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My name is Mike.

I'm an alcoholic.

Hi.

It's good to be here this weekend with you guys, and I'm honored to have been asked to talk a little bit about something

that is so important to me. I would probably be doing a disservice if I didn't tell you a little

bit about my life in this area with relationships prior to the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And it's probably not a story that, uh, you guys are unfamiliar with because it's probably your story.

That I'm a guy that is incapable of a relationship.

As a young lad, uh, growing up in eastern Iowa on a farm, I just never fit.

By the time I'm 16 years old, I'm punching holes in the wall of my parents' home

and having fights with my dad and got thrown out of that little house

and had to go live down by the river in a cabin for several

months one year and just always sideways with the planet you know what i mean just never being able

to fit and uh so that's that's the kind of guy that I bring to alcohol.

And when I induce that into my system, it seemed like for a little while I could just

kind of breathe and kind of be and kick off some communication with other people in the

bar, not anything real meaningful,

...