No Amount of Sober Time Clears Away What Only Steps 4 Through 7 Can Remove – Stevie B.

Buddy, my name is Stevie B. I'm a grateful, recovered alcoholic, recovering alcoholic. Good to be here with you guys tonight. You ever have one of those times where you just need a meeting? And I was thinking over there, I said, you're gonna have to put your alcoholism aside in order to bring the steps to this beautiful group. And I was thinking, but I have alcoholism going on as I'm saying it. And I'm thinking, but this is AA. We're going to talk about the steps tonight, of course. But sometimes alcoholism comes in many different forms. And today, we're going to talk about a lot of concepts about a window. Here's the picture. There's a window. And the window, when we first come in, it's covered with a lot of stuff on it, a lot of gunk. A lot of garbage. It's like a poopy window. And then there's God's light on the outside of the window. And then we're the window. And we're covered in a lot of stuff. I'm feeling very blessed and grateful tonight because I got to experience the power of now this weekend. I shared about it last night. I got the blessing of speaking in Bermuda, and then a friend of mine just was next to me, my dear friend from Montreal. And he showed me his Joe and Charlie from Bermuda. And I got to speak in Bermuda this weekend. And it just so happens he just showed me a thing from Bermuda. And there was a Friday night speaker. Her name is Lydia. Precious, older woman. She had a little spark about her. And then there was an afternoon speaker, Vernon. He has 25 years this week. Great guy from the D.C. area. And then I was a Saturday night speaker. And so a lot of times the speakers, they all spend a lot of time together. You don't have pizza together and different things. And Lydia was feeling a little bit weak on Friday night, and she couldn't make the Saturday. And then she went on a tour of Bermuda. So she got to see the pink sands, which is so beautiful there. And she got to see the lighthouse. I wasn't on that tour. I went back to rest for my talk. And she came in for the talk. and then on sat sunday morning we all left together myself to go to miami and for the three ladies that came with lydia the two ladies that came with lydia they were on a plane to boston but as we got out of the van around 6 30 in the morning she was feeling weak so we got her a wheelchair and i carried her bags and her friends carried her bags it's a very very small airport the bermuda airport is you know it's it's it's arm's length all the gates are together it's nothing like miami so we all went up together and and and they went to the boston uh area and i went to the miami area and then i got a text from the host two hours later that the plane got turned around and lydia passed away on on the way back to boston and and it definitely hit me hard i mean we had just gave us each other a heart-to-heart hug that morning you know one of those hugs where you you grab someone and you hold them and um and it hit me hard but it also showed me this amazing blessing of alcoholism first of all she got to go to be with the lord doing what she loves which is telling people about this new life in the big book it says uh henrietta the lord has been so wonderful to me curing me of this horrible disease that i just want to go around telling everyone about and that's what we do that's what we do in the 12 step of the word is horrible it's it should be it's just one of those words um so lydia got to do that on friday night and then she got to be a blessing to us during the weekend and she told us the story of how she reconciled with her daughter that she had given for adoption but 50 years later her daughter found her and that she had a and she had a a happy marriage she she was on her fourth marriage uh but the last marriage she married her first daughter and she was on her fourth marriage the guy twice which is a typical alcoholic thing a lot of alkies do that right they come to their senses and they're like you know maybe it wasn't that bad let's remarry him and i share that because what we have is precious i had alcoholism today i was my mom could see i was a little bit short a little bit angrier a little i was definitely edgy today but definitely edgy and but we have this incredible program that if we clear away the uh the the poop on the window that what's going to happen is the sunlight of god is going to be able to shine through and that's what the 12 steps are we come in here full of garbage and full of stories and full of nonsense and god's love is right there the last story i want to tell you about bermuda is on the way in i was sitting with a lady that lived in bermuda and she said that it's going to be cloudy when we landed however i saw as we were above the clouds it wasn't cloudy it was very sunny but the clouds were blocking the sun that we saw when we got underneath the clouds it was cloudy but was it really cloudy no it wasn't cloudy it was the clouds that blocked the sun that's the same thing that happens with us why we do a fourth fifth sixth and seventh is because we're very cloudy full of poopy we have a lot of issues and that stuff needs to be moved away or taken entirely ready to have god remove them otherwise those don't change there's no amount of sobriety that i know about which is uh being clean of alcohol or drugs uh there's no amount of sobriety that clears that away it only is about work it's work i was 12 years old i had never had a drink most of us at 12 have not had a drink other than the irish contingency there there's most of us haven't but at 12 years old i was still full of poopy i had never had a drink and i was full of alcoholism and many things that i did showed that i was prone to alcoholism lying cheating stealing giving another kid a gun and saying shoot at me this should work out that's alcoholism and then when i added the alcohol the alcohol was not the problem the alcohol was temporarily the solution the more i i i went around most of my life with a tourniquet around the top of my chest like a rubber band a very strong rubber band and one drink looses that rubber band one drink makes me hey what's up hey how are you i become everything that i want to be in one drink it's the subsequent drinks that follow that's the problem and i don't know if it's going to be one drink or it's going to be one state or one stint once i take a drink i have no power over the the outcome of that evening or the outcome of that week or the outcome of that month people say well i'm not an alcoholic i i only have a drink on the first of the month and i didn't have a drink to the last of the month but both those times i was arrested no you probably have a problem so in the fourth step where we're out tonight uh made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves why are we going to drink one drink and we're going to do an inventory process because we have to identify the poop that's separating us from god otherwise we're going to continue to we're going to continue to carry it i when i came in at 21 years old i thought the only two problems i had was alcohol and drugs and everything else was great i didn't realize that alcohol and drugs were just a symptom to nothing being great i was restless i was irritable i was discontent i was angry i was violent i didn't tell me anything and on any one of these days today all that can creep back because i don't have alcohol wasm i have alcoholism and i'm only recovered as i said from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body depending on the spiritual work that i do today so on my way up from the elevator just now when my mother was like taking a long time because she was down there talking hey can i get you a cigarette and all this i'm like mom there's a meeting i have i'm the speaker she's like i know i just want to bless some people and i'm like i'm not going to do that i'm not going to bless some people in the parking lot how are you son oh how are you what are you doing for christmas it's the fifth mom it's the fifth i got the directors of this meeting texting me where are you i'm like i realized on my way up that alcoholism had returned and i was walking up as a as a person in alcoholic relapse for a moment and that i was in need of a meeting and praise god that we have a lot of people that have been following us for the last five years and we've had those meetings hundreds and thousands of meetings per week to treat our alcoholism not our drinking most of us in here are not thinking about drinking most of us in here are here for our thinking and in step four we get to write down the things that are actually blocking us from this sunlight of the spirit which is god now even if you don't believe in god right now if you're not into the god thing yet that's there's three different acronyms that I want to share with you. And I might've shared it last week. I'm not sure, two weeks ago. There's G-O-D, there's the group of drunks, which is this, which is this, there's a group of drunks. And you can have, if you're not, if you're not into God yet, you can have a group of drunks in the meantime. And that can work for a while. It really can. The big book says that your understanding of God or your concept of God, however limited, is a good place to start. And that Alcoholics Anonymous is all inclusive, never exclusive, which means we don't ask you to leave if you don't believe in God. We ask you to believe in God of your understanding. And then there's good orderly direction. I have some of them here today. I have, I have a multitude of counsel that speaks into my life when I'm off. My mom, you know, my wife, my friends, my sponsor, my grand sponsor, people that I, I consider trustworthy in terms of a group of good orderly direction. And that's another way you can think of God. And then of course, I pray that everyone winds up with their concept of God, which is the creator of the universe, in my opinion. Well, it's in the opinion of the big book. The big book's opinion is that God is the creator of the universe. And it's at times like today, or when I was walking up here, that I was grateful that I wasn't walking up here alone. Because as I was coming up the stairs, waiting for the elevator, I said the third step prayer. I said, God, I'm, I'm like a little bit irritable today, a lot irritable. And I'm feeling short with people. God, I offer myself to thee. This is me going up the stairs. Each step. I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou will relieve me of the bondage of self. Lord, I need you to relieve the bond. I'm all I'm thinking about right now. I'm, I'm caught up in a whole me. I'm all about me. Me. You don't ever see those, those seagulls in, in, in that famous card. My, my, my, my, my. I think it's finally Nemo. I was all about me on the way up. My, me, me, me, me, me. So God, relieve me of the bondage of me. So that when I get up to that meeting, I could do your will. Take away my difficulties, which seem insurmountable now, but compared to what just happened with Lydia, I realized none of them really matter. None of them really mean anything. I can get caught up of the worldly clamors, which the big book talks about on page eight or nine, the worldly climbers, the worldly climbers don't mean anything. The worldly climbers separate me from feeling the love of you and have me be a witness to that. This program works that you work on. And then I came up here. I just took a breath and I felt better. And so there's work to be done. There's chop wood, carry water work. And what does that mean? What does that mean? There's work to be done. Chopping wood takes work. Carrying water takes work, sitting and watching people carrying water and chop wood doesn't take work. So if you come to the million step meetings and you never put pen to paper, you're sitting, watching these guys chop wood and carry water, and you will not get better. And you will grow thirsty and be cold because you're not going to chop your wood and you're not going to carry your water. And that's the, I'm not sure if Peter came up with that, but he certainly made it completely available to us where we were at second nature to us. Are you chopping wood or carry water? What are you doing to work the steps? What are you doing to clear away the garbage that's on the window? And in the four step, it's very clearly outlined. I'm not going to go over how to do the four step because the four step is, is incredibly outlined in the big book of alcoholics anonymous. It's it's exhaustingly in a good way outlined in the big book on how to do it. It tells you about the, uh, that you're going to have a resentment list. You're going to have a fears list. You're going to have a harms caused other list. And harms cause other sexual list. You're not going to write down all the people you had sex with or didn't have sex with. That's not the list. I thought that was the list. The first time I did, I thought it was like, I had all my people down there. I showed my sponsor the list. He goes, what is this? I go, this is the inventory list. And he says, go back and read the step again. This is the women that you harmed. And that was a more difficult list. I wanted to talk about my conquests. I had to go back and take a look at what I, the women I had, the women I lied to the women I said that I would call. And I didn't the women that I told made stories up that I was somebody else. That I was an actor in the movies to the people in the Midwest that I had connections in the movie business. That's not, it's funny. Now it's not, it's not funny to them when they didn't get the part. Norman likes that one. So there was a, there was a bunch of, uh, things I need to write down on my sexual inventory list. And you know, my mom is sitting here, but, and I'm not going to do a fifth step in front of you, but, but some of the stuff was, uh, was not funny. Some of the stuff was sad that at the time I thought was appropriate behavior. Why? Because my appropriate, my appropriate bar was all the way on the bottom. Alcoholics Anonymous taught me what are an appropriate. Relationship is what an appropriate sexual relationship is and how it is to be a man of God as a married man and what's acceptable and what's not the big book says that we don't try to, uh, uh, navigate other people's sexual behavior, but God will navigate for you. What's correct for you. And, um, and so that was, that was part of my sexual harms caused other. And there was quite a lot. I'm not saying it was the worst I've ever heard. Of course it's not, but it's definitely the worst. I have been done because it's my inventory. Don't compare your inventory to anyone else's. And then of course the, the first part is, uh, resentments. That's going to be your resentment list because the big book says that resentments are the number one offender because resentment is to refill, resent, refill. Every time I hear that person's name, I'm, I'm refilling it. Every time I hear that person's name, I'm, I'm reliving it. You want to be gone with that. You don't want to be carrying that around. That's a nasty thing to have. Now, does that mean for the people in here that have been really wronged, raped, molested, done wrong by the, these type of things that you're just going to be able to let it go? No, but you're going to be able to let go the power that it holds on it. After you've done the fourth step and the fifth step, it won't hold power over you. What my, one of my main resentments, I had little ones from my mom. Cause she's from Brooklyn and she used to crack wooden spoons over my head. That was a minor ones. I'm sure anybody here's mom, uh, is Italian or Latin. I'm sure you got hit with a lot of wooden spoons. Yeah. So hers was like minor stuff. And then my dad was a couple of miners. He was, he was a Korean war hero. May God rest his soul. And he was, you know, physically, you know, took his liberties a little bit. So I had some of my dad, but the, my main one was the young man that shot me in the eye. That was my main resentment. And I, I like for years I was planning, not to do anything, but like, but like, you know, like if I had nothing to do in the middle of the day and I had like downtime, I would think about shooting him with an arrow, you know, stuff like that, but not a plan. Let me tell you how freeing the fourth and fifth step is. There's a fourth column, which is where were you wrong? Like when I had my mother down in the top and I said, I resent my mother. Cause she cracked me over the head with a wooden spoon and, and, and made me bleed. Okay. But when I got to the fourth column, where was I wrong? I told her to go F herself. I told her I'm not going to school. I told her I'm my own person and not to bother me. And then she cracked me over the head with a wooden spoon. When I got to the fourth column, I realized I needed to be cracked over the head with a wooden spoon and it was totally gone. But when it got to this boy that shot me, I didn't realize how miraculous this was going to be. Cause when I got to that fourth column, where was I wrong? I started to write down the boy was the same age as me by one year. Like I had built him up that it was like some adult that like held me down and shot me in the eye with his neck, with his knee on my neck. The boy was the same age as me by one year. It was my gun. I gave him the gun and said, shoot at me fourth. I did not move fast enough. By the time I had written that down, I realized I was fully responsible for shooting my own eye out in an irresponsible act of a child that didn't want the kid to leave the backyard because he felt insecure while he was hanging out with one of the toughest kids in the neighborhood. I did what I did because I didn't think it through and I didn't listen to my parents who said never touch the gun when we're out of the house or you shoot your eye out. Thank you very much. I saw the movie years later. I appreciate that. So guess what happened when I was talking to my sponsor, giving him that column, no resentment, obviously my fault. What did I did? Thank you God for showing me the truth. I was able to let that young boy off the hook. And I'm actually looking forward to this summer. I told my mom, I'd like to get together with him and you know, just, just, I was going to say, look him in the eye with that. That would do it. No pun intended. I'm free. How free do you want to be the people that molested you and did all that? It's terrible. You're never going to forget it. I'm not saying that, but you can give the power away. That's been holding you hostage. You know that we, we hear that famous song about that famous story about the two monks that they were in a monastery and they weren't allowed to speak. And they were, they took an oath of silence and they took an oath of never to touch a woman. And while they were walking, together in the countryside, they saw a woman and she had fallen into a lake and the monk went and he, he rescued her and he spoke to her and he, and he pulled her out of the lake and he dried her off. And then the monks continued to walk like another 10 miles, like two hours later. And the one monk said to the other monk, I'm so angry with you. You broke all your vows. And the one monk said to the other monk, I dropped that woman two hours ago. You're still carrying her. How long do you want to carry the things in your life? How long do you want that to hold you hostage? How long do you want your resentments to be like poison that you're drinking and expecting someone else to die from it? I have a couple twings. I have a couple pangs in my life today, small pangs, you know, like a hunger pang of people that have wronged me, but I'm talking about pain. Like if I saw them, I would hug them. I used to have a noose. I used to be a guy that would say like this, like, like I was some type of good fellow. Like if I ever see that person again, forget about it. And what did that do? It made me sicker and me angry and me less free and me pent up. I was spiritually constipated and now I'm free today. I don't have one person in the entire planet that I have a resentment. I have one person that I have a little teaspoon of a tang, nothing. That's the resentment list, the fears list. I'm fear-based. Anybody else? Of course, you're an alcoholic. Of course, you're fear-based. Alcoholics that say they're not fear-based, they're ridiculous. They're just in denial. Of course, you're fear-based. That's why we have us drink. We drank because we didn't want to see tomorrow. We drank because we didn't have the bills paid. We drank because we didn't want to be sober. There's a reason, a lot of reason we drank and a lot of it's fear-based. But after you get done with your list in the four step, you're going to be less fearful. I have just a couple on that entire list. I was able to confess them. The Bible says to confess your sins to one another. And once you do that, half the power of that defect or that sin is gone. So the fears list is awesome. And then there's the harms caused others. And I had a lot of harms caused others. I never stole my mother's jewelry. She's still thinking that I did, but I did not. I did steal a lot of things. I stole time. I stole energy. I stole my wife's brand new wife. We just got married. I stole her peace of mind. I stole her, her faith. I stole her. I, I, I stole the honesty that I promised her, but I made my vows just a year and a half earlier. And then I stole money. I, I tried to steal money from my grandfather, JC. I tried to steal money from my parents. I was a thief. I just didn't have the opportunity to do it. However, my harms caused others list. That's a very important list because the, some of those harms cause others, most of them, if not all of them are going to point to your eighth step list. So you don't want to, you don't want to not write down those things that you've done. You've harmed it. I had a lot of fist fights when I was in college and grade school and, and, and, and bars and city things and all different things. I had a lot of that nonsense and those people, I don't know, but I had to put them down the thing at the bar that did the way you write them down. And then all of a sudden you, you, you have this all done. And it's not going to be perfect. And you're going to forget some stuff. And you're going to make an appointment with your sponsor or your mentor, your rabbi, whatever it is. I recommend sponsor. If you don't trust your sponsor enough to hear your fifth step, I believe you have the wrong sponsor. I believe there's a lot of amazing sponsors out there. A lot of them are here tonight that if you can't trust your sponsor with your fifth step, what are you, what are you really saying? You have like a, you can trust your sponsor to like work everything, but this. Now I know some people have ongoing criminal things and they, and they believe that they couldn't tell another human being. So they got attorneys and stuff like that. I'm not speaking into that. That's between you and the Lord. I'm not, that's not a joke, but I, I, I told my sponsor everything except one thing. Cause I, I, I didn't want to tell him. And then he asked me the question at the end. He said, is there anything you've omitted? Is there anything you've left out? And I told him and he said, well, that's, that was big. That's kind of a big one. You left out. See, the step, the fifth step is, um, uh, admitted to God, to ourselves and another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. The reason that the fifth step is not admitted to ourselves and to God is because some of the things that we think are no big deal, the sponsor is going to show us that it's a big deal. And some of the things that we think are a big deal, the sponsor is going to show us it's not that big of a deal. And the thing I was leaving out was a big deal because of, I didn't tell my sponsor that I was opening the door up to maybe do it again. Okay. Is it a big deal? You guys know it's a big deal to me. This is my image. This is our inventory, personal inventory. And so by the time I was done with that fifth step, I was a, I was a freer man. Was I a free man? No, but I knew I was in AA. I knew I was working the steps. I knew I was in the deal. You don't do the fifth step. If you're just casually showing up here and there's a quarter of the room, maybe more that you guys are not going to make it because you're not going to do the steps. So you're going to one or two things are going to happen. You're going to be miserable in AA. Walking around was still poopy all over the window, blocking out the sunlight of the spirit because you're not willing to do the work. You're not willing to chop wood and carry water or like happened to me. You're going to relapse and pick up again. And that's what happened to me after seven years. That's what happened to a good friend of Eve's that we spoke about yesterday that 18 years and another person last week that we heard about that has 24 years. Why? Because this entire program is not based on how many years you have and you arrive. It's based on how much work you've done today. The entire thing is based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. There's like, this is like a cockpit at an airplane. There's so much stuff here. And so when I finished that fifth step, I was a freer man, especially after my sponsor said to me, is there anything you've left out? And I had never told another person that any of any of that stuff. And, um, and when I told him it lost its power, you ever realized you're holding this? I remember telling exactly that he was holding this. He was holding, he couldn't use it. He's like, this is the worst thing that ever happened. He told me, and I'm like, that's not a big deal right there. And he was totally free. And that was my sponsor said, my sponsor said it was a big deal if I hadn't told him. But now that I told him it's not a big deal and it's never been a big deal since then. I've never acted out in that area since. So I get that. It definitely worked. Now, this is where the big book gives you clear cut instructions. You're going to leave that fifth step and you're going to go and you're going to spend. Some quiet time with you and God is important. And you're going to spend an hour, just you and God, no TV, no cell phone, nothing you and God. And you're going to start to reflect over the last five steps. Did I do the steps correctly? Did I omit anything? Did I, did I, did my sponsor tell me to memorize the third step prayer? And I pretended I did, but I didn't not to say that if you can't memorize the third step prayer, that's not doing the step. But if my sponsor, if my sponsor asked me to memorize it and I said, I memorized it and I told him I memorized it and I didn't memorize it. That's me not putting the concrete in the, in the, that's not me adding the right amount for the concrete in the cement. Cause why I'm being dishonest. Do I need to call him at up at that moment and tell him, listen, I want to tell you when we did the third step, I was really looking at the little card when you had your head belt, you know, let me clean it up right now. It's telling you, did I do, did I leave anything out on the fourth step? Did I leave anything out on the fifth step? Am I right to go? Did I lay a. Firm foundation. You know, the, I, I relapsed during the world trade center. I had, um, seven years and I, I, I thought that I could drink. I knew I had a drug problem, but I thought that I could drink as long as I would never go back to drugs. Not realizing that the moment I drank, my brain was on sober and was not gonna make sober decisions. As soon as it had alcohol in it, I, I, I didn't see that whole thing, how that worked. And, um, the, so the twin towers come down. My mother and father come out. Not a retirement. They come to save my business. They come to save my marriage. And then the years subsequent to that, they rebuilt the freedom towers. They rebuilt the twin towers. And for years, people were saying, why is it taking so long? Why is it taking so long? Why is it taking so long? They couldn't see any of the buildings going up because they were building the buildings going down like hundreds of stories down. They wanted to make sure that the foundation was rock solid. If you go out into the sixth step and you. Did a poopy fifth step and you didn't do a good four step. Your foundation is already shaky. And this is a place where you wanna pause regroup. You may need to go back. Don't rush. But people say you can do these steps the entire weekend. Of course you can. But that still means you mean that still means you need to be searching and fearless during the weekend. If you weren't just pause and go back and, and fill and yes. No. Oh, hi. And so, uh, I took the book off the shelf. I read the proposals. Did I, did I, well, let me read it to you. I mean, it's so hot up here. It's you know, I told everybody in Minnesota, I was an actor. I don't know if actors have to go through this under these lights, but I could have never made it. Thank you so much. Guy returning home. We find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better. Capital H I am. We know him better. God better taking this book down from a shelf. We turn to the page, which contains the 12 steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals, which is the first five steps we ask if we have omitted anything, left anything out for we are building an arch to which we can walk a free man at last. The arch is the most important part of that entries way that we're going into. If we don't build it strong, the whole thing falls through is our work solid. So far, did we build the foundation solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand, which is, which is a shaky ground, a shaky building structure. If we can answer to our satisfaction, we can then look at step six. Now this is where it's going to get a little dicey step six and seven in the big book of alcoholics. Anonymous may lead you to think it's not a big deal because it's only one paragraph each. And your sponsor may say, go home and do six and seven, one paragraph at a time. And then all of a sudden you were like three days earlier, you're on step four. And then all of a sudden three days later, you're on step eight and you go, what happened? Well, what happened? Because it's not designed to do it that way. What it's designed to do is we're designed to get to step six and then check to see if we're entirely re ready to have God remove the defects of character, which just got outlined in the fifth step, which your sponsor is going to help you see most of them are going to be selfishness, self-seeking. And there's a column for that. It says, where does this affect? What does this affect? And you're going to see selfishness, pocketbook, all that kind of stuff. And so you're going to get to a place where you're going to say to God, God, I'm ready. Hopefully you're going to say to God, I'm ready to have you remove this today. I was angry and I, and I, and it, and it hit me again. And I'm like, wow, you know, how many years I have to work on this as many years as it takes today. I did a new inventory at one o'clock I'm with John and Josh, we're in like a yoga class. We're like in a meditation class. I'm like, do do do. God bless you. Namaste. God bless you. Namaste. Two o'clock. I'm like, you know, entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. Let's put some names on them. Let's call them the paddles, pride, anger, greed, gluttony, envy, lust, and sloth. I had a great day in all of them, except anger came out when I didn't even expect it. Why? Because I didn't even expect it. I hadn't asked God to take that away today because I thought I was doing pretty good this week. And I wasn't until I wasn't. And that's the thing about defects of character. It's kind of like whack-a-mole. You know, you get one down, you know, you whack it, it goes down. Or like beach balls. Let's do beach balls. You know, you have a couple beach balls. You got your anger down. You got your lust down. You got this down. You got your pride down. You're holding all these beach balls underneath the water. And then all of a sudden, some young kid comes in with a perfect body. Like you. And then all of a sudden, pride comes up. Envy comes up. Get that ball down. There's anger. So it's kind of like beach ball defects of character game. I don't know anybody, even Paul. I don't know anybody that has all the beach balls down all the time. Although Paul looks like he pretty much has them down. But there's a beach ball that's looking to get up somewhere. We don't know where it is. We got to speak to his wife. That's how you find out. You go to the family members. If you spoke to my wife today, my mom, I would have said that I was restless, and I was not patient, and I was a little bit on edge. So that you'd go to my mom or my wife. But to me, the only time I acted out today was anger. But I'm ready to have God remove that from me. So I'm going to do this prayer. And here's the prayer. Well, first of all, I'm going to say to God, I'm ready to have all these things, which I admitted are objectionable. I'm ready. And if you want to be free, you need to be entirely ready. If you want to live in denial, you're not going to be free. And if you don't know what they are, talk to your sponsor, talk to your wife, talk to your husband, talk to your best friends. They're going to tell you. Anthony T is here one time, and I'm sponsoring him. He's new. I brought him over here. He's brand new. He doesn't know nothing. And I go to him. I don't even know if he's still here. Is Anthony T still here? I go, Anthony, you're going to have to take a look at your ego. And he goes like this, like in a nanosecond. He goes, you would know. I'm like, I'm your sponsor. I got 22 years. You got 22 minutes. But when he said that, I was like, you know what? He's right. He's 100% right. I got to take a look at my ego. So the people that are closest to you around you can help you shape these defects of character that you're ready to have God remove. And then we're going to go into. The seventh step. And this is where I'm going to slow down a little bit. I know we crossed four steps tonight, but it's important. Humbly, humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. Why do us have to be humbly? First of all, I can't do it. I've been trying to remove anger from me for the last 52 years. Why I say 52 years, because I was kicked off the bus in Mrs. McGill Cuddy's nursery school. Mrs. McGill Cuddy was a saint. She's Irish. She's a nursery school teacher. She was not in the business of kicking students out. But she called my mom and she said, Marie, little Stevie can't come back to nursery school. And my mom said, why would my son not be allowed to come to nursery school? And she said, he bites all the children on the bus. I was five. I had anger issues at five. At seven. My mom figured if they put me in karate, that I would be able to get all that anger out, which all it did was make me like a well-honed karate machine. So for 55 years, 52 years, I've been dealing with this defect. Doesn't matter. I'm entirely ready for how God to remove it on 12, five, 2024. This is the only day I'm ever going to have. And this is the day that I asked God to remove it. Nothing else matters. You know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're Italian or Irish or this or that, or this is your family. This is your family of origin. If you want to be free, God can do the work for you, but you're going to have to chop the wood and you're going to have to carry the water, which means bring this defective character on your knees to the Lord and continue to ask him to take it. There's people in this meeting right here that I never thought would get sober that have three or four or five years that are doing unbelievable that I said to myself, this person is never going to get it. They're just a hot mess. They're sponsoring people. Speaking all around town, just to have an amazing life, have said no to relationships. They brought their defects of character to the altar and said to God, I want to be free of me and more like you. And the proof is that it happened. You guys give me the opportunity to see this step in action, because if I was alone in alcoholics and I'm this, it was just me in the meeting. I wouldn't know it worked because on days like this, when it didn't work at two o'clock in the morning, I wouldn't know it worked. I wouldn't know it worked. I wouldn't know it worked in the afternoon. I could think I'm a failure, but I'm not a failure. I just have a defect of character that continues to fail me when I take it back. So what am I going to do if I want to clean that window? I got to clean that specific window right today because I did pretty good in the lust area today. It's still early, but I did very good so far in that one area that I can't see right now. There was anger in there and that area needs to be cleaned. And the only hand that could do that cleaning, according to six and seven, is the hand that could do that cleaning. And the only hand that could do that cleaning is the hand of God. And why I need to humbly come to him, I need to know right sized at this moment, I'm never going to be able to do it myself. So I say this prayer. My creator, I'm now willing now in this moment now, two o'clock it happens. I was salty at five o'clock. I was impatient at six o'clock. My creator, I am now ready, 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 out from here to do your bidding. Amen. Which means I agree. I agree with this prayer. I'm asking God, I agree. I'm coming in agreement with God that he can, I can't. He is, I'm not him. He's the father. I'm his agents. He's the prince. He's the principal. We're his agents. He's the father. I'm the child. I can't do this. I've been trying to fight this for 55 years. It's not working, son. It's not working because today at 155, you took your will back. Now, the great thing about it is do his 10 step, which I did with one of the guys here today and call up the other guy, do a 10 step, which we're going to talk about and, and make it right. And then ask me to remove it. And I will. And he has. And I went to a meeting of alcoholics and I was, I feel amazing. I'm sweating, but I feel amazing. And then what's going to happen. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to want to do the eighth step. We're going to have a yearning to do the eighth step. We're going to want to go back. So much incredible things are happening that we're going to want to go back. Now, are there books that are going to help you with six and seven? Yeah. There's drop the rock. There's drop. What's the other one, Paul? There's dropped the rock. What's the second one to it? Ripple effect. So there's great literature out there that will, will go alongside you as you do these steps. This is not a self-help program. The 12 and 12 is amazing with the six and seven. You may get to the six and seven in the big book. And think this is not enough for you. Great. That's why they wrote this 15 to 17 years later, the six and seven step in the 12 and 12 is awesome. There's the book drop the rock. And then the ripple effect, which is the newer book that just came out. All that stuff is great. While you're in there, you're going to realize, you know what? I do want to go and make amends to people I've harmed. I do. I want more of this. They tell me in the meeting that we'll be amazed before I'm halfway through the ninth step. Why would I want to stop here? I'm starting to feel good. I'm feeling freer. I'm starting to have the sunlight of the spirit come through. I'm waking up in a semi joyous mood and I'm going through the day and mostly joyous mood. I'm getting to my knees at the end of the night and I feel like it's been a great day. I'm having a relationship with my creator. I love you guys. I love being here. I love the father. And you know what? I'm almost that. I love me some days. I love me some days. I don't, but I'm a work in progress. I hope none of this. You ever think that we come up here and we've got it. I don't, I'm, I'm never feel like I've got it. What I have is I have a relief from myself daily based on the maintenance of my spiritual condition and that's it. And I get to go on another day tonight. I'll do my inventory list, which I'll speak to you about tomorrow, next week. And, um, and apologize to my wife for being short and get on my knees. Thank God for another day. And we do it all again tomorrow. God bless you. God bless you.