Powerlessness and Terror – Step Study – a 12 Step Study – Part 1 of 6 – Local AA Speakers

My name is Ray O'Keefe and I'm an alcoholic. Let me ask you a question. Has anybody ever done more for you than the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has done for you? Do you remember what that was like? Do you Remember how you lived and what you did? I remember that. I remember living a life that was completely dominated by fear, by terror and by disappointment and by loneliness. And I had not started life that way. I was a fairly cheerful kid and a fairly joyful guy at one point. But the drinking took me over into a point of powerlessness and I really didn't understand that it had happened to me until I was so deeply into it that there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't understand that I had become powerless over alcohol until long after I stopped drinking, several months after I started drinking. Then I understood I was powerless over alcoholic. But when I think back as I was doing this morning in a period that I use every day for meditation, when I was thinking back to the way I lived then and the way i thought then and what my values were then and what my standards were then and then I compared them to what's going on in my life today and I came to that conclusion that nobody nobody, no person no institution has ever done for me what this program has done for m and it helps me to remember that it helps me to remember every day in my life that I am powerless over alcohol. That my life was truly unmanageable. There was no way I could manage. I've told you over and over again, I could have lived with the physical alcoholism as long as I could live. I would have lived with the psychological alcoholism. I could leave without having a right leg that was numb up to the hip. I could mange that. I just walked a little funny and I made vague references to the war and I could live with wetting the bed every night and throwing up every morning I mean these things are not life-threatening they're just inconvenient but I could not live with the terror I just could no longer live with terror I didn't really come here because of the alcohol I thought the alcohol was still working for me because it's such a marvelous drug At 7 o'clock in the morning, I was into the terror. There was no way that I could do on that particular day whatever it was I was supposed to do. It was impossible to do that. Even if it only involved going to my office and sleeping, I couldn't do it. That was just too much. Getting dressed was an ordeal. I went to loafers so I didn't have to tie my shoes. One slick guy like me, one summer I was wearing a clip-on tie because I couldn't tie the tie. But I could live with that. That was all right. It was just inconvenient. It was the terror. And there I was at 7 o'clock in the morning deep into that terror knowing that in any minute I was going to fly apart in several pieces and just explode. I knew it. and about six doubles later I was at peace with man and with God it all went away what the hell was I worried about there's nothing to this let me just see now let me where am I you know in New York a little dark in the morning in the winter I say is it seven o'clock in the morning is it 7 o' clock at night it's hard to find out those things because there aren't too many people you can ask. So you hope for the best, you know? I'll go to the station. If everybody's coming home, I'll come back. If they're all going to New York, I'd go with them. Either way, I'm alright because I just had my six drinks. I knew I was okay. The train took 36 minutes to get to Grand Central. I could last 36 minutes. There was nothing wrong with me. But 38 minutes, that train got stuck in the tunnel or something, the panic would begin. 40 minutes, I'd be looking for a way to get out. 45 minutes, I'd been demanding to be let out. But 36 minutes? I could handle that. And it was every day, every day and it never changed. And I was alcoholic and could not manage my own life. That's what Hildecourt just read. That is A, I was alcoholic and could not manage my own life. B, no human power could relieve my alcoholism. Every human power that I had anything to do with dealt with my alcohol ism. She who must be obeyed dealt with my alcoholism you drink too much she said there's something the matter with the way you drink I explained to her the relativity of alcoholism some people drink more than other people I told her I didn't drink as much as my mother she said nobody drinks as much your mother I told him maybe I would drink less she said that no you can't drink at all well that was totally totally unacceptable. She was a power greater than my own. The people I dealt with where I worked were powers greater than mine own. They had power over me and they exercised that power by dismissing me from supposedly a lifetime job, a career tenured professorship at a university. Obviously she was not very important to me or I would have done something about my drinking. Obviously, the job wasn't that important to me or I would have done something to keep it. Judges before whom I appeared on a regular basis were powers much greater than my own who could make me or break me and they broke me. And they told me not to drink, the judges. Many of them. One guy said, listen O'Keefe, when you drink you should stay at home and sit on the edge of your own bed. don't go out with people he said you're impossible when you drink don't drink and don't come into court drunk in the morning he said I'm not drunk drunk by me was when you fell down but holding up on the chair holding on to the council table when you stood up in court weaving around and burping and farting this is all very unprofessional and tripping over a waste paper basket in front of a jury. Oh, pardon me, you know. Settling a case on Tuesday and coming back on Wednesday to demand where did my jury go? They said, you settled it yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock. Oh yes, of course I did. And then fill me in. Just how much money did I get? Now this is the way I live. This is theway I lived and these powers greater than my own people whose relationship to me was sometimes very close pleaded with me, please don't drink. And I insisted it was not the drinking. It was something else that was doing it. It was not a drink. It was home. It was work. It was a drinker. It was nothing but something. And then you come to that point and you understand, at least I came to understand here, that no human power could restore me. No human power could relieve my alcoholism. I got that maybe around the sixth month I was here. I had that figured out. I didn't drink. I didn' t want to drink. And I knew it had happened here. It had happened in these rooms and these meetings with you all. With the people I had met here, people I had not known six months before. People just like me. I went home to her very early. I said, you know there's a whole room full up there just like me? She said, that's just what I need. A whole roomful just like you. I can't believe it, she said. But that was true and I realized that after I'd been not drinking for a while, I realized that these were the same people. These were the samewackos that I had been hanging out with except these guys weren't throwing up on my shoe and they weren't telling me a lot lies, and they really cared about me. And that process began, that process that happens to all of us, it began with me. I came to believe. I come to believe that God could and would if he was sought. It took a while. It take a while, I didn't just walk in here and give up. I hear people saying they surrendered, that's lovely. I was captured. I I was taken here. I was not someone who gave up and surrendered. I was captured, made prisoner, and thrown in here against my judgment, against my will. And then I came to sense something here. You know, whatever it is, there's something, a sense that you get that I got when I came here. And he told me I'd have to make up my mind if I were going to stay. That's how he put the third step to me. It wasn't anything about will or life or God or anything theological or mystical. I wasn't turning anything over to anybody. I wasn'T turning it over on Monday and taking it back on Tuesday. I wasn' t asked God to drive me to work or get me a pair of shoes or anything stupid like that. He just told me, make up my mind. You going to stay here or you want to go back there? Well, I couldn' t go back there. I just could not manage over there. I couldn't go back to the terror. I didn't know what you had here. I didn' t know what happened. You know, it would be nice if they gave us a map on the way in or a diary or something, you know? One year, all things straighten out physically. Third year, you get solvent. Fifth year, you become wonderful. Tenth year, you're very close to God. Twentieth year, they ask you to do the steps at the upper room. It'd be nice. You get the map. You say, where the hell am I? That's your third year. You'll feel wonderful. Thank you, you know. Right on the track. But we don't... Nobody can tell us that. And the new people come in and they come in as I came in full of anger and hate and fear and worry and anxiety and crap. And we say, don't drink. You'll be all right. They don't know that. I didn't know. So I couldn't go back there. Just couldn't do it. Couldn't go bad. And I wasn't sure what you had for me. but I knew that it had to be better than my best day back there. Had to be better, because there was no way in my own mind that I could have gone any lower than I went. So I made up my mind, I'm going to stick around here. I'm gonna do what my sponsor tells me to do, even though sometimes I may even not understand what he's telling me, or maybe I have my own idea or maybe I want to disagree. I would say why do you say shut up he would explain to me. Say why do I say yeah just sit there and shut up. I'd say thank you that's very nice clear that one another mystery revealed. He just saved me from all of that he said forget it we had all the debates before you got here AA was 30 years old when I came he said we had 30 years of this stuff we figured out all the problems before you came everything is all set now. Nobody needs your input, the book has been written, the steps are on the wall, and you don't have any ideas that are worthwhile, and anything you might think of we've already thought of, you just sit there. Thank you. I said, I'm going to speak at this group. He said, what about? I said tell him your name, tell him you belong to a group and sit down. That's all you know? Wonderful man. He said, I'm a great public speaker. Yeah, yeah. He says, I know you're full of shit. He say, but AA means you got to tell the truth. You just tell them your name and sit down. I said, thank you very much. No trouble. He said, no problem. But it kept me going here. Kept me going there. Then he said, make up your mind about God. I was not, I tell you, I am not now. I wasn't then. I never was. and never have been religious. I didn't like the religion I was born into. It made no sense to me. They had rules in that religion. Every rule they had was something I enjoyed. They had all kinds of impossible rules to live by. Everything they were against, I was for. I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut because I don't want to get hit over the head with a ruler. But I had theological disagreements with that crowd. And I'm not knocking that. I'm very grateful to that organization because they educated me. They took what they got and they educated it, and I'm forever grateful to them. That wasn't my thing. It really wasn't. He said, make up your mind about God. Well, when he said God to me, God to him came complete with a cope and a chasuble and stations of the cross and high masses and confessions. said. I said, I don't think so. He said, no, no no, it's not the religion that your mother gave you. It's not the religion at the school gave you this is different. You have to make up your mind and come to terms with the idea of God because you're going to need them later on. And if you have no idea of what you think, not what other people think, what you think, if you don't have a good idea and if you're new listen now, you make up your mind. What you think of this idea, the idea of God, it's a simple word in the English language. It's the only word that I know that expresses that thought. Make up your mind, why do you think that? Because you're going to need them later on. You're going to want to meet them soon and you're gonna need them every day. And unless you've come to terms with what this means just to you, it'll be very difficult for you to go want with the program. And I'm talking about not making you religious or saintly, and I hope you go to heaven if there's such a place. But all of that has to do with when you die. And I're not talking about what's going to happen to you after you die, I'm talking about when you're here now, today, tomorrow, the next day. How to live a day at a time without putting the alcohol into your system, that's what this is about. What happens after you die i mean i hope you know because i don't know if they're right i'm in big trouble if they are wrong it don't make any difference but that's something we'll see and it was these defects of character i had to do an inventory i just had to do it i didn't want to do it who the hell wants to do that nobody in their right mind wants to sit down with a pencil and a paper and write down things that are wrong with them especially if you're an egomaniac like me. Who wants to do it? But you do it. That's the medicine. It's the medication we take. First three steps save our lives. That is the emergency room. Now they get on to the, the book says we now get down to causes and conditions. The defects of character, 12 and 12 says are the primary cause of our alcoholism. At another point that says the character defects were the cause of all of our troubles, including our alcoholism. It was, I believe, the character defect my character defect that separated me from God. I had this notion of God. I still have it. It helps me. I'm not telling you that this is for you but this is to me. I told you my God my idea of God my concept of God is expressed in the first two words of the Lord's Prayer, Our Father. Because I have experience with that. I know what it is to be a father. I have more than 30 years of experience being a father and I know how to do it. I know there are some things I have to do and there are somethings I should do and there're a lot of things I should not do in relationship to my children and that's my concept of it. But my defects of character separated me from God. I could not go to him. First of all, I had no idea of who he was at that time. And secondly, the defects themselves, my pride kept me from doing that. I see sometimes my own children who have character defects like anybody else's children. They don't want to bring a problem to me because their pride prevents them from doing it. but I figure my father our father if I go to him and say look, I'm having this problem I'm prideful I'm egocentric I'm envious jealous angry I lust maybe you can help me with this it's never happened to me but I think it would be a wonderful thing if one of my kids came on and said I'm going to help you I'm not having a little problem here with a defective character maybe you have experience with it maybe you could help me It's never happened. None of them have ever asked me that. They've asked for money for automobiles, trips to Europe and stuff like that. Get me out of a jam. But it'd be nice if they came around and said, imagine if you're a parent, imagine if one of your kids came up to you and said look I'd like to be a better kid. You'd say what? Someone has possessed my little Johnny. Someone has taken over his body and is speaking through him. But if the kid came up and said, look, I'd like to be a better kid, you know? I'm late for school. Could you wake me up in the morning and help me get to school? Sheesh, you'd jump at it. You'd jump out. Of course, of course, Sidney, my little dear. Daddy's here. Oh, that's better than give me 20. That's better, and I'm calling you from jail, you know, excuse me. I'm very sorry to tell you I just cracked up the car again, you now. I think my father is very interested in that so once I figured out that I had all these defects of character which I didn't really know much about until I wrote them down in the fifth step I went to him to just plain old God in the sixth step and plain old God in the sixth step they're down into it now you know this is the middle of the program this is the absolute middle of it this is where it turns This is the pivotal part of the program. I went to him. I went through my father. I said, look at this. This is what you got to work with. I have all these defects of character. I admit these things. I'm not the guy I would like to be. I'm really not. I'm still not the kind of person I would want to be a good guy. I would not like to. But here's what I got. This is both the good and the bad. I admit this to you. I think maybe he liked that. That's better than asking for money. Better than asking for a car, something like that. My sponsor said I was sort of a garden variety alcoholic. That offended me somewhat. Considered myself a bit of a rake. A little more disgusting than most other people. Thought maybe he'd say Wow, you know You've been around He said You're just sort of average Jesus Yeah Somebody with an ego like mine You tell them they're average It's not good It's uncivilized AA is great In AA as the men stay sober Their stories get worse and worse As the women get sober They're getting better and better The men are really down and dirty. Around their 10th year, they're filthy and disgusting. The women are just having a drink now and then. They procrastinate. That's the big female character defect. I procrastinate here. Get out of here. I did a fifth step with a lady one time. She said she littered. I'm looking for dirt here. I got some mother of three who litters you feel getting up by the throat and say for God's sake didn't you drink at all does the truth mean nothing to you but that's that's the function of the sponsors he showed me the exact nature of my wrongs I didn't know really I just I just knew what I had done he said this is greed I said no no that's ambition greed Greed, he said. That's greed. Oh. I said, this is justifiable pride and accomplishment. He said, no, no. It's just egomania. That's all. I said should I write some assets? He said why fantasize? Just tell me what bothers you, you know. He said the only asset you have is that you show up every once in a while at a meeting. what I learned I learned in that fifth step I learned a great deal I really did I learned a great and one thing that really really helped me so much just at that stage is I began to belong here since my defects of character had separated me from my father and had separated me from everyone around me and now I was at least admitting them and setting them down I began to experience something that came later on in the 11th step the sense of belonging that feeling that I'm entitled to be here that feeling that at last after all of this bouncing around and false starts and climbing mountains that didn't exist here was a place where I really was okay this is a place where a guy can look at all of these terrible things I thought I had done and tell me I'm average. Yeah, you'll fit right in. It's a sense of belonging. It's very important to me because I never felt as though I belonged. I've heard it from an awful lot of people in AA. It was very strong with me. I just didn't fit in. I didn't belong in that family. I knew that much and there was nothing wrong with them. They did the best they could with what they had. I just couldn't fit into that. All my life I had this feeling I didn'T belong because I usually, because I was better than. At the end of my drinking I was worse than other people but in the beginning with my ego I was bitter than practically everybody. I was surrounded my whole life with assholes and assassins. People who couldn't go from point A to point Z as fast as I could. I had to wait while I caught up and I didn't fit in. I didn' t fit in and it drove me literally drove me to drink. The defects drove me to drink Don't misunderstand me I loved to drink I liked everything that booze did I loved it I loved the lifestyle I loved all the drinks I loved bar rooms I loved crap and drinking And running around Jumping into airplanes Taxis Hoopy doopy Whatever Let's go You know that? It seemed like a good idea at the time You know What the hell are you doing in Fort Wayne, Indiana? I said well It must have seemed like A good idea last night Because the last thing I remember is I was on Lexington Avenue in New York City. And here I am in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Surrounded by Hoosiers. Isn't that sweet? Looking for the war boss. No place for a kid from the Bronx, I'll tell you. So I admitted it to God. I admitted to him. I admitted myself. This is me. This is really you. You're not that rough, tough, devil-may-care, bright, aggressive young person. Now, maybe one time you were. Maybe it was true what I thought of myself, but it was about 20 years out of date. Maybe there was such a person at one time in my life who was bright and aggressive and smart and wanted to work and wantedto get ahead and wantedt o improve. Maybe he existed. I don't know. But he went away. He stayed in the bar one night, and I went home. The next morning, I woke up. Somebody terrified had taken me over. Well, my sponsor brought me up to date. he says you got these things you are riddled with them so what is there to do the step says that at this point in the proceedings the men and women who started this program were entirely ready to have God remove all their defects of character sounds a lot notice the words of the step it doesn't say they came to be ready it doesn' t say they came to be read It doesn't say they believed they were ready. They were ready When I finished up five He said, you're ready I said, I don't feel ready He said You are entirely ready To have God remove all your defects of character I said How did that happen? He said Through the first five steps You are now entirely ready I said No kidding Entirely ready? He said Yeah, sure you are I said I don' t feel that way He said Oh yeah Don' t argue with me You're entirely ready you do the first five they give you six that's how he did it he said you do five to the best of your ability you get six it comes to you and then you reflect on six and you go on to seven I wasn't I don't think I was entirely ready to have him explain that to me I think I wanted more I think I was misled a little by the language I think maybe it sounded a little idealistic and perhaps I wasnít even being honest I donít know he said believe me if you're not entirely ready you better get ready I said how do I get ready he said by getting ready I said thank you for clearing that up what should I do he said do what you're doing go to a meeting every night review steps one through five you'll be ready then he told me something because he knew me pretty well and I'll tell it to you because it's a good explanation of six when I lived in New York before I moved here I had a nice house and at one side of that house I had a garden would you believe that kid from the Bronx I had a garden it was a good garden I spent a lot of time in my garden I was on an AA trip one time to a place called Mont Eagle Tennessee and I bought a pair of overalls and on Saturday mornings in the spring I would get up put on my overalls and all the kids would run they'd say oh he's got those overalls get out of the way because he's going to work in his garden, he'll make us do things out there. I spent a lot of time in that garden, I really did. I had vegetables, I had lettuce and tomatoes and radish and carrots. I even had potatoes. Irish, very fond of potatoes. The reason they're very fond to potatoes is that they're easy to grow. You just cut up the potato where it has an eye, stick it in the ground and step back and a little while later you get a yellow flower and then you wait a while and you pull up the potatoes. Believe me, if it was complicated, the Irish wouldn't be growing them. And in the fall, at harvest time, I would show up at my AA group where I was the owner. I had gone through everything. I'd been the secretary, the chairman, the president. I became the owner and I would go out there and I'd show up with a sack full of this stuff and I would make all the kids all the new people and all the old people take the stuff from my garden have a tomato I would say I grew this tomato and when the old guru tells you to have a tomato you take a tomato very boring have a potato you want to hear about my garden listen look at these I had a lot of flowers I grew flowers I had roses I had all kinds of stuff and I would tell everybody who would listen that this was my garden and these were my tomatoes now the truth of the matter was, if you have any experience at all with gardening, that's not how it works. Gardening doesn't work that way. What a gardener does is get the soil ready. He gets the soil ready. You rake the soil, you turn it over, a familiar expression. You turn the soil over in the springtime. Get it ready, get it exposed, get warmed up up there, up there especially. Get it warm. And then you put the seed in. Then you cover it up. Sometimes I would put some fertilizer on it, depending on how organic I was that season. And then you supply some of the water. And God gives it the sunlight and most of the water, and pretty soon you have a flower, and Pretty soon, you have a tomato. And in the interim, all you have to do is keep the weeds out of the garden. It's a very simple process. You walk around with a hoe and anything that don't look like a flower or vegetable, you kill. You smack it with the hoe or you yank it out. One year, I didn't tell my kids I put in peanuts during the Jimmy Carter presidency. I put-in peanuts. They don't grow everywhere out there because the soil isn't hot enough. And the kids thought it was a weed. I said, weed the garden. They pulled up my peanuts and threw them away. That was the end of my peanut venture. But that's what gardens do. You get the weeds out of the garden, you get the rocks out, just so that the thing can grow. And other than that, you don't have anything to do with it. We moan and we groan about the farmers. They work about two months a year. They put it in, they take it out. And in the meantime, they keep it as best they can. seven six step get ready it says i hear people talking about this step and a lot of them say they're willing they think the steps is willing doesn't say willing i assume you're not all totally insane of course you're willing who wouldn't be willing to get rid of this crap that's killing you we're all willing ready is a different thing when i woke up this morning I was willing to go to work I wasn't ready I had to get ready I had a shave I'd take a shower get into uniform and go over there then I was ready I was going to go I knew I'm going I'm on my way don't get excited I'm coming and I was able I could go I had all the means to get there and I got there but first I got ready I teach school I just can't walk into a class and teach school. I got to get ready to teach school I have revolutionized legal education I read this crap before I teach and that's what the sixth step really is and as I say I did spend a lot of time on that garden I wasn't out there every day but I was out there a lot of days and in the sixth up in AA it's every day, I think maybe it's hard to be entirely ready all the time but I don't think it's so difficult to be entirely ready a day at a time when I'm at a meeting like this a six step meeting I'm really entirely ready maybe tomorrow morning I won't be as entirely ready as I am tonight but you don't have to be 100% the step is a statement of an ideal 12 and 12 tells us Patient improvement will do it. Nowhere in any of our steps does it say our character defects will be removed. That's an irrelevant inquiry. If they wanted to say that, they would have said, became entirely ready to have God remove all other character defects and he removed them. But they stopped there because they were inspired. Just an attitude of an ideal. I'm ready. Go ahead, do it! You don't think your father would do that for you? Sure he would. Sure he wouldn't. My character defects, money, power, sex. Money, power sex. You can put all kinds of other names on it, but that's what it came down to in my case. That's what I thought about 20 years ago. You know what I think about now? Money, Power, Sex. What do you think I'd think about? Reorganizing continents or something? Writing poetry? But when I think about money, power, sex, Now, it doesn't push me around. When I think of money, I don't have to steal. There was a point when I did steal. When I wanted money, I didn't care how I got it at one point. I would steal. Not nice, but I did that. Now when I think of money I don' t think of stealing it. I think of how to get some and I'm always in a good position to do that because I'm sober and I have a way I have the I have a legitimate way to earn money matter of fact I earn more money than I spend that's pretty cute there's a difference there's a different way to live for you whole brand new idea you earn more than you spend when I think of money I don't think of stealing it someone asks me to do something for them in the kind of work I do I tell them right away if I think I can do it I'll tell them I think I can do that and this is what it's going to cost if I can't do it I can do it if I don't want to do it I say don't do things like that don't take cases like that and in my business the older you get the more experience you have the better you are I was always pretty good at what I did anyhow when I think of power now I don' t think of power the way I used to I don''t think of self-power I don'T think of self-promotion I don´t know I don ''t have to be president of anything anymore I have enough of that I've had enough of that. I've been given more things, honors and stuff given to me in my life than I ever thought I would all because of this program. When I think of power now I think about power greater than my own. That's how I think. When I take a sex now it doesn't move me around. It doesn't make me go 800 miles to see how lucky I'm going to be or to go into 5,000 bars to get laid three times. I don't think of that anymore. I don' t think of it anymore. Maybe that's age on the sex part. Maybe that' s just a natural aging process. You get older, you're sort of bisexual, you get laid twice a year. And tonight's the night. But I have a routine, I have an idea and I have routine that my sponsor gave me and my routine involves this. I say to him, even if I don't feel entirely ready, I tell him, I'm entirely ready. I'm ready. I tell them that in the morning. I'm set. I'm up. I'm on my way. I'm already ready. I'm all ready. Send me what you want. I'm right here. I'm going to do it. That's about time, don't you think? It's really about time in my life. I was 37 when I came back. That's a lot of time to grow up, isn't it? What the hell? Isn't that time to close the playground and stop being an idiot? And maybe take on the responsibilities that you may believe you're taking on. Is it about time, maybe? I think it was for me. It was about time I did this. I prayed at that time. I said, let me do this one right. This program. Let me do it right. I screwed up everything else so far. Let me just get into this one and do it the right way. And maybe you want to do that. Maybe you wantto do this the rightway. With a sponsor. With a group. With constant attendance at meetings. Not meetings when it's convenient, not meetings when you feel like it. Constant, constant attendance at the meetings. I had to work late last night. I missed the meeting. It was the first meeting I missed since I lived in Florida. I didn't like that. But it happened. Constant attendance at meeting. Constant. That class was running over time. I was getting madder and madder. But there was nothing I could do about it. constant attendance of meeting. And what happens, of course, is there is a spiritual law at work in all of this. I think there's a spiritual love involved in all this. It's a law, a spiritual lore of supply. Your father and my father will supply us with whatever it is we need to help us do his will. Doesn't that make sense to you? You tell your father, look, I have these problems. They're interfering with my ability to be your child. I want to be a better kid. Maybe you could help me out with this. I'm ready to help you. Do your will. Whatever you think is best. That will be someday in the history of parent-child relationships, I'm saying. But that's what the sixth step is about. And when we do that, of course, we immediately evoke the grace of God the unearned and unmerited free gift of God called grace nothing I have ever done got me to deserve what I have now I did not earn being sober I did that I did get myself sober you got me sober you gave me that gift you and my father so I hope you're all entirely ready to have guard remove all your defects at character. Thanks.