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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – TWELVE STEPS – RS 06332.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-twelve-steps-rs-06332.mp3 Duration: 01:22:00
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Hi, everybody. It's 11.01 or 2. I'm not sure what it is. I keep my watch a little fast, but I think it's close to 11 o'clock. I'm Beth Bowen. I'm a recovering alcoholic from Chicago. I think my cheering section is here, huh? Very good morning to everybody. It's real good to be here and really good to be sober, and I think you're a great bunch of people to try and find the second balcony in this hotel.
It took me 20 minutes this morning trying to do that, and I missed the very beginning of the first section. This marathon on the Twelve Steps is done in four sections. We'll be done in about an hour and a half, and then there's an hour for lunch, and if my time is correct, I think they begin again at 1.30, and we're going to be doing, in this section of the marathon, we'll be doing 4, 5, and 6, and in the afternoon it'll be 7, 8, and 9, and then there'll be a break, and then they'll finish up the steps.
So we hope that some of you, and perhaps a lot of you, will stay with us. We had three wonderful speakers the first section, and we've got three really great ones this time, too. Let's see. Before we start everything, the committee has asked me to… Okay. Let's open this meeting with a moment of silence in gratitude for the A.A. recoveries in the past 50 years, and then we'll have the serenity prayer. Moment of silence.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Oh, I also forgot to tell you, we'll have like three speakers, and then you see the microphone up here, and when the speakers are done, anyone who wants to get up and talk either about the steps or some other comments or questions or anything like that, that's a big part of this meeting, so anybody that has the urge, be thinking about that when our speakers are done.
I want to explain the anonymity tradition. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker or indeed any A.A. member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings.
The assurance of anonymity is essential in our recovery to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before personalities. This meeting, all these sections of the 12 steps will be taped, and the tapes of this meeting will be available at the tape sales booth at the convention center. This is a 12-step meeting, and I would like very much to read the 12 steps, and I've asked my friend Mary P. from Chicago to please do that.
Let's give Mary a hand. Hi, guys. Thank you. I'm Mary, and I'm an alcoholic. The 12 steps of A.A. Number one, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood it. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make our own decisions. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
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Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Number 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Thank you, Mary. Mary, I need my card back. Thank you. I think I know what the steps are, but when I get nervous, I have to have a card to refer to. Okay, our first speaker is from Pompano Beach, Florida, and his name is Gene S. Let's give him a real big hand. This is step four. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Gene. I am an alcoholic. And I am from Pompano Beach, Florida, out of Detroit, Michigan, many years ago.
Now, to make anything that I might say be slightly credible, I would like to state that on October 12, 1954, I took my last drink of booze, and I haven't had to take any of those pills, any of those mind-bending, mood-changing narcotics since that time. This isn't in the form of bragging. I'm proud of what I have accomplished, and I'm proud of all of you that accomplish one day at a time. I am very proud to be a member of this wonderful fellowship.
Now, I am not one of the leaders in AA. We have some wonderful ones, and I love every one of them. But I am one of the Indians. They tell me, and how it works, it says, Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. I have, to the best of my ability, tried to follow that path. There is not one damn thing in AA that I want to change. The reason I don't want to change it, this has worked for me.
I was a hopeless, immoral, sick human being when I came to this program. I am recovering. I am growing a little all the time. And a person that never had anything, I have everything now. And that everything is stated in three little words. I'm happy, I'm joyous, and I'm free of fear. This is what I have found in this program. I found a way of life. And it has not been easy for me, but it hasn't been hard.
It has been good. It is a growing process that I have. Now, on the first three steps, I had very little problem with them. I knew I was an alcoholic, and I knew I couldn't manage my own life. I knew that probably no human power could have restored me to sanity. I just knew that it couldn't. But I did not have any spiritual belief. I did not know that God would take an immoral person like me. All I had to do was ask.
And I don't know whether I was an agnostic or whether I was an atheist. I was a nothing.
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But not only in the spiritual sense. In the moral sense, in the mental sense, in the physical sense, I was a nonentity. I was a nothing. And I started with these first three steps. And they were so wonderful. And thank God I had a sponsor in Detroit, Jack O. He said, I want you to go back and read this little doctor's opinion. I want you to read it. He said, it's in the little letters, the Roman numerals.
He says, you don't know what those are, but you look in the front of the book, past the preface, and you read the doctor's opinion. He said, read it today and tomorrow and the next day and the next day until you thoroughly identify with what you are. I was afraid of this big guy. And I did what he said. And I found out that this little doctor, who went to work for $50 a week because he couldn't get another job working with alcoholics in town's hospital, had been given the thought that no one else, no one in medicine, no one in the religions, no one in any portion of anything had ever been able to connect the three problems that we had.
He did. I read it and I said again and again, that's me, that's me, that's me, that's me. I am going to do what these hundred people before me did. And I started. I got to the fourth step. And that is the thing that I'll talk for a few minutes today about. I got to the fourth step. And it says write it. And I started out, it says, make a searching and fearless moral inventory. So I did. I got the paper out and I sat down on the bad side of the ledger, quit a few things.
I saw that I had been guilty of committing all seven of the cardinal sins. And I put down all the worthless things I had done. But trying to balance the ledger, I started on the other side and I found I wasn't so bad. I had helped some old ladies across the street at times. I loved my dog. And a couple of little things like that. So that was about all I found. And I didn't want anyone to read it. So after I had completed it, I went over again and again and then put it in the depository.
My depository is in my meditation room and that is my bathroom. And I sat on the throne and meditated and I disposed of the little inventory that I had taken. But it allowed me to go on to the fifth step, which I won't talk about because we other people will tell you about that. But on the fourth step, it started to set me free. It let me know the truth about myself, what I was going to have to work on if I wanted to enjoy the fruits of people that came before me.
I used to look at those people and they were smiling and they were happy and they were healthy. And I said, I want some of that. And I wanted it. I still want it. But this is the thing I wanted what those people had. And I turned to the big book because I'm a big book studier all the time, day after day. And it gave me a precise, a precise way to take the fourth step. It told me concisely how. And I believed it because I believe every word of it.
It's my Bible. It's my textbook. It's my reading material. I read it. I was able to continue on with the rest of the steps. And I did fairly well. But besides being a drunkard, I had some other problems. I was a compulsive gambler. Positive Gambler. Anything that you said to me, I would say, I'll bet you it was. I thought
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I was the best handicapper in the country. No one could beat me playing blackjack. I was a good poker player. I liked the bingo games. I just liked to gamble. I lost wives, possessions, homes, automobiles, jewelry, and still continued. And for some period of time, for a number of years in this program, I continued to gamble. I sought out the gamblers in this fellowship. One day it came to me, this is not for you. Be happy and joyous and free. Do not be afraid. I prayed and I prayed and I cold turkey'd gambling. Sixteen years ago, I made my last bet. I don't gamble on anything. When I go into a club room or something and they're selling tickets, not to be a cheapskate, I will buy one and hand it to the next person and say, I hope you win because I don't want it. I know it would be like the first drink to me. Now, a number of years later, I went into the hospital and the doctor came to me and says, Gene, did you know that 60% of your lungs were shot? They were irreversible, that you have emphysema. And if you keep on smoking those cigarettes, I won't give you six months.
I said, doctor, I enjoy this way of life. I would like to stay around a little longer and I have quit smoking cigarettes. I quit. The doctor says, I hear this all the time. I said, well, I have a program that anything that is good for me, I can use and it will work. And he says, tell me what it is. I said, I don't want to embarrass the program. Call me a year from now and I'll tell you. I have not smoked a cigarette since April 1981 and I'm still able to breathe and I'm here tonight. I don't know how much today, I don't know how much alive I am, but I'm here. Just because of this program, anything that I have ever asked for, truly, I have received. I have learned a long time ago not to want anything because I am provided. I am provided with everything that I need and I accept the fact that I am provided. I was to Founders Day down in Akron several weeks ago, such a joyous experience. I went home so happy and so elated and telling those people in Florida, I said, those people up in Akron have got that AA and they said, well, we know it. But I said, you'll have to go back again, it's wonderful. Now, about this fourth step, and I want to end it with this, I continue to take this fourth step because when I took it the first time, I was nuttier than a fruitcake. I am getting a little better.
And as the years go by, things come into my mind that is still lurking and that's subconscious. And I have now developing on my birthday, AA birthday, I take the fourth step again and my all the changes that you, that I find in myself, there is a little growth, a little more happiness, a little more understanding of why I am here and I will continue it. Now, the 10th step, I use that as a step that helps me maintain my daily sobriety, but it doesn't ferret out the things that are down inside of me and inherit with me and it came with my emotional, physical disease. I would advocate anyone that hasn't taken the fourth step to take it because the truth sets you free, then after that, it's all uphill. Ladies and gentlemen, I love you. Thank you for asking me here and a wonderful convention. Thank you.
Thank you, Jean. Thank you for sharing your joyous feelings and experiences. It's a really
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nice talk. Let's see. Step five is admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs and we have a lovely lady from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. This is Marcia. Let's give Marcia a hand. Thank you. My name is Marcia and I'm an alcoholic. I come from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. If you can say Saskatoon, Saskatchewan properly, you're sober today. It's a great privilege to be here. It's a great pleasure to be here with these thousands and thousands of us. My husband is also in the program and he can't go where there's any smoke now, but he got up here yesterday to find out where this room was and he delivered me here today. He belongs to a group in Saskatoon called the Fresh Air Group. They don't smoke, they don't drink, they don't take drugs. There's only one thing left to give up and I hope they don't start a group for that. Fourteen years ago, next month, I met my husband in the alcoholism treatment center in Saskatoon. Sometimes I meet old friends. We've been married now, it'll be 12 years this coming October. Sometimes I meet old friends that I haven't seen for years and they say, where did you meet Roy? So I always say, well, the alcoholism center called or sent her. Just like in a bar, only more advanced. But some of them do take a bit of a double take, but that's their problem, not mine. I didn't get into this center by my personality or my good looks or my position in life. I got into this center because I have been teaching school. I've been widowed since 1958 and I had been teaching school since then. I taught school during my marriage too because my husband was ill for seven years. And then after my husband died, I had the opportunity to go to Germany and teach with the Canadian Armed Forces. And teachers in the Canadian Armed Forces live in the officer's mess. And if you have any tendency to become an alcoholic, you prove it there. A bottle of veal, 40 ounces, $2.50. Rye and water, 10 cents. Wanted to have ginger and go all out, it was 15.
So the potential alcoholic really got going there. And I finished my two years and came back to Saskatchewan. And at that time I would say my tolerance, as they say in alcohol, talking about alcoholism was a way up here. But after 61, it began to go down and I was drinking alone a lot. Still working though, not missing any school. But being the widow, I lived alone and I didn't do anything very exciting. When you get into your 40s, there are not that many men around that are eligible. And you spend a little bit of time running around with men that are not eligible.
And that is not a very good idea because it causes you to have a knot in your stomach of worry and anxiety and fear because you know you're doing what you ought not to be doing because your whole bringing up did not, was not any teaching along those lines. But if you drank lots of rye, it killed this feeling in the stomach. And gradually I finally, because of depression and a very bad back, I went off teaching. And the doctor in Regina, where I was living at that time, suggested that I go up to university and get two more years university and then I'd have my degree. I had two years of university at that time which gave you a standards teaching certificate. So I went up to Saskatoon where the university was and I went to intercession in May and then I enrolled again for the summer school. And while I was there, I stayed with very old friends and I used to drink in my
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room. And my friend would offer me tea and coffee on the patio after dinner at night and I, that was fine. That was lovely. But I didn't offer her any rye in my bottom drawer of my, I had come to the point where that was my rye, it costs money, and I do all this drinking by myself. Presuming they don't know a thing about it, of course. And then I, when I went to Saskatoon, I had to go to the doctor that the doctor in Regina recommended because I was on night pills. I wasn't on tranquilizers. Thank God no doctor ever put me on Valium. Anyway, this, I had to go to this doctor in Saskatoon and he was the first doctor that ever said to me, do you drink? And with all the honesty of the practicing alcoholic, I said, I have one before supper and one before bed. I didn't tell him it was a tumbler, you know what I mean? We are so honest, aren't we? But you know, some reason or other, he never batted an eyelash. So during the summer school, my friends chose to go way down to somewhere in the States to a Job's Daughter's Convention, of all things, and I had this house all to myself. I had a nice big cool rumpus room in the basement, great big television, bathroom in the basement, everything you need for a practicing alcoholic. And then I started having a drink before I went to class in the morning. Now I had never drank before I went to class in the morning. I had drank Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings, but teaching school, you don't drink before you go to school either. School boards don't seem to like that. But I suddenly started having a drink and then going off to university and coming home. And then when my friends went away, when I was hiding my bottles in the garbage disposal behind the beauty parlor, you don't put them in your friend's garbage. And when I went, they went away, and I was down in that rumpus room, and I had missed my class that morning. And all of a sudden, this weary widow said to herself, I, I can't stop drinking because there's no one here to watch me, or no one here to hide from. And I phoned that doctor, and I said, this is Mrs. Wadsworth, that was my name at the time, and I said, could you put me somewhere where I can't drink? He said, yes, I can put you in the university hospital. Well, at my age, when my friends go to the hospital, it's D&C, hysterectomies, and they wait for weeks, months to get in the hospitals. Gallbladder. So I went out and bought two forties to wait. I was gonna be happy waiting. Phoned the university, canceled off, and with no consideration at all, I phoned the very next day at noon with my bed. Dear, fast, when there's something like this. I'd only had half a 140 drink, I don't think it was, and that's the last drink I ever had. So I get my little suitcase, and I loan my little car to my girlfriend's nephew next door. Up to the university hospital I go. Now, I'd never entered my head where I would be in this hospital. Well, I knew I wouldn't be in pediatrics or obstetrics, but I'd never quite figured out where I'd be. I never thought of it. Well, about 20 minutes, you know you're on the, we call it the psych ward, and people are a little different. But I had made this decision, and they kept me there for 10 days, and they gave me a very thorough medical, and they said, for your age, madam, you're all, you're in quite good health. They always have to qualify everything, don't they? So then they said, you know, we have a, an alcoholism center in Saskatoon. Would you like to go there? I thought, well, I've come this far, maybe I better. So I was admitted to the, we call it Calder now, it didn't have that name, and it was a several floors in the old nurse's residence of Grey Nun's Hospital. And, but they didn't have bedrooms there. They didn't use the bedrooms there yet. So we stayed in a funny old house downtown called Hope Haven. Doesn't that sound like a home for wayward girls? But anyway, there were four women in one room with little beds and little dressers, and then there was 13 men. And the fire escape was through our room, and I used to play for fire, but we never had one. But anyway, we went up to this center every day, took the streetcar up, or the transit, the bus, and they had films and lectures and a counselor, and they gave us the whole bit about alcoholism.
And Calder Center is very AA-orientated too.
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So it's very, you know, we were taken out to AA meetings. At night, people came and picked us up. So when I got out, I stayed my 28 days, and then when I got out of the center, they said, now you go to AA. They didn't suggest AA. They said, you go to AA. Well, of course, this man that I'm married to now, he didn't have a car or a driver's license. The only thing he had going for him, he didn't have any debt.
His first wife had divorced him for alcoholism, nothing else. So anyway, he didn't have a car. Somebody had to see that he got to the meetings, now didn't they? So he was living in one place, and I was living in another, and I'd pick him up, and away we'd go, and we went to every meeting in town. And at that time, there were about 60 meetings in total. At Saskatoon, all the meetings, except the Saturday night welcome group, are closed-step meetings.
Welcome group, they have speaker meetings. And a few groups in town, once a month, or some once a year, have a speaker meeting. So at every meeting you went to, you were on the steps. I joined the ladies' group, and I still belong to the new life ladies' group. When I went, it was very small. Now we have over 30 members and sometimes 50 ladies there, and we split three ways. And we range in age from 20 to infinity.
And there's one of our members 27 years sober, and she still comes to our meeting. And I listened to her at first, and she used to say, all I did at first was ask God for help in the morning, and thank him at night. And I hung on to that. And I went to a lot of these mixed meetings, because I'm with this man, you know, you've got to look after him, don't you? And I had a small income, and the people at the center got me volunteer work to keep me out of mischief.
I think being unemployed is hard if you're trying to sober up, but I had this volunteer work to do, and that kept me busy in the day. But I had to go back for six weeks up to that center, two afternoons a week, spend the afternoon, listen to lectures, and occasionally see my counselor. And she had a thing going about this fourth and fifth step. And also at one of the meetings that we used to go to, there was a man named Wally.
He's been sober 17 years now, but at that time he'd only been sober a couple of years. And every time they came to the fifth step, when anybody was talking on the fifth step, he'd say, you know, I didn't do that for about three years, and I didn't want to do it. So he used to try to figure out all the meetings in town, like Monday night, now that one was on the fourth step last week, I better not go there this week, I better go to the other meeting over there, on that side of town, because they're not on the fifth step this week.
But you know, it often keeps you awful busy trying to figure out what groups are going to hit the fourth and fifth steps, because once in a while they have a first step a couple of times, because there's new people, you see. So poor Wally got so confused, and kept drinking, which didn't help his confusion, that he finally decided, maybe I'd better do the damn thing. And he did it. And I remember listening to him.
Wally says that's what kept him sober. I mean, other people were there, obviously sober and done it, but he was the one that told about this. And then this counselor's on my back, you see. So I thought, uh-huh, I know what I'll do. I'll do it. And I'll make my appointment for my fifth, and then I'll do my fourth. And so I did. I made my appointment for my fifth, and I sat down and I did my fourth, and I did it under the headings fear, resentment, and sex.
And I did it to the best of my ability, and I won't even sober maybe three months by this time, maybe nearly four. But I did it to the best of my ability. And then I went to the man that I was supposed to do my fifth step with. He was a clergyman. They suggest a clergyman. And I did my fifth step with him, and he was knowledgeable about fifth step. And I came away from there, and I know you're supposed to go off by yourself somewhere and do the sixth and seventh, and I was always mixed up.
I went over to my aunt's, and she was moving from her house that she lived in for, I don't know, 35 years into a high-rise because her husband had died. And I went over there and had lunch with her. But I've many times done the sixth and seventh since.
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Now, the man that spoke before me, he said he does one every year, a fourth step. And I have never done another one. And I go to many meetings, and I hear, you know, as I say, our meetings are still, we have 50 meetings in town now, but they're all step-oriented. And maybe I should do another one. I hear people saying it. But I don't have that feeling in the stomach anymore that it takes a drink or ride to get rid of it.
I'm not fearful anymore. I'm not, I'm a little bit anxious once in a while, like if you're going to get that metro when the bus comes to the end of the line, you know, for a few things going on around here. I'm not anxious that I lie away at night about anything. And I'm happily married to the sexist, doesn't have to be worried about. So, maybe, but I'm thinking about it more and more. Now, this Molly, this lady that's been sober 27 years, she has only done one, two.
But many people here at the different meetings have done more. And if I get too anxious or I get fearful again, I'll probably do another one. There's no law that says you can't. Have I time for a little story before I stop? You know how wonderful AA is? Of course, we know it here in Montreal. And my husband and I, in 1978, we went to Europe. It's amazing how much money you get together after you're sober.
And he has relatives in Norway. His father comes from Norway, but his mother is Irish. So he doesn't speak Norwegian. You know, none of the Canadian cousins or brothers and sisters speak Norwegian because it wasn't spoken in the home. But anyway, when we went to Europe, of course, I had been there a lot and teaching there and traveled a lot, but we thought we would spend one week in Norway and, as my husband's mother told us, where to write.
And they were very, very hospitable. We got up to Oslo and then out to this valley they came from. And every first cousin in the valley had us for something to eat or a coffee or a dinner. And then his uncle… The couple that we stayed with, the wife spoke quite a bit of English. She had gone to night school. And the high school children that were there, they take English in school, which is about the way I speak high school French.
But the wife spoke quite clearly and understood quite well if I spoke slowly. And I'm not known for speaking slowly, but I sure slowed down. In fact, one night we were getting ready to go to bed and, you know, you've been traveling for three or four weeks and you're getting your suitcases all arranged again. And I said to my husband, do you have your clean shorts and socks out for tomorrow? He thought I was having a stroke right there.
It was just that I'd got this way of speaking. Well, anyway, we'd been there about three mornings and we always had breakfast because we stayed overnight at this place. And they were… Our hostess was talking about another cousin of my husband's that had been over a year or two before. And they'd given him something very strong to drink and he'd asked for mix. And they'd learned the word mix. You obviously know this other cousin's not an alcoholic because who in our fellowship ever worried about mix?
But anyway, as far as amount of mix and the word mix. So anyway, she was quite happy she'd learned this word, you see. So that was my opening to tell her that we don't drink. We hadn't had anything offered us to drink so we hadn't arisen. So anyway, we're sitting around the breakfast table. I said, Roy and I used to drink whiskey. But we used to drink too much whiskey. So now we belong to a fellowship of people called Alcoholics Anonymous.
My hostess looked at me very brightly and she said, Now we call that A.N.R.V. That was worth it. Thanks, Marsha. Okay, we have step number six. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Next will be Al H. from Manhattan and he's from the Murray Hill Group.
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Let's give Al a nice hand. Thank you, Beth. The only reason Beth knows that is I've seen buses all over this city that say Murray Hill. Every time I've seen them, I've boasted about my group, that they came up by bus. They did not. My name is Al and I'm an alcoholic. I'm having a lovely time here in Montreal. It's funny, I thought, there was a point in my progression in alcoholism where I was quite certain I was a loner.
And I, most all the alcoholics I know reached a point in their alcoholism where they decided they were a loner. And I understand we have something like 44,000 loners up here having a tremendous time with each other. I think I'll qualify a little bit. I drank socially for quite a few years. My wife and I, my ex-wife and I, actually used to sit down and have one martini before dinner for a long time.
And finally, when I was in my late 20s, my wife and I separated and eventually divorced. And I was working freelance at that time, so I worked at home. I had very few friends. And I found that I could form what I thought were friendships in bars. And that's when, really, when my alcoholic drinking started. And it progressed. Not fast, but it did progress. And eventually I reached the point where I was unable to go out at all because I didn't know what was going to happen.
And so I became the loner I mentioned before. I stayed at home. I worked at home. I called the liquor store and I called the grocery store. And I could go days without going out. And I suspect very strongly that if I could have maintained that level of drinking, I'd still be out there, unhappy as that life was. And it was a miserable life. I didn't see people. I needed three martinis to get up enough courage to go to the A&P.
If a client said, come in to see me, I went in a panic. I'd have to drink like crazy. And then I'd go and sit down and the client would give me a job. And I'd go home and I'd pick up the phone and call his secretary to try and find out the job I'd just been given. And that was the life that I seemed ready to settle for. I had a lot of relationships during the… I did not remarry, but I had a lot of relationships during the period before I was a loner.
And I like to tell one story about one of those relationships because they all reached a point where we just drank together. That's all. And I had reached this point with this young lady and we were spending a weekend fighting and drinking. It was just about it. And we finally wound up at home fighting and drinking. And the young lady said, you know, if I had a gun, I'd put a bullet in your head. And I said, well, there's a German souvenir pistol over there in the drawer underneath my underwear.
And she went and got it out. And I said, the safety's right on the left. You just flick it up. And she did. And I said, all right, go ahead. And she did. She missed, obviously she missed me. I'm starting to think. I think probably the state she was in, the safest place I could have been was right in front of her, which is where I was. Well, anyway, it made a big noise in the apartment and it seemed like a nice way to end the argument.
So we kissed and made up and went to bed. Unfortunately, the slug went out the window and across the street in somebody else's apartment. Manhattan apartments are very close. And she called the cops. And it took them a long while to figure out the trajectory and all that, but they did. So the result was the next morning, my girlfriend was in jail, I was in jail, and our picture was on page three of the New York tabloid.
I think they called me Ricochet Romeo. I think they called me Ricochet Romeo, which is really the only reason I tell that story.
[00:45:06]
But anyway, I was in analysis at that time. I was going to an analyst two or three times a week, depending on how much money I was making. And he and I sat down and discussed that event for about three or four weeks, I think. You know, was I trying to commit suicide? Whatever it was. But not once during that entire three or four weeks did anybody mention the fact that she was drunk and I was drunk.
And we had been drunk for the whole weekend. Being drunk was not my problem. Being drunk was not why I was going to analysis. As a matter of fact, being drunk was going to be something I could continue to do as long as I went to analysis. And when I finally got all my head cleared up, I wouldn't have to drink anymore. It didn't work that way. Eventually I stopped analysis because I couldn't afford it anymore.
I stopped having relationships because I didn't want to get shot at anymore. Unfortunately, that young lady, the relationship did not survive that event. But we did remain friends. And I was in the program about two years and she called me and she said, Will you please take me to one of those meetings? And I took her to one or two meetings. And it was too late. She died about three weeks later of cirrhosis of the liver.
And she weighed about 75 pounds when she died. And I saw her right through to the end. And she was in her late thirties. It was sad, very sad. Well, I had reached this point where I was alone. I drank in the apartment. I worked in the apartment. I don't know whether I ate or not. And what happened, I got a couple of big jobs. And I knew that if I was going to complete these jobs, I couldn't drink at all.
So I remember setting up the big, long folding table I had, like the ones they use here, and putting the jobs out and mixing myself a drink. And now, which order will I do these jobs in? And about two weeks later, the jobs were exactly where I had put them. And I was still mixing myself a drink. And I don't know what happened during those two weeks. I don't know whether I ate, whether… I know that I drank as soon as I woke up.
I drank until I passed out. That's all I know. Sometimes it took 12 hours. Sometimes it took 15 minutes. I really don't… I'm very hazy about that. And at the… I finally woke up one morning and I knew I cannot even go back to drinking the way I did a month ago. And that… I was frightened. I was really more frightened than I've ever been in my life. And I called AA, about which I knew nothing. And they said, come on down and talk to us.
And I did. And they said… They indicated to me that if I started going to these meetings, I probably wouldn't drink anymore. And that was so amazing, so unbelievable to me, that I think that that was a catalyst, in a sense, for everything that has happened since. Because if they could be so right about something that I could be so wrong about… Because, of course, I knew they were wrong. I couldn't stop drinking.
I'd go to the meetings. All right, I'll be nice. Because they were people. And I hadn't seen people in a long time. And they were being nice to me. And I thought I owed them that, anyway. And they were right. And I was wrong. And I just… That opened all sorts of doors to me. It opened the doors to the steps. Because I could be wrong about other things. I was the kind of person who I had my whole life figured out.
I was pretty brainy. And I had gone to analysis for five years. So, really, nobody could tell me much about Al Hur, anyway. And these people told me a lot about Al Hur that I knew absolutely nothing about. And it has been… That was about 15 years ago. And I haven't had a drink since. And as far as the steps, specifically the sixth step, my sponsor tried to explain the steps to me. He said, Suppose we say the first hundred people sat down and somebody said to them, How did you stay sober?
And they thought about it for about a year. And then they came up with this one paragraph. Like, he said, There's a way of looking at the steps. Leave the numbers out. And just say now, It's an answer to the question, How did you stay sober? And then you would read off all twelve steps. And I have held on to that in a sense that
[00:50:03]
rather than take one step and then go to the next, I guess I have taken all the steps continuously. And the idea that there was even room for improvement was a change of life for me. And I think it was for a lot of you too. So don't laugh at me. But it was for me anyway that I was susceptible to change and that I could become a happier, better person through these efforts. And really, there was one point where I was taking the steps where I had kind of an idea it was going to be like those TV commercials where the kid comes home from the football game with mud all over his jersey and the mother throws it in the machine and it comes out sparkling white.
And that has not happened with me. I mean, it's relative, is what has happened to me. I'm relatively less resentful than I was before. I'm relatively less prone to grandiosity than I was a year before I took the sixth step. I constantly leave myself open for improvement in specific areas. And sometimes I see it and sometimes there's absolutely no improvement at all. But that's not really in my hands.
So I just say, I'll do it again next month. And I am living a very happy, rewarding life now. I've been to, this is the third convention I've been to and I love these conventions. I I come up jaundiced about them. I come up, well, there are too many people. There were too many people last night at that thing. It's funny, I was telling my co-speakers, I'm from New York and I'm very used to the Seventh Avenue subway in New York and since I've been in this town, I've been here since last Sunday, people have been telling me, you have to try this subway.
And if you're from New York, the idea of going down as a tourist to see what a subway is like is crazy. But last night I did. And last night it was just like I was on the Seventh Avenue subway. So I'm not going to try the subway again if I can possibly avoid it. But again, there is something else that I have to accept things. Nobody in this program has ever said to me, you should work on your ego a little bit or you should work on your temper a little bit.
What has happened is I have gone to meetings and I've heard people talk about the things that they are trying to get over. And I cannot avoid trying to get over those same things. I can't sit in a meeting and not have myself affected by what's going on at the meeting, by what the people are saying that they're trying to do themselves. It's inspiring to be in a meeting. And certainly it's inspiring to be in a meeting with 42,000 people.
It's crowded too, but it's inspiring. And I don't think I have anything else to say, but thank you very much for letting me share with you. Thank you. Thank you, Al. Thank you, Marcia. And thank you, Jean. Those were really terrific talks. I told you when we started out that I'm Beth from Chicago, and I'm really very, very pleased to be here. And Al talked about this is, what did you say, your third convention?
Third international convention. This is my seventh international convention. And I came into AA in January 1956 in Chicago. And in 1960 we went to the first convention out in Long Beach, and in 65 it was Toronto. Bill Wilson was still alive and well and moving around, and a lot of the other old-timers. So I feel very privileged to, you know,
[00:55:01]
one time I shook Bill Wilson's hand. I still never quite, you know, I took that hand home for a long time and didn't let anything else touch it. And to be here now when, I don't know, there are all kinds of rumors that we had a registration of 50,000, 70,000. It'll be interesting to hear what they have to say Sunday morning about what the registration really is. But we were really a large group in Long Beach, but in a sense we were a small group but a large group if you put it in comparison with what we have today.
And I never dreamed when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous that I would be here in Montreal, this wonderful city, with all you wonderful people. I was one of these drunks that, like the previous speakers were talking about, insanity and insanity. I think I was insane very shortly after I was born. And Al talked about having a few years of social drinking. I didn't have any social drinking. I was a falling down drunk right from the very beginning.
I'm amazed that I drank for about 14 years before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a real crazy, crazy lady when I came here. I'd been locked up in all kinds of mental hospitals. They didn't have the treatment centers like they have today. And it's been very good to be here this morning and hear these steps, to have these three fine people share their experiences and their feelings about the steps.
Just to kind of sum it up, I always have to, you know, egomaniac, I always have to put in my two cents too. When I think of the fourth step, I think of it as the beginning of a process. I had never really looked at myself. I never had any way to look at myself. Alcoholics Anonymous not only gave me a life that I know I would not have had if it had not been for you fine people, but it gave me a way to live, a way to think, a method and a process of living.
And everything began to start for me with this fourth step. I was very reluctant to become involved with it, but taking an inventory, and then to have someone to share these things with and the playback and the feedback and the beginning of opening up, that was what the fifth step was for me. At the time that I came in, most everybody took these steps like once and that was it, but for me it's been an ongoing process.
I like your idea, Gene, of doing this every year on your birthday. I think it comes kind of natural because when it is our AA birthday, you kind of look back about where you have come from. And then I've always thought that the sixth step, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. It looks like such a short little step and that there's not a great deal to it, but the longer I'm around and the more I listen, the more I think that a great deal of our program really turns on the sixth and the seventh step.
They're really kind of sneaky because they're sort of small, but there's a great deal that comes out of them. Thank you again for sharing all the good information that you put out in these last three steps. We have a microphone up here, and anyone that would like to share anything on these three steps or would like to share any of their feelings about the conference or something like that, please step up.
You can just step up here to the microphone. I'm Dan Hazelwood. I'm an alcoholic from Indianapolis. Hi, Dan. I want to share a few things about the fourth, fifth, and sixth step that happened in my experience. You know, in this convention and in this room, we have people from various periods of recovery, from 30 days to in excess of 30 years, and there's some things that I'd like to share about the fourth, fifth, and sixth step.
If I knew in my first 30 days of sobriety what I know today, I would have done things differently. I would have selected a sponsor that knew the big book word for word, backwards and forwards. I made a mistake by getting the wrong sponsor early on, and when I did my first four-step inventory, I did something that I regret tremendously, and that is I wrote down a four-step inventory and it was very, very extensive, pages and pages and pages, and I took a fifth step with a guy that was…
I wanted to, and I destroyed that four-step inventory, and I regret that very, very much, because I later discovered in the big book there's a sentence that almost tells me not to do that. The sentence is, we refer to the list, meaning our four-step inventory, because it holds the key to the future. That's the thing that's going to start my process of recovery. I can't work a ninth step without… I can't work a ninth step without a four step inventory on paper. I destroyed my first four step and I'm sorry I did it. Since that time, I've taken a number of four step inventories.
Each time I take those inventories on paper, I write less and less. There's not as much
[01:00:04]
paper as there was in the one before and I keep them. And something very, very beneficial happened as a result of my keeping those four step inventories. A fellow asked me to be his sponsor and one Sunday evening, he called suicidal and in bad trouble. And he was saying some things that I recognized as being in myself when he was, when I was that far along in recovery. And I said, wait a minute. I said, before you kill yourself, I want to read something to you. So I went and got my four step inventory and I read it to him over the telephone of what I had written about myself. And that's exactly the way he was thinking it was. And he said, you know, that's, that's it. That's, that's how I feel. That's exactly how I feel. And I told him, I said, Dave, I said, that's where I was, where you are right now. I said, there's hope you've got to go on. And so I keep all my four steps and I've also made another policy that when somebody asked me to be their sponsor, if they do a written four step inventory, and if they do a fifth step with me at some point after that, after I think they're ready, I will do a fifth step with them. I will tell them my story and read my inventory to them so that they know that we are alike. You know, we're not different. We are the same. Another thing I want to share about the fourth and fifth step is my second fourth step that I took was pretty extensive. And I list, I went back, it was almost an autobiography. I went back and listed every human being I could think of that I had harmed in some way and all the incidences in my life and things that I had done, as I think a lot of us do. I took a fifth step with a guy. We talked for a long time and I learned an awful lot just sharing with him. And he said something to me at the conclusion that I've never forgotten. He said, Dan, he says, that's not an inventory, that's a confession. And that's what I had done, was a confession. I had not done an inventory, which prompted me to go back and do what the big book says to do, is to take an actual inventory of, you know, morally and immorally of me and why did I react in the ways that I did. And the last thing I want to share is what I understood about the sixth step.
You know, I didn't understand that step for a while. It sort of just seemed to be stuck in there. You know, it seemed like it just sort of provided a transition from step five to step seven. I didn't quite understand it and it finally hit me one time exactly what it was. And I understood it when I was reading the Bible and the Gospel of Luke and reading the story of the prodigal son. And I realized that on my four-step inventory on paper that I had written was my inheritance from God. This is what I had done with my entire life.
That God had given me this beautiful gift of life and here on this paper was what I had done with my gift. I had wasted it among the swine, as the prodigal son had done. And I wanted to go home to my father. And my father, God, like the father in the story of the prodigal son, saw me coming from a long way off. And he was so happy to see me that I didn't have to do penance. He said, let's go and make merry and kill the fatted calf for my precious son has come home. He is dead and is alive. And that's what the sixth step meant to me.
I had taken this gift of life and wasted it and I wanted to change. I wanted to go home to my father. I wanted to be in the bosom of my father and in the love of my father and I wanted to be a different human being. And that's what I did. And that's what I believe started my process of recovery was the sixth step. I tell people today where I'm from in Indianapolis, if you're looking for a sponsor and you don't know who to ask, pick out people at random that you think you might want to be your sponsor and ask them to explain to you the sixth step. If they can explain to you the sixth step, jump onto it. That's the sponsor you want to have because that's where your recovery begins. The first five steps are nothing more than your history. That's all it is. Nothing more. If you want to recover from alcoholism and if you want to have a spiritual life and a conscious contact with God, you begin at step six after you've taken the first five, of course. That's where the recovery begins because there's been no changes up until that point. No changes at all. Those are my experiences and I'm going to share them. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing. There was a gentleman back here that had his hand up before. Good morning. My name is Gene and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Gene. And I thank God and the members of A for my sobriety and I'd like to thank Beth and Gene and I don't know the other two. Marsha and Ed. Marsha and Ed for sharing on the 12 steps. I thank God and the members of A for my sobriety
[01:05:01]
up to this moment along with the hope that I can stay sober, live sober and enjoy sobriety for the rest of my life a day at a time without the first drink. And it's always right now. Now is the longest time that I have to stay sober and to use these 12 steps and keep an eye on the drunk that I'm carrying around. And that drunk came in here April 22, 1973 with a desire to stop drinking, the only requirement for membership. And I learned the most important piece of my knowledge the first meeting I went to. And I had to go on my own because the judge put me out of my house after my wife called me an alcoholic. My son split my skull open and I remember that because my sobriety starts with my last drunk. And they told me the most amazing thing that I have ever heard and that I will always need to know one day at a time always right now. If you don't pick up the first drink you can't get drunk. That was the answer to my drinking problem. But I got much more than that. They told me to come in here and admit and accept I'm an alcoholic. And being powerless over alcohol is only a reminder to me that I can't take the first one. It had nothing to do with me having any power because I found out in here I'm totally powerless. I'm as powerless today as I was the day I was born. I'm an extension of the day that I was born. I was totally powerless. These 12 steps let me know when I let go. Let go to the members of the fellowship who told me how to stay away from one drink a day at a time. That returned me to sanity because I'm not drinking. I avoid all of the hazards that come with a drink.
And then the third step said, my sponsor says, once you make the third step, the decision, you're on your way. He said you got 50% of it made when you admit and accept you can't drink. I don't care how long you live, you can't drink. It's the first one that sets that compulsion off, that mental obsession. One is too many a thousand, not enough. And I admitted that to him. And then I, you know, came to believe in the power and that's the people. And then I made that decision to turn my life and will over care. Now what that means to me is I took the alcohol and me, I'm the drunk. I took both of them and I said, God, on blind faith, you take care of both of these. And that allowed me to take a look at the stuff that was the underlying causes. I found out in the sixth step that my natural instincts gone astray makes me defective. And I go crazy. I call people up, tell people off and all of that. And what happened is that I looked at the big book and they told me what to do. I think Gene said exactly what to do. And I say that my initial fourth step was just a matter of me opening up my mind to the underlying causes of my drinking, the seven deadly sins. And I took them, wrote two examples of each one, seven assets, three of the worst things I did. And I shared it with my sponsor. He said, that's all you need just to get started because the meetings are the extension of my inventory. All I have to do is come here and listen to you. The spirituality of identification means that you are exactly like me. You suffer from the same disease, got the same emotions. And all I have to do is come here day after day and listen to the life I went through and didn't manage too well and drank besides. Yeah. So I come here to identify where I came from, what I'm doing here, and especially to identify with recovery. See, that's the whole package to me. So the first three steps says I came and I joined a group of drunks, G-O-D. They gave me some good orderly direction, G-O-D. And that led to a God of my understanding, G-O-D. So I let go and let God. And he says, now take a look at the stuff you didn't handle too well. I never smiled when I was angry. Yeah. When I had fears, you know, I didn't smile. And when I had resentments, I didn't smile. So in other words, I know the wisdom to know the difference today between a good feeling and a bad feeling. The simplicity of it is to know when I'm using my thinking, which kept me drinking, and to know when I'm in trouble, I'd be aware of my trouble, accept it, and then the action is to call on God, humbly ask him to remove it. The seventh step, jump ahead a little bit. But the sixth step told me, are you ready to have God remove all these defects of character that I found in the fourth step? Yeah, I sure am, because I want to stay sober. Yeah. So when I find them out, when I just get ready to be changed, mood changes, people play, I got to be aware of self, react to the feeling, not to people, places, and things. So surrender, clean up, keep up, simply means I come to meetings to continue to be aware of the drunk that I brought in here, and of course the gratitude is to know my last drunk and where I am now. You see, and right now, this is the sum total of my entire life, and all I have to know is God can, I can, and I'm going to let him. Thank you very much.
[01:10:00]
My name is William Farran, I'm an alcoholic. Hi William. I'm grateful to God, this fellowship, its principals, and all you folks for being here. And I've heard some pretty good stuff, very good stuff. And he talks about the now, and that's where it's at. When you feel funny, that's when one of your sixes or sevens are up in your face right then, all the time. And that means that you're running the show. Your fourth step has your fifth, your sixth, your seventh, your eighth, and your ninth in it. Your sixth and your seventh were you before you picked up the drink, it was why you were drinking, and it's why you are now.
I know that when I do think, really, most of the time it's about something I don't like and I want to change, and that's when I'm out of myself. That's when I'm running the show and that's when those character defects arise. Like it tells us, the sixth step, it separates the men from the boys. It tells us about being a braggart but you won't do this. Talks about being a lust but you won't rape a woman. It talks about all those things and what extent you go to. I remember I never would have been a thief. I never did steal too much or I would have stole more, but I was just scared. I was just scared. That's always from my point of view why I wouldn't do certain things. But I know that when I do think, and it was just too much, it's my will is in the way. It's my will. Whenever I want something, it's my will most of the time and that's when I get upset. That's when we all get upset, when we really start thinking. And if we don't think, and this is most of the time, but the things that we do generally, we don't have to think about them. I don't care what kind of job you got, oh if you got a layout job or something like that, but I mean generally we don't have to think to do anything. But when we start, that's when we attempt to run the show. I try my best to stay in it now and I realize that what I think about is not enough. It's not enough. I'm so grateful that I came and see all these people. You say 42,000 and I'm one of them, it's beautiful. It's good seeing all you folks and thanks.
I'm Bob, an alcoholic from New York. Hi Bob. I want to say my experience is that I really can't lose by making mistakes. Once I made that decision to turn my life and will over to God and the AA way of life, it really doesn't matter what I do afterwards. There are no fatal mistakes. I remember taking the fourth step according to how people told me to do it and how I read about it in a book and I threw it in the East River and that was fine for me. The fourth step was supposed to make me free and that made me free and that's what I felt. I really don't think I have to be reminded of my past. Once I wrote it down, I realized I knew it. I knew who I was to the degree that it was given to me then. I don't have to go back to an old view of myself to find out who I am now. There's a pressure that builds in me from just living in an AA way that tells me the next step and leads me to it. I don't have to have a plan or a diagram the way I used to have to live my life. It's really more spontaneous than it's ever been before because it comes from inside as well as outside. There are no serious mistakes that matter anymore. Thank you.
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Lise. I'm from Montreal and I'm an alcoholic. I would like to share with you what happened to me. It took me a few months to write my fourth step and I had a good sponsor. She was 13 years in AA and she said that she was going to write when you will find the person who will be right, you'll see, you'll know about it. So what I did, after two months of writing, I put it on my fridge, and I left it there.
[01:15:01]
And I've been going to meeting, eight meetings a week, and I felt so bad. And one Sunday morning, I went to one meeting, and I was crying. And going to the meeting, I thought that the sky was going to fall on my head. So I told the member there, I said, something is funny, I said, I felt so strange, I said, it's like if the sky is going to fall on my head. So one guy was visiting from Toronto, and he said, Liz, he said, did you make your fourth and fifth?
I said, I wrote my fourth, it's on the fridge. Well, he said, it's not there. He said, you should take it and do it, do your fifth as soon as possible. But I didn't listen, and don't you ever do that. Because it's like walking around with your path on your shoulders, and it's heavy, I'm telling you. Because I was 45 years old when I came to the program, and I'm going to be three years soon. And now I'm going to be three years old, not 47 or 48.
But I just want to tell you that I went down the drain. I was not drinking, but after 15 months, I ended up in therapy. I had a spiritual bottom, you know, because I couldn't put God in my life. And what happened to me, a few people were my higher power. And I love you so much, I would have not gone to drink, but I would have killed myself. And I ended up in therapy. And I did, with my fourth that I took from my fridge, I did my fifth.
And it was the most beautiful experience that I ever lived. And I put it in the fireplace after, and I burned it. But it's because I had done my fourth, my fifth, it was the first time that I could look at myself. Everywhere I was wrong. All the patterns that follow me all my life, okay? I know now, because it's like when you bake a cake, and you miss something, and it doesn't go up. If somebody shows you what you missed, next time you be sure you put that ingredient in your cake.
Well, that's the way I saw my fourth. And today, I cannot say what I've got. I've got the most beautiful gift on earth. I'm reborn again, because I did my fourth and my fifth, honestly, as much as I could. Sure, I missed a few things, but that's okay, they told me, because God is a love of God. Then, I have to tell you about the sixth. After I finished my fifth, I was flying. I went to sleep, and I said, God, I love you so much, and I thank you so much to be in here.
And I had my spiritual beginning at the same time. And I said, tomorrow, I promise you, I'll be the best girl on earth. I'll be this, I'll be that, and I'll be… So I woke up, I went back with those people, we were all in Turkey, 18 people. And I was the worst girl on earth that day. I fight with all the girls. I was myself, and I saw it. I was aware of what was going on, that I was a human being, with the good and bad.
And there was nothing I could do about it, except, you know, to go to sleep and tell God, I could make it the way I thought I would be changing overnight. It was not true. So I went to sleep, and I said to God, please help me, because I cannot do nothing. So I woke up, and the next day in Turkey was the 6th and 7th step. And I was so happy that somebody taught about those steps, because I needed it.
And since that day, I leave it to God. It's a program for my lifetime. I don't want to change overnight. It's beautiful. And with people like you, you are my kind of people, I want to stay with you, and I thank you. Thank you, Luz. Thank you. I think we have time for one more person. Somebody back here had their hand up. Did he go away? She. Oh, it's good. My name is Sabine, I'm an alcoholic from Germany.
Hi, Sabine. When I came to AA, I did my first step, and it was not very hard for me. But then I tried to do the 12th step, and all the steps between step 1 and 12, they were for everybody else, but not for me. And so I was sober, but I was not very happy. Until three years ago, I traveled through the United States, and I went to many meetings. And at the end of my trip, I noticed that I did step 2 and step 3.
I didn't know how it happened, I just knew it did. And my life changed a lot after that. So when I came back to Germany, I took step 4, and I found myself a sponsor and took step 5. And now today, it's very important for me that I take the steps every day in my everyday life, because there are so many situations when my ego starts growing again, and my character defects start giving me a hard time.
So I really need to do it every day. And I feel very grateful, especially to the American AA, because it really changed my life.
[01:20:00]
Thank you. Thank you for being here. applause Someone came up and said that they left keys. They thought they left keys on a chair. Okay, there you go. Thank you. Thank you, Doc. laughter I started telling him nothing had been turned in, and I thought I better ask the crowd, you know. Thank you all for being here. It's been a real privilege to be part of this panel, and I loved meeting Gene and Marsha and Al, and thank you again for being here and being our speakers.
It was really very, very special. I'm filled with a great deal of gratitude to have an opportunity to participate in AA's 50th anniversary and to be here and be involved in all the festivities, and I know that part of our time is gone, but we have a lot of it left. If half is gone, we have another half left. So enjoy the rest of your time here, and thank you all for being here. This marathon step meeting will be adjourned for about an hour, and then we begin again after lunchtime with 7, 8, and 9.
So I hope those of you who are interested will come back. Let's see how they tell us to end all these things. If those who care to would join hands, and we'll close with the Lord's Prayer. The Lord be with you.