Hello and welcome to Sobercast, where we provide A.A. Speaker Meetings and workshops in podcast format.

We're an ad-free podcast, and if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by visiting Sobercast.com, look for the donate link and drop a dollar or two into our virtual

basket we hope you enjoyed the podcast have a great day my name is tom and i am an alcoholic

and i'm glad to be here thank you very much for the invitation i i live in oakland I've been in the Bay Area a long time.

I've had the good fortune to visit your part of the universe too on more than one occasion,

and it is always a pleasure to come up, not just for your air and food, but some of my sober friends up here.

I've been drunk up here too a couple of times.

I was attending a big party at Seattle University, and you know how things just get out of the way.

And that's what happened, and I apologize if you were there.

But I'm glad to be here and share a bit of experience, strength, and hope, and there might be new people and visitors.

A.A. is such a funny dance.

You know, in a lot of organizations for something like this, they would invite people with a lot of

wisdom and panache to share. And we have found that's not really very helpful for us because we compare.

And when you hear the speaker say they have no bad days

and everything is wonderful and the kids are talking to them,

you say, oh, poor me, I am not that good.

So instead we usually have lunatics share at the public level.

And then you can say, I thought I was having a pretty bad day, and then I heard the speaker.

And I feel much better about myself. So keep that in mind as you hear me.

And also know, I mean, we tell our stories. That's the gift we give each other.

I try not to lecture or preach or harangue at meetings when I'm in my right mind. If there's something

I say that you disagree with, that's really fine. You don't have to leave. I don't have to leave.

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