Welcome to restoring the soul, a podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. I'm your producer Brian Beatty. glad you've downloaded this edition of restoring the soul with Michael JOHN CUSICK. Now if you just found us, thanks so much for listening. And if you're a longtime supporter, we so appreciate the partnership and trust you're growing right along with us. Now, if you could do us a favor, we'd love to hear from you. Either a note of encouragement, a suggested guest or topic, or just let us know you're out there. You can drop us an email at info at restoring the soul.com That's info at restoring the soul.com or feel free to go over to Apple podcasts and leave us a glowing review. We sure would appreciate it. And while you're at it, tell a friend about the podcast.
Unknown:Now in today's program, I'm going to turn things over to your host Michael JOHN CUSICK, as we have something very special in store for you today.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Hey everybody, it is Michael and it's a special program today but I think I say that all the time. But today's guest on the program is my dad, James Edward Cusick, known better by those who loved him. As Jim Cusick who is going to be giving a 50 minute talk from speaking at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when he was 80 years old. This past summer, I was cleaning out some boxes, and I found a compact disc of my dad giving what is called an AAA lead. There are discussion meetings and then Speaker meetings. And he regularly gave his story at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And as I found this, there were several reasons why I wanted to share it with the podcast audience at restoring the soul. First of all, most of us will never have a chance to attend an AAA meeting or any other kind of 12 Step group. And this is a way of hearing kind of the meat of what happens at an AAA meeting. And if we have been to an AAA meeting, most of us won't have the opportunity to listen to an octogenarian tell his story of going from being a drunk to a relatively emotionally healthy man with a family of five. And then finally, I've been thinking a lot about the word legacy. And how when any of us does our healing work when one of us gets sober when one of us enters recovery when one of us goes to counseling, we often think just in terms of the benefits to us, but the impact is really multi generational. And so as you hear my dad share his story about being drunk over and over and arrested five different times while he was in the military.
Unknown:Just think about the idea of legacy. And if my dad hadn't gotten sober and beyond sobriety going on to really do the work of recovery, I probably wouldn't be speaking into the microphone right now and you wouldn't be listening to me and so for each of us may we have a new vision for how the little steps of obedience and alignment and restoration that we experience how those go out like a stone dropped into a pond with concentric circles in directions that we could just never know. And even in generational ways pouring out so with no further ado, here is my dad speaking at Alcoholics Anonymous on restoring the soul
Jim Cusick:Good evening friends
Unknown:garage boy sod my in the right place I think I need to say that I was and I am always be an alcoholic. I feel that in all parts of my body. I know. I know. That's true. I had an awful battle accepting my alcoholism. And before I say anything more. There's some people here I need to say thank you too. I had a car. I just moved up from Ohio last summer. I had a car Mercer, hi. I had an accident, and I hung up my driver's license. So a number of people got in BB, David and Maryland, Joe and Milea. And David and Marcela, the you're the ones that brought me here last summer, thank you. It's good to be here tonight, and to share my gift of sobriety. I love being sober. These are the happiest days of my life. As long as I stay in touch with sober people and keep my nose in the big book, and don't take their first drink, why? I'm gonna have uninterrupted sobriety. I don't want to change my sobriety date, I can tell you that. I had my last drink, and it 72. But it took me a long, long time. 15 or 20 years to get to 1972 I was exposed to AAA. In the 1950s. I had a brother who got sober 1957. It's clear, every Memorial Day. They've developed the tradition there. It started out with six guys. They met in a donut shop, they went to church, and they went for coffee and doughnuts, at a church thing was all about remembering the deceased members of AAA in that town, Cleveland. And over the years, it grew until they have it in a hotel dining room, or they did last time I was there. So in the late 50s, my brother had my number he knew I was an alcoholic. And he invited me to come to this memorial day meeting is to bring speakers in from the west coast, Jack Bailey. And a lot of celebrities put their own good messages. And I had the good fortune to be there. This is 5059. And I thought, gee, these this nice bunch of people, you know, they're like philosophers. They, they say all these cute things. A nice bunch of my brother gave me a stack of green points one time. And I thought, man, here's more of that philosophy. These are nice. But I never once associated, what the speaker at that memorial day meeting said, or the grapevine what it never never got through my defenses. Alcohol I know today, call me by the throat for a good long time. I kind of drained my way through high school, like a lot of kids did. And, by the way, I don't know about an hour or two they taught me in Cleveland, you can see the results after a half hour. I don't know what's going to happen. In high school, I was not an athlete, of not a good students kind of began a lifelong pattern of squandering my resources, such as I had any talent I had or money. Never. I never got anywhere. And I'll be very blunt with you. I never learned how to swim or dance football or golf. All I ever did was drink. I'm Irish. And I thought that's my tradition. You know, I'm supposed to drink. And it just fit right in with the fact that I was not a well rounded person socially. I was not. And there's a little suburb half hour away from the city I lived in. When I was 15. There was a beer in line join. They used to sell beer wine to people underage. And I spent many many evenings in that place became a pattern. When I got out of high school, I entered an apprenticeship in the printing trade. And I stayed there a while and there was an economic slowdown and I got laid off. So a friend and I friend we went to grade school together. We said you know some people say join the Navy to see the world but we we joined the Air Force. I found myself down in Texas very soon. For 13 weeks. Before I know without any technical training, they sent me overseas and they Maybe I would send me to school oversee, became an aircraft engine mechanic with the propellers. I never worked on a jet. I was on the island of Guam and the Pacific for one year. I gotta say that was a wasted year that you guys were prohibited. The all native villages were off limits. And not much to do except sit around and swap mosquitoes and prepare just about the time that by one year overseas tour was completed. And I was ready to come back to the US. That Korean War started. And I got moved to Clarke field in Manila. And, by the way, everywhere I went in the military. I got arrested for breaking out of an open container or brawling, plot a lot of things. I never got arrested for jaywalking, it was always everywhere I went, I was under Pacific two and a half years when I came home. I got arrested twice the first night home in San Francisco. Funny thing though, the surgeon who was running to jail, I went and bought a bottle of whiskey. I was gonna celebrate on very calm. And the military police, I guess they knew that area. And they were just watching. We came out the back door of the liquor store, poke the bottle open, we began drinking her comes MPs. And only water was the bottle they should get give us the bottle, we'll let you go. I couldn't do that found myself arguing with them. They don't have to argue. And they told me so. So they took the model and put me in jail. A couple hours. And one of the searches in jail was from Cleveland. And he recognized my serial number that I was from Ohio. So he kind of winked at me and he he lent me out. But I was not intoxicated. I just had one or two drinks and we got arrested. So I get out. But I went in a bar and said hello to a girl and there was a soldier sitting on the other side of her. He didn't like that. So I got involved in a bra. I got arrested again. So that's that's why two times in one night thing. You know, I wanted to say, I've been able to remember a little thing over the 24 hour book, it kind of dictates my life by feature when set upon the right path. I feel it in the depths of my being and going in the right direction. That's for December 28 out of our 24 hour book. I live by the referee comfortable letting the world know and letting me know. I no longer had to be convinced or came time to ask for help. I didn't do this intentionally. Are all my years kicking around in the Pacific getting arrested. I tried to steal a train once I did electric train, it wouldn't go or I would have I was working for navy. Another gi he had a civilian pilot's license. But he was a hawk sergeant. Here's a mechanic. He wasn't a pilot. And they were some see 4730 years old, two wheel prop jobs. He said let's go for a ride. And we got in this thing. And we both had taxi cars. We could taxi the aircraft from maintenance down to the terminal but no we weren't allowed to fly them. But he said let's go for a ride and he began going down the runway. And I thought he was going to take off but at the last minute he realized better not do this go back to The 24 hour book again, a lot of us probably read the 24 hour book today, I just came out on two senses. It only takes a minute. But this, this is so, so profound. And so it means a lot more than anything that I'm going to say tonight. And by the way, you know, I never figured out anything, how to get here, what to do, I forgot, I never figured out anything was all given to me, by God, as I understand him, and all you good people, you sober people. Again, this is from today's meditation in our little book book, where God's Spirit is, there is your home. There is heaven for you. And I like that warms my heart. So I got sent up to Tokyo to go to school, and I went to a lot of tech schools on the island of Guam. So I did my work for a while. But when I really got got cranked up with my drinking, I didn't I didn't do my work and push it on somebody else. Lots of times, we work different shifts. And if I were three to 11, I'd have a case of beer or two in the airplane. all evening long, I'd never, very seldom did anything. What happened was I understand today in the military, if people have a problem drinking or drugging, they confront them, and they put them in treatment. But I was in from 1948 to 1952. And it was no confronting that they just they looked the other way. I had a lot of people call me, my friends. A lot of NCOs, who I worked under. Those were not tech sergeant and a bear. He lived in the same barracks. I did. And I worked for him on an afternoon shift. And in the morning, I was sitting on my bunk, drinking out of a bottle. And he came over to me and he said, Jimmy, you have the word this afternoon. Well, we all know something about alcoholic thinking, how it can cause us to understand. I know that's what, why I did all the things I did. Because I my addiction short circuited my brain. I know that to be a fact. It's so clear today. That's a nice part about getting sober. We can see pretty well and what was going on back there how sick we were. as I went along there, a lot of people, my closest friends talked to me this is Jim, we think you're going over the edge. I was never ready for inspections and my uniforms always dirty. And I remember once I was in Tactical Air Force Base near Tokyo, and I was to catch a flight, we're all moving down to the southern most Japanese island, Kyushu. I believe that's where the aborted invasion of Japan was to take place in November 1945. But thank God, that didn't have to happen. But I missed the airplane, the seven o'clock departure. I had come in late and I stopped in the mess hall to get some scrambled eggs. Sorry, Fridays, I used to eat those every morning. And I used to tell myself, of course, I was only 19 or 20 years old. And I used to kid myself that I could stay out all night. And I still have lots of energy because I eat those fried eggs. But as time went by, by superiors kind of got tired of pleading with me and telling me the captain who was a commanding officer. We were in Korea at that time. And I got hold of a bottle of some kind of liquid or head wooden chip center. I don't know if they came from a barrel or what it looked like milk. I must have borrowed from somebody and I began drinking it. And my commanding officer happened to be there and he he he called me. He said you know you're an alcoholic. A lot of people told me that but he might as well have been speaking you know, Greek or Chinese. I just didn't. Not me. I have to tell you my parents who are not drinkers they were social drinkers. I always wanted to be like my father. All I know today I didn't even come close, but I want I wanted to be at two siblings, a brother and a sister recover in AAA. And my sister told me once, that when she My sister told our mother that I was in a, our mother said, In the name of God, what have I done to have three of them? So I was overweight Machida I, but my father passed, I was still drinking. One of the things that I like to talk about is little bits of things that have helped me along the way. My favorite definition of alcoholism is, alcoholism is a disease manifested by consistently undesirable results following the ingestion of alcohol. And that pretty all inclusive. Every time I drank, I got drunk. My last year of service, I was supposed to be discharged after three years, but because of the Korean War, everybody in the military got extended for an extra year. And I got sent out to Idaho to a mom known Air Force Base. It had been closed ever since 1948, after the big war. And they had one aircraft. And I was on that base for a year. And a couple of 100 mechanics. I never touched the aircraft. But that's Uncle Sam. We sat in a gun and drank coke, big cards and whatnot. I get in a lot of trouble in Idaho, was arrested for impersonating an FBI ban. That happened, very long story. So just believe me it happened. I got called to base headquarters. My first sergeant came got me this car. I didn't know where we were gone. Why? I had gotten arrested in town for being drunk. I didn't know you most you guys know, um, you get arrested, they take your belt, and your wallet and so on. And they took my wallet and they go through it. I mean, this, this check. And people the security stuff didn't just start in the last few years. I think the police have always, always looking for people who are on the wrong side of the law. When I had a little card in my wallet that said I was a special agent. And it was signed by you know who but it said J Edgar Hoover walked me into the room and was a gentleman in there. He shook hands and he said, Sorry, how long have you been with the FBI? No, no, no, don't be. But I told him the truth. And it turned out he interrogated me for two days, fingerprints, pictures, and all my siblings, relatives, you want to know everything about me. And I was fortunate. I had a sister who was a nun and Carmelite monastery in Cleveland. And I mentioned her along with my other siblings. And at the end of the day, the FBI man said, you can go and peace, he said on a merc recommend that we do not prosecute you. And he said, If you want to know why he should I was in the seminary for four or five years. And he said, I'm giving you a break. So but he told me, Mr. Hoover doesn't like people signing his name. That whole year I spent in Idaho was wasted. As I say, I'm a big believer in the progression of the disease. keep squeezing tighter and tighter. I also want to say I love it up here in Michigan, that you all and I'm not for the self either. You all read that. How it works. And I love to hear that because the words cunning, baffling and powerful are in there. And I can whatever that is read. I can just feel how how cutting alcohol is and how baffling it is and how powerful it is to our lives. what it did to all of us. I spent three or four overnights in jail, but I never got put in the guard house, it just kept looking the other way. The men that I worked for was in a maintenance gang each gang had their own aircraft to take care of. And my superior told me many, many times, he said, Jim, if you stay on the base at night, and do your work, he said, we could make you a flight engineer, and that I'd be flying status or get a 50% pay raise clowder prestige. But again, he might as well have been speaking Chinese. Because what he said, that did not appeal to me, I thought he, he wants me to stop going downtown so I could be a flight engineer. And that never happened. And I went on my merry way. I already told you that my brother took me to meetings, Memorial Day meetings in Cleveland, the 1964 I had no interest in getting sober, I can tell you that I was in such off of denial that I was in my early 30s. Before I ever had any idea that I had a drinking problem will share with you when I came home from the military. My parents lived in the family home while the other kids were gone. And I moved in. And within the first couple of days, in Ohio, that's where I come from. You had to buy alcohol in State liquor stores at that time. I went about a case that called Pyro case of cgroups vo in my father's fruit cellar where he kept his potatoes and all that good stuff. And here I come. Many years later, in hospital, I learned about protecting the supply. How that's one thing that alcoholics do, they don't want to run out. And here I am with this, this case of whiskey. And I remember one of the results of that was I got up and went to church on Sunday 12 o'clock noon, I was able to make it out to that night I came home. I must have been able to eat at that time because my mother made a bunch of eggs and stuff. And I had gone down and gotten one of my bottles. And I at the kitchen table. I pour half a glass of whiskey. My mother God rest her she said to me You can't drink like that. And of course at angered me, oh, my God, how did she dare say that to me. That's one thing I'm good at. I happen to I happen to have a large capacity. Although you guys know what happens. When your capacity goes down, they say trouble goes up. And that was true. In my case, the last year or so I just have one or two drinks and my tongue would get twisted. I lost that capacity. My mother by the way. I learned this from her older sister that my mother had a sister who died at age 19 from acute alcoholism. That's probably why she was so upset that I was gonna have a half a glass of whiskey with my breakfast. And I went along. And you know what I was drinking while I was in the military. I never once thought what am I gonna do when I get home? Will I continue to drink it? I don't think alcoholics think that way. I just thought day at a time. I just enjoyed today. That'll take care of itself the future. And it happened set in 1964. When I for several years. I can tell you I never tried to quit drinking. I worked for once I realized and here I am 3132 I think hey, there's something wrong when I I remember I was building some bedrooms of house. We lived in Cleveland hailing up drywall on a Sunday afternoon and my wife came up and she offered me a Manhattan cocktail. And I remember this real well. I could see an image in my mind of a green devil with with horns. And I was getting a message from somewhere I don't know where that, that stuff was bad for me. So I tried, I had a long control period. Just I promised my wife so many times. And I know I really meant it. I told Okay, I'll just, I'll just have a little bit tonight. And she said, why don't you take a little small bottle like everybody else does. I always took a fifth or a quart. And I said, That's not my style. I can't, I can't do it. I have. And again, I don't feel I didn't feel at that time. And I don't feel like there was cutting her or BSC high, just alcoholic thinking. I'm just going to have a couple and lost a lot of friends that way. Really. I remember going to a New Year's Eve party. And Jason sober. I found another printer to hang out with. I was married by this time. And we began drinking doubles. And pretty soon I was punching her windows and acting very badly. And commend drove me home. And he worked in the same plant that I did, the hosts of this party, he never spoke to me again. So you do tend to lose friends. And in my recovery, I was four fortunate. I read the book, The Big Book A lot of times, but it takes a lot of time before you tend to miss a lot of the I did. Maybe 1520 years ago, I came across that statement in Dr. Bob's nightmare her on page 170. Or it reveals that they and Smith got tired of Dr. Bob getting drunk at a party. And wouldn't they will plan to go out somewhere. She said you go by yourself. I don't want to go with you. And for the same reason, they rarely had friends. And that happened in my life. It happened in my marriage. My wife said you you go by yourself. So everything was not peachy keen. I was a sick guy. And getting sicker each day each week. Until 1964 family a wedding. Here I am with the photographer, I always found it a drinker to hook up with. And my wife and family were eating. And I'm sitting out front with this photographer, drink a doubles. And eventually I had to be carried out to my car. I began to experience a lot of remorse and guilt. Now at that point, for my drinking, I drank so many years. And I just thought that this what I'm supposed to do. But then I began to catch on something wrong here. He's supposed to drink. By the way when I was 19 on the island of Guam. I have a photograph of this. Somebody happened to take my picture was Christmas time. And my family sent me a little Christmas tree and a chicken and a can and a lot of other things. And I had a bottle for the occasion. And as I sat there, I remember thinking, you know this cooking is good. I really enjoy feeling mellow like this. I took an oath. I decided, you know, I like the way I feel when I drink. I'm going to try to just stay. Don't go too dark over the edge. Try to stay mellow the rest of my days. Think that's what happened. That's what drove my drinking. And I'm quick to say, Oh, I never volunteered. I want to be a drunk. But maybe right there that day. Maybe that was my declaration. Hey, I'm a drinker leave me alone. But I woke up in the middle of the night that night. I was in bed and I woke up from my stupor. I was sweating. And I sat up. Of course I was all alone. And I set up in the dark. Remember I had been trying to control and of course, people in AAA have told me if you're trying to control it, it's already too late. You're you're an alkie I understand that today. But I sat up in bed that night. I said Jim, aren't my street language I said you are bullshitting yourself. You can you can handle it, Chris I was quite filled with remorse. I got carried out of that wedding. A lot of relatives or my children, my wife. I didn't feel very good about that. So that was over the weekend. Monday, I called my brother Tom who was sober in AAA, seven years at the time. He died 19 9080 and 42 years interrupted. I've sorry uninterrupted. I call Tom and talk to him about it. And he said, well throw your hat in the ring Come on. came my denial again, that just awful Pharaoh. I want to be like my father. And if I admitted I were an alcoholic, I couldn't be like my father. He was a social drinker. I was and I am today an unsuccessful social drinker. So I did not accept my brother's invitation, go to meetings. I thought, hey, I'll be okay. I went along. I'm one of those people never got a DUI. Having a few friends here in Michigan, I recently learned that the homie pamphlet is not used in this area in AAA, but in Cleveland, it is as widely used as a Louisville question 43 questions for the new person to look at. And it reveals that if you have one, yes, you might be an alcoholic. If you have to. You are proud of two yeses out of 43 questions. Two yeses, you are probably an alcoholic. And if you have three yeses, you're definitely an alcoholic. I had over 30 yeses. You've heard that the thing was not just a river in Egypt. And that that was that was big in my life. My favorite a tourist friendly Cleveland. What do you use to start out and lead a meeting, he would always say, I never wanted to be a drunk. I could say the same thing. But I think that goes for all of us. We didn't we're gonna be drunks. But it just everything fit together. I was very shy as a kid. But I don't think that's why I became an alcoholic. It's just just in the nature of things that was in my family. I had two siblings of two that sober sobered up a couple more that never bothered to get sober. So back to my days in the Air Force. You know, the word Korea was United Nations effort. I never Filipinos and Greeks and a lot of different nationalities in that war. And the people that I worked for. I worked on DC force, as an engine mechanic. And then they got tired of finding the sleeping, coming late and not doing my work. And they shipped me out of the squadron I was in, there was a Greek Squadron, the Royal Hellenic Air Force. And they put me with the Greeks. And I didn't know what to think about that. And I was working on a four engine aircraft. And now, none of those men spoke English. I didn't speak a Greek. And at that point, it's just all a big mystery to me. I don't remember. much beyond that, until the next few months, I think they put out a boat. I remember stopping at Okinawa. And they had a dance band on the pier. They're welcoming us. I even remember the song they played. So here I am home now, single. And I do need to tell you, something I heard at those Memorial Day meetings in Cleveland way back in the 1950s. It's stuck with me. I can remember tonight, that the speaker that they had for that particular Memorial, they had a big hotel dining room, probably 2000 people or this man was blind. His name was Tom Keenan and he was from Barberton, Ohio. And he came with his guide dog. And Kenan As a speaker, and as in the 50s, I don't know anything about a but this stuck with me. He said, Lord has given me a clean garment. And he was referring to his sobriety. I figured out many years later. And he said, when I go to the Lord at the end of my life, he said, I want to have a clean garment. I don't want I don't want to stay in my garment. And that means a lot to me today. And how come I'm sober? And, you know, probably the biggest reason I'm sober and I love it. Is because I found something better than drinking. And I think any alcoholic could say that. Not drinking is ever so much better for me and people like me than drinking was. I try not to spend too much time looking back, you know, why did I do those things? I have a pretty good. Over the years, I've been given a lot of answers. So tonight that I have more answers than I do questions. I have what the big book refers to as happy sobriety. I'm not drinking, and I'm happy about I experienced for almost five years, abstinence. 1967 January 6, I came in January 6, I went to my first meeting, just how the Dow the disease did such a number on me for so many years. I went five years, going to three meetings a week, and I told my sponsor, I told people I knew a dear friend drove me up to a funeral or show Chautauqua is in New York, every August conference up there, and he knew I was still sick. And he told me up in his car of the Chautauqua, we stayed there all day and went to the meeting, and hours and hours to talk in the car. But as we walked around the beautiful grounds at Chautauqua I saw the love beautiful white homes. Green grass, and I saw some folks sitting out on their stone patio, drinking what looked like martinis to me. Right away, I just seen somebody drink. It turned me on. And I said to my friend, Mike, this thing is never going to work for me. I still are a child of people drinking. I want a drink. Somehow, someway. My brother and some other ah put me in a psychiatric ward, a charity hospital in Cleveland 1972. I had the great good fortune of new on another floor, this rosary Hall treatment center, a dry out unit where the famed sister nation works sober up drunks with the Wilson or Dr. Bob. So I was I was in a psych ward for five weeks. And after I was in there two or three weeks, they get a psychological test. nurses take down what you're doing what you're saying. I was here about three weeks, or the psychiatrists came in. He came in every Tuesday and he called he went a little rule. He told me this day. He said I don't know if I said my last name where I got up here tonight or not but my last name rhymes with music. It is Cusick Cusick. So the doctor said to me. I've looked through over I've started you, evaluated you. And he said, You are immature and you are an alcoholic. And he said you have to learn how to live without drinking. He said my prescription for you is to go over the rosary Hall PreSonus staff there who was recovering. He lectured the patients three times a day. And my shrink said you go over and listen to Father John McCarthy. And I did. And you know while I was in there in a psych ward. I was sitting in my bed one day. Call it an awakening. It was just my time for things. Thank God it was my time. And I could still be out there all night. I didn't drink that much. People used to take me to the prison stay meetings. I thought man, I never had her number. What am I doing in there? But when I went over to grocery haul go and listen to follow john mccarthy work his magic, I began to get well in there. As I sat on my bed one day, I asked myself, Why, why am I in here? Why? You know, it's not the greatest thing in the world. I had a good job in the skilled trade. I was in a printing business. And I asked myself one day, nobody around what am I doing in here? I remember telling myself, Jim, you have no record of poor mental health. I always got through life, okay, the only enemy I had was the battle. So I told myself, you know, you're not in here in a network, because you're nuts. And then my next thought my next expression was, Jim is the alcohol. By resistance, my denial began to come apart. And I started Remember, all the times I was arrested, who I'd be marching in a parade, and the commanding officer would tap me on the shoulder and say, I want to see you after the parade. pants on, like I've learned tonight, except they're all dirty and smudge that, that doesn't get it in a braid. So I got out. And I went to the moon meeting for the new era to a dear friend. Julie said, your your new man now. You got drunk. You were out. He said, your new man. He said. And he mentioned a new AAA group that was starting up in on the west side of Cleveland, where I live. And he said, Why don't you affiliate yourself with that group. And you could grow right along with the new group. And I did that. And you know, I happen to be sitting next to that man. Many years later, he stood up for 30 years. And after the meeting, I asked him, Do you remember telling me that that join this Madison Saturday group? He said no. But he helped so many people. And he was so active that I kind of understood why he didn't remember saying that to me. But the big thing is that I I remember. And he got me involved in a Saturday night group. There were a lot of things there that worked for me and the Secretary of that permanent secretary, was a former Marine, he was 6465 Bill Wetzel. And he took an interest in me. Every time I'd walk in the door, that meeting with my wife, I just get one or two steps in the room. And he'd come and shake my hand. And he looked deeply into my eyes. He'd say, How are you doing? And he gave me some tough stuff to do. And every week about Wednesday or Thursday, I start thinking, Oh, hurry up Saturday, I want to go see my friends down there. I owe it all to my higher power that I choose to call God, and all your wonderful sober people. I can see myself in you all. And again, I'm not from itself. But I think that's why AAA is supposed to work. We come to the meetings. And hey, I did that. Oh, yeah, I was like that. I finally became rid of my denial. And I don't think I did there. I give all the credit, glory and honor to God. People told me what to do and I came here works. I'm about how to guess I want to tell you ever so happy on a silver manta ray. And I have not had a drink for over 37 years, and I just love being sober. So thank you for listening to another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. What we're all about is helping couples and individuals get unstuck. You know how some people go to counseling or marriage therapy for months or even years and never really get anywhere. Our intensive programs help clients get unstuck in as little as two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com