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This meeting that we conduct seems to get truer and truer every time we conduct it.
A couple of years ago, I was giving this meeting just like this and I said what I'm about to
say right now. "If you really want to see how the seriousness of your illness, look
around you right now, take a good look at everybody that's here. And then let's make
a date. Today is May 1st. Let's all promise ourselves to be here May 1, 1985. That's a
year from today. And I'd be willing to bet you, at least one of us is going to be dead--
dead as a result of trying to drink again."
Now it never bothered me too much to say that before. But now it does, because two years
ago, right after I said it, a young guy jumped up there, about 29 years old. He pulled off
that cowboy hat that's up there in the corner.
And he said, "Damn it all, I'll be here. And just to prove it, I'm going to hang up my
hat. And I'll be back in a year to pick it up."
Well, I don't have to tell you what must have happened, because the hat is still there.
He didn't even live four months after making that statement. And he wasn't even 30 years
old.
He went out and tried to drink again. And ***, it killed him, too.