it just caught me right now. I'm thinking about Mike. Remember Mike?
Mike and Paul, eh? They started this thing, eh? And back in the day, they started this thing. You know, this deal that we talk about here, you know, we, we come to meetings and this thing called alcoholism, alcoholism, you know, if you're sitting there, I don't care how long you're here, if you think alcohol is your problem, you're going to die of the disease of alcoholism. You know who I learned that from?
My late sponsor, Clancy. I never forgot, he double booked himself one time. He must have been about 89 years old. OK, this guy, this guy took AA globally. OK. And I think he booked himself to, he spoke in Philadelphia on the Friday and he had to go to Washington and from Washington, he came to Toronto. So by the time he got to, it was just the dinner. That's all it was. It was a, it was a dinner. And then, and then, and he spoke, right?
He was so tired. Right? You could see it as he walked in and they called him up and, and this is how he started his talk. He said, my name is Clancy, gave his, he usually gave his last name. I'm an alcoholic. And he said, folks, if you think that your problem is, ladies and gentlemen, if you think your problem is alcohol, you're going to die of the disease of alcoholism. I never heard him say it like that before.
I heard him say it, say things that were close to that, but not that specific. But it's very, it's a very true statement. You see, I always, I always thought. That I had a problem with alcohol. Even when I came to AA in the beginning, I thought I had a problem with alcohol and other crap that I put in my body. But I never knew until I was here for a while that I have something called alcoholism. And the difference between an alcohol problem and the disease of alcoholism is quite simple.
If you've got an alcohol problem, all you got to do is stop drinking and go about your merry way and everything's okay. You don't need AA for that. With the disease of alcoholism, when an alcoholic of my type stops drinking, my life becomes so unbearable, I can't live in it. And so if I don't do something about that condition, I have to drink or commit suicide, one of the two. Right. So just so I can qualify a bit for you, so you know that I'm I'm here for a reason.
I started drinking when I was five years old and I wasn't I wasn't walking around with a gallon of booze on my shoulder when I was five. I came from a European family. They had a lot of parties all the time. I went I went and I took little sips from from people's glasses. Right. And they put me on the front of the living room or where people were sitting and then they want me to sing to them. So I'd sing Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, you know, Tony Bennett, all these type of all these songs.
I'd be singing Hungarian songs. And I'm a I'm by the way, I'm a Hungarian Italian. So this qualifies me right away. One part of me wants to take a drink. The other party wants to kill somebody. OK, so. So I used to take these little sips, it would go down in me like a firecracker. Right. Oh. And I had this square resentment until I came to AA, went with me wherever I went. I resented my mother and my father for getting the divorce and my grandmother and my grandfather for loving me too much.
You ever resent anybody for loving you too much, huh? Like a sponsor or a parent who you care about you and then you resent, oh, you're
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bothering me again.
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I can still I got to watch myself. My mother still she can still push the button. Oh, this is leave me alone. For you know, and. So as you know, as time when I was into a lot of trouble when I was a kid, I gave I used to fight all the time after school, I was always in a fight, always in a fight. The family gets together. Oh, by the way, I didn't see my dad until I was 12 years old. I grew up with my grandparents.
OK. And, you know, Hungarian grandfather, Hungarian grandmother. The Italian came from my father's side, it was my great grandmother was Italian. OK, who I never met. And. And so I grew up with them and. You know, life was good, except I would give everybody trouble. Trouble, I was a really angry, angry kid. And so the family got together and they sent me to school to Europe, I think I was in grade. I don't know, five first time and they put me back to grade three when I got there. But they sent me they they sent me to to this place in Hungary and I was with some with some family.
Right. And and there I was fought, I fought to at schools and one day I had a fight with the police captain's kid and I beat him up. And you know what happened, a lot of trouble happened there when I did that. It's not. They told me to leave the country, they told me to leave the city, so they so my grandfather came and got me and brought me back to Toronto. And and then. At 15 years old, at 15 years old.
They sent me back to school, to school again in Germany this time because I was giving everybody trouble, too. And again, they put me back in grade, I can't remember what grade grade it was then. Maybe they put me back to like grade seven or something to their curriculum, grade eight or seven or whatever. And and defiance, the alcoholics, you know how defiance we are, that's why we don't put it in the 12 and 12 step two, we're defiant by nature.
I was supposed to hand in my passport. And my ticket, which was open, was an open ticket. But I never handed in, I kept it. So we used to go down every, every, every afternoon, we were able to go down to the after school, go down to the. Or lunchtime, I can't remember what lunchtime or after school down to the little village to do so, probably after school to do some shopping. And I hung with the guys.
That like to drink. So we went into the pub and then there in Germany, they would serve you a booze, you're 50, you're 15, 16 years old, you serve your booze. So we'd go in and get a big stein, I don't want to sound too good, somebody's going to go out and get hammered and have a couple of these big, nice, cold steins of beer and. I'm grooving, baby, let's go. And so one day. We're sitting there at the pub, you know, the keen alcoholic minds when they get together, you know, just look at when you go to your business meeting, keen alcoholic minds are all sitting at the table, same thing at the bar, same thing, same thing when you're drinking in a pub.
For those who are sitting there, they're alcoholic. And one of the guys say, you know, something. No one's ever escaped from the school before. I said, what? So no one's ever escaped from the school before I go right into fantasy land, a. I think I'm Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. All right. Fifteen years old. So you know what I do? I plan it. I take a little bit of my clothes. A couple of days later, when we're allowed to go down to the little village, I take my bag, I take my passport, I take my plane ticket and I hitchhike from this place called
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Castle, not Castle, Castle. Which is beside Hamburg, not Hamburg, Hamburg to Nuremberg, I hitchhike from there to Nuremberg, got on a plane, 15 years old, got on the plane and went to Frankfurt and there I had to wait for another flight to come across the pond. Right. So they had me there for a little I don't know, I was there for quite a while, maybe 24 hours even. I can't remember. Quite a while.
I guess Interpol was looking for me. They didn't find me, though. And I would go to the bar and I have a couple of drinks and I would be, you know, those little TV, those TVs that were connected to the chairs at the at the airports. I'd be hiding, I'd be sitting down and watching and hiding behind the TVs. Anyway, so. I get restless, irritable and discontent. And finally, I I call. My girlfriend, long distance from Germany.
And I said, listen, I'm coming, have the guys ready. With the with the have the guys ready to pick me up at the airport. Well, her mother was on the other line, right? And. I guess she heard the call and she called my mother. And so by the time I got to the airport, the doors opened. There in front of me was my uncle, who was a very scary guy. OK, and my mother to the right, I saw some security on the left.
I don't know if they were there for me or not. I don't think so. Who knows? But they had me. I was caught. So now we're in the car. And my uncle was driving and he says he's got the Hungarian accent and he says. You know something? Your father is in Vancouver. He's going to come home tonight and he's going to kill you. Right. And I said I said, don't panic now, don't worry. He goes and another thing by next year, you're going to be in jail.
Like he was like Kreskin, remember the great Kreskin on Johnny Carson show? Remember the great Kreskin, huh? Romano remembers like he knew, like this guy knew what was going to happen to me. So a couple of days later. They talked to the school, the family talked to the school. So guess what happens a couple of days later? I'm on a plane going back to Germany. Can you dig that? I'm on a plane going back to Germany.
Going back to Germany. And so when I get to the. When I get to the to the to the school. They got these big, long stairs. I go up. These guys are waiting there for me. I go up these big, long stairs chest out. I did it. They didn't have a seven step there about humility. I did it, boys. The principal calls me up to his office, gives me the third degree. Anyways, so. I stay there. That was like November.
By February, they gave me the boot. Right, so I come back to Toronto and now I'm 16 years old. I'm a man now, don't you know? I can live on my own. So I left I left home. And I hit the streets and I and I started hanging around with people that really, you know, after I came to AA, I looked at this stuff. No business hanging around people that were 45 and 30 years old when I was 16 years old. And these guys were criminals.
And and they just they just groomed me, basically. And the next thing you know. I'm starting to go to jail. The next thing you know, I'm starting to put other poisons in my body. I do things like this. I'll give you an example. We're we're drinking one day. And we drop off and we drop into the booze can, you know, all good alcoholics should have a private booze can. We had one in in we are booze can was in a place called.
Oh, geez, what the what was the name of that? Regent Park, Regent Park in you know, you're laughing. Love you. You know, I'm talking Regent Park in Toronto, right? That's that's a real scary place if you go in there anyway. So that's where we went. You know, it's a daytime now, right? So that's where our booze can was. So we went there. And we were in a little comet. And I had a 365. And I had a 365, and I was just, we were just loaded, and we were loaded even before we
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went there. And so, my friend who owns the car, he can't drive, so I'm driving. And now, we're going across the Girard Street Bridge, it's a very scenic tour, actually. You can look on the left-hand side, and there's the Don Jail. They've closed it down now, but then it was open. And it's a nice hot summer day, and again, fantasy land comes into my head, and I start thinking that I'm Burt Reynolds from Smokey and the Bandit.
So I see this beautiful Volvo coming from the other side of the road, and I hit it on purpose, head-on. And our car is doing donuts, we're going, yeah-hoo, we got the cowboy hats on and everything. Okay? Like, insane! We take off, and this guy that was behind us, who was supposed to be with us, I guess he called the cops, because by the time we got to where we were going, we were surrounded. And of course, I'm always getting punched out by the cops all the time, because I got a mouth, and I'm always giving everybody a hard time.
So in that situation, they, I can't remember what happened there, I think they throw that out, they threw that out, maybe I got a fine or something like that, they throw it out. Then, here's the next one. So the next one is that I'm drunk one day, and I'm fighting with the cops, and I think I stole the car, and they got me, and they kicked the living crap out of me. But then, when they took me to the police station, they were beating me with the phone book.
Really badly, they gave it to me. And my mother came to court. And this was, and you might remember this, when they had the big police brutality in the late 70s, early 80s, it was a big deal in Toronto. And so, they brought me in front of a judge, and I was really beaten up. And the judge did not like that. He threw it out of court. Now you know what that did to my ego? That put me above the law. That's where I went with that kind of stuff.
And I went to an area in my mind where I was untouchable. That's real sick thinking. That's real, real sick thinking. Later on, I end up going to jail for some criminal charges that had to do with selling narcotics and things like this. And just a bad, I was just a bad person. You know, Chuck C., when he talks about, when he writes that circle in New Pair of Glasses, if you guys ever read that book, God, Good, and Life, the human race and everything in it.
And then Chuck's, the pencil man on the other side of the conscious ego separation line, and there's Chuck. Well, that was George, outside of the world. I was in my own world. And I came to Alcoholics eventually in such a shape that people put me in a car and brought me from Toronto or Mississauga to St. Catharines and dropped me off at a detox. I had the beginnings of Korsakoff syndrome. I didn't even know I had it.
And I was in bad, bad shape. And that's the way you guys got me. I thought I was Bon Jovi. I didn't know I wasn't. I had long hair, I had earrings, duster, wanted, dead or alive, you know? And that's how you guys got me. I went to treatment for 30 days or whatever the heck it was. And I came back. They put me into a recovery home. I was in this recovery home. And there too, I couldn't get along with people.
I threatened somebody, they kicked me out. Then the family came down, gave me money, I got my own place. And I was sober for 104 days. Now this is important. 104 days I was sober, going to meetings, had a sponsor.
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This is what saved my bacon. But after 104 days, I was in so much pain that I picked up a drink. My sponsor was this old guy, talked like this little guy named Jimmy, 23 years in a penitentiary. Hello? It's me. Open the door. Yeah. What are you doing? Oh, nothing. You've been drinking. Oh, no, I haven't. Come on. You're going to the meeting. I've been drinking. I don't care about that. Let's go. You ever bought an alcoholic to a meeting drunk?
It's like when Moses opens the sea, everybody thinks they're going to catch something. Relax. Well, this is Alcoholics Anonymous. So this guy, take me to the meetings, shake his hand, he's a drunk. You know what he was doing? He was giving me the greatest gift of all. He was loving me back to loving myself. What a gift. What a gift. I think, you know, backing up now, you know, I forgot. I think that the cops kicked the crap out of me and that thing happened with my mother there the first time when I hit the car.
That's when the cops kicked the crap out of me and I gave them problems and the judge kicked it out. That's what's then. I forgot. Sometimes as you get older around here, you forget things. I don't understand that. That's where that's the phase I'm in now. I'm 65 years old. I came here when I was 30. So now I'm starting to forget things. I don't know what that's about, but I just go with the flow. Live one day at a time.
Having a great time, right? And I end up getting out of jail in 1989. I get out of jail and I continue to, you know, I continue to drink and give people a hard time and and then, oh, sorry, not back up. And then and then when I get to, sorry, when I get to St. Catharines. With the Jimmy situation, sorry, I got sidetracked with the Jimmy situation, he's taken me to meetings drunk. OK, and little bit by little bit.
I stopped. That's when my sobriety date is September the 15th of 1991. I smoked one of these marijuana joints on the 14th, so I changed my date to the 15th. And life went on and I just loved it, you know, some pain, you do the steps, you go through things and then boy meets girl on a campus. You ever remember that boy meets girl on a campus? And I met my first wife. And she was sober longer than me.
And we were together. From 1991, almost December. To 1992, we got married and she passed away in 2000. This was this was this was very interesting how this happened. I got it. I was working in the addictions field and I was about this was about I was just. Just coming up to about I just celebrated my nine years when she passed away. And we're in the hospice. She had four stage brain cancer. And I had a funny feeling that she was going to pass away.
I just you have that feeling. And I could tell by her breathing because her breathing, she had the death rattle. You know, the death rattle when people die. And I said, darling. The angels are here. God loves you. And I love you. And she took her last breath. And you know what happened after that immediately? It's what Sandy talked about. Sandy used to talk about this in the book and the book says it very nicely on page 55.
The fundamental idea of God is in every man, woman and child. So when she took her last breath, I could feel this energy that Sandy used to talk about
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coming right out of her. I will never forget that as long as I live. That is the consciousness of God. We had the we had the funeral. And it's an A, you know, a lot of people, a lot, a lot of support. You know, Alcoholics Anonymous is the greatest love fest known to mankind. The greatest love fest. I I've never experienced anything like like the love in Alcoholics Anonymous. So you guys carried me through that.
Then. So this is what this is, my second this is this is when my second wife died, my first wife died also. So this is what this story that I just told you was about my second wife dying. Right. The first one. The first one was again, AA again. I. She was she was in in in one hospital, they they transferred her over. She was in a actually she was at the at at home and she had COPD and diabetes. And she wasn't well.
And so I took her to the hospital. And I was slated for a retreat and she'd be going in and out of the hospital all the time and I was slated for a retreat and she insisted that I go on the retreat. I went on the retreat. I came back on the Sunday, went to see her. Right. And. You know, she was she she wasn't good, she she seemed to be in good, in OK, shape. And then I left and then she called me up and I was watching Sunday Night Football.
And she called me, said, Darlene, I just wanted to say I love you. I said, I love you, too, Darlene. I was a little frustrated because I just left there. She come go. I love you, too, Darlene. I'll see you tomorrow. And that was the last words we ever spoke. I'll see you tomorrow. And that was the last words we ever said in the morning. They called me from the hospital. They asked me to come over there right away.
I got in the elevator. This little boy. Got in the next floor or something, and he looked at me, I started, I almost started bawling, I held it back, I didn't cry in front of the kid. And when I went to the hospital, there was a welcoming committee there. They took me into a room and they told me that my wife just passed away. That was my first wife, she passed away. So I got on the phone and I called.
My boss, who was a good friend of hers, and I called the guy named Pete W. Some of you, if you've been sober a long time, he was a he was a delegate. He was a trustee to the General Service Board. He was a priest. And Pete came, Pete came right away, drove right away and gave her the ointment. Right. And. And then we had the we had the funeral and then that was that was over, too. Now, moving forward, I later on, I got into a relationship and I hadn't grieved after my second wife died, this is important, I I hadn't grieved the death like I should have grieved it. I thought I had because she because because I was with her for 10 months caring for her while she was dying.
But I thought I had I had dealt with it and I and I got into another relationship which didn't work out. We're friends today, but still didn't work out. And. It was very difficult, very difficult going through that. And then later on. I got into. Another relationship, I spoke somewhere. Just before it just just before in Canada, before Detroit, and I met somebody there and we got together, we ended up buying a house together and and the relationship we were together for about almost five years, it didn't work out and and we went our separate ways and. It was it was it was a painful, painful breakup, you know?
And. Then life went on and. Then life went on and, you know, went to AA, got involved in general, I was involved in general service. I became a GSR, an alternate DCM. I was a, I was a liaison from intergroup to general service. Then I became a DCM.
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Just, you know, got into the concepts, into the warranties. I love, I love Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I, what had happened? I went to the Dominican, right? Because I got hired for a job in the Dominican. That was a big mistake. I left the union job for a job in the Dominican. Okay? The keen alcoholic mind. And, and I was there for a little while. It didn't work out. But while I was there, I got on this thing called Facebook. Huh? And on this thing called Messenger. Hey, lovey Messenger, eh?
And, and, and I started, started communicating with my, with my cousin's ex-wife. Now, there's a story behind that. My cousin's ex-wife and my wife today were sisters. We go back like over 40 years. Okay? When we were kids, except I was such a lunatic that my present wife, her and I, her and I went our different, our separate ways. Because I moved to Calgary in those days and her mother was dying and she didn't come after me. And so I went on my own. She went on my own, but she went on her own.
But anyways, I was, I was communicating with her sister. And then when I came back to Toronto, I communicated with her a little more with her sister. And suddenly, one day to the next, my wife, who wasn't, we weren't together, she called me. We went out for a date. And she told me some things, right? About how much she really loved me. Still. And so we got together. And we got married. And she went to Al-Anon. I was a stipulation. That was a stipulation.
I said, listen, this is not going to work if you don't go to Al-Anon because you're not going to be able to live with someone like me. And I was then, I was then 24 years sober. And she'd come out of a relationship where her ex was drinking and she came out of the effects of the disease of alcoholism. Not to mention when she was with me, she had the effects as well. So she went to Al-Anon. And she will be in Al-Anon. This, I think it's going to be this April. I think will be 10 years. 10 years that she's in Al-Anon. Yeah.
So we have a, we have a home, recovery is in our home. But I, but I tell her this, when she says, well, I'm in Al-Anon. And I say, well, so am I. And I've been there 32 years. Right? I beat you. Anyways, life is good. Have I had losses? Absolutely. Two wives dying. Four grandchildren have died. Matter of fact, I got a story of Lovie. Oh, I love Lovie, eh? I love her. I went, she was speaking at the Berry Roundup, which is just maybe 30 minutes from where I live.
And we were going to meet there. And so I'm on my way there, eight o'clock in the morning. And suddenly the phone rings. It's my grandson. I pull over on the highway. He says, Grandpa, pull over. So I pulled over. And he tells me that my granddaughter died. And the police was on the other line. So we had a three-way call from this damn fentanyl. 25 years old. 25 years old. What did I do? I didn't put everything down and go back home and go to Niagara Falls. No. I went to the Roundup. Lovie spoke. I went home to you guys. You see, this is very important for me to understand. It might not make sense to some of you out there, but it's damn important to me.
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I belong to you. My life is on the line. Johnny H. taught me that. Remember Johnny H. Romano? Remember him? Some of you guys might remember Johnny H. from California. He died with over 60 years of sobriety. Johnny taught me that. I belong to you people. I don't belong to my family. My family are great people. But to you, I belong. You know why? Because my life's on the line. So I go to this Roundup. Lovie speaks. Does a great job, like usual. But I'm surrounded by love. So after the Roundup, I leave. I come home. I think I went to sleep. And the next day, I went to Niagara Falls.
And dealt with all the situations there. And guess what? The person, God's got a great sense of humor. The person that was dealing with the cremation place, crematorium place, she was sober many years. She'd come to AA for a while, but then she stopped coming. But she cared for me. I didn't even know the person. And she was really caring for me while I was going through this painful, painful time. But that's what you guys do.
You know, if I may, I don't know how much time I have left. Just let me know, Annette, or whatever. I want to touch on some of the steps. I think a lot of people, a lot of us, we get confused when we get here. About what the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous is, for instance. It doesn't tell us anywhere in the first step to admit you're an alcoholic. Nowhere in the big book. I used to have a guy named John L. from Akron. He's a Scotsman. He never introduced himself as an alcoholic. He used to say, my name is Johnny. And he used to say his last name. And I'm powerless over alcohol. And it don't tell me anywhere in the big book to admit you're an alcoholic. It tells me that you're powerless. He used to be a preachy type of guy.
So all I'm seeing in the first step of AA is that drinking is a problem and sobriety is a problem. That's all I'm saying there. So we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. Dash. Their lives had become unmanageable. Powerless allergy. Powerless allergy. Unmanageable obsession. You notice when you obsess about things, your life becomes unmanageable. Does with me. Alcoholics of our description. I get a resentment. Unmanageable. Or I'm applying some defects to my life. My life becomes unmanageable.
So I go back to that at times. Drinking is a problem. And I still have to say that at 34 years. I got to say, yep, drinking is a problem. Can't drink. Allergy to alcohol. And now life is a problem again. Now, I admit that in the first step. Can't live with it. Can't live without it. And now I go to the second step and I ask somebody for help. I've come to believe. And I know for a fact that alcoholism is a disease of perception. It's how I see things sober.
If I'm not taking care of myself. If I'm getting too hungry, angry, lonely or tired. They're perception distorters. If I am not taking care of my resentments. Perception distorters. If I'm not taking care of my defects such as selfishness, dishonesty, fear, jealousy, control, entitlement. Perceptions become distorted. So when my perceptions are distorted like that, I don't pray to God and ask God to clear my thinking. I got to ask somebody for help.
My late sponsor Clancy used to impose. I used to allow him to impose his clear perceptions on my distorted perceptions. Right. And then I got to do what he tells me to do. And that's a big surrender in the third step. Do what he tells me to do. Now, what are they going to tell you to do? I don't know. Pay a bill. Do this. Go to work. Whatever the case may be.
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If you're first going through the steps. The book says, though this decision was a vital and crucial step, it would have little permanent effect unless followed by a strenuous effort to be rid of those things that were blocking us off from him. That means we got to do the fourth step. I make a decision to do the fourth step. What are they going to tell me in the third step? To do the fourth step. And I do what they tell me to do. It's that simple. Drinking is a problem. Sobriety is a problem. First step. Ask somebody for help in the second step. Allow them to impose their clear perceptions and on your distorted perceptions and do what they tell you to do.
And they're going to tell you to do a fourth step and then do the fourth step. You sit down, you do the fifth step. Six. Stop doing the things you like to do. Seven. Start doing the things you don't like to do. You know what? I'm going to touch on the seventh step for a moment because I love the seventh step. And I'm not a humble person at all. But I try to practice humility. OK, I do my this is my this is I'll give you my my meditation. Regiment, what I do, I do the third step prayer daily. OK, I do the seventh step prayer daily. Now, here's what I do after the seventh step.
I say to God, I say, God, please remove my entitlement. I know nobody's entitled. Nobody has problems with that in that area, right? Being entitled. Remove my entitlement. Clancy used to call me shallow. So I ask I ask God to remove my shallowness. I ask God to remove my expectations. I know nobody's expect nobody expects things around here. I ask God to remove my criticism. I know nobody's critical here. I ask God to remove depression, lust.
Ego, pride, selfishness, self-centeredness, fear and control. So I ask God to remove these things. Then I go into the 11 step prayer, which we'll find on page ninety nine. And I say at the end, I say, for it isn't dying to self. I learned that from Chuck C is dying to self that one awakens to eternal life. I'm dying daily to self. That's the intent of the 11 step to die daily to self. And then I say, God, please help me die more. Please help me die more of self today than yesterday.
And then I do that world famous, which I learned on Zoom here, the set aside prayer. And then I do another prayer and this prayer goes like this. It's called Thank God for you. Says, thank God. And it's how I feel about all you guys and Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank God for you, good friend of mine. Thank God for you, good friend of mine. Seldom is a friendship such as thine. How very much I wish to be as helpful as you have been to me.
Of many prayer guests one thou art, on whom I ask God to impart rich blessings from his storehouse rare and grant to you his gracious care. As I recall from time to time how you have inspired this heart of mine. I find myself inclined to pray. God bless my friend this very day. So often at the throne of grace, there comes the picture of your face. And then instinctively I pray that God may guide you all the way.
Someday I hope with you to stand before the throne of God's right hand and see you at journey's end. Praise God, you've been to me a friend. Thank God for you. So I do that. And then I ask God to help me practice some principles. What are the principles? Honesty, open-mindedness, willingness, courage, integrity and dignity. Patience, tolerance, humility, brotherly love, forgiveness, self-restraint, spiritual awareness.
And Dr. Bob said we could put our program together with two words, love and service. And I ask God for some other stuff too. For some other principles too. You know? And I go about my day. Sometimes I say, God I report for duty. You know? You know, and just go about my day, and get things done, what needs to be done.
[00:45:02]
You know, I don't know what I would do without Alcoholics Anonymous. I would be lost. I don't think I would, I know I wouldn't even be alive. You know, I used to work on Skid Row, eh, I'll give you the Skid Row story, I worked on Skid Row, and you know, you're not going to see people on these, at these meetings, like this guy that I saw on Skid Row. The guy had Korsakoff Syndrome, he had diapers on, he was shuffling in the hallway.
That's the last stages of alcoholism. They're not around, eh, they're not around. Thank God for people like you, showing me this way of life, and continuing to show me this way of life, that that didn't happen to me. I had the beginnings of Korsakoff Syndrome, but for some reason or another, I was able to get back to some mental health. You know, my brother, for instance, my brother's in recovery, my brother's going to have ten years this year in another program, right, he's in this CA, they call it, right?
You know, it's all, you know, I shut my mouth when it came to him. When he was out there, I shut my mouth, thanks to Al-Anon, I learned how to ask God to sit on my tongue, you know? Anyways, I just, I'd like to thank you very much, Romana, for asking me to come here, and I'm going to close with this for you, okay? I know everybody avidly reads the big book here, but I'll give you the final instructions that he gave us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Hey, Mike, how you doing? Nice to see you. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit. Not the fellowship of AA, the fellowship of the Spirit. And you will surely meet some of us, not all of us, some of us, as you trudge the road of happy destiny.
May God bless you and keep you until then. Until when? Until you become a part of the fellowship of the Spirit. God love you and thank you, everybody. Thank you so much, George. I knew it was going to be awesome. Thank you all so much for joining us tonight, where you never know what you're going to get. You'll just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next Thursday. Our special guest is Josh A., and I'm going to try this, Nowatata, Nowatata, Nowatata, one of those, in Oklahoma, you know.
So he's going to be speaking, and he's awesome. If you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. If you can help, you can help others right from your phone or your computer by sending them this information and giving them all that they need to join us. Everyone is invited to hang out with us afterwards in the meeting, after the meeting on the back porch. We come in from the front porch, and we go out the back porch.
So we're all going to party back there. George, do you have any closing comments, and would you please close us out with a prayer of your choice? My closing comments are that this is a great life, and if you're suffering, or you're disturbed, or you're not feeling right, please talk to somebody. Pick up the phone and talk to somebody, or talk to somebody on here tonight, whatever you want to do. And I'm going to close with the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
[00:50:01]
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Now, right, everybody can unmute and scream and holler and all that stuff. Thank you, George! Woo-hoo! Thanks, George! Thank you very much.