E250: The Straw Man Chapter of the Big Book

In this episode, Matt and Steve take a hard look at We Agnostics, one of the most debated chapters in the AA Big Book. Matt admits he’s developing a resentment toward Bill W.’s logic — from comparing God to electricity to invoking Columbus and the flat Earth. Are these inspired metaphors or just sales tactics to get the drunk to believe? The guys talk about where Bill’s arguments fall apart, why intent might matter more than accuracy, and how the idea of “contempt before investigation” still holds up today.

This isn’t about bashing AA — it’s about honest recovery, critical thinking, and finding a higher power that actually makes sense to you.

Transcript

Matt: 0:03

Welcome to the Silver Friends podcast, but we talk a little bit about sobriety. Your journey, Silver Curiosity, all of that good stuff, my name is Matt J, I'm joined as always by Steve. What's going on Steve?

Steve: 0:18

Good morning Matt, uh, not much. Just enjoying this beautiful fall weather we have up in Connecticut, and, uh, yeah, that's living the dream.

Matt: 0:30

Yeah the only thing I'm not enjoying is the sun going down early.

Steve: 0:33

Yeah, well that'll

Matt: 0:34

dog walks earlier.

Steve: 0:35

That'll change next week and it'll go down even earlier.

Matt: 0:40

I

Steve: 0:40

You'll

Matt: 0:40

forgot.

Steve: 0:40

be dog walking in the dark.

Matt: 0:43

Oh, I forgot about that.

Steve: 0:45

Next weekend.

Matt: 0:48

All right, I want to a little bit about the chapter we ignore, it's just because we read that in our Monday night big book and that thing has been kind of rubbing me raw, every single time we get to it and I'm developing a resentment. So I can go over a few points. I think I know what Bill is doing, and it's the thing, of, uh, which he didn't go this way, but this is the way Bill wrote the book. Now before you start getting mad at me, uh, if attacking the big book, I agree with his output of where he's trying to get to, of getting you to a higher power. However, you believe a higher power. I got my own thoughts, and I'm thinking more and more that my higher power is doing the right thing for other people of being of service to other people, whatever that looks like, of leaving somebody feeling better because I walked in and then feeling worse. And I think there's a lot of stuff in I really like, which is the contempt before investigation, which I use in my every day life all the time. I think that is great. But what I don't like are a couple phrases that I start going through and he talks a little bit about God is like electricity. You can't see electricity, and they say that the pillars of steel have these electrons worrying around it. But like God, you can't see it, but you trust it's there. Here's a problem with that argument. If I take a nine-volt battery and I put it on my tongue, I'm going to get a shock. I can prove that that's there. There is no VU meter for God. And I think he is putting a strong man argument up there. And I know why he's doing it is his whole, why in the big book is I've got to find a way to bring the drunk along to get him sober, and I'm going to do what I need to do to get him there. But that just feels and just to find the means.

Steve: 2:57

Yeah, Bill had a really, you know, the thing about Bill, and he's passed that down to a in a good way, is we have what we call, and a a singleness of purpose.

Matt: 3:10

Yes.

Steve: 3:10

And nothing else, right? And what that means if you're not part of the a program, is that it means nothing else really matters except when we go to a meeting and we're doing AA type work, nothing matters except achieving sobriety and helping another alcoholic, she's sobriety. Not politics, not religions, not sex, not sexual orientation, not anything, right? Not money. So, so that's our focus. And I think that helps me because sometimes I get lost in the weeds, right, with that kind of stuff. Like I get lost in the personalities and the politics and stuff like that. But I have found that when I go to an AA meeting, I can put all of that aside and focus on that purpose of helping another alcoholic. So I think that's what Bill went into this with, right? When Bill wrote this big book, there was a couple things in like him. We don't ever want to get down the rabbit hole, but Bill thought it was a money-making deal, first of all, like it was, right? He did. So it wasn't all this, Bill's great thing, but he did think it was a money-making opportunity for himself, but he also had that thing on this purpose. I mean, Bill's heart was in the right place. He wrote this

Matt: 4:26

Billy

Steve: 4:26

book to help other alcoholics. The other thing I think we have to understand is we sit in 2025 and we think, "Oh, you know, we know what it was like in 1939 or 1937-38, maybe when he was really writing this stuff." just the scientific discovery is different now than it was then. So he used some things to explain that. That were sort of relevant. Electricity was in 1939, but everybody had

Matt: 4:58

And

Steve: 4:59

it. I'm sure you went to lots of places in rural America that didn't have it. They were still dealing with outhouses and not running, they were still dealing with that. So I know we think, you know, again, you and I who lives in the suburbs, we've grown up in this somewhat life. It's like we think that everybody shares this same life. It wasn't. So I think he was just trying to... to appeal to the broader sense and you're right. He did have a, you know, he was really looking at the end goal of like, how do I get these people sober? How do I, how do I get these people hooked? I've got them sober because I think he knew he couldn't get them sober. How do I get them hooked to start, start thinking about this? And I do believe that Bill would go to any means to do that. Including, including a little bit of, um, embellishment of facts and stories.

Matt: 5:56

He embellished a lot of facts in the big book.

Steve: 5:58

Yeah.

Matt: 5:58

The whole story with Debbie Thatcher is not at all how it went down and wasn't alone with Debbie. took a little bit of There are things that he stretched out that if you believe that the big book is a verbatim history, it's not. And I can point you to some literature that goes through the facts there. The Bill was a salesman.

Steve: 6:22

It

Matt: 6:22

He was truncating a lot of stories. He was putting spin on them because he did have a singleness of purpose of, I care less about the actual history being accurate and more of, I'm going to tell a parable to get you to sobriety. And I think that's the thing that rubs me raw about some of this stuff is I see people in the rooms who take it as verbatim.

Steve: 6:48

Oh yeah.

Matt: 6:50

Who go along and use these examples when I'm listening like, oh this isn't, this isn't true.

Steve: 7:00

Yeah, but what's helped me with that is, you know, again, I won't go down, but there's another book that people do that with too.

Matt: 7:07

Yes.

Steve: 7:08

And again, I've read a lot of books on that book too. And I understand it much better than I did before, and it's the same thing. People take it as verbatim. They take it and then they use it to justify or negotiate a position that they want, that they already hold. And I think that happens in the big book too. I will say this, so I'm not glad that we sit in separate places to record this because you just trash the everythatcher sitting at the kitchen table story, and if lightning may come down to your house and just take you out, so I'm not glad I'm not going to be there. I may witness it on the

Matt: 7:48

Yeah.

Steve: 7:49

recording, but I'm glad I'm not there to, you know, that's a story. Like if you said that out loud, people would be like crazy, right? I mean, that if you just repeated out loud at a meeting, especially old-timer meeting, that that story may not be exactly out of this written in the big book, people would have a kind of shit fit.

Sound: 8:11

I want to fight you.

Steve: 8:12

Yeah. Oh my god, I can't even imagine. But again, if you read some, if you read some historical analysis of that time and how the book is written, you will see that there's some question about that story, okay? And that's it. There's some question about that story of exactly how it happened based upon other people's writings who were around at that time. So yeah, I do think Bill embellished a lot. He was writer. He wrote a book. Right? He wrote a book. Because what he did, all books have some type of an embellishment. And I mean, unless you're talking explicitly a non-fiction historical book, and even those might have some, even those, right? You have to sort of make some deductions based upon other people's writings and stuff like that. So yeah, Bill, Bill did what he needed to do. And just, you know, I think we're both of the same mindset now that we've done some other stuff when we do this podcast, which makes us think about our own sobriety and makes us think about AA, right? As a whole and we were both out there in social media with other people getting sober and other manners. Um, even having all said that, like, I'm grateful that Bill did what he did because it's how I got sober and it's what worked for me. And the fellowship that I've gained is just incredible. Like, I really is the fellowship I've gained from AA is incredible. So, um, you know, I'm just going to tell you a little, a little quick story, side stories. I came home for that Monday night meeting, right? And I'm a big Detroit lines fan. And Detroit lines were playing on Monday Night Football, started at 7. And I got home and my wife was up and I walked in and and she's like, oh, you're going to watch your game? And I'm like, oh, yeah, well, I'll watch the second half. I'm like, that's the second half is coming on. I'll watch the second half. And she's like, oh, I'm surprised you went out tonight. And I said to my wife, you know, if I could stay sober by myself, I wouldn't go to meetings. And she was surprised, like, I've been sober 15 years.

Matt: 10:25

Yes.

Steve: 10:25

And she was still surprised by that statement, right? And it just tells you like how some people are still surprised by it. It's what works for me. It's how I keep my shit together, right? By doing that kind of stuff. So I am totally,I will always be grateful. And as much as there's some things about AA that I no longer like, I mean that to some things that I no longer like. I think overall it's there to help the next suffering alcoholic and because of the life it's given me I need to keep working with that. So I need to take bills, parables, bills, embellishments and understand that. And, and same thing like if I could use those to help another alcoholic get over the hump and get sober absolutely. I mean, I'll do the same thing. Listen, I was a salesman too. Right. So. I mean, bill was a salesman. And so, so is I spent my life, I spent 30, a 30 year career doing sales. So I know how to embellish the story. I know how to create urgency to try to get you to do a deal that maybe you're not ready to do. I know how to do all those things. And I can do those things with an alcoholic too. And if I thought that that would be helpful to me or not to me. If that would be helpful to the other alcoholic that I'm trying to help, then absolutely I would do the same thing. So. So it's frustrating and it might be. I think, I think we get frustrated because we read these stories over and over and over again,

Matt: 12:00

really. There's that too.

Steve: 12:01

Right. And we get a little bored with it and it starts irritating us because we're bored with it. And, you know, so you can walk home, like you did Monday night and feel like. I'm really pissed off about this, you know, this thing. Because I had a different experience with that same reading, right? I had experience where I really liked it Monday night. I really liked some of the things that it pointed out to me that night and that reading. So it's always good to continue to do that stuff and just to continue to check. Just to check ourselves, like, where are we? What are we doing? What's bothering? What's not bothering me? And I think that's a perfect thing for you to do go home and go, this is bothering me. Let's talk about it. Right. Which is what we do on this podcast. Let's bring it out there. Let's talk it through. Let's hash it out and see where it goes.

Matt: 12:48

Yeah, I was also tired. This thing would happen this weekend. I didn't exercise Sunday Monday or Tuesday. And I think I had restless legs attacked or something. I had something or I didn't get a very good night's sleep. So that has a lot to do with it. But I gotta tell you when he starts when they Joe and Charlie and him start talking about Columbus and the flat earth. Are fricking gets so pressed off

Sound: 13:12

bullshit

Matt: 13:12

is such bullshit.

Sound: 13:14

Fuck and bullshit.

Matt: 13:16

He knew it was round at the time that's not why Columbus went. He just had his calculations off, not figuring the real. He missed, he missed something in the middle there. And I hate it when Joe and Charlie say it there.

Steve: 13:31

Yeah,

Matt: 13:31

but I think the and let's be honest here we have come to believe in a higher power of a greater of how we choose bill believe in Jesus Christ,

Steve: 13:44

yeah.

Matt: 13:44

And he wanted everybody to believe in Jesus Christ. And there are other people who are a little more religious and a lot less religious and he was kind of in a middle ground. We have gotten to a better place where you can find the god of your own understanding that has evolved. And I would I think I would explain this chapter a little bit differently. And I probably because I am very jealous of people who have very strong faith. And there are people in that room who have deep strong faith and it works really well for them in a positive way. And I'm not that person. I think that you can get there telling other stories and I think you can even say, look, there is no explanation for a higher power. And that's okay. You come to it yourself as long as you believe you're not it, because to me, the God chapters and the God stuff is about getting away from self and about serving other people, what would your higher power want? You would want you not to do things that are just right for you, but to serve other people in the service of getting them sober.

Steve: 15:00

Yeah, two things on that. First of all, my Friday night meeting demands meeting. The topic was gratitude. And we talked about that all times. Another one of those subjects, you know, like right greeting the big book over and over that you get tired of talking about it sometimes. But on this night something hit me and one of the things that hit me is like I'm extremely grateful for the program of AA and for the things that allow like I had my three. My three. There's more than three. I had three of our grandchildren. My son's three boys over yesterday. And it was a wonderful, exhausting day, and my son, you know, I spend a lot of time with the kids when they're here, um, and my son texted me later, like, hey, you really wiped these kids out, they slept all the way home and they, and they transferred right to bed asleep, which they never do. grateful in those but here's the point that something you just said is that in order for me to have to really become grateful and find out what's important to me I had to get rid of that selfishness and self-centeredness right which is what you just mentioned I had to get rid of that because until I got rid of that I can only be grateful thing for things that directly impacted me and got me what I wanted right like that's how my gratitude changed the second thing you said was you know you know people coming in and bill moving there's a I go to a new meeting on Wednesday and I love this meeting it's something I came into because I needed a meeting about a year and a half ago and I went to this one and I stayed but there's a bunch of women there and there's a bunch of people who identify as agnostics which I also like because that's where I was and I don't hear a lot of that I don't hear a lot of that meetings and to find like three or four people in one meeting who are openly talk about that was comforting to me but this one woman talks about what you just said is like there are people out there and she says there are people out there who have this strong faith and she says I searched for that faith but I never found it and I wish I did like she goes I wish I had that I wish I had found that but I didn't and when this woman talks it just so much sense to me it's like sometimes I feel bad I'm like I should have that too right and she just makes it so that I look at these people and there's a lot of people in our meetings like you know Monday Night meetings have a lot of faith

Matt: 17:45

who

Steve: 17:45

and and and for the most part a lot of it is the Christian faith and it works really really well for them it works really really well for them and you could see that their life has been changed partly because of that faith so therefore I'm extremely happy for

Matt: 18:03

them

Steve: 18:05

and sometimes I wish I had that too like I wish I could give up all my troubles to a higher power and think oh I don't have to you know like in the end it's all going to work out but I don't feel that way so you know that's the nice thing and you're right Bill Bill came to a place where he was fairly religious but not not like we see a lot of people today right he believed in a he certainly believed in a Christian God but Bill doesn't talk about in any of his writings that I know of about going to church on a regular basis right he doesn't talk a a lot about that kind of stuff I haven't read a lot of the lowest writings I don't know what her faith looked like but he still had that faith and for him it worked he found it right and that's what his point was he found his faith that work and he was just telling everybody else's you need to find yours too and as much as I struggle with the higher power thing because I still even though I know it's not true when I say that I still think of the God of my you know my youth like I still have trouble with

Matt: 19:17

yep

Steve: 19:17

that at times I understand that we that's what we need to do we need to get I always say I have to get out of my own way in order to get myself better

Matt: 19:31

I think I'm the Catholicism of my youth myself quite a bit and it felt like you were looking for a magic spell that's how it felt to me praying and I'm not at that place anymore the thing that's kind of helped me with God jealousy from these people is acceptance I accept that this is where I am today I am in a different place but I do also look for some type of spirituality which I see as connection to other people now I struggle with connection people for a number of issues but I also like being helpful and listening I can get my service out by listening to other people making myself available finding I'll do this periodically at work something will hit me and I'll think about somebody I work with in one of their great qualities especially if it's a great quality that's under the surface and I'll just send them a quick note Hey, you've got this great quality and I see for you that once the shell is off. there is such incredible warmth under there. And I see I can see where being a mom is a great thing and being a great wife and the things you talk about. And I just wanted to say I appreciate those things. And I try and do that as much as I can. I'm not looking for anything back, but I can do something nice for somebody else. And I try and focus on the small stuff because it's easy to like, oh, I'm going to give you a thousand dollars to make whatever payment. But it's really about when do you have a stick of gum and you want to give that to somebody? Small things that don't cost money. Those are the hard things. And for me, that spirituality.

Steve: 21:28

Yeah, I don't think there's any question that it is that every day little stuff. And it's just I think it's just struggle for most people. And again, I come back to say I probably spend, nah, I'm not probably. I do spend too much time in social media.

Matt: 21:47

Oh, well as do I.

Steve: 21:48

And but every once in a while, I come by these people who who just amplify what you talk about, they do all this small kindness stuff, right? And somebody like I belong to some, you know, local where I live town, Facebook pages, some group called by nothing, right? Where you can give away stuff. I give away a lot of stuff on that. But I also see people post on this. Hey, you know, it's been a tough month for me. I've just run out of food and I have three kids. I really need something. And it's amazing. How many people reach out and go, send me a message. I'll drive over and drop some stuff off to you. And I'm going to tell you the other thing. It's mostly women. Right.

Matt: 22:37

And the women are so much better than men.

Steve: 22:38

Right. It's mostly women. It's almost never

Matt: 22:42

never.

Steve: 22:43

Never men saying that. And I just look at those people and I just think wow, but you know, and that's the stick of gum you just talked about. Right. They're willing to get in their car, put a bag, put a bag of food together for this woman and her family and drop it off. And, you know, I'm a cynical person as are you. And I could sit there and go, Oh, yeah. I wonder, you know, one of the issues game in the system like I could go through all of that stuff in my head. And there's people out there who don't do that. They just write to it. Right. Yeah. You need food. I'm going to bring you food. And and that just gives me some hope in this world. I really does. In this day that we live in, I look at those type of people and I think man, that's a good person. And that's what I strive to be today. And that's what again, that's part of my program, right. It's to be do better. It's to somebody. We talk about that. Help somebody. It's not just an AA to apply these principles and all of our affairs. So how do I? How do I help people? So, uh, so it's always a learning experience for me. It really is. To me, today I look at it and I go, you know, what am I doing today that that sort of is better than I did yesterday? Am I being more involved? Am I not being involved? Am I staying away from stuff because of my selfishness and self-centeredness? And I'm doing a lot of questioning on that today. Like,

Matt: 24:06

uh, yep.

Steve: 24:07

I don't want to get into it, but I've been a GSR for a couple of years now and do some open positions. And I'm like, that's the next step for me. Right. The next step is a, you know, a plan of a committee in my, in my, you know, my district. And I'm thinking, do I want to do that, you know, and I'm thinking, it doesn't matter if I want to do it, it's probably what I should do. Right. That's the difference is probably what I should do.

Matt: 24:36

Yep.

Steve: 24:37

And trust me, I was just working on that when we, when I was waiting for you to sign on the person I'm thinking about, taking stepping up for is actually doing two positions. This is the way it works in those groups, right. He's doing two, he's leading two different areas. And I was going to reach out to him and say, hey, listen, I'm thinking about stepping up and, uh, can you just tell me what it entails, but that's what I do today, which I never did before. I look at myself and try to decide. Am I, am I doing enough? Am I doing it for the right reasons? And if not why am, why, why am I not doing that? And, uh, so that's what this program brings me, even as a diagnostic, right. This is the point, right. We're talking about that whole thing. We're talking about Bill and Bill's motivation. Well, you know, what, you know why I do all of this stuff is because I've spent the last 15 years in AA. I mean, that and around people and recovering AA who challenged me all the time. They don't come up to me challenge. They challenged me by their, by, by their examples. And I, I look at people and I go, man, that person is knocking it out of the park. Shame on me. Right. And again, I start measuring myself, but it, it, it just pushes me to do more. And again, I, I talk about it and we talk about all the time, like I learned all of this stuff in AA, I did. I know.

Matt: 26:00

Oh, yeah.

Steve: 26:00

It gets it gets bashed all the time. But I learned it all in a so for me, you know, I need to keep doing that.

Matt: 26:10

This comes to what I think is the best part of Bill in this chapter and in other chapters, although he gets the quote wrong. That he quotes Herbert Spencer around the contempt prior to investigation. And I think that's apocryphal. It's it exists. The quote, I don't know if it's Herbert Spencer,

Steve: 26:29

Yeah.

Matt: 26:29

but it is a great quote. And I use this all the time at work and my personal life. And it gets you back to, let's think it through. Let me research this before I make a decision. And before sobriety, I had one set of political views. It was pretty narrow minded and just felt I had to defend to be part of the tribe. And I've changed to, I'm going to constantly rethink what is the right thing. I'll give you an example. There's this tick talker that I follow. Dr. Terry Simpson. I love this guy. Very science-based. He by trade he does lap band surgeries. So weight loss surgery, but he talks about nutrition and heart disease. There's lots of things that he has talked about with supplements that have made me stop taking supplements. That it makes sense of your, you are just making your urine more expensive by taking the supplement. You could take a magnesium supplement, or you could take a handful of pumpkin seeds. And listen to some of that. I'm like, damn it. He's right. And there's some things around making me realize that I'm very lucky with my health care and other people are not. And why am I able to afford Wagovie when somebody else can't? And should we offer health opportunities to more people, not just based on, do you just happen to work for the right company? That gets me thinking. So what he really gets right is, and I think this is where it kind of butts up against, he makes a strong man argument, but later on says, I hate to turn to your own research, but to your own research. To be open to other ideas, even if you don't end up agreeing with the idea, listen to the argument and flesh it out, then make your decision and see what's right and listen to a bunch and be open to an argument that's not argumentative. And just don't close yourself off to some of these ideas. And I think that's the best of what Bill brings.

Steve: 28:48

Yeah, no question about it. And in that quote, I love that quote too. I have looked into that quote, and there's nowhere in Herbert Spencer's writings ever that that quote is shown, that do you only place that quote comes up for him is in the big book. So it probably, it probably was, you know, not, not applied, I don't forget what I'm not sure what the word is to Herbert Spencer correctly, but still a great quote. And I use it all the time too. And what that means to me is, is just like I said, I have to be open-minded. Right, I have to be open-minded. And yeah, maybe do some research on my own, but also be open-minded to the research of the other people have done in order for me to before I to. And what that means also, is that I have to be open-minded to change. Right, just like you talked about there. S I can't be so cut off cut off in my life that I can only believe this is the way, this is the only way, and this is the way to always be, that I don't live that way anymore. For the most part, I don't live that way anymore. And I'll just say this about healthcare, just again, not to get it on a rabbit hole. I didn't even get lucky because of the company I worked for. I got lucky because who I married. Think about that. Right, I mean, I got lucky for my healthcare because who I married, who worked for a wealthy suburb here in Connecticut, a town employee, and had absolutely fantastic healthcare coverage. Had nothing to do with me.

Matt: 30:21

So,

Steve: 30:22

and so, you know, so yeah, how many is that fair? I've made out, but I don't think it's fair. So anyway, but today, I think about today, I'm open-minded. Like, that's what we talked about. And even with agnostic, and this is the whole point, like today, I identify as an agnostic, which doesn't mean when I die, I will be an agnostic. I mean that honestly. Like, I don't know what that's going to mean to me

Matt: 30:53

Right,

Steve: 30:53

somewhere down the road. And I will share this too before we go off, because I shared this Friday night is one of my old bosses is still in the business. I've been in the business of selling stuff for 30 years. And one of my old bosses, same age as me. He was my boss for about, I don't know, maybe almost 10 years, not quite. Probably eight years. But he lives down in Texas and his wife had a stroke and I still see him as conferences and stuff. And he sent out to staying on Facebook, with Facebook friends that he's gonna, they're, their wedding anniversary is on Wednesday. They're 47th wedding anniversary on Wednesday.

Matt: 31:32

Wow.

Steve: 31:32

So she had a stroke and he's taking care of her. I think it was a really bad stroke. He's taking care of her. So he asked all of his friends to pray for her full recovery, and he's a big Christian Southern Christian guy. Pray for her at seven o'clock on Wednesday 'cause he'll be praying with her. So he's trying to get this whole prayer thing, and I don't do a lot of that kind of stuff. But I felt moved enough to tell him, hey, I'm gonna be praying for you in Connecticut. I just want to make sure my time's right. So that means I pray at eight o'clock because he's an hour.

Matt: 32:04

Ha,

Steve: 32:05

ha, right? So I wanted to be part of that group. I wanted to be praying at the same time as everybody else was praying for this one. Do I believe it's going to help? No, I don't. I don't believe it's going to do it a thing. But I'm willing to pray and maybe there'll be something. I don't know. Maybe that's, this is my point. Maybe there'll be a miracle that'll happen. And she'll get full recovery. And people will say, this is fantastic. And then I have to rethink my position that maybe I had something to do with that by praying to this God that I don't believe in. So I am open to this is my point. I'm open to doing that. I'm open to spending 10 minutes on Wednesday night at eight o'clock on my knees if I am. I'm actually don't know where I'm going to be. I may be at a meeting. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But to do it and pray with these people for this woman's recovery and because I like this guy who's the best boss I've ever had. That to me is how different I am than I was years ago. That I'm willing to do stuff like that even though it's not what I do on a regular basis today. That's what this program has given me. That's what Bill's writings have has given me today.

Matt: 33:21

I don't think there's a better way to end it. I've got lots of things I could say but none of them will be as profound as that. So we'd love to hear from you. Give me your thoughts. If you're super religious Matt at sober friends pod.com, I'd love to hear this stuff. If you're not email if you're in the middle, if you're question, if you're pissed, if you're happy, I love to hear that stuff. If you can push against these ideas, this is a back and forth and we just want to make sure that we're reaching you such a way that you're on the right path of sobriety. I don't have a great rest of your weekend.

Steve: 34:00

Yeah, you too Matt.

Matt: 34:01

We'll see everybody next week. Bye everybody.