I think he's at the wrong meeting

"Hi I'm Marty and this is my first time. I'm a gambling addict."

From the sea of faces sat in front of me comes no reply until finally one voice said "Hi Marty," then another and another. Jokes are never funny if you have to explain them so better get cracking here my man I think to myself. Picking on the first man who replied I point to him and ask "what's your poison?" 

"Oh I'm an alcoholic myself," he replies in earnest. 

"The lady sat to the man's right. Yes you, could you just smell the clear liquid in his glass for me?"

Amazingly she duly obliges. "It's OK it's just water," she shouts back and the room laughs at her. Well at least someone's getting a laugh. 

"Thank you. Well done you Sir, keep it up."

He puts his thumb up and smiles. 

"Right let's try that again people's. Clearly you're a better class of guest than I was expecting. At addicts meetings when I say Hi I'm Marty, you all say Hi Marty. Let's try it again shall we? Hi I'm Marty."

This time virtually everyone joins in. "Hi Marty!"

"Hi everyone. I'm a gambling addict and this is my first time doing this. I'm told this is a safe space and I wanted to share when I knew I first had a gambling problem."

Now that's sparked their interest. Where's this idiot going with this? they're probably all sat there wondering. Well it's either that or I do hope this idiot isn't going to waffle on for long. 

"As you know we're here to celebrate the Marriage of Adam to Molly. Now remember this is a safe space Molly. You're actually here to support me with my addiction issues. I mean I know you think it's your big day but that's a ruse. I'm sorry. Really it's all about my addiction." 

Oh now you're all laughing. This is starting to get better. That's a relief. 

"In the interests of transparency when you and Adam got together I bet someone who is here amongst us £20 it wouldn't last a week. Well clearly I lost. The problem was I went double or quits on a fortnight. So then I was £40 down. Double or quits on a month £80. I'm thinking there's no way you two last three months. £160 down. Six months £320 down. Last roll of the dice - a year… £640 down. I paid it when I realised I'd be doing this on and on and never able to buy a house one day when the debt was finally called in."

"Serves you right," says Molly. Adam laughs clearly trying to work out who in the room I had the bet with. 

"Molly, let me add a caveat and it's an important one. I bet it wouldn't last because you were smart, incredibly articulate, stable, normal and had a great job. When we all met you for the first time the only words we knew the meaning of that came out of your mouth were Hi and Bye. You were and remain quite literally the most impressive human we've ever met and all these years later we still don't know what you're on about, but we're always incredibly impressed. No, I was betting on you figuring out what an idiot Adam was like the rest of us. Show of hands everyone in the room, anyone who thinks Adam isn't an idiot? Sorry Adams mum your vote doesn't count. Oh no Adam even your new wife hasn't got her hand up. I guess that's pretty conclusive. If you were smart you'd have at least put your own hand up."

Now Molly's the one laughing with the guests and Adams glaring at me. 

"See folks this is why they're a power couple, they're totally interchangeable. One minute he's laughing and she's glaring at me and then they switch like a click of your fingers. Adam don't look mad at me, I love you but you'll admit when you two first got together you were a ship who simply went where the winds took you and sailed too close to the rocks. I'm not going to mention any names but Molly, before you, Adam's previous girlfriends combined as a team couldn't have spelled Mensa let alone be able to actually become a member. I'm not claiming to be bright by the way but in some of their presence I'd have been like Einstein. See Adam's face everyone. He's nodding now. Anyways I digress, BM, that's Before Molly for you Adam, he was as reliable as a Lada. Thank you everyone who laughed at that joke, you just showed your age I'm afraid. I was going to say as reliable as a Lada or a Skoda but the latter now make really good cars but I figured some of your guests had to be old enough to remember how unreliable a Lada was. So BM, Adam used to have girls falling at his feet. I mean come on he's a handsome man, we all know that. We'd tell him to change his socks and trainers because of the appalling smell but he took no notice and they still passed out at his feet. Oh I'm sorry Adam when I said girls falling at your feet did you think that was a compliment? My bad. Any minute now he's going to raise his hand in the air and vote for himself as being smart. See there you go. Milk the applause buddy, milk the applause. If you'd asked the lads if we thought Adam would ever get married we'd have laughed at you. Even if we did think one day he'd get married we'd have said he'd have married Adam with boob's. As we've already learned I lost an awful lot of money and more fool me for making stupid bets. What I didn't know is that Adam had found his anchor. No longer was he heading off course bound for the West Indies when he should have been sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. Yes I googled that to use as a nautical reference and no I have no idea where in the world it is. The point is he was no longer sailing off course. We all learned to try to find our anchors too so thank you Molly for teaching us that valuable lesson. I mean Mike's been divorced twice and still looking but that didn't put you two off getting married and well it's too late to back out now we saw you all do it. Adam?" 

"Yes?"

"Do you want a chance to show everyone how smart you really are?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Sure you do. But we'll put it to the vote first. Everyone do you all want to see how smart Adam really is?"

"Yesss!" Comes the overwhelming response from the guests. 

"Sorry Adam. Easy one for you though. If BM is Before Molly what does PM stand for?"

"Erm… is it Post Molly?"

"No you idiot PM means it's the afternoon. Seriously Molly, what do you two even talk about?" 

"Awww honey I still love you," Molly tells Adam before kissing him whilst the room is busy laughing at his expense. 

"Awww that's true love ladies and gentlemen. Adam, Molly I love you both so much. I'm genuinely so happy for you both despite it costing me 640 notes. Adam, thank you for letting me be your best man. Hands up who thinks Adam is really smart for marrying Molly? There you go buddy, oh look everyone they've both got their hands up. Raise your glasses in a toast please to the new Mr and Mrs Shaw! If you could have a whip round for the £640 I lost that would be amazing and a glass of water for my new friend there next time someone goes to the bar. Thank you everyone. Mr and Mrs Shaw wooooo! Hang on Molly just wants to add something…"

"I can show you where the Cape of Good Hope is on a map by the way."

"Did you catch that Everyone? The new Mrs Shaw can show you where the Cape of Good Hope is on a map. As if we ever doubted that you couldn't if we has asked you. Adam you want to let Mrs Shaw show everyone or are you happy to take a backseat? Oh the backseat. Yes I rather thought you might. Thank you everybody you've been wonderful. Say Bye Marty."

"Bye Marty!"