Alcoholic Memory and Powerlessness – Step Study – a 12 Step Study – Part 3 of 6 – Local AA Speakers

My name is Ray O'Keefe. I'm an alcoholic. One of the questions that my sponsor used to ask me, because I came here in 1963 and I only stayed for ten months, at the end of ten months I went away from the power of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I drank again and in the period between October of 1963 and November of 1965 I would come back to Alcoholics Anonymous I would try but I never could do it and that period of time I had a lot of difficulty getting sober I had all kinds of I had lots of difficulties stopping drinking and one of the questions he would ask me all of the time when he saw me in that period of time, he would say to me, have you had enough? Have you really... Haven't you had Enough? He would say, don't you remember what happens to you when you drink? And I had that wonderful alcoholic memory but I remembered the good times. I remembered the parties. I remembered the sprees and I remembered the bouncing around. And I forgot about what really happened to me when I got drunk. And it's a good question, I think, to consider. Have you had enough? You really had enough if you knew you finished with that stuff? I mean, have you put it down? That's rule number one. Don't drink. It's also rule number ten. Don't think. It's rule ten thousand. Don't Drink. That's the bottom line. Without that, of course, the rest of it the rest OF the things we do here are fairly meaningless without that, without stopping. We have to stop drinking. A lot of people would like to stay here, like I tried, and drink. They like the fellowship. They like hanging around. It's wonderful. But they'd like to have that and drink too, and it can't be done. I tried that. There's just no way to do that. And I was not able to stop thinking I just read for us the A's and the B's and C's. I was alcoholic and could not manage my own life I wanted to stop drinking I knew I should stop drinking I mean, I knew what the problem was but there was no possible way I could do it because no human power could relieve my alcoholics I've told you everybody that had a crack at me wanted me to stop drinking. Everybody that dealt with me You could bring a man here from Mars who had never been on this planet and if you put it and said look at O'Keefe over there the guy from Mars would say yeah he's a drunk they all knew that but there was nothing I could do about it and that's what being powerless really is about there's no way if you're new you're not going to be able to stop drinking by yourself and the chances are that you've tried that the chances are very good that you tried to stop drinking by yourself the chances are very good as the book tells us that we made all kinds of changes in our lives. We didn't drink this, we didn't drank that. We went to different places. We had all kinds a rules. I had a New York judge tell me one time, O'Keefe he said, when you drink you should sit on the edge of your own bed. Don't go out with people when you're drinking. He said, because when you are drinking you're uncivilized. He was a power greater than my own but it couldn't stop me from drinking and finally I got thrown into I got drawn into you back with you and in a period of time after I came back the second time I didn't drink anymore that's a remarkable thing for somebody like me who drank from the moment my eyes opened in the morning my first thought and my first action after I finished some necessary housekeeping like throwing up and getting out of a bed that someone had taken a leak in. After I finished with those housekeeping details, the first order of business was to have a drink. And I would have a drank. I never had a craving for alcohol because whenever I wanted a drink, I had one. It's only when you don't have the alcohol that you get a craving for alcohol. I was not obsessed with alcohol. When I wanted to drink, I took one. And that satisfied me. The only problem I ever had with alcohol is when somebody separated me from it. I used to take a train from where I worked, New York City, from Grand Central to where I lived, and that train took 36 minutes on the timetable to get from Grand Central to wherever I lived. And I could go out and drink for 36 minutes. What do you think I'm some kind of an idiot? I could not drink for 36 minutes. That was okay. But when that goddamn train was late, 38 minutes, I began to wonder, what's the matter with this train? 40 minutes, the panic would begin to develop. 45 minutes and I'd be in a state of real anxiety. I have to get off this train. It's imperative. I don't care where it was, on a bridge, in the middle of the freight yards, in a Mott Haven yard, let me out of here. That's when I understood I needed a drink. Well, I solved that problem. I carried it with me. Lawyers, you know, when you're born, you're issued a briefcase. And I had one and I never had any work to do so I always had something in the briefcase I had. I had a half pint of vodka. Mine was the one that I kept leaving it on the train. But that's what I had to do because if that train was late, as it oft times was, I had to be prepared for that kind of an emergency. But don't tell me I'm powerless over alcohol. I just like to drink. Lots of people carry half pints of vodka in their briefcase. Perfectly ordinary thing. What do you think you're going to do? That's planning. That's logistics. That shows how to plan. So how could I stop? I mean, how could somebody like that put down booze. How the hell can somebody like me stop drinking? It cannot be done. We all know the rules. Once a drunk, always a drunk. That's rule number one. Everybody knows that. The leopard can't change its stripes or its spots or whatever the hell a leopard has. But once a drunk you're a drunk that's it. I knew that from the neighborhood. Once the guy in my neighborhood in the Bronx, went into the booze that way. There was no way back for him. We used to say he's the Irish girl of the creature. The creature has him. And he was it. He was just another drunk. But I came here and they told me that, and I believed after a while, after I stopped drinking, I believed. Not because, really, not because I read it or not because someone explained it to me. I believed it because I saw it happening in my own life. I really didn't want to drink anymore. That's a marvelous thing, and I knew. But the reason I didn't wanna drink anymore is because I came here. It was the only difference in my life. I worked in the same place. I lived in the sane place. I knew the sane people. I had added this to my life, I'd added these meetings, and I don't wanna drank anymore. So I figured there was some power here at these meetings that was doing that for me and whatever that power was I wanted some more of that and so I kept coming to the meetings and came a point where he said to me you have to make up your mind whether you're going to stay or whether you are going to go you've got to make up your minds what do you want you want to stay here you want back there that's the third step make a decision well I couldn't go back there I really couldn't go back there I couldn' live back there I couldn''t manage so I said I'll stay here good he said then come to terms with the idea of God he didn't suggest that I become a member of any religion he didn'T tell me to buy a tambourine or get a tattoo or start wearing some distinctive type of clothing he says make up your mind what that means for you your understanding of that that expression and that took a little while for me because I tend to complicate things and I came to this idea that I've been talking about mostly in all of the steps I've done here the idea of our father your father my father our father I came for that idea that's my understanding of God it may not do for you but it does fine for me I came to that understanding he said good now you're ready now you've taken care of the physical and the mental and the spiritual aspects of the acute phase of your disease. You don't drink anymore, you don't want to drink anymore and you made a decision to stay here. Those three things will save your life. He said now we can get down to, as the book says, conditions and causes. Write it down, write your inventory. So I did, I didn't want to do that. I didn' t want to write it down. And, you know, it makes no sense when you think about it. I don't know what the hell am I going to write things on a piece of paper for. It's like magic. It is magic. But I did it and I did because I didn't want to go back there. I was afraid of drinking. Fear kept me here, I'd say, for almost two or three years. The first two or four years I stayed. I stayed because I was scared not to stay. I don' t recommend that anybody go out and drink again once they come here. but those of you who have done what I did know what it's like when you go back. It's five times, a hundred times worse than it was the first time. And coming back is much more difficult because that free ride we're given when we first come here, the first Time you come here I'm convinced you get a free ride. You get an absolute gift. It's like giving you something really valuable absolutely. You never felt better. I never felt Better than that first time and it was great. but the second time is work because I went away from the power next time they don't hand it out so freely next time they say listen stupid you know this time you're going to work for it and part of the effort which I really can't classify as work but part of the effort is writing and searching and feeling moral inventory I thought I was at one point I thought I was sort of a nice guy who drank too much in a rough tough super smart diamond and a rough kind of a guy, sort of a devil may care fellow. How did I know I was a piece of shit? I mean, nobody told me that. Nobody would dare tell me that, but when I wrote this thing on a piece of paper and I looked at it, I said, oh my God, that's, that fellow on that piece ofpaper was really, there were actually three guys on that peace of paper And I didn't recognize any one of them. They were not the one I had in my mind. I remembered myself from 20 years ago. I had an image of myself that hadn't been true for a very long time. It was no longer true that I was hardworking. I was not hardworking, I stopped working, I was heart-drinking. It wasn't true that i was aggressive. I was afraid all the time. I was terrified of fear. You can't be aggressive. At any minute, you're going to wet your pants. You know, you walk funny. How are you going to be aggressive? No way. No possible way. But I had thought of myself the way I was way back. Wasn't true. What was true was what was on that piece of paper. That was true. And I knew it was true because I wrote it. then I thought maybe I was worse than other people I don't know if you ever felt that way first I felt I was better than other people then I felt I was worst than other people when I read that I said I must be the worst alcoholic that they ever had here I thought to myself when he sees this he's not going to have much to do with me and he did a funny thing he made me read it to him and he would nod and interrupt every once in a while and chat a little and I was all over he said you're pretty ordinary alcoholic that offended me I thought I was a little worse than most guys you know sort of a John Dillinger type he said I've heard many of these things you're just about like everybody else he said you're very much like me and he started going to him I had lost even my drunken uniqueness he took away from me and I don't know you know we all have our own inventories mine was very basic power, money, sex. Power, money sex. The 12 and 12 tells us that the fourth step involves basic instincts which in us have gone astray, gone to the extreme what moved me around was money, power and sex. That's what got my attention other things I wouldn't worry about so much I didn't have to worry about the world situation didn't need to worry about the production of coal or the basic industries or whether or not we should nationalize steel or anything like that or wherever the war was in those days but this is why I moved around I moved round if I thought I could get money or power or sex and in my case when I really thought about it it was power Money was power with me and sex was power with me. And that's because I was a complete egomaniac, selfish and self-centered. A classic alcoholic. Of course, I didn't know it. I didn' t know that around. And now when I think about things, you know what I think about most of the time? Money, power and sex. I'm still thinking the same, but they don't push me around the way they used to. I don't need to steal from you in order to get money. I don' t have to dominate you in order for me to get my money. In order to exercise power. I don''t have to go from here to California to get some sex. Which once I would have done. Oh, yeah? California? Not a bad idea. Zoom. Love is in the air, I would say. But no longer. That doesn' t happen anymore. Well, maybe it's just age. Maybe it's just age, although I'm still interested in sex. The one in the spring is terrific. But this was my medicine. I came here. The fourth step is the medicine. The fourth stop was the medicine, and I don't like to take medicine. Who the hell likes to take medicine? Noxious crap that you drink. But we take it because it gets us better. Fourth step. Very important step, and it's the one that we've seemed to bog down on. everybody half of AA circling around a fourth step you know third or fourth step meaning they're doing it they're working on it what the hell are they doing you know they're workin' on their third one I did two I'm doin' another one now all that means to me is I haven't done the first one yet I did the one because that's what it says over there on the wall made A one searching and fearless I went over it was one human being it says not with a group I didn't do it with a priest. I don't want to bother the clergy. What do I want from a priest? What's he going to do, forgive me? I don' t need to be forgiven. I need information about my illness that's going to kill me. I don''t need a priest to forgive me. I sure need a lot of forgiveness, but I don ''t have to get it from him. And I got nothing, absolutely nothing against priests. I think they're fine, same as anybody else. But I did this with my sponsor. I wanted him to know me so that he would be able to tell me listen you know you're going off the track he knew me he'd see if I were irritable and discontent which he did that's what I needed I didn't need forgiveness I did not need psychological help I didn' t need a psychiatrist I might have needed one otherwise but I didn''t need one for this for this I needed my sponsor and I needed my group and I need you all and that was a good feeling that fifth step. I had a feeling there that I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought my ticket had been punched, you know? I'm a member now, like that. Next fourth step meeting, I can say, well, in my experience. Now, when I did my first step, sounds a little better than I pass. I'm working on it. I're going to get to that. I've not quite at it yet. All the little code words that we use to indicate that we really want to drink. Set a guide, you do your fourth step. Well, I'm going to be right at that. That's code. Means I'm gonna drink. They're too polite to tell you what they think of you and what they thing of the fourth step so they tell you other things, you know? Code. Alcoholic code. I used it. Everybody used it and last week we were talking about becoming entirely ready and I use the analogy of working in the garden to get the garden ready so that God could supply the the light and the the water to take care of the garden and I think that's a good analogy the way it was with me I got ready I didn't sometimes I'm not as entirely ready as other times but you'd have to be crazy not to be willing everybody's willing to have this stuff taken away. It's just a getting ready to have it done. And this relationship I have with this God of my understanding, my father, I think it interests him that I try to be ready. When I was starting off this morning going over to work, I told him I was ready. I don't know how ready I was. I really didn't. I was actually thinking about some other things that are going on, but I managed to get this one. I told him I was ready. It'd be nice, you know, if one of my kids came up and said, I'm ready to take out the garbage. I'd go blind and dumb if that happened. I think he would like to hear that from us. And that brings us to where we are now through the seventh step. And the words of the seventh steps are extremely simple. It's the shortest step we have. It says, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. And that's a capital Hymn, capital H-Hymn. I hear a lot of meetings on the seventh step. I hear people searching for a definition of humility. I think they misread the step. The step, once again, the step is not written in allusion. It's written in English. If they wanted us to enjoy a general condition of humility, the step would read, we became humble. Or we are humble. Or we practice humility. It doesn't say that. It says we humbly ask. And in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, they give it to us in the form of a prayer. And if you look on your table where you're sitting tonight, you'll see a little card like this. which, if you fold up, will fit in your purse. I know it fits in mine. And that card contains the serenity prayer, the third step prayer, the seventh step prayer and the promises. I invented this card and I leave it to you. I always get a little throw away when I do the steps. And the seventh prayer, it says here, My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go from here to do your bidding. Amen. Now, for those of you who don't have one of these cards, there's some more up here if you want them, just come take them. Now, in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, that is basically what the step says. After the fifth step, it says, having done the fifth steps, we took this book and we retired to a quiet place and we reviewed the first five steps to see if we have done them properly. It makes the analogy of construction. It says, are we mixing the mortar right? We have a strong program. then it goes on to say, when we are ready, when we are ready we say this prayer. And this is a very, very interesting prayer. And the word humbly in the prayer simply describes how we are to ask. It says humbly ask and because I am a practicing grammarian and you don't have the benefits of my education. Humbly is an adverb. HumbLY is an ADVERB and it describes the verb which is ASK. HumbLY ASK It doesn't say anything at all about being humble. Now, don't misunderstand me. Humility is a great virtue. It is an ancient and a cardinal virtue. The entire program of Alcoholics Anonymous is an exercise in humility and honesty. But there is no requirement that we be generally humble. You know why? It's impossible. By definition, of our definition, in our book, Alcoholics Anonymous, the alcoholic is defined as self-will run riot. Selfishness, it's a self-centeredness. This is at the core of our problem. when you say humble alcoholic you have a classic contradiction in terms they just don't go hand in hand but humility is different I hear people at meetings about the seven step they give the dictionary definition whatever dictionary they happen to be using and then they have a long chat as it does in the twelve and twelve about trying to achieve this state of humility that's not what I read the step to say once again, no one must understand me if you want to be humble it's a great virtue try to be who knows if I need a definition of humility I'll tell you it's very simple thing to define for me it's in the first five steps you want a definition of humility try this one on for size being powerless over alcohol and not able to manage your own life is that humble or what you admit that you can't manage your own life you admit that only a power greater than your own can help you. You make a decision to put your life into the care of a God of your understanding. How humble can you be? You write a list of everything you think is wrong with you. That's humble. And then you tell it to somebody else. That's what humility is to me in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Humbly ask is a different concept, it seems to me. I take the seventh step to be a prayer. I take it to be the prayer that is in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, the prayerthat I have just read to you from the book. And I takeit that when I say this prayer, I should do so humbly. And to me that means I do not demand things from God. There was a time when I prayed for God to do my will. from the time I was quite young, impossible kind of prayers. I would pray to God that he make Rio de Janeiro the capital of Portugal. Well, that's what I wrote on that stupid examination that she gave us. Capital of Portugal, I wrote Rio de Janero. If that's wrong, I'm in big trouble, she'll hit me out of the head with a ruler. So I told God, make Rio De Janeiro the capitol of Portugal didn't work out. An impossible prayer, I demanded that. Now, imagine how in the concept of my dealing with my father, if you or one of your children came to you and said, I demand a bicycle, or you will hear from my attorney. You little bastard, get out of here. But we do that to God all the time. I demand that you give me a job. I demandthat you giveme money. I demand power. I demand sex. I want this to happen this is how I would pray make this happen not a word about my doing anything just God make this happen God get me out of this I demand that you get me at it and maybe I won't do it anymore and sometimes those prayers the trouble with us alcoholics is sometimes that particular prayer is answered you know we get out. That was close. Did God do it? No, I got out and I'm slick. Give me a drink. I'll tell you how I got outta that one. No. Don't demand things from your father. That's not the way to negotiate with your father, the magic words. Please, thank you. Don' t demand things from God. Pisses them off. Say please. Say please. Humbly ask him, please. Seven-step prayer is very similar to the third-step. It's an offer. You're offering yourself to God. Very interesting prayer. Says I offer you now the good and the bad. That's very unusual in prayers to offer God the good and the bad. In my religious training, which lasted a long time and had very little effect on me, I had an understanding that I learned at school. I had another understanding. It probably was incorrect, but my understanding was that the God that I was being taught about at that time was only interested in me when I was good. God loved good little boys. They told me that. You're a good little boy, they said. God loves you. Trouble with that was I was never a good girl. I was a good old boy. I was bad little boy. I was an adult. If you can call what I was an adult. I came here, I was an infant. Somebody asked me once, where did you grow up? I said, no place. I just got taller. But I was a bad little boy and when you're a bad little boy, God's not interested in you. God's interested in good little boys. So if he's not interested with me, what the hell have I got to do with him? And that was an attitude. I didn't learn that until after I got sober, but I had that attitude. This prayer says God wants it all, the good and the bad. That's an interesting thought, and it makes a certain amount of sense, you know, because the prayer goes on to say that we're not praying as I used to pray, that I go to heaven or that I be forgiven for something horrible that I had done. This prayer says that I'm offering myself to God, the Good and the Bad, so that I can become useful, useful in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the fact that I have done a number of things in my life that are bad makes me useful. When a new guy comes in, I have something to tell him about. He wants to tell me how bad he was? I was pretty bad. Want to tell you he stole some money? You think I did? I stole money. Did a lot of things that you really sort of regret and don't want to talk about, but you talk about them in any way. I have experience with that. I know what that means. I know what it means. The fact that I was one time operated in a way that was illegal and immoral is now a very valuable asset when new people come to Alcoholics Anonymous. When they talk to me about the trouble they're in, maybe I was in that trouble. Chances are I was. I understand. I understand what it is not to be a good guy, because I never was much of a good guy. And I didn't come here to become a good guy either. I came here to become a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn'T even know that one. I just came here to get away from there. But this prayer that we ask here, this seven-step prayer, we don't demand anything from God. We offer ourselves again to God. We say, here we are. I'm not much. It's talking to your father. Imagine if one of your kids came up to you and said, look, you know, I got these problems. I'm a little behind in school. I're a little behind in work. I've not really keeping up my end. I am not doing the things I'm supposed to be doing. But I'd like to be a little more useful around the house. And maybe I'll be a better kid. I think I'm ready to be useful. I swapped six of mine for one of those. Imagine if a kid came up and said, I'd like to be used to it. You know, you need anything from the store? Everybody would have a heart attack. It's really sort of an ideal thought. You know, the system doesn't really work that way. But it can work that with us when we talk to our father, to your father, to my father. Say, look, I'm ready. I'm sober now. I don't drink. I made a decision. I'm hanging in with you and with your people, the people of Alcoholics Anonymous who are your people and my people and you are our father and I'd like to help out. It's a very simple way. A short form of that prayer is just please let me be a better member of Alcoholic Anonymous. That's a good prayer. He likes that. I think he likes that a lot. And I don't think it's necessary that we limit God. Remember when you were a kid, your father was... There was no limit to what he could do. I never had a father, but I used to see other guys' fathers. They really had it made, those adults, you know? They could go where they wanted. They could come home when they wanted They could get up when they want it. They really have it made. they could have ice cream anytime they wanted go to the movies kids have to ask you know get permission for all that stuff but these people can do it all the time your father's a very powerful guy look at him boy he gets up whenever he wants I didn't know mine was busy drinking himself but there was no limit to what your father could do really of course when they get to a certain age they find out that we fathers have feet of clay are not as powerful as we'd like to them to think but I don't think we should limit God God can do a lot for us other than just the drink drinking is nothing drinking is just crap but in this program my father your father our father has enough power to stop somebody like me from drinking imagine that this power this father of mine took an interest in me to the extent that he said if he is ready to stop drinking i am ready to help him and i came to the program of alcoholics anonymous which he really started and i got the power and i don't drink anymore and i haven't had a drink for a long time and it only happened because i asked for it if you want something from your father you better ask him right don't you think you should ask if you won something what do you think if your father wakes up morning says it'd be a good day to give the boy a convertible. Doesn't work that way. You say, please, you know, can I have something? And your father says, no. Sometimes he says no. And what all of this gives me, at least, is a great degree of hope. It gives me a great decree of hope Hope is like the weakest sister of faith. First I had hope, then I got faith. And when I was finished that fifth step and became entirely ready in the sixth step, I really thought this program would work for me. I had some doubts during the period of the first three steps whether the program would worked for me because it had not worked before. The first time it didn't work for because I didn't worked for it. And I had, uh, some doubts about it. But around this time, around the sixth and the seventh steps, he's very crucial in the program, this is the exact middle of the step. A lot of people sort of gloss over these six and seven. This is the meat of the program. It is the middle. It is at these two steps, I think, that I finally established a relationship with my father. I came to terms with that idea in the third step, but I really developed a relationship in six and seven. I really got to know him because I said the seven-step prayer every day. And I had a conversation with him every day I was in daily contact with my father. This is more than simply coming to terms. This is having a relationship. I hear that term a lot, relationship. I don't know what that means. I think it's something sexual. I hope so. Everyone has a relationship, it's wonderful to have a relationship have another relationship, or any relationship, they're out of a relationship. Who gives a shit? I'm talking about my relationship with my father. That's a permanent thing, see? That's permanent. That's not a come and go. That's an ongoing, continuous, daily, day-by-day relationship. And that one is constant. It's constant. It's constantly in my life and has been so ever since I became a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You see, everything else in my wife has changed since I got here. Everything is different. I don't live in the same place. I don'T work in the SAME place. I DON'T have the same people in my life. They come and they go. People pass through my life many, many times in the Bible it says it came to pass. Nowhere does it say it came to stay. These situations float through my life, and as they flow through, maybe for the time they're in my life I think they're important. And certainly I have no complaints how life has treated me since I became a member of Alcoa Xenonima. Where I lived before I moved to Florida was very good. It was very nice. I had a nice life. Lived in the right place, nice place, worked in the right place. Everything was okay. But I always had this sort of a back in my mind, the idea of moving here and living here. I've been coming down here on a regular basis for many, many years. I had an office in Palm Beach. I didn't do any work there, but I would visit there. And I had a lot of friends in there. Jim McCullough, I knew Jim McCullOUGH long before I lived in Florida, from the North Palm Beach group, where I used to go to meetings. And then a couple of years ago this opportunity came. Someone invited me to come here and work. It was good where I was, and it's better here. I didn't ask my father to send me to Florida. I didn't demand anything about it, but I was ready to get here. So I came. I didn't limit him. Any panloda can do this for me, can do anything, anything at all for me. And the older I get, the more I'm convinced that the ancient virtues are really meaningful, things that I never gave two cents for before. And among those virtues, of course, is humility, patience, hope, humility, charity. These are all the ancient virtues. I think there's something to it. And I try to maintain that relationship with my father. It's not difficult to be humble when you're dealing with God. That's sort of easy. I ask him, please, please help me. Please help me." There's another prayer I like. It says to God, thank you for everything you have given me. Thank you for everything you have taken away from me and thank you for everything you left me. Simple. Nice prayer. Gave me the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Helped me with my character defect and he left me here. He left me with you. And it's a daily thing. It's a day-by-day thing. The seventh step, like many of our steps of practice or all of our steps, every day. One day at a time. And I think many of our steps are prayers. Many of our Steps are Prayers. This one is a pure prayer. Any communication with my Father is a prayer. And that is true of a great many of our steps. Practically all of them are a communication with God. Certainly the first three. This one, the next one, the next one. Eleven and twelve are pure prayer. And I don't demand things from my Father. I say, please, help me. Help me be a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Help me just this one day to be useful. Maybe I can be useful to somebody. When I was drinking I was useless. I mean, what the hell good was I? Nobody could, I couldn't do anything for anybody. Somebody had some problems. Yeah, give it to old Keith. As soon as he finishes throwing up on his shoes, he'll be right over to help you. Useless, useless, just stumbling around. I could not have a relationship, as I understand that term, with anybody for any purpose. I was busy. I was busying getting drunk. I couldn't be a father. I couldn' do anything like that. And it's not such a big deal. It isn't a big thing. It's not a big detail. It's a little deal. It's small, small step. They're all small steps, but they get us to where we're going. So if you can develop your relationship with the God of your understanding and you go to him, try it tonight, try tomorrow. Talk to your father. Tell him take whatever you give him, your good and your bad. Ask him if you could be of use to your group in our call at Synonymous. What can I do for your group? Wonder what I can do for my group. Be useful. This is a wonderful group. Maybe you could do something for this group. Think about it. And if you can do that, then you've done the seventh step. Thank you.