And we thought, oh my god, this is such a big hotel, we will never get 200 people. We lasted at that hotel only for a year, and we have moved from one hotel to another weve held the convention every other year in washington, d. C. And this year there are almost 1300 folks registered already. [applause] with all those conventions, weve always started in the same way, and that is having an invocation to get started on the right foot. Each of us who have not drank alcohol or use drugs today is grateful, but we remember that seldom do we take credit for that all by ourselves. And two years ago and several other times in our history, deacon ron ely has been wanting to come early in the morning to start us off on the right foot. Deacon ron, could you get started on the right foot . [applause] god bless you, paul, and thanks for the introduction. God bless all of you. Im happy to be here. I dont know how many times, but truly indeed this is a pleasure for me to be here amongst all of you as we all have to build with the issues that we have, whether alcoholism, drug abuse, or all of the other types of addiction that are out there. Ive got a few myself and their related to food. [laughing] but as we begin today let us remember that there are some brothers and sisters who are not here with us because of that terrible tragedy that has taken place in parts of her country, in particular texas and louisiana. So we want to remember all of them in our prayers and in our thoughts. We want remember all of those who, for whatever reason, that are not here today are struggling to get here or have not arrived, that god will continue to bless and be within and help them as they journey here today. And so we ask our gods blessings. Im going to start out with psalm 100. Cry out with a joy to the lord all the years, serve the lord with gladness. Come before him singing for joy. Note that he the lord is god. He made as. We belong to him. We are his people, the sheep of his flock. Go within his gates giving thanks. Enter his courts with songs of praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. Indeed, how good is the lord. Eternal his merciful love. He is faithful from age to age. Let us pray. God, you have brought us this far by safe. Leaning on your loving arms. When asked that you continue to help and be with us as we strive not only in terms of our own recovery, but to reach out to those who are around us who most need our help and assistance in their own journey. We ask that you bless this conference, this 19th time that we have come together as oxford house participants, to sing the praises that you have given to us, and to sing about the good times that weve had and the times that you have helped us to go upon and strife over the issues that weve had. We ask you be with this pick would ask you to conquer the darkness of her own ignorance by the light of your word. Strengthen within our hearts the faith you have given to us. Let not temptation to find you, that your love has kindled within us. God, our heavenly father, we thank you. We thank you for all that youve done for us. We thank you for your beautiful holy spirit that has come upon us. We thank you for your son jesus. And it is in his name that we pray, amen. Amen. Thank you, deacon. As usual you have gotten a stat off on the right foot. Alfor all of us in recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, we know that gratitude is something that hits us in the face every day we wake up. Because when we wake up we know where we are. We know where we want to go. We know what we want to do, and we know we are not likely to go to jail because of it. [applause] its appropriate that we are gathered here in washington, d. C. , this labor day weekend. Not only is the country facing the floods of texas and louisiana, but also facing what people refer to everyday as the Opioid Crisis. Just out of curiosity, how many in this room have ever used heroin or opioids . For those of you who cant see the crowd to come seems to be almost every hand went up. Of course i say to all my friends who had used heroin or opioids, if you use Canadian Club in the beginning [laughing] you wouldnt have done that because you wouldve thought you were in heaven and had gone no further. [laughing] but then we are of a different generation. Where is whit . Whit, stand up. There he is. [applause] i give deference to whit because whit was a foul sent over to do with that Halfway House in Silver Spring in 1975 that was closing. Whit has about six months additional clean and sober time that i do, and he also was a big guy and a fellow who held the lease on the building that was being rented to us. He said, those characters who live in that house are so unreliable they are going to rip me off. Therefore, whit him your job is to beat the hell out of them if they dont pay their rent. [laughing] we all worried a bit, but finally after he arrived we found out that he was just like one of us, and he was in recovery. I say just like one of us. He wasnt quite like me because he rode his bicycle everywhere, including from Silver Spring down to ocean city. I stop what my bicycle at about the eighth grade. [laughing] and i dont are ever to resume it. But in spite of those differences we began to put together what has become what you all keep going today, and that is the oxford house movement. [applause] show after that first house open in Silver Spring we begin to feel guilty about the fact that we had no vacant rooms, so we looked around and granted a second house in washington, d. C. And so it is that in Silver Spring and in washington, d. C. , oxford house was born in 1975, and in 1976 in d. C. And whit moved to d. C. To get oxford house huntington and goig and keep on track. All of us today are grateful for those first few folks that begin to the oxford house together, and we are thickly grateful that the district of columbia was here. Because this was a place where we opened up the first group home that was west of rock creek park. For those of you who are not as old as i am, you perhaps dont remember, but things in washington, d. C. , in 1975 were quite different from what they are today. If you live in a northwest corner on the other side of rock creek park, you probably were white, you are probably well educated and you probably made a lot of money. If you lived east of rock creek park, you probably were not in that category. [laughing] and you probably have a lot of group homes in your neighborho neighborhood. And you probably were going to stay that way forever. Now, as the young folks from vermont, jane and i quickly took an inventory, and i kind of looked around and said where are the republicans in washington, d. C. . Of course i quickly found there were none on neither side of the park. [laughing] but those houses began the whole business of demonstrating that oxford houses work. And today we are pleased to have with us this morning Tanya Royster was the director of d. C. Behavioral health, and tanya had been in illinois. She came to d. C. , and we have the benefit of experiencing a great relationship with the district, and i think there are, what is it, 32 houses . 32 houses in d. C. [applause] it is with great pleasure that i introduce to you dr. Royster. [applause] good morning, oxford house. Good morning. Good morning oxford house. Good morning. It is indeed an honor and a pleasure and a privilege to be here to welcome you to this 19th World Convention that youre having. We are so excited that you are here. [applause] the work that you do touches lives in a way that as much asi love what i do and as much as i work hard in what i do and encourage my 13 plus hundred staff and support everything that you need, it cant replace what you do. And so im grateful and thankful for the partnership that we have with oxford house. I wanted to bring greetings from my mayor, Muriel Bowser purchase also signed junior and wanting me to this great city picked anywhere you go they will safe feel free to spend your money. [laughing] feel free to expand our economy. We are excited that you hear and were proud to be the seat of oxford house. Were proud to be the place where your origins are, where you call home. Because we know home is where the heart is and we are proud of our 32 oxford homes and would always encouraging add one more come we can fill them up. Happily and sadly, right . [applause] we are very excited. When i came to the district of columbia, their vision statement said recovery is possible. And i said no, no, no. Thats not good enough. Recovery is the expectation. We expect that if we do our jobs, you can do yours. [applause] and so our vision say this is the district of columbia is a Thriving Community where prevention is the Mental Health and Substance Abuse disorders is possible that recovery is the expectation. And thats what we want to leave you with today, the remembrance that we are here to make your recovery the expectation. With the right support and services and with your arm on the recovery and come we are excited to be your partner. Were excited that oxford house offers a safe, affordable, and in addition, affordable is a keyword, because affordable if a difficult to find. I have not been able to live west of rock creek park. [laughing] we are just excited that you hear. The oxford houses in d. C. Are beautiful. If you have an opportunity to visit one, im sure they would welcome you. With oxford houses that are specialized for women and children, because we want to meet every need. When you are ready to make that step we want to be the children and give you what you need to continue on your journey. So we are again excited that you are here. We are looking forward to the decisions that you make and the serious contemplation that you will do to continue the important work of oxford house here in the district and around the world. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you, dr. Royster. One of the things that dr. Royster mentioned is what is part of oxford house uniqueness. We started out with the premise that relapse should be the exception, not the norm. In 1975 no one really have thought that way. As a matter fact, in 2000 no one was thinking that way. Unfortunately, many today do not think that way. And what has become the monitor in the treatment field is that relapse is part of the disease. As good alcoholics and drug addicts, we make sure to fulfill that mantra [laughing] by relapsing over and over and over again. [laughing] the federal government publishes something called the treatment episodes data set, and it takes a snapshot of whats going on in the country, how many people are probably alcoholics or drug addicts, which is about 25 million. Of that 25 million, about 17 million are plain old alcoholics. About 8 million are addicted to other drugs. And each year about 1. 7 of those 25 million any kind of treatment at all. The rest dont. But when you look at folks who do get treatment, like as, most of us have had some kind of treatment, those 1. 7 million folks get into treatment each year. 15 of them, it is their fifth time through treatment. Wow. When you think about it, that really isnt very efficient. Somebody should sit back and say may be something is wrong, to recycle five times through treatment. When you look at everybody in treatment, the average number of times folks have been through treatment is about 3. 5 times. Holy cow. We worried about that in the early days in 1975, and we said okay, maybe relapse is part of the disease. And when somebody relapses, perhaps we should give them another chance. And the first four guys who relapsed we said okay, charlie, you can stay, but dont drink or dont use drugs again. And poor old charlie drank and use drugs again within a week. And that was because he said those guys will give me another chance. And there came a time come as a matter of fact the very next time that charlie relapsed when all said youre out of here, you going to screw us up by drinking or using drugs that were trying to stay clean and sober. And so from that point on, part of the whole business of oxford house is that one drink or one use of drugs, your peers throw you out. I mentioned this whole business of peers because when whit and i were in this business of this first oxford house, we couldnt afford to run it like a Halfway House. I Halfway House in 1975 cost 114,000 to run, and the reason it cost 114,000 to run is that the hired a cook. They hired a house manager and they hired a counselor. We couldnt hire anybody. We didnt have the money. Quite apart from the fact that we were also cheap. [laughing] and so it was that we had to figure out a way how we could govern ourselves. I had locked into a job while n the Halfway House and so i said to my fellow roommates, dont worry, ill pay a whole lot. And they said thats what makes us worry. [laughing] you are already trying to be big boss. If we let you pay more than us, youre going to be impossible to live with. [laughing] and so from the beginning within oxford house was a notion that everybody pay an equal share. Those of you here today come from states, come from places around the country where every single oxford house follows that same principle. I used to say if oxford house can be like mcdonalds with a franchise taste the same the matter where you go, weve got Something Special. And we do have Something Special because each of you in each oxford house all around the country follow the same format. Part of that form it is if you drink or use drugs, there will be a house meeting and if half the folks in the house in believe you have relapsed, goodbye. And guess what . That works pretty well. We were not sure how well it worked until 1987, a fellow from Catholic University used to work with doctor dupont retired from the National Institute on drug abuse. And he started teaching at Catholic University and he came to us and said can i study what happens to people who move into an oxford house . We said sure. The only records that exist at each house keeps track of who came in and whether the revote in our voted out. But fine, and this guy track down 1280 people, and in those few houses in d. C. And in maryland in the early days, from 1975 and 1987, 1280 people have lived in those houses. He interviewed them all and he came to us and he said, you know, 80 of the folks who did oxford house stayed clean and sober. And whit and i and john oneill any of the folks in altered house sent my god, what are we doing wrong . We are losing 20 . And he explained to us know, what we are doing was exceptional. Most places would be happy if 20 stayed clean and sober. Here was some system, some way, since some scheme that ended up with 80 of the folks staying clean and sober. [applause] when we look back, we now realize there were a couple of things that accounted for that. One is we ran the show ourselves, democratically, making decisions on issues, democratically deciding who came in and who was thrown out, and that was a big deal because it avoided that we versus them thing. You know, if you been in prison or if you been in a normal Halfway House, or if you been in the nuthouse, theres always some big boss. You look at that movie one flew over the cuckoos nest and you know of a place like that has a nurse ratchet. [laughing] and in those kinds of situations, the thing that bond you together if youre one of the inmates is that we versus bama thing. Its us inmates versus that damp establishment. And we spend so much time on the wii versus them thing that we forget about what were trying to do. I remember in the Halfway House when frank was a house manager, frank was obsessed with the fact that when you clean the frying plan, you have to go clockwise with the sos pad. [laughing] every time i would clean the frying pan i would go counterclockwise. [laughing] and john, the roommate of whit would say, frank, hes going counterclockwise. [laughing] well now all of a sudden were running the show ourselves. And it didnt matter whether you are clockwise or counterclockwise. As a matter fact, because we were running the show ourselves and we limited the amount of time that each of us could stay in office, and everybody insisted everybody pay an equal share, there were no big bosses. And that made a big difference. The other big difference was, and is, that you could live in an oxford house as long as you want. That first Halfway House had a a rule that you have to move out at the end of six months. 11 people had to move out during the first three months i was there because their six months were up. Ten of the 11 were back drinking or using drugs within 30 days. And we kept plodding how can we manipulate the system so we dont have to leave . And thats when the county announced they were going to close the house. But once we took it over, the first row we did was you could live there forever, as long as you didnt drink, didnt use drugs and pager equal share of expenses. The second thing we did was also quite by accident. When the Halfway House closed, it was in the news all over the country that senator nunn, a Therapeutic Community in the west was in a kind of trouble. Theyve been set up as a Therapeutic Community in San Francisco and spread across the country, and he got into all kinds of businesses. They ran a car repair shop. They ran a hotel. They ran a red business. At all of these things meant they collected a lot of money. And the founders of synanon begin to fight with each other over how to deal with the money, who god and who didnt. And we took care of that problem with oxford house by putting in that very first set of bylaws that whit wrote that oxford house would never own any property, and he would accumulate any wealth. That was just like aa. We followed that same principle. We follow that principle today so the organization has never been distracted by accumulating money or accumulating property. Every one of our houses is rented. [applause] somebody asked once where did you get that idea being able to rent a house . And the answer is we got the idea of being able to rent a house by looking down the street and finding that most families in america rent a house. [laughing] most families go into town and find a house for rent, and they rent it. We said were just like a family. And we beg