E176: Why Do We Still Read the Big Book?

You ever wonder why the old timer with 30 years of sobriety still reads the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous over and over and over again?  Didn't they have reading comprehension and could get it the first time?  We talk about it this week and discuss how we treat the Big Book of AA as a text book and something to aways learn from.  And we discuss how re-reading helps the new guy or gal. 

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Transcript

Matt: 0:24

One of the meetings that Steve and I go to consistently is on Monday night and the meeting is a big book meeting. If you're new to recovery, you don't know a lot about AA. There are different types of meetings. There's open meetings closed meaning closed meetings means it should just be people who are looking to give up alcohol or have done so. They have a desire to stop drinking. Speaker Meetings, literature meetings. And the one that we go to is a big book meeting where you go around the room. The format is different depending on where you go. Generally, it's we'll go through a chapter, read a couple paragraphs, and then we have a discussion. You might think, How long can you go to a meeting like this? And for me, it's been over ten years. Ten years have gone through this book over and over and over and over and over again. And you may think you must be really bad at this

Steve: 1:21

Yeah, right.

Matt: 1:22

if you've got to read this damn book that many times, and then you take it home and then you go to Joe and Charlie's study groups. What the hell is wrong with you that you know, I don't. I don't pick up a novel again and read it 48 times. So why? Why, Steve? Why do we go over this book? Over and over and over and over again?

Steve: 1:44

Good to be with you this morning, Matt. Yeah,

Matt: 1:46

Always

Steve: 1:46

it is an interesting thing. I even questioned that myself early on. I don't question it anymore. And I think there's lots of reasons. Right. If anybody who is So I'm a schooled engineer, when I get out of there, I, I, when I got out of school, I worked in sales. So I never worked as a technical engineer of my schooling, but I did a lot of that. And I still have a lot of those type of interests. I'm I'm very curious about things in that nature and if you are a school engineer or a school doctor or school, any type of really profession, you're in a constant learning phase, right? You're constantly reading your materials over and over and over again. Because I'll tell you something like when I you know, I graduated with an electrical engineering degree. Don't ask me anything about that today because

Matt: 2:35

writing.

Steve: 2:36

because I didn't I've never used it. Right. So I went into sales. I did some different stuff with it. And, you know, so, you know, if you don't use it, then you're going to lose it. So that's a big part of it, right? It's a big part of making sure that for many of us, because again, we talk about it and this and everybody's different. We talk about it all the time here is that for me personally, I need to be reminded over these things because my problems are more than just alcohol, right? My problems are, you know, you can call it anybody who's in the program. You can hear these things stinking thinking. It's a you know, even our literature tells us that the problem with the alcoholic resides in the brain, in the mind, not the body. Meaning that the first real problem we have is with our brain and that compulsion to drink in that that idea that this time it's going to be different. Like for those of us who are real alcoholics who suffer from this disease, if I don't constantly remind myself that, no, I am an alcoholic, I will convince myself that I could drink again. I will convince myself that this time it will be different. I will convince myself that you know something. Yeah. You know I'm 60 and headed into retirement. I can do this now. I don't have the responsibility. You know, I could convince myself to do all this stuff if I'm not continuing to read that stuff where it describes. Right. I mean, I read that book over and over, over again and I find new stuff in there. But it also describes like, Oh, yeah, that's how I drank. Oh, yeah, I did that. Oh, yeah, I did that. So that's why I do it. It's just a constant reminder of what I need to work on and it just keeps me in that place, that's all

Matt: 4:27

I don't know if other people are like me, but I have to go back to source

Steve: 4:31

right.

Matt: 4:31

material over and over

Steve: 4:32

Yeah,

Matt: 4:32

and over and over again. Part of that is my own curiosity that I'll read something.

Steve: 4:38

that's.

Matt: 4:38

I don't pick up on it and I want to go back to it. I do this with movies, I do this with books. I do this with learning things that I like to get deeper and deeper until I master it. This is something that can be said about this book, and one of the reasons is the book is hard to read. There's a lot of meaty stuff in there, and so it takes time. That begs the question, was the book so badly written that it requires us to do this over and over again?

Steve: 5:12

Mm. I don't, I don't think. I mean, it was written at a different time. We've talk about that all the time here. You know, there are certain things that a lot of people struggle with because it was written basically right by white men, certainly by white men and with a with a Christian slant, but not completely on the Christian slant. So if there was some other there were

Matt: 5:36

They're

Steve: 5:36

some

Matt: 5:36

pretty

Steve: 5:36

other people

Matt: 5:36

waspy.

Steve: 5:37

who. Yeah, yeah, WASPy. But you had other people in there who were pushing back on that one when they wrote the book. So it wasn't completely. But for the most part it is like, there's no question about it. It is. And um, you know, so it can be difficult to read some of that stuff and that's the other reason why it's helpful to read it over and over again. And here's you have the thing that I find right? We, we all like you and I can read the same thing and interpret that totally different. Right? We can

Matt: 6:07

Absolutely.

Steve: 6:07

our brains are different. So you could read it and say, you know, you can read a book or say, Hey, here's what I thought about this or whatever. And you can interpret it maybe differently than I do. Same thing with the big book. And here's the amazing thing that I find. I sit there and we read it. We read a chapter. Okay? I no other big book programs who who literally read a paragraph

Matt: 6:30

Mm hmm.

Steve: 6:30

and they will stop and discuss the paragraph. Right. That's how detailed those guys get. We don't do it that way. And we basically read our big books around the steps, right? Steps one or two, you know, the first part of the big book

Matt: 6:48

That's

Steve: 6:48

and then

Matt: 6:48

where we

Steve: 6:48

three

Matt: 6:48

were really

Steve: 6:48

and four.

Matt: 6:48

slow.

Steve: 6:49

What's that?

Matt: 6:52

That's where we go really slow.

Steve: 6:53

Right. And so anyway, so that's what we that's what we do with that. So it's just interesting to listen to other people's perspectives

Matt: 7:02

Mm hmm.

Steve: 7:03

and how it helps them. That's the other point. Like, Oh, this is how you use this information. Maybe I could use that information and that could help me manage some things better because once we get to this point, like where you are and where I am, like, you got ten years, you know, I'm coming up on 14 years for most of us. And again, like, I don't have a compulsion to drink. I don't look at alcohol as a solution, like all those things have been removed from me. So what I go to meetings for today is to try to keep my life in a neat bundle as best I can. And I'll share this. Like Friday night we went to I went to my Friday night. It's a men's group, so it's a closed meeting. A monday night's an open meeting. How by any means.

Matt: 7:45

Mm

Steve: 7:45

Anybody

Matt: 7:45

hmm.

Steve: 7:45

can come, you can come in, anybody. It doesn't matter. You don't even have to be an alcoholic. You can just want to see what a meeting is like. You could just show up, sit down, participate. Closed meetings is for people who are who are looking to get sober. All right, Four

Matt: 7:59

Right.

Steve: 8:00

out, four alcoholics. So Friday night's a closed meeting. Got one of the guys come in. One of my good friends in the program comes in and he's approached retirement age and he's got this cushy not a cushy job, but easier than he's used to. And he hits this point where he feels like he should quit this job and get another job and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, here's a guy with probably three years or four years away from retirement and he says, like, he's got no responsibility in this job. He was used to having lots of responsibility. It pays him like it's the job he wants to coast in to retire into retirement. And here he is and identify with completely. Oh, I should change this shit up like No, no, you shouldn't. You should keep your head down and you should ride this thing into retirement. And and I shared on that like, listen, I don't need other people. I don't need other people. I don't need my work. I don't need alcohol. For me to make bad decisions

Matt: 8:54

Right.

Steve: 8:54

that impact my life. Right. And that's why I keep coming to to read the book over and over again, because it talks about that problem that is centered in our minds rather than our body, which is the part that I struggle mostly with.

Matt: 9:10

One of my favorite quotes in the book talks about contempt prior to investigation.

Steve: 9:15

MM

Matt: 9:16

And

Steve: 9:16

Yeah,

Matt: 9:16

I use this in all parts of my life. I don't know the full quote, but I know that lying contempt prior

Steve: 9:23

Yeah,

Matt: 9:23

to investigation, and that is in my head when I have a closed thought about something that I need to dig a little bit more before that. And Joe and Charlie talk about, you know, what was. Were people less smart in the 14, 1500s than they are today? And there can be a case that said there were a lot smarter. I mean, Da Vinci was brilliant. There were ideas around flying machines centuries ago. And what may have held them back are fixed ideas. There was a time when the church had a grip, and anything that might have threatened their grip or thoughts of God was was pushed down. And when you're in a place where you're open to all ideas, every new idea becomes the foundation on the next, which is one

Steve: 10:21

yeah.

Matt: 10:21

of the things that frightens me a little bit when I see today's society. If I if I drift into Twitter, that I see that pushing down on new ideas because of fear, the big book you could read all by yourself designed to be sent person to person

Steve: 10:39

Mm

Matt: 10:39

where there are no meetings. You read

Steve: 10:40

hmm.

Matt: 10:40

that all by yourself. You do have your own perspective on it. You can go for years going to these big book study meetings and you hear somebody else's perspective and you can either throw it out and say, That's garbage or you can listen. You can take something from that. Each chapter, each line gives you a nugget of something that can help you get through another day sober.

Steve: 11:06

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So something that hasn't occurred to me and I know it, but again, this is why we do. This is why we go to meetings. Yes. That's something that I think is profound when it comes to the big book. The big book was written for people to read by themselves.

Matt: 11:25

Mm hmm.

Steve: 11:25

It was written so that people in remote locations can find this this program of recovery by themselves. Now, today you go to meetings and everybody will say the big book is not meant to be read alone. Right. You think about that, not meant to be read alone. It's been is meant to be read and shared and like we do in discussions, we do it with a sponsor. Right. But you think about that. That is what that book was written for. I just want to go back to that quote that you love because it's really a wonderful quote.

Matt: 12:00

Mm hmm.

Steve: 12:00

Um, it's, it's attributed to Herbert Spencer in the big book, which is which is misquoted misattributed to him by

Matt: 12:13

Yeah.

Steve: 12:13

all resources when you look at it like he really didn't say it there's no record of him ever saying that but that doesn't matter because the beautiful quote there is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in ever lasting ignorance. And that principle is contempt prior to investigation. I mean, that's a beautiful quote. And I use that all the time, too. And I will sort of use that when my wife and I are discussing something. She doesn't want to try something or do something different. Like you got to try it. You got to try something different. And again, that's

Matt: 12:55

Yeah.

Steve: 12:55

that, you know, this this again and this is one of those things people are like, oh, well, you know, you stopped drinking, you got 14 years. Sobriety was like, this is one of those things that I've been able to bring into my life. That quote right there allows me to interact with other people who I may not be familiar with, who I may not be comfortable with, and I need to allow myself to engage in that type of stuff to see what it's like, like that's what that does. And and the reason why I have to keep going over and over. Listen to that, because I forget that, like if I don't read that over, like, you know, a year or two years or whatever it might be, I'll forget that that's what I need to do.

Matt: 13:39

Yesterday, I had an experience where that came up where I'm not proud of myself for a split second, I went to Starbucks, drove up, and the person who gave me my order was clearly a transgender woman. Very, very big muscles and boobs. And for a split second, I looked, and I'm like, wtf? And it caught myself a little. Was that quick? Debbie told me, Oh, that's bad. I don't want that person to see the look on my face. And I thought that person probably gets that look or gets crap all day long at the drive thru and that must be awful. And all this goes through my head of if you think through that, the transgender people can look very

Steve: 14:30

Mm

Matt: 14:31

different and

Steve: 14:32

hmm.

Matt: 14:32

very much like their transgender, and that is going to get attention. And yet this person going through a transition looked at that as that is going to make me less uncomfortable than dealing with crap all day. And that goes through of like Yelp. I accept this. I am not going to have contempt for this. And it wasn't like I went through this as long as it literally was a split second that I saw this image that hit my brain in a way of this looks a little strange to me. And then I'm like, No. Be accepting be accepting of something that you cannot understand because it is not you. You don't

Steve: 15:11

Yeah.

Matt: 15:11

have to understand it to accept it.

Steve: 15:13

Right. Perfectly said. And I think I've said that before. The first time I heard, the first time I heard that, and I'm sure I've heard it before, it was years ago and it was more talking about just about gay people and us. And a sports commentator on the radio actually said that same thing. I don't have to understand something to accept it.

Matt: 15:32

Mm hmm.

Steve: 15:33

And I was like, Oh, and that's one of those tough things. And I understand exactly what you mean. I mean, listen, for those of us who are old enough to been around, like when when, you know, I'm older than you, so I was different. I mean, there was a time when gay people were not as as open as they were. And I can remember being uncomfortable with that when it first came out. So, again, supportive but uncomfortable, just not used to it. And I feel the same way about the trans people out there. I'm supportive but uncomfortable at times, and I know exactly what you're saying, trying not to have that initial reaction where your staring or your, you know, or something just feels make them feel uncomfortable.

Matt: 16:17

Mm hmm.

Steve: 16:18

And again, this is not a political thing. If you don't believe in that, that's okay from from from your point. But this is all across thing. This is all across. Like if there could

Matt: 16:27

Yep.

Steve: 16:27

be political views. You know, one of the things this day and age is that we have to be able to relate to people who have different political views in us. The country is split 5050 pretty much down the line. So so it's like you're going to you know, if you inquire about hopefully if you're inquiring around on your friends, you have a bunch of friends who are well-rounded. I don't want to be surrounded by people who only think like, I think I don't I don't want my government to be run by only people that think like I think I do want a balance there. So this program helps me deal with all of those type of things. It helps me again, if that if that sickness of my mind, who I needed to fix. And when I did this program, I realized, man, there's a lot of things that I didn't do. Well, you know, maybe I should have, maybe I should have when I was younger. I don't know. That doesn't matter to me. I am where I am. But today I know that I can do things differently and I can do things better. Okay? And for me, I need a little bit help. Some people go to therapy on a regular basis and again, if you want to do that, some people combine it a is a little bit like group therapy. It really is. So,

Matt: 17:38

Mm hmm.

Steve: 17:38

you know, I'm able to go there and I get a lot of I get a lot of stuff out of it. I get my social stuff out of there. I get my help out of there. I get to vent my stuff out. I mean, I get so much out of this program, it's unbelievable.

Matt: 17:51

You can go to a meeting, and you can be who you are. There's somebody goes to our Monday night meeting, and every time she shares, she cries. And every time she cries, she says, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And it pisses me off because you don't have to say you're sorry when you cry and get emotional at a meeting. To me, it's acceptable. And I want to feel that emotion from somebody else. And I want the place to be safe enough where you feel like I can be myself as I feel in the moment without saying sorry, even if it makes other people uncomfortable to me. That's okay. That's the purpose of being there. We can't have those experiences out in the real world. But inside the rooms of AA, we can and we must. Or we're likely to go back to our old habits. Even if it's not drinking. It's the old, the drinking is the symptoms, the old habits

Steve: 18:51

Right?

Matt: 18:52

of being a prick and isolating. That is the issue

Steve: 19:00

Yeah. I do think people who are not familiar with really with addiction and certainly with our program, AA to the 12 step program is exactly what you said. And again, I didn't believe this and I've talked about this before, you know, but when I first came into the program was 1995. I didn't drink for 14 years because I thought my problem was that I drank too much. Right. I really did. I thought my problem was I drank too much. I took care of that and I thought that, okay, I could go on and live my life. I couldn't get ahead of the problem. I had other stuff. And then I realized when I came back after my relapse that and it took time. I didn't like walk in the door go, Oh, yeah, I know what the problem is now. I had to do the steps. I had to read this book. I had to talk to other alcoholics. And I realized not the drinking was just a symptom of my problems. Like you said, my problem was that I had I had fear issues, I had control issues. I had a lot of that stuff going on. And that when I when those feelings got overwhelming to me, I drank in order to make myself feel better, which worked for a while, and then it didn't work anymore. So that's what it is like. It's, you know, the drinking is a symptom of my problem. And and therefore, if I don't take care of the real problem. Right. But it's like any chronic disease, right? You think about a chronic disease, arthritis, whatever, anything it might be. If there are certain things you can do through your diet, through exercise, to help yourself with those things, you'll feel better. And if you don't

Matt: 20:31

right?

Steve: 20:32

do those things, you won't feel better, right? It's the same thing with our addiction. If I treat my addiction, if I treat does the mental obsession, all that kind of stuff and fix those problems, then chances are I'm not going to drink. And so far it's working that way for me.

Matt: 20:54

If you look at old texts, people read the Bible over and over again. There are some pretty, for lack of a better term, biblical things that happen in the Bible, stonings and murder and crucifixions. And those things are not done today, nor

Steve: 21:15

Right?

Matt: 21:15

would we want to bring them back. Yet we go over that text and it changes from what is the exact word. There to what are the messages that are relevant today, and how do we make it work in the society where we don't have crucifixions anymore, but we do have the internet? It's the same with this book. It's we're getting to 100 years that this book has been

Steve: 21:38

Yeah,

Matt: 21:39

out. We don't I don't know if we have loopy parties anymore.

Steve: 21:42

right,

Matt: 21:42

And even in the fourth edition, which was written in 2001, it talks about modem to modem. I don't think people talk about modems

Steve: 21:50

right,

Matt: 21:51

as a driver like they used to. And you have to take some of the interactions in there and say, how does this work for today? There was that story we read the other day, maybe a couple of months ago, where the guy said, I was on news programs and magazines

Steve: 22:10

right,

Matt: 22:11

and stuff, and I thought that this was a relatively recent story. I looked it up. It was second edition.

Steve: 22:16

right,

Matt: 22:17

And just looking at that and I'm like, that will soon be an out a very outdated example of news magazines and radio and TV because of how we communicate. So you have to look at some of the data terms and not be turned off and you turn it into, okay, so how is that now relevant today? Life for me and the way life is living lived is different than it was ten years ago, even ten years ago. I've got to refocus what's in that book for today. The stories. The first one, 64, don't get changed. It hasn't gotten changed in four editions. We are ripe for a fifth edition because we need more stories in the back

Steve: 22:57

right.

Matt: 22:57

to bring people in. People who are gay. People who are transgender. People who are from other countries who live a different lifestyle. Definitely different religions, I think. I think we need to have more Eastern religions, Islam, things that are not white Christian because we need to open the doors to everyone. It doesn't this disease does not cut across just WASPy people. It's Mexican, it's South Americans. It's people in the Far East. It's people in Eastern Europe as long as they're Homo sapiens. They could become addicted to alcohol regardless of what their lifestyle is. To

Steve: 23:40

Yeah,

Matt: 23:41

me, I think that's very important to reach more people. And even if it's somebody who talks about you know, I grew up in Yemen, alcohol was illegal, yet I'm an alcoholic.

Steve: 23:52

right,

Matt: 23:52

I can't understand that life, but I can understand what it did to them.

Steve: 23:58

right. I mean, that is it. And again, it's such a beautiful program because, you know, we read the stories and we always say, well, I can't you know, I can't relate to everything. It was a gay woman. Well, not a gay woman. I can't, you know, but I couldn't relate to what the alcohol did to her. I can relate to how she felt, how she thought I could relate to how she got where she got is same thing. You know, I'm really interested in when this first edition come out and there is one in the works and one how much how much you're going to devote to the atheists and agnostic, because I know that's a that's a new one that, you know, if they really want to get this so many people moving away from religion altogether that I'm wondering how many stories are going to, you know, new fresh stories. Not the not the ones that we have were I started as an agnostic and then I found God. But the ones who know I'm an atheist, so I'm an agnostic and I still been able to use this program to get sober. I think that could be a huge leap in the new materials. I don't know if they're going to include it or not, but I am anxious. I'm excited to see you're anxious to see what they do with that.

Matt: 25:07

I'm sure that the people who make those decisions are typically in those meetings will find it. They'll be very open to it.

Steve: 25:17

Right. Um, so, yeah, it's, it's really it's really interesting. So, listen, we always, we always go I mean, I think about that Monday night meeting all the time, right? Because you've been gone for ten years. I've been going for pretty close to 14. I didn't start right when I came back that meeting, but within a year or two or so, I've been going for 12 or 13 years. And and I always says, you know, if I'd done enough for that meeting of, you know, is it time for me to find a different meeting or so you know, But, you know, it's something that I like. And there's also, you know, we talk about it all the time. There's also a big part of the fellowship that when you go to a meeting like that, that that you, you know, you just become you become brothers and sisters and in this in this program and you you get to a point where you really you know, you really like the people in the meetings for the most part, which is why you go back. I if

Matt: 26:13

Mm hmm.

Steve: 26:13

you didn't like them, you wouldn't go back. Um, so I keep going. Even this month, it's like nobody was cheering this month. That part was up. And I'm like, All right, I'll put my name down our chair for the month. Right? And it gets me to go there and open up and do all that stuff. So just keep doing it because it's what works for me.

Matt: 26:33

Yeah. I might go to a different meeting someday that I

Steve: 26:36

Yeah,

Matt: 26:36

am going to that one

Steve: 26:37

right,

Matt: 26:37

at one point. That was my lowest rated. That was my last meeting on the stack ranked priority of the meetings I was going to. And now it's first.

Steve: 26:46

right,

Matt: 26:47

It's the one I have to go to. And mostly because I do like the format, I do like the message, and I love the people.

Steve: 26:54

right,

Matt: 26:55

And another reason that we haven't touched on it, this is a great final point to put a punctuation on why we read this book over and over again. Somebody has to teach new people.

Steve: 27:06

right.

Matt: 27:06

That Monday night meeting does have it's a funnel of new people coming in. Maybe not a ton, but

Steve: 27:13

Yeah,

Matt: 27:13

one person here or two people there and they make a touch point there and then maybe they go on, but there's usually somebody relatively new there. You need somebody who knows what they're talking about to teach new people to get them on the right path. That is the number one reason you keep reading the book over and over again.

Steve: 27:35

absolutely. And I thought about that and didn't say it like, you know, a little bit ago. But it is one of the reasons why we do that. So then people come in, they can say, Oh, this is what this book is about. They could see how we do it and they can decide whether they want to stay and learn more about the book or like you said, plant the seed, maybe go somewhere else. But somebody does have to do that. And this way people know, you know, you can go to a lot of discussion meetings, you can go to you can go to speaker meetings, and you never see a big book, right? You never see a

Matt: 28:11

Yep.

Steve: 28:11

big book. And that's why it's good that big book meetings are out there so that you can see it, you can get into it, even if it's the only time you read it right. I mean, we talk about it all the time, like the way our format for the hour format, when it's done right, takes us 39 weeks to get through that whole book. Right. Because I think there's 39 stories. And then you read a story

Matt: 28:36

Yep.

Steve: 28:36

a month. I 39 months. They're not 39 months. 39 months. So. Right. So you're reading that book before you get through the whole thing with all the stories, it's three plus years. And during COVID, I had this thing where I would write when we did the last story, and it's showing up now like, Oh yeah, last time we read the story was October 2020, you know? And so it's just pretty interesting. I love reading it. Sometimes I get tired of it, sometimes I get tired of the 1939 like I do everybody, not

Matt: 29:06

I

Steve: 29:06

everybody,

Matt: 29:06

do.

Steve: 29:06

but some people do. I get tired of that 1939 language and I think, Oh, this is bullshit. I shouldn't read it anymore. I should find something. But I keep coming back to it because of all the things we said today is that I need to keep reminding myself what my problem is. And I do that by going to these meetings and hanging out with the other guys out there and all you women out there that are on this, you know, on this journey that we do together,

Matt: 29:34

If you want to know more about the big book, scroll back to the back catalog to last year. I spent about two years doing some research on the big book reading. Writing the big book

Steve: 29:44

I.

Matt: 29:45

with William Sheinberg. I would start with the William Sheinberg interview. I think it was about January or February of 20, 23. And then listen to the whole writing. The the big the big book, the coding, the big book series where I basically talk about summarizing what Bill put in the book. There's some sound clips. There's good resources in there to help you like a big book meeting in your pocket. And then I read it. So if you're one of those people, not much of a reader gives you an audio book format. It's a great resource. That's why I did it. And I appreciate it because I thought it almost killed me and I'll never do something like that again. But another resource to help you get sober. I love getting your emails. Places like Mad at Sober Friends Podcast or on Instagram at Sober Friends Pod. We get quite a bit of listener engagement from people who talk about this being part of their recovery routine. And anybody and everybody who sends something, I try to get back to them, and it means a lot to us that we're part of your routine and we do something that helps you. That means more than anything else. And I want to thank everybody for that. And even if you never going to go to that email and you stay silent and it helps you, it it helps my recovery. So I want to just take a moment to thank all the people who do reach out on a regular basis. All right, Steve. That's all we got for the big book this week. And then we'll talk about something incredibly engaging next week. But until then, by everybody.