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Sober Talk SA - Daniel · Sober Talk SA

• 0:00
  Yeah, good evening. Everyone used this thing and he
• 0:05
  may be listening to this one Daniel and I am an alcoholic on.
• 0:10
  I have a Home group. I have a sponsor.
• 0:13
  My Home group is down at Henley Beach in Adelaide, South
• 0:16
  Australia. And yeah, this is my my story of
• 0:21
  recovery and how it was and how it is down.
• 0:26
  Yeah, so I was born, I believe I was born an alcoholic.
• 0:29
  I certainly didn't know that at the time, but my life was ruled
• 0:34
  by well, my childhood was ruled by fear and worry and doubt and
• 0:39
  dissatisfaction and nothing was good enough and no longer good
• 0:43
  enough. I I didn't come from a a
• 0:46
  horrific background and so far as a family or abuse or neglect
• 0:52
  was concerned. I had three older sisters who
• 0:55
  very much good little girls I suppose and I'm with straight A
• 0:59
  students and didn't have the same fear and terror that I had
• 1:03
  having to go to school every day.
• 1:05
  But yeah my I had a good mother. I my my father was a bit of a
• 1:09
  deal but he wasn't an alcoholic but he had some other issues and
• 1:13
  he sort of took off when I was very young which and I never saw
• 1:17
  him again and neither did anyone my family for that matters but
• 1:21
  you know that certainly didn't make me alcoholic.
• 1:23
  It didn't help, didn't help my behavior when I finally picked
• 1:27
  up a drink. But you know, that's neither
• 1:30
  here nor there. Yeah.
• 1:32
  So yeah, like I said, as a child I was just ruled by fear.
• 1:36
  And when I, when I found, finally found that drink at
• 1:41
  around about the age of 13, it certainly took away that fear.
• 1:46
  My, my first drink was, well, my first drunk I should say.
• 1:51
  You know, I had a few drinks here and there, family barbecues
• 1:54
  and things like that. And from my first proper drunk I
• 1:57
  was going to a school park couple of mates.
• 2:00
  Somehow I'm not really sure how, I can't remember.
• 2:02
  We got a hold of a bottle of body car and a a bottle of
• 2:05
  something that was pretty foul. I think it was Southern Comfort.
• 2:08
  And we sat around a little park in in the woodfield in SA there.
• 2:12
  And I just remember sitting, sitting down on the grass and
• 2:16
  ruining a circle. And yeah, I I sat down this
• 2:21
  terrified, dysfunctional, miserable, pathetic little
• 2:26
  child. By the time I stood up and had
• 2:30
  my lion's share of that alcohol, I was absolutely fearless.
• 2:34
  And a lot of people say, you know, that their first drink was
• 2:39
  a spiritual experience. And I and I would say that mom
• 2:42
  was very much akin to that. I I just could not believe the
• 2:47
  change in my personality, the change in my attitudes, the
• 2:52
  change in my behavior. It was just, it was just chalk
• 2:56
  and cheese. You know, I die.
• 2:58
  I became the king of kings, I thought and and I was absolutely
• 3:03
  sold from the word guy. And from then on, you know, I
• 3:07
  thought I thought I'd found there the answer to life there
• 3:10
  leaks. It's a life.
• 3:11
  I thought, you know this guy this, this all I have to do to
• 3:14
  escape this mind of mine and this life of mine and this.
• 3:18
  And you know I've always believed that my alcoholism is
• 3:21
  just have a strong aversion to reality.
• 3:24
  Just I was born with a a real problem with the reality and so
• 3:30
  yeah, I thought this is it, this is the one.
• 3:32
  And so from then on I just became obsessed with with how do
• 3:37
  I get this stuff do I have to beg borrow still like I said my
• 3:41
  mother was a moderate drinkers. She a normal drinker I should
• 3:45
  say my sisters were normal drinkers they drank with
• 3:48
  impunity and but me, I and and you know that that night I got
• 3:53
  drunk I went to this school party with those friends and I
• 3:58
  made an absolute fool of myself and I remember blacking out
• 4:04
  sitting at A at a piano and vomiting over the keys of these
• 4:08
  pianos and this poor kids mother who was hosting the party just
• 4:12
  going Oh my God what have you done.
• 4:16
  That's the last thing I remember.
• 4:17
  And the next thing I I came to in the back of my stepfather's
• 4:22
  panel van, sitting outside the front of our house and yeah,
• 4:27
  wondering what happened and and and the very first feeling of
• 4:32
  that guilt, that shame, that remorse, that absolute feel
• 4:36
  like, how am I going to go to school on Monday and face this
• 4:40
  because I can't remember what happened, what I said, what I
• 4:42
  did. I did go to school, however and
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  some of the kids there were like looking at me sideways and a
• 4:50
  couple of them said you're a disgrace, but, you know a couple
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  of them came up to me and said you're a legend.
• 4:56
  So I I immediately gravitated towards them and they became my
• 5:00
  best mates and our other paddocks and dysfunctional kids.
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  And then and off we went. And, you know, little did I
• 5:09
  know, little did I know I thought I'd found the answer to
• 5:12
  life. And I thought I'd found the way
• 5:14
  to fit in and the way to be confident and the way to speak
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  together was the way to and to say that, to say what was on my
• 5:20
  mind, because there was a lot of my mind and, you know, but I
• 5:24
  wasn't drinking. It was just bottled down, buried
• 5:27
  down deep inside my subconsciousness.
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  And and I really did think that this, this alcohol stuff
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  unlocked a part of my brain that was some sort of genius and
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  could, you know, work everything out, tell everything one about
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  their problems. And that's, yeah, it was all
• 5:44
  lies. And basically, you know, like it
• 5:47
  was just a slow, slow, slow descent in hell.
• 5:51
  And, you know, I had some promising starts in life and I
• 5:55
  was no deal. You know, I graduated from
• 5:57
  school. And so yes, I graduated from
• 6:02
  school because my three older sisters did it and my pride
• 6:05
  wouldn't allow me to be the only failure in the family.
• 6:08
  So I stuck that out and I but once I'd finished school, where
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  there was no university for me it was just get a job, get
• 6:17
  money. And by by this stage, I was
• 6:19
  already taking copious amounts of drugs as well.
• 6:23
  I just realized that anything that would change the color of
• 6:26
  my day, give it to me. I didn't care if it was a dog
• 6:29
  pill. I really didn't care.
• 6:31
  It was just like if this escape, this gives me that escape from
• 6:34
  reality that I craved, then give it to me.
• 6:39
  And so I was smoking a lot of marijuana or taking a lot of LSD
• 6:42
  and and whatever in between drinks I was like I said I was,
• 6:46
  I was no deal and I was a very talented athlete.
• 6:48
  The probably that was the only place that I actually wasn't
• 6:54
  drunk on a football field to where it were actually felt like
• 6:57
  I fit in And the only reason I felt like I fit in was because I
• 7:00
  was better than everyone so and I always wanted to be better
• 7:04
  than everyone and that team out bowl certainly made me feel like
• 7:07
  I was better than everyone but and you know I I I when I first
• 7:12
  got sideways say you know it was a lot of fun in the beginning
• 7:15
  but the truth is I was having a I was having a lot of fun But I
• 7:19
  can tell you what no one around me was having any fun because I
• 7:23
  was a vicious and vicious person and especially my tongue you
• 7:28
  know I had a vicious tongue and I would tear strips off people
• 7:31
  and especially the people I loved And well if you know if I
• 7:35
  knew you the more I knew you the more you know I knew where to
• 7:40
  stick down I think so I knew more about you and I just became
• 7:44
  a horrible here and being I was raised with some good ethics and
• 7:47
  you know I had a wonderful mother and she you know put some
• 7:50
  instilled some some good values into me and my sisters and but
• 7:54
  as soon as that dream came in those values went out the window
• 7:57
  for a good 20 years and but you know like I said I I I carried
• 8:04
  on and I had no idea I was an alcoholic.
• 8:06
  Of course, I had no idea what an alcoholic was.
• 8:09
  Well, you know, you hear a lot in the rooms.
• 8:11
  You know, the old man under the bridge, you know, with the paper
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  bag and or somebody's, you know, got nothing and lost everything.
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  And by that stage I certainly had nothing and I hadn't lost
• 8:20
  anything really. I'd lost my dig into that quite
• 8:23
  a few times and I'd lost my freedom several times, you know,
• 8:27
  by being locked up overnight. I'd lost a couple of mates while
• 8:31
  it's all I was in my early 20s because they just couldn't
• 8:33
  couldn't cope with my behavior. I've lost the respect of I guess
• 8:39
  my sister's to a degree as well. But you know, I still thought I
• 8:43
  could carry on. I thought, no, I'm just young.
• 8:45
  I'm in Australia. That's all right.
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  This is what we do, You know, we we're just, we're getting away
• 8:49
  with it and there's not huge consequences.
• 8:51
  But, you know, I just kept having these promising starts
• 8:55
  and then I'd have these disastrous finishes.
• 8:58
  And what happened is those disastrous finishes and
• 9:01
  disastrous endings and disastrous consequences just
• 9:05
  piled up behind me until there was an absolute mountain of
• 9:08
  shot. And then I found it.
• 9:11
  My, you know, as time went on, as years go by, you know, I had
• 9:15
  a couple of kids. I had a child to this woman and
• 9:17
  I had a child to that woman. And I'd have really good starts
• 9:20
  in careers and really good starts in relationships and
• 9:23
  tenancies and jobs, you know, and friendships and and but
• 9:28
  that'll that'll get, you know, the alcohol would put paid all
• 9:31
  of them in this mountain behind me would just get bigger and
• 9:35
  bigger and bigger. And my reality got harder and
• 9:38
  harder and harder. So as that got harder, my
• 9:41
  drinking increased more and more and more.
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  They say it's a progressive disease and it certainly was for
• 9:46
  me. If I just would wake up in the
• 9:49
  morning and couldn't face life. I couldn't face life.
• 9:53
  You know, when I had that first drink at 13 or 14 and that gave
• 9:57
  me that spiritual experience, I had no idea that, you know,
• 10:01
  10-15 years down the track that I'd have to wake up and have two
• 10:05
  liters of wine for breakfast. Just the face today, just the
• 10:09
  face today, just to walk out the door.
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  And that's how I was. And in the end of it, just I
• 10:14
  became worse than an animal. And those two children didn't,
• 10:18
  you know, at the end of my drinking I'd.
• 10:20
  I'd lost all my friends, every single one of them, my sisters,
• 10:25
  as much as they loved me, they. So they just said to me, Daniel,
• 10:29
  we love you, mate. And same with my mother.
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  My mother said we love you, but please, please don't come near
• 10:34
  us when you're drinking. And I respected that.
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  So all that really did you know, like I said, I had no friends
• 10:41
  like my my children around my life.
• 10:43
  My, I couldn't work anymore. I was just a bit too sick.
• 10:47
  I was, you know, and I was only 34 years old and so I thought
• 10:52
  I'd go to rehab and do the rehab rounds.
• 10:54
  You know, the rehab recovery relapsed on the cycle and you
• 10:59
  know I do. I did go to rehab and I went
• 11:01
  there for a good six months. And I think and I think the
• 11:06
  thing about rehab was it it it certainly I don't regret it and
• 11:10
  I and I was very, very grateful to get there and it sort of
• 11:13
  changed the course of my life. And I would go there.
• 11:19
  I learned quite, I learned why I drank.
• 11:22
  You know I did learn a little bit about this disease this
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  mental, physical and spiritual illness.
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  But I once I got there and I I just got a little bit too well,
• 11:32
  it'll be too super well and rehab and I was like this hyper
• 11:35
  recovery wrapped up in a bit of crop more and a bubble and you
• 11:38
  know you can't drink and you're just talking.
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  And so I I left there and I and like I said, I I left why I
• 11:45
  drank. But I, I, I didn't learn how not
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  stay not to pick up a drink again which is, which is the key
• 11:53
  part, you know, because like they're saying alcoholic and can
• 11:56
  stop drinking. You know, when the shit, it's
• 11:57
  the fan. She's not French.
• 11:59
  But you know, you might lose, you know, have the car crash or
• 12:02
  lose the friend or lose the wife or lose the job.
• 12:05
  And it's like, all right, I'll never stop now, but as it says
• 12:09
  in in our big book, you know, without help it is too much for
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  us. And without help it was
• 12:13
  certainly too much for me. And yeah, so I did a few rehabs
• 12:18
  and I learned some hearing lessons in powerlessness.
• 12:21
  I went to a A for a little bit and I just wasn't in A A, I was
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  around A A I just, I just looked at those steps and I looked at
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  these old people with loads of years I already go anywhere near
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  them. I'd hang around newcomers and
• 12:35
  we'd sit out the front and we'd have our smokes, you know, would
• 12:38
  chain smoke and go, God, this is a crock of you know what?
• 12:41
  And they were all the grey. Yep, Yep.
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  No, no. And off we'd go, Off we'd go
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  into the sunset. There was no sunset for me.
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  It was just going further and further and further out to sea.
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  And that's all I was. And by the time I finished
• 13:00
  drinking, I was very far out to sea and the sharks were circling
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  and I was 39 years old and I'd been drinking at least 10 years
• 13:10
  past my years by that. I hadn't honestly not had a fun
• 13:14
  time in 10 years. I can.
• 13:17
  I can say that with all conviction that I did not have
• 13:19
  any fun or drinking against my will.
• 13:22
  I was drinking around the clock. I was extremely sick.
• 13:27
  I was in then, you know, to be honest, I didn't have a lot of
• 13:30
  emotional pain because I the only experienced emotional pain
• 13:34
  when I was sober. And I I was, I would I was
• 13:36
  sober. I was drunk throughout the clock
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  and when I was drunk I just didn't I didn't give a I give a
• 13:41
  flying frog about anything. So I thought, if I just stay in
• 13:45
  this state, then I won't have to feel and and that's what I did.
• 13:49
  And but then, I don't know, like I had my last drink in very
• 13:54
  early March, the 2nd week of March 2012.
• 13:58
  So we're talking, yeah, about 11 1/2 years ago now.
• 14:02
  And I well, basically I came to in my little Housing Trust unit
• 14:08
  down in Henley Beach there and I was covered in blood and piss
• 14:13
  and had injuries and that wasn't extraordinary.
• 14:15
  That was quite normal. I was, I was actually quite
• 14:18
  happy that I'd made it home because I didn't normally make
• 14:21
  it home. I'd wake up in a jail cell or on
• 14:23
  a beach or a hard bench or in a Bush or in some strange place.
• 14:27
  I was, you know, I'm like check all I've got my wallet that's
• 14:31
  that's even that's an extra bonus.
• 14:33
  But the you know, the story is that I I just woke up and I just
• 14:39
  could not go on anymore. I was tired of living.
• 14:43
  I was scared of dying. I had no idea how it gets over.
• 14:47
  And I and the yeah, I I thought I've tried the rehabs, tried the
• 14:55
  detoxes, I've tried the counselors.
• 14:58
  I even thought I've tried AA. And that doesn't work.
• 15:00
  The truth is I hadn't tried AA. I just went there and sat on my
• 15:04
  arse and listened and did and did nothing, you know?
• 15:07
  There is another saying that says half measures of ours and
• 15:09
  nothing. And my half man half measures
• 15:13
  availed me nothing. All that availed me was more
• 15:15
  misery and more lessons in how powerless is powerless.
• 15:21
  You know I am over that first drink.
• 15:24
  You know I have no mental defense against it If it comes
• 15:27
  in and I've got no no program low a A and no high power.
• 15:32
  I was sitting duck and for some reason I don't know why I'm not
• 15:38
  why I wasn't religious and I wasn't spiritual at the time and
• 15:41
  but I was sitting in my little unit and just reassessing my
• 15:47
  life and and just for a minute there the the sum of all things
• 15:52
  came bearing down on me. The gravity of all my drinking.
• 15:54
  Not just that last Bender it was about 5 days blackout drinking.
• 15:58
  I couldn't remember anything but from that that that little kid
• 16:03
  in the park when I was 13 all the way you know some 20 odd
• 16:07
  years later to that man face down covered in blood and
• 16:12
  piercing his little unit. It all came bearing down on me
• 16:15
  and I kind of saw her for what it was for a minute the first
• 16:18
  time. And and I was forced to reach
• 16:21
  out to this universe or this ether or this God or whatever
• 16:24
  what I call it. I certainly didn't believe it
• 16:26
  and I said a very not a very humble prayer and I I won't
• 16:33
  repeat it on radio but it was you with an F fix me please.
• 16:40
  And I think it was the first time I'd actually got honest in
• 16:44
  well, maybe ever, maybe ever. And you know, there was no
• 16:48
  flashes of the light. There was number oh, or anything
• 16:51
  like that. It was just I just my my mind
• 16:56
  stopped in that instant. And in hindsight now, all these
• 17:01
  years later, I know what happened in that moment.
• 17:04
  And this may or may not happen for for you, or may not happen
• 17:07
  for every alcoholic. But in that moment, that
• 17:10
  obsession, that compulsion, that absolute crazy desire to to
• 17:16
  check out of reality left me and I became willing.
• 17:21
  I became willing. My I I realized that my ideas
• 17:25
  were finished, that my ideas were done, and that my very,
• 17:29
  very best thinking had had got me at the age of 39, lying face
• 17:34
  down, covered in urine and blood and and then with multiple
• 17:39
  injuries. And then that was the best I
• 17:42
  could do. And so I reached out to this
• 17:45
  universe, and that meant evening for one reason or another, I all
• 17:49
  through a bizarre set of circumstances.
• 17:52
  It felt like at the time, but I now believe it was divine
• 17:54
  Providence. I was standing on the doorstep
• 17:58
  of another man who I was 39 years old and he was 39 years
• 18:03
  sober which I thought was quite ironic that it's you know I
• 18:07
  realized this was all all the universe's grand plan and you
• 18:13
  know and and and life. Now, these 11 half years later,
• 18:16
  I I I just can't begin to convey to you and if you're new and
• 18:21
  listening to this like I was saying this from the bottom of
• 18:24
  my heart, this from going to a A and and and really getting stuck
• 18:30
  in and being fair dinkin. That's what my my old was.
• 18:32
  He was, you know, from the old store and he says are you fair
• 18:35
  din Kim? And I said, yeah I am fair Din
• 18:37
  Kim. And I just listened to him.
• 18:39
  I gave up. You know, my mind was racing.
• 18:43
  I was full of rage, full of anger.
• 18:46
  I didn't know what joy was. I didn't know what happiness
• 18:49
  was. I didn't know what peace was.
• 18:51
  Those those things had left me 20 years before.
• 18:54
  I couldn't even remember what they were like.
• 18:57
  But all I knew what was fear, anxiety and rage.
• 19:02
  And but what happened is I I just came to a a I came there
• 19:07
  every day and I did not want to go there.
• 19:10
  And if I'm honest, I hated it. I hated it.
• 19:14
  And it didn't matter what I what I thought.
• 19:17
  And and now I felt really didn't matter anymore because I knew I
• 19:21
  was finished in the day. I just did what this man told me
• 19:24
  to do. And it was very simple what he
• 19:26
  told me to do. He just said, Daniel put AA at
• 19:29
  the top of the perch. And I thought about that and I
• 19:32
  thought, well, OK, I've got no friends, I've got no partner.
• 19:36
  I've got no job, but no idea how to stay sober.
• 19:41
  I got a mountain of that and there.
• 19:43
  So there's not really anything standing in the way of me going
• 19:46
  along to one of these meetings every day.
• 19:48
  And so I did. And well, so I'm so glad I did
• 19:53
  because what I did what by doing that I and and and I did that to
• 19:58
  hundreds and hundreds of meetings at the road.
• 20:00
  And by doing that, I I didn't know what I was doing at the
• 20:04
  time. But what I was doing, I was
• 20:05
  building a solid foundation so I could launch myself back into
• 20:09
  life. When I'd when the time came,
• 20:13
  when the right time came and I didn't know when that was going
• 20:15
  to be, but for me it was after just just under a year, just
• 20:20
  under a year. I was probably 11 months sober
• 20:22
  at about 350 meetings in and sometimes I do 2A day because
• 20:27
  the first one was so rubbish I'd have to do another one.
• 20:30
  And please don't take it as to these meetings are in my opinion
• 20:34
  the greatest a movement for social recovery that in the 20th
• 20:39
  century started by two men in nine and 35 and now across the
• 20:44
  world in two under odd countries and then millions and millions
• 20:47
  of brothers and sisters I've got out there and I can do this.
• 20:50
  I a thing at the moment I'm sitting in Port Perry and
• 20:53
  sitting at the ocean and doing this little share for you guys
• 20:56
  and my life's amazing. You know it's a paradox.
• 21:00
  I was born full of fear. Alcohol took away that fear and
• 21:07
  by the end of my drinking, I was not feeling anything.
• 21:10
  I was an animal. I put down the drink, became
• 21:14
  full of fear again. I did the AA program and the
• 21:17
  fear left me. Today I don't live in fear.
• 21:21
  I got a career of my dreams. And you know, of course life
• 21:26
  goes on with it, with, with not, you know, it's not all, it's all
• 21:29
  rainbows and butterflies and unicorns.
• 21:31
  It's, you know, I've had some tragedy and trauma in my
• 21:34
  sobriety, but with the love and support of my brothers and
• 21:37
  sisters in a I've, I've been able to get through anything.
• 21:41
  And you know, the paradox is that, you know, first after,
• 21:46
  like I said, 11 months, I I I just remember waking up one day
• 21:50
  and the anxiety and the fear was gone.
• 21:53
  And all I'd been doing was going to these meetings.
• 21:55
  I didn't have her, you know, at the old board, new girlfriend or
• 21:58
  a new place. I was still pretty, pretty
• 22:01
  miserable with this one day I just woke up and thought, you
• 22:04
  know, I've been doing these meetings every day.
• 22:06
  I'm starting to feel different. And this day I felt really
• 22:09
  different and I felt the presence of some power just
• 22:13
  driving to a meeting. I was on Green Hill Rd.
• 22:15
  And I just felt some power and and and this voice came into my
• 22:20
  head and said do you know what Daniel you keep doing this.
• 22:24
  You might he just might be happy.
• 22:26
  One day is at this stage I wasn't sure what happiness was.
• 22:31
  All these fearings would come and all is that is that peace.
• 22:34
  Is that contentment is that happiness.
• 22:35
  Like I can't even remember it was all I have a brand new brand
• 22:40
  new experiences but now and then you know, so I kept going and
• 22:44
  and and I did. I launched myself into a new
• 22:46
  career which I still have today 10 years later.
• 22:49
  And I absolutely I'll progress through the ranks there to to
• 22:52
  manage a facility a mental health facility which is just
• 22:56
  beyond conception considering where I came from.
• 22:59
  You know I should have been a patient there forever.
• 23:01
  But now you know I run the place almost and I've got fantastic
• 23:06
  friends. I'm I'm a part of this
• 23:08
  fellowship. It's it's it's it's my lifeblood
• 23:11
  and it's it's my foundation and it's it's my rock And you know,
• 23:16
  and it's it's quite simple. I just go to three or four
• 23:18
  medics a week and I'm I'm able to live my life out here.
• 23:21
  And I I travel. I've done more traveling than in
• 23:25
  in the last 11 or 12 years and I did for the 39 before that,
• 23:30
  we'll probably 10 times more. And I'm free, you know, I'm free
• 23:34
  of the slavery. You know that that little prayer
• 23:37
  I said and you know in early March 2012 when I was out in
• 23:42
  that deep water, I felt like and the hand of God just reached
• 23:46
  down into that water and picked me out, put me on this lifeboat
• 23:51
  and on the life boat I had a A and I had no idea where I was
• 23:54
  going. But I can tell you now, I'm not
• 23:57
  jumping out of that life boat back in with the sharks into the
• 24:00
  deep water because that's insane.
• 24:03
  And all I have to do is, you know, I just keep talking about
• 24:06
  my story it talk about my life keep in contact with a A, keep
• 24:10
  going to a A and yeah. And and I'm still not really
• 24:15
  just but I'm very spiritual. I have a strong faith in God and
• 24:19
  so, you know, I went from, I went from thinking I'd be happy
• 24:22
  to actually being happy. Then I had a few tragedies in
• 24:27
  life which sort of been I had to get through.
• 24:29
  But I've learned that suffering is is a part of living.
• 24:33
  It's a part of growing without, without, without pain there is
• 24:38
  no joy. And vice versa.
• 24:41
  Without light, there is no darkness, and vice versa.
• 24:45
  They're both just part of the human experience.
• 24:47
  And we can't have one without the other, unfortunately.
• 24:49
  And that's just life. But there's no escaping, there's
• 24:53
  no running. There's facing up to it with a,
• 24:56
  a with with my higher power, and there's nothing I can't get
• 25:00
  through. And I know that.
• 25:01
  And now just see how I'm I'm. I went from now extremely
• 25:07
  grateful for being sober to just.
• 25:11
  I'm just sitting here now and at Solomon Beach.
• 25:13
  And so the most attractive beach I've been to, I've been to many
• 25:16
  beaches is sobriety. But I'm I'm not just grateful to
• 25:20
  be sober. I'm not just grateful to be a
• 25:24
  part of a A I'm grateful just to exist.
• 25:27
  And I never thought those words would come out of my my mouth.
• 25:31
  I am grateful to exist in this universe because I hit some big
• 25:36
  user full thing. You know the sun the sky the
• 25:39
  stars the water the mountains the animals the people and and I
• 25:44
  get to be a part of that existence is the very essence is
• 25:48
  is just a beautiful thing that coming from someone like me who
• 25:53
  you know has been in jail and homeless and it's just it's just
• 25:59
  amazing it's all because you know I just made some decisions
• 26:04
  they weren't huge decisions but our decisions nonetheless.
• 26:08
  I made a few decisions and and I'm forever grateful and you
• 26:12
  know anyone listen to this God bless you.
• 26:14
  You know and if you know all higher power bless you or the
• 26:18
  universe bless you wherever you want it to be.
• 26:20
  There is something out there and it's got your back and I loved
• 26:24
  you and doesn't take a lot to tap into it just just need to be
• 26:30
  able to do it with a clear mind and the conscious mind and not
• 26:33
  the unconscious mind. There's nothing there to see.
• 26:36
  And so, yeah, thank you for the opportunity.
• 26:39
  And yeah, hope to see you when I I take care.