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Sober Talk SA - Taxi Harry · Sober Talk SA

• 0:00
  Welcome to sober talk. I'm Dennis and I have lived
• 0:03
  experience at alcohol. If you or anyone you know is
• 0:07
  struggling with alcohol, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on
• 0:11
  1300 double 22222 or check out their website on aa.org dot AU.
• 0:20
  I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
• 0:23
  Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
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  fellowship of men and women who share their experience,
• 0:30
  strengthen hope with each other. They must solve their common
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  problems and help others to recoup from alcoholism.
• 0:37
  The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
• 0:40
  drinking. There are no dues of fees for
• 0:43
  AIR membership. We are self support through our
• 0:45
  own contributions. AIR is not allied with any sect,
• 0:49
  denomination, politics, organization or institution.
• 0:53
  Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or
• 0:58
  oppose any clauses. Our primary pass is still
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  Someone help other Alcoholics achieve sobriety.
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  My name is Harry, I'm a recovering alcoholic like I
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  said, and I'll just take minutes, 15 seconds silence for
• 1:13
  the suffering Alcoholics in and out of these rooms.
• 1:19
  But OK here we go. I went straight from high school
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  to, to Hindley St. to, to town at the age of about 171617.
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  And, and I come across this thing called an alcohol.
• 1:41
  And just prior to me going into town, the woodwork teacher
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  spotted me on the Oval, you know, and smoking all the time.
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  And they called me into the office three times and said,
• 1:53
  Harry, you got to leave school. And I gladly left.
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  I didn't resist because it wasn't the cigarettes so that he
• 1:59
  called me smoking. It was dope, of course.
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  But I ended up in Hindley St. and, and for the first time in
• 2:07
  my life, we've got together with my mates, I started this thing
• 2:11
  called alcohol and it was just an instant grip on me.
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  It had an instant, wow, where did this thing come from?
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  And I instantly knew it was going to last.
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  It was going to be it, it was my thing.
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  It was just, it just had me and I was, I was already smoking
• 2:32
  cigarettes and a little bit of extras, little bit of weed.
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  But my thing was alcohol and always had alcohol, always had
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  time for alcohol and, and, and we're starting to get the dole
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  then and always hanging around town.
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  And we always used to congregate in town because it was only one
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  dole office. And from there we walked one St.
• 2:53
  down to my pub in Hindley St. And that became my future.
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  That was my future sitting into Hindley St. and I was just, I
• 3:04
  don't know, I was just so proud. I was so proud.
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  I was in Hindley St. and I just started my apprenticeship there
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  and while others were were doing trades and having relationships
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  and buying nice cars, I was I was drinking every day.
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  You know, you're supposed to get life skills and at the age of 17
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  or 18, I forgot what it was after drinking every day into
• 3:30
  town, 18 I think it was. I started because we all had our
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  gangs every night we had 10:00 closing.
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  We had to leave town for two hours, come back to the
• 3:40
  nightclubs and then off we start again and interrupted our
• 3:43
  drinking. So, yeah, the only smart ones
• 3:47
  that were in town for long term and and had money was people
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  that knew the pizza bar up the road and they used to have the
• 3:56
  rooms at the back that they had their alcohol.
• 3:59
  They didn't have to leave. And that was a famous pizza
• 4:02
  place there in Hindley Street. But yeah, I just it, it just had
• 4:07
  such a grip on me that at the age of, I think about 18, I was
• 4:11
  urinating blood and and I went to the toilet and this other guy
• 4:16
  from another gang was in there and I said, listen, mate, I'm
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  because we sort of sight knew, we never talked to other people,
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  but we sight knew everybody knew that you had to survive in that
• 4:27
  place. There were persons of interest
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  in that pub. Of course, you know, nobody was
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  doing anything good. I said, listen, I'm urinating
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  blood. He said, oh, I'm the well, what
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  should I do? Yeah, that's easy.
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  What are you drinking? I said, I'm drinking spirits.
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  And he said that's easy, mate, you just got a, got a beer, just
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  got a beer. So I went and started drinking
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  beer for a while and instantly the blood stopped.
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  And you know, for an 18 year old that knows everything, you know,
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  the doctor wasn't even on the radar.
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  And this was my mentality, the big blind spot, you know, just
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  the big blind spot and just kept on, kept on continuing our
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  shenanigans. And deep down, I was, I was
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  freaking out about my life and my future because at such a
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  young age, you're not supposed to be, I don't know, you're not
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  supposed to be just drinking in town and wasting your life.
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  But that was looking too much on the inside of me when I was
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  already trying to figure out other people's problems if, you
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  know, because I was an expert and I couldn't even look at
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  myself. And the year after, when I was
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  about 19, I, my mother was crying that my father kept on
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  going to Greece and, and he ended up selling the a property
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  so we can go overseas. So if we go overseas and, and I
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  had three months of a stupor over there and I misbehaved at
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  my cousin's aunt, my cousin's in laws and, and it left the mark
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  on me that for the first time in my life I had a good look at my
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  behaviour and I thought there's something wrong here.
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  And I must have had a glimpse of my conscience and I must have
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  had a glimpse of my conscience of what I did over there because
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  I abused their hospitality and in one of my drunken things.
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  But they probably thought it wasn't too much.
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  But it hurt me. It hurt me and when I come back
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  after three months in Greece, I worked with my mother, my little
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  brother, and we spent wads of money because like I said, we we
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  took the takings of the house. And the reason why I mentioned
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  money is because money fixes everything.
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  You know, you're not an alcoholic if you got money and
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  you know that at that and that at that.
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  And you know, money fixes everything and so you can't be
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  an alcoholic. You know, I'm not in the park
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  bench. I'm not on the here either the
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  blind spots and I'm not sleeping with newspapers on top of me.
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  You know, I've always like being a bit spoiled and rah rah, rah,
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  rah, rah. So I come back and I went
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  straight back behind this tree and, and I was growing.
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  I was, I was maturing, but I was still immature.
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  I was still drinking, I was still sticking up for my best
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  mate alcohol. I was still doing the night
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  things. I was smoking 4-5 packets a day
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  of cigarettes all the way through the night.
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  You know, just, you know, 19202122 and then 24 I'd get
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  married and, and by this time I think as I've got married and I
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  thought that'd be the answer and it would save me.
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  I started drinking less and my alcoholism was festering.
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  It was growing because I was not feeling it and I was going to
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  awful places and my memory was starting to collapse.
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  I had horrid feelings inside. I was, I lost my enthusiasm.
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  I didn't want to get up. I was an old man at 26 after two
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  years of marriage and every now and then I'd have a I look at
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  myself, but I didn't know how to get out of it and I couldn't
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  stop alcohol and never drove sober.
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  And yeah. And God cross the road was a
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  member of a A His name was Ray. His name was Seaman Ray because
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  he worked on the Abel Tasman and his sponsor was raucous, thick.
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  And Ray would come across the road sometimes to get to know us
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  with about property developing in Brompton.
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  We used to live across the road from him and and then he
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  introduced me to his sponsor and he came across the road and I
• 8:56
  wasn't enjoying my drinking and I knew I was caught and I
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  couldn't get out of it and I was still sticking up for my best
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  mate alcohol and I was drinking on top to forget those feelings.
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  So Rogus comes across the road and he 12 steps me and he tells
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  me that he used to sell insurance to Greeks in Eltham
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  and he was an insurance person and they used to put a spread on
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  for him to eat and stuff like this.
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  And he found out that I was a Greek.
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  So he leaned on fewer things that Ray must have told him to
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  get. I I wouldn't let anybody into my
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  company that talked about my best mate alcohol.
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  So he walked around gently into it and he started pronouncing a
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  few Greek swear words, mispronouncing him.
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  And I lost the art of laughing and I tried to giggle.
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  And what he was doing was opening the doors of trust
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  through saying that he's been to my hell.
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  And today I can see what he saw in my eyes.
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  He saw an empty vessel. He saw a someone burnt out.
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  He saw someone spent. He saw lights on nobody home.
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  And today I think I was knocking on the doors of Korsakov.
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  I've learned in these rooms. And so he toasted me and he said
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  to me, would you like to go to, would you like to go to a
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  meeting tonight? And I said yes, but I'll just
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  check with my partner thinking that she wouldn't my wife at the
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  time that she think, thinking that she probably thought I
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  wouldn't go was my immediate thought, you know, I don't need
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  it and blah, blah, blah. And she couldn't wait to Get Me
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  Out the door. And that was a shock to me.
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  I, that was a shock. I, I, I didn't know I had an
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  issue with alcohol. And like I said, I wasn't
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  driving sober. I was on my last finding out.
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  I was on the last. I didn't know why my boss put me
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  on my last legs of drinking because I hardly ever drank.
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  And that's what I thought. I was on my last chances at
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  work. I never knew that my wife at the
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  time was sick of me. I misread everything, you know,
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  and, and I didn't know the word sobriety.
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  I never knew the word sobriety and I never knew Alcoholics
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  Anonymous and I never knew there was meanings.
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  I was just 12 step and brought in the next day.
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  I was brought in the next day and he comes and picks me up and
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  he had gaudy and gaudy, another gaudy, a young gaudy and New
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  Zealander and Ray in the back and he had me in the front.
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  And as soon as he gets any bashes of the dash, he says
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  Harry, it's the first drink. And he changed his tone and he
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  said it's the first drink, Harry, the first drink.
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  First drink does the damage where one teaspoon is not enough
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  and we can't stop and our behaviour changes.
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  And of course I say we morph. So off we go and go to a meeting
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  and I forgot where it was. Henley Beach or something.
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  He was a member of Henley Beach. He lived at Henley Beach.
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  And so we go to a meeting and I thought, well, you know it, It
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  was a room full of people not drinking and happy.
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  And I couldn't understand that. I couldn't fathom.
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  I couldn't put it into my head. And, you know, after the
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  meeting, I know I heard something, but I can't remember.
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  And on the way back, he bashes a dash.
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  Harry, It's the first string. It's the first string and the
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  other two were in the back, but what he was doing every night
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  but and saying Harry and raucous 'cause she was walkers.
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  It was loud. He knew I was in no person's
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  land. I was gone.
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  He was emphasizing me putting trainer wheels on my thinking.
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  I couldn't think anymore and he was asking me to leave my
• 13:01
  thinking outside the door when we go to the meetings because
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  the mine works best like a parachute, best when it's fully
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  open. So I left all my luggage outside
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  and went inside and listened. And as I went to more meetings,
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  I said, this is good for you people, but not for me because I
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  thought it was clicky. And then you get back in the car
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  and you know, you get the bash, the dash, you know how it's the
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  first thing, it's the first string.
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  And it wasn't long. He started seeing a few
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  improvements in me and he threw the tea towel at me and he said
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  now it's time for the things. Triple T tea towel therapy.
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  And now we had the car meeting, bash the dash, we had the
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  meeting, we had the sink doing service work and we had the
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  meeting on the way home. So I was getting full of a A.
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  And then we started going to meetings like Hillcrest as you
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  got the huge stairs was just all smoke there in those days and
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  150 people there. And if you got a Guernsey there,
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  you were lucky. And every time we went, there
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  was only about three or four times Lucas got a Goonchi.
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  And I said, well, who is this guy?
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  And I always thought seeing him in a suit and a new car, there
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  might be money and Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  And I didn't know what to think. It was early days.
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  And this is in 1984, of course. And during this period of time,
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  after I came back from Greece, even into this period of time
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  that I started sobering up. I must have, I don't know,
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  looking back now, it must have been more than five times.
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  You know, I woke up in my dreams and crying, you know, to make
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  amends to the people in Greece. You know, my cousin's in laws.
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  And I believe that was a prayer. And in that prayer it sent
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  raucous to me. And I came to Alcoholics
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  Anonymous and I think he left after about 7-8 months.
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  And on my 11th month of I, I, I went back to Greece because
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  after four months of being in Alcoholics Anonymous, I actually
• 15:06
  stopped smoking and I started getting all this money together
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  and I thought I'd use it to good use.
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  And then we'd go back to Greece. And I wanted to see these people
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  that I was crying because I could never go back.
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  And I must have been screaming to God, you know, like I want to
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  go back in my sleep and it was just embedded in me.
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  And I got all this money and I went across to overseas with my,
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  my, my new wife and, you know, made amends.
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  And I believe that crying was a calling.
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  And this is my story, you know, this is what I think.
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  You know, it's just, it's not a coincidence.
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  And I come back and done a bit of a a in Greece and on the
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  American bases and that, and I come back and the days turn into
• 15:54
  weeks, weeks turn into months. And I was a secretary of my
• 15:58
  March before I went overseas. And when I come back, I was part
• 16:02
  of the new North Adelaide group. I took all our Pine Marsh group
• 16:08
  stuff to North Adelaide and amalgamated it because there was
• 16:11
  no more high marsh and I was with Blind Ellen and I was a
• 16:14
  member there for a while. And then after a while we ended
• 16:17
  up shifting to Saint Mary's and I became secretary of Bedford
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  Park for 3 1/2 years. And I started, you know, one
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  year after another year, you know, first year to 2nd year to
• 16:27
  3rd year. And every time I look back on my
• 16:30
  years, you know, I thought jeez, how zany was I?
• 16:33
  How was the, the blind spot, you know, And in the first step of
• 16:38
  the first word it says I just, you know, Sid says that the only
• 16:42
  thing we keep is our name, you know, and everything else
• 16:44
  changes. So today I have to look at what
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  are the old traits of Harry to today.
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  You know, I left the old environment to today and you
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  know, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into monks.
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  And the first word of the first steps is we doesn't say I I
• 17:03
  tried to give up a million times and a million and one times have
• 17:06
  failed. That was I the I program for me
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  on Greek willpower on Australian willpower soluble in alcohol,
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  they told me. And the first word is we found
• 17:16
  in the 5th step, which is high power and and another human
• 17:21
  being. And that's what I believe that
• 17:23
  first step is. Because anything I read what
• 17:26
  even what Uncle Gordy just posted up now on February 1958
• 17:31
  was a month after I was born. Every time I read something that
• 17:35
  these blokes wrote, you know, the the words jump out of the
• 17:39
  page for me now. Yeah, I was just saying to Diane
• 17:43
  previously that but for an hour ago I said, you know, anybody,
• 17:48
  you know, I've got I, I can't believe I've got that time up,
• 17:51
  you know, and I said, you know, back in those days, if anybody
• 17:54
  had 39 years, I thought they were mentors.
• 17:57
  How could they do it? How can you have 39 years?
• 17:59
  You need 39 years to have 39 years, and that's a lifetime.
• 18:03
  And here I am, folks, telling you that I've got 39 years and I
• 18:08
  wasn't supposed to live to 65 because I was an old man at 26.
• 18:12
  So the days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months and
• 18:16
  slowly, slowly I'll discover through the steps.
• 18:19
  It's a Wii programme. And I couldn't fathom in the
• 18:22
  early days that I was an alcoholic because Alcoholics
• 18:25
  sleep under park benches and newspaper.
• 18:29
  And, but it wasn't until the 4th that exposed me that my life was
• 18:34
  unmanageable. I, I, I had to, had to
• 18:40
  understand the second part of the first step to, to fully
• 18:44
  comprehend the first part. I couldn't understand that I was
• 18:48
  an alcoholic and then my life was unmanageable because I had
• 18:52
  all those blind spots because money fixed everything.
• 18:54
  And yet I had one foot in the grave.
• 18:57
  So I had to try and understand my unmanageability and it come
• 19:02
  up in the 4th and, and in the second, it was Czech.
• 19:07
  Brennan awoke me with those tapes in the early sobriety that
• 19:12
  it doesn't, it tells us, return us to sanity, but it doesn't say
• 19:18
  how much sanity. And if, if I stay away from
• 19:22
  Alcoholics Anonymous and I get my insanity back, what have I
• 19:26
  done? What's happened to my emotional
• 19:28
  sobriety? I try and live the steps.
• 19:31
  I come to Alcoholics Anonymous to learn how to live out there.
• 19:33
  And then I stopped going. How am I going to learn to live
• 19:36
  out there? And again, Sid, Sid says
• 19:38
  they've, you know, and he's like them after you.
• 19:40
  If you leave it, you die. It's just a degree of time.
• 19:43
  If you pick up drinks. We are so sensitive that little
• 19:48
  issues become big issues. So we get little issues that
• 19:52
  become huge issues away from the programme.
• 19:55
  Darn. Paul says that the sheep didn't
• 19:57
  get away from the pack the wolf gets.
• 19:59
  So I try to get myself in syrup from 1:00 to 10:00 in priority
• 20:03
  of my life. One to nine has to be Alcoholics
• 20:05
  Anonymous. And then 10 is life.
• 20:07
  It has to be anything I gain in Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 20:11
  I've heard it. I've heard it that I lose it
• 20:13
  will not, will not, will not. You know, if I leave Alcoholics
• 20:18
  Anonymous. Anything I've gained in
• 20:20
  Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't matter what it is, because
• 20:22
  alcohol is the greatest remover. It removes our relationship, our
• 20:26
  loved ones. And then when I finish with all
• 20:28
  my friends and that, it starts on my health, my liver, and then
• 20:33
  it starts on my brain and it starts on Corsicough.
• 20:36
  Then I've got to carry a bum bag.
• 20:37
  Then I've got to carry faculties.
• 20:39
  I'll lose my faculties. Then I've got to live in a
• 20:41
  wheelchair and stand Pommy Stand used to go and visit his brother
• 20:46
  at Salisbury. From Salisbury he used to go and
• 20:49
  visit his his brother in the nursing home and every Thursday
• 20:53
  he would go there and he would his brother would attack him
• 20:57
  with a stick and try and hit him and he said why have you taken
• 21:02
  six months to come and visit me? Every Thursday he would get
• 21:06
  attacked saying why did you take six months to come and visit me?
• 21:11
  And he had his bum bag because he couldn't.
• 21:13
  The brain doesn't know when it's going to do its thing anymore.
• 21:17
  So they connect it to a bum bag and, and so violent that that's
• 21:23
  where I was going with it. That's the doors I was knocking
• 21:25
  on the Korsakoff doors. So yeah, I, I really
• 21:31
  appreciative of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 21:34
  It's the best thing I've ever done in my life.
• 21:36
  And I've left a couple of things out of my 39 years of sobriety
• 21:44
  because I really wanted to paint the picture of my folks.
• 21:47
  And one of the things that I skipped, and I'll come back to
• 21:51
  this part here was the trumpet. And we used to have fish shops
• 21:56
  and all our weekends were taken by the fish shops and we never
• 22:00
  had a family gathering as such. And we were craving the whole
• 22:04
  three brothers were craving for a bit of love.
• 22:06
  And so my father gets me a, a trumpet in grade 5.
• 22:10
  And you know, later on in life, when I grew up, you know, about
• 22:13
  1617, he, I, I found out that because my parents come from the
• 22:19
  war, that he wanted me to have that trumpet so that when I got
• 22:25
  conscripted, I would go to MASH and I wouldn't be at the front
• 22:28
  lines and get killed. In other words, my father loved
• 22:32
  me. But you know what?
• 22:34
  He never told me. I tried to tell my brothers, you
• 22:40
  know, that I, I love them and that.
• 22:42
  And through my parents drinking and that and my association with
• 22:48
  my parents, I have two children. And there was so many arguments
• 22:53
  with the alcohol that my children turned back on me as
• 22:57
  well when I was about 28. And that was all alcohol
• 23:03
  related, all alcohol related. And now they choose to stay away
• 23:07
  and they've never seen me drink. And it was the firmness of my
• 23:15
  father of not, this is how it's done and, and, and, and we're
• 23:21
  not allowed to think. And that's what I think my
• 23:24
  children didn't like. So Alcoholics Anonymous has
• 23:28
  allowed me to live without my children and how to behave in
• 23:32
  society, not living with my children and, and not doing any
• 23:38
  self harm, not seeing my children.
• 23:40
  And they are 37 and 33 now, and they've never seen me pick up a
• 23:48
  dream. So days turn into weeks, weeks
• 23:52
  turn into months. And started clocking up a little
• 23:55
  bit of time now and takes five to seven years for the fog to
• 23:59
  lift. And I couldn't understand what
• 24:02
  that meant, you know, But my thinking with alcohol became
• 24:07
  abnormal. And that abnormal thinking
• 24:10
  became normal. The unmanageability became
• 24:13
  normal. It was a big blind spot for me
• 24:16
  and I had to undo that normal, that type of normal, and then
• 24:22
  'cause that normal was abnormal. So I had to come back to normal.
• 24:26
  And five to seven years shifted my thinking and allowed me to
• 24:33
  live sober and redo the steps and live the steps and, and see
• 24:40
  the yet you know what, what haven't, what have I still, what
• 24:44
  traits have I still got from, from my practising?
• 24:48
  And what have I missed the first time round in the steps?
• 24:52
  And my memory, you know, in the fourth, my memory is just
• 24:56
  collapse was collapsed. And as I grew a little bit more
• 24:59
  sober, I've got a little bit more memory.
• 25:02
  But what I mean by a little bit more is, of course, years.
• 25:06
  Yeah. So sometimes something comes
• 25:07
  back and snaps at me, you know, and sometimes, you know, my
• 25:11
  family, my brothers and that see that I, my mum, see that I do my
• 25:15
  best and there's no mud on me. But I've done a lot of damage.
• 25:19
  They want to lick something on me.
• 25:20
  They want to stick mud on me, you know?
• 25:22
  And you did this, Harry. And you did that, Harry.
• 25:24
  And, and that's family. And Alcoholics Anonymous has
• 25:30
  allowed me to, to, to behave in that way as well in, in coping
• 25:37
  with family, you know, Yeah, I've tried to suggest a, A to my
• 25:42
  family, but it just doesn't, you know, it's got a couple
• 25:45
  somewhere else. And well, today, what's it like?
• 25:51
  I'm supposed to be living the dream.
• 25:53
  We own a motorhome and we just get away.
• 25:55
  And we're at Port Broughton at the moment, holidaying with my
• 25:59
  partner and her and her 1010 year grandchild, you know, her
• 26:04
  10 year old was yesterday. And I'm just saying to Diane
• 26:08
  yesterday, you know, my family just pushing me away and your
• 26:12
  family's adopting me, you know, and it just keeps getting better
• 26:15
  every day. And I'm a part of and I cherish,
• 26:20
  I appreciate every moment. And this is all due to
• 26:24
  Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and I try not be a smarty today.
• 26:28
  And I've recent, I've gone through a little bit of mud.
• 26:33
  God has put in front of me one of my old friends from 40 years
• 26:38
  ago that we used to have like company and that.
• 26:41
  And this person knows all the people that's going on in our
• 26:45
  situation and he's going to iron it out.
• 26:48
  How good is that? If if I don't believe in
• 26:51
  coincidences, I think the guy upstairs only puts him gives us
• 26:56
  what we can handle every day. So now I'm handing it over to
• 27:00
  him and we can get our lives back.
• 27:03
  And these people are a little bit rough about tenants, and
• 27:08
  that's a bit of an understatement.
• 27:10
  But I'm handing it over to him because he knows them and he's
• 27:15
  seeing a lot of injustice and he can't stomach it.
• 27:18
  And he's doing it for free. What am I supposed to say about
• 27:21
  the program? Everything in my life is about
• 27:23
  the program. You know, even in my early
• 27:26
  years, you know, I couldn't understand the program.
• 27:28
  And I went to Gordy and I said, you know, This is why it doesn't
• 27:31
  work. And have a look today.
• 27:34
  I'm still sober. I keep it that cyber that, I
• 27:39
  keep it that. So I keep it that simple that if
• 27:43
  I have a bad day, a bad day means I've picked up a drink.
• 27:46
  You know, I don't have bad days and God didn't get me sober to
• 27:52
  sit there and say I've had a bad day and I don't really want to
• 27:57
  be second and give me confidence to go out into the world and
• 28:01
  face situation today. I have situations after a bit of
• 28:06
  sobriety, a long term supply if you like.
• 28:10
  I've changed my language to I don't have problems.
• 28:15
  I have situations, I create problems.
• 28:19
  I have situations today and I seek help and attention or help
• 28:25
  as required. And this is the altered
• 28:29
  attitude. You know, I've got situations I
• 28:33
  don't have, I don't have, I don't have problems.
• 28:37
  And and it's taken a while. It's taken a while.
• 28:42
  And for anybody that's new, look, it's the best thing is
• 28:47
  I've ever done that I know in my life.
• 28:50
  And it's just helped me so much between my ears.
• 28:55
  And it's allowed Harry to meet Harry, which is the best years
• 29:00
  yet to come. And I got to meet myself before
• 29:04
  my maker, you know, it's priceless.
• 29:07
  And like I said, I'm trying to compress 39 years and, you know,
• 29:13
  it's just a few minutes, but I know what I'm saying.
• 29:16
  But it's hard to explain it to the young ones.
• 29:20
  And if somebody was telling this, I know I wouldn't have
• 29:22
  understood it. But it does work.
• 29:25
  The oldies are there to show that it does work, you know, and
• 29:30
  just us being there to keep the, you know, to keep them rooms
• 29:34
  open and and and and to show that you can string years
• 29:38
  together of days. I have 39 years of days because
• 29:42
  I don't own them. You know, he's only brought for
• 29:44
  the grace of God go I and I know I've missed a lot of patches and
• 29:49
  it's a bit nervous trying to talk tonight, but I think I've
• 29:52
  gone on a little bit. So I really appreciate everybody
• 29:56
  in these rooms. I just love to hear you.
• 29:59
  I love to hear people on Power talk and it's just my family
• 30:03
  and, and, and I'm just so blessed that I know Gordy and
• 30:06
  he's opened up these rooms and I'd just love it to go on and
• 30:10
  on. And thank you to Mish and the
• 30:12
  people behind doing it. So thank you very much for
• 30:15
  allowing me to share. We have local meetings for the
• 30:19
  full week in the local area. Monday's gala meeting at 8:00.
• 30:24
  Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00, Wednesday is Elizabeth E at
• 30:30
  8:00, Thursday is 2 Wells at 8:00 and Friday is Salisbury at
• 30:37
  8:00. There's a meeting at Devron Park
• 30:40
  at 12:00 and on Sunday there's a maintenance Salisbury at 7:00
• 30:45
  and many of the maintenance in the area.
• 30:50
  For details of your local meetings, please phone 1300
• 30:56
  Double 22222. And once again, if anyone you
• 31:00
  know is struggling with alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics
• 31:03
  Anonymous on 1300 Double 22222. The website isaasa.org dot AU.