Seven Years Sober Without a Program Made Me Sicker Than Drinking Ever Did – Stevie B.

Hi, everybody. My name is Stevie B. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Hey, Stevie B. I'm so blessed to be here with you guys tonight. I'm so excited. It's taken me a long time to get here. I have to tell you, I'm not sure how sick I really am, but that grandma joke kind of got me juiced up, I'm just going to say. I, uh, in the first step, how it was, it's, it's very easy to go back all the way to how it was. But my friend, uh, sister Jackie was just praying over me and she asked the Lord to give me a fresh anointing today, something different than we've had before. And, and I'm, I'm really excited about that because after you've done, uh, you know, many step series and I'm blessed to be able to do them. I love them. I love being here with you guys. And, um, but hearing kind of the same, small stories is difficult even for the speaker. And as I was coming in tonight and I, I was thinking about the powerlessness of alcohol and how my life had become unmanageable and how our lives become manageable. I realized that the problem on page 52 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, where it speaks about the bedevilments as I was, I was coming up, I was in Las Olas with my mom. My beautiful mom is here tonight. I'm so excited to have her here because she just, uh, she's, she's traveling with a lot of different things going against her. She just came up with Lyme disease a couple of months ago and it's a miracle. This is our first nighttime meeting and so great to be here with mom and I was traveling up here. Uh, and one of the streets that's close to here that we'd come up on is Las Olas, Las Olas. Boulevard. And as I was thinking of how it was as opposed to how it is today, I didn't have the thoughts of my childhood, which was great. I grew up in a great home with two loving parents and a beautiful younger sister that I grew up with and, uh, and an older step sister who I love and, and the whole, the whole environment was loving the Northeast. Uh, is a lot of things, but it's, it's, it's a loving family environment. I grew up in a time where, when my mom would let us out in the morning and we would come back at night and you never even thought of anything. Right, right. Paul, you never even thought of it. You just go out, you played, you drank the water from the faucets and on the side of the high school, we weren't thinking about filtration systems. We weren't thinking about, you know, uh, putting on gloves, eating. We, we ate what was around, you know, someone would come to the, to the, to the school and, and, and, and give us some sandwiches. You didn't think about washing your hands and, and where the water came from. Matter of fact, the, the, the, the worst, the water tasted, the better it worked basically, uh, from the side of the high school. It was, it was good times. And, and yet if you asked me, uh, during that time, if everything was okay, there, there was a time when, when everything was okay. And then very quickly, there was a time when everything was not okay. I had like a rubber band that was slowly tightening around my stomach, around my chest. I had something called anxiety when a child shouldn't have anxiety. And there was no reason to have anxiety. There was nothing that I, that I wanted for, I mean, maybe school. I w I hear a lot of the speakers, by the way, you know, uh, listening to Patty and Peter and all, the speakers I have here, just, I'm just in awe, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a regular, a garden variety, a guy that's not, you know, super bright. And I wasn't super bright in school. You know, a lot of that people that come over there, like they, they excelled in school. I didn't excel in school. School was difficult for me. I w I was, I had a lot of thoughts going on at all the same time. I, I was, it was hard for me to pay attention. Maybe they would call me, uh, you know, maybe modern day would be something like attention to, I don't know if I had attention deficit, I had attention, but just not to what was going on in the school. I was very attentive to what's going on outside and to the girls. I was, I had great attention, uh, but I didn't have great attention to what was being taught on the chalkboard. And so that was my first, uh, that was my first angst or anxiety that I felt like everybody in the school got it. You know, the, the, I felt like I missed the class that explains school. Like every time we had a speaker last night, he was unbelievable. And, um, and I kind of felt that, and he was, he was, he was such a wordsmith and he was talking with an English accent and everything was hitting me at one time. And I kind of felt like that, like last night at the meeting, I'm like, everything's going over my head. Sometimes when Peter speaks, something goes right over my head. I'm like, this is advanced day. And I'm kind of like, by the way, if you're, if you're looking for advanced day, that's not this step series, you're going to get, you know, regular, you know, garden variety, uh, not that bright, uh, AA. And, and when I was in school, I felt like everybody got it. Jerry got it. Everybody got it. And for me, I always felt like I was, you know, one crayon short of the box being full. And so, so early on, I knew that I had to make up for lack of focus or, or, or in my mind, I thought it was lack of intelligence. It wasn't lack of intelligence. Uh, it was just lack of being interested. I was disinterested. I was disinterested. And, um, and so I, I came up with a plan. I was going to have to be, uh, in, in, I was going to have to have some ingenious techniques to get through school. And, and when those, when you have to have ingenious techniques to get through school that causes anxiety and, you know, one of those, I was, I was, uh, you know, a master cheat and, but that causes anxiety. You know, you have to go to school with different papers in all different places and, and all the stuff on your wrists. And, and one time I came up with a cassette system where I had the whole Italian, you know, my entire test on my cassettes with a hat. That came down and you have to read rewinding and fast forward. That's a good, that's a stressful situation. And, uh, and so that was my first in, in, in, in school was my first time, uh, to, to feel anxiety. And, but I, I saw the other kids, they were wearing it like a loose garment. It didn't really seem like a big deal to them. And everything for me was a big deal. I don't have you expect if you have that you're, you're very sensitive. I was very sensitive. You know, I, um, my dad would say something to me. That was, it was probably just like I say to my son tonight, like my mom said to me tonight, you know, maybe you can correct a little bit less correcting and more like loving. But to me, I was, I was super sensitive. Everything. My dad said to me, I took to the heart, everything. The other kids said to me, I took to the heart and, uh, and, and I, so I did, I started to develop resentments without ever knowing what the word resent was. I had resentments against the other kids. I resentments against them because they had big brothers in my neighborhood. Everybody. On my block seemed to have big brothers. Every family that we knew on my block and big brothers, the wagons, the Cohen's, the Monday, years, the modest, they all had three brothers. They were mostly Irish or Germany. They're just strong kids. And, and, uh, although we had a lot of Jewish kids in my day, had big brothers too. They all, everybody had big brothers and I had a little chubby sister, just one little chubby. And for me, that created, like an anxiety, because when you walk to the playground with big monstrous brothers, you have, you get built in respect and you also know how to play sports better. And you also are tougher because you've been beaten up at home and smacked around and you know how to play ball and, and, and, and, and I had a little sister and she was in ballet and I was in karate and we didn't have any really loved the, of the, the Moxie in my neighborhood. And so I had this built in idea that if I had big brothers, everything would have been different. And this is the beginning of me coming up with ideas on how my insides are different from your outsides and my, and the way that I feel you can't understand, you know, this is this is the time where I start to develop feelings of that. You can't understand. Well, you don't understand, you know, you really don't understand. And, um, and this is also the time when I started lying and I didn't even, and I didn't really know I was lying. Like, like I had heard in my family, like someone said something to my family and I would take it and I would take it to the playground, but I didn't really have the intelligence or the maturity to back it up, you know? So like, like one time I had heard someone say, which turns out later down the road, uh, that, that, uh, it turns out to be true, but that I was a, I was a junior, like someone said in my family, I was a junior, but then I went, I went to the playground and they're like, what's your dad's name? And I'm, I'm like, I'm Steven Jr. And they're like, I thought your dad's name was Stanley. And I'm like, yeah, it is. So nothing. I didn't have anything to back up my, my lies. It was, there was, there was no maturity, but one time in high school, there was a new coach and he came and I went to a big school like, like 2000 kids. My, my class is 500 and I was, I was like the top of, you know, the middle, I was the top of the middle. Like I got a 500 kids. I was 251. I was like the top of the middle. And, uh, and, and the coach looked at the roster and, and he goes, boy, our ski, that's my last name. And, uh, and he says, boy, our skis, is your, does your brother play for the Pittsburgh Panthers? Now I don't, I had a stepbrother that was a plumber and that lived in Massachusetts. I just said, it's a pretty quick no, but, but I knew everything was about to change for me at that moment. And I said, yes, coach, he does like, and all the kids that I grew up with for eight years, they looked over and they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, that's my brother. That's right. That's right. And that's the way my childhood went. I would, I would make up stuff and I would back it up so long that it would become mine. And I backed, by the way, I bet the guy's name is Jerry Boyarsky. And I've been backing that story up my entire life. Just recently, like in the last 10 years, we were in a locker, room with my dad and they God rest his soul. And he was waiting to get a treatment for in a, in a gym. And they came in and they said, Mr. Boyarsky. And my dad says, yes. And there was a guy in the gym. This has just happened. Let's just recently we're talking about 50 years later. And he said, boy, ask you, are you related to Jerry Boyarsky? And my head snapped around and I'm 10 years sober. And I almost said, yes, we are. That's my brother. That's a true story. And I'm so glad I didn't, because it turns out the guy was in AA. And he saw me in AA at the later part of the week. He goes, you remember I met you and I'm like, yes, absolutely. I remember it, but I didn't tell him what I'm, what a mental patient I can be. So as I'm driving in here tonight, the blessing of being with my mom, the blessing with being some dear friends in the car, I remembered how it was not from high school, not from the first drink, not from my first alcoholic incident that didn't have anything. To do with alcohol, because some of you in here, you may have become alcoholics because you drank and you became addicted to alcohol. I was an alcoholic before I ever took my first drink. I had alcoholism before I ever took my first drink. What does that mean? I mean, just, it means that the moment I felt took my first drink, the rubber band that was tight around my stomach and my chest loosened up. The moment I took my first drink, that ease and comfort that they speak about in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I felt it. I was like, this is amazing. And I'm not talking about drunk. It was years before I got drunk. Well, my first drink was a Jewish table wine by the name of Manischewitz Jewish table wine. We're not talking about anything powerful. We're talking about Concord grape juice with some alcohol in it, but that's a little tiny bit of alcohol. When you add it to an alcoholic, body, which then gets transferred in an alcoholic mind, what's gets sent around in the alcoholic system. That's the magic elixir that I was looking for. And I had no idea. And at that moment, I knew that this is some magical stuff. And I had watched my dad. My dad said he was an alcoholic. You know, I'm not going to argue with him. He died with a 28 years in the Gamblers Anonymous. May God rest his soul. He died with 21 years in, in Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said it was an alcoholic. I, I, I didn't see, you know, he wasn't rolled up in a carpet. Like I was, no, it's he didn't pull on his car. You know, it's, it was a different era. He didn't lose his shoes. You know, it was, it was definitely a functioning alcoholic if, if, but he called himself that. So, so I'm going to, I'm going to go with it. But what I did see him do is I seen him drink. I saw him drank. So I saw him drink and make faces. Like I saw him drink Jack Daniels on a regular basis. I never, I've only seen him drunk twice, but I saw him drink and make faces. And after the face, there was a difference in the behavior. He went down a shot of Jack Daniels, like, but you don't know other than Paul and Maddie, nobody knows John Wayne in here, but he would, he would take it. Like he would drink a shot and he would make a face and he'd go. And I liked that look. Now I didn't know that I was shooting for that. Look, I didn't know. There was going to take a lot of work to get there. I just knew that the first time I had that Manischewitz Jewish table, wine, that I had a release of the rubber band that was tied around my chest that I call anxiety. But that doesn't take me to the story of Las Olas 20 years later. I'm in a hospital around the corner from here. I'm in a hospital. That's on Las Olas. The same street that I drove up here tonight in my mom's beautiful car smelling of new leather. My mom trusts me to drive and I have one eye. So that's a very big deal. She knows that I've been sober, you know, God willing, I'll be sober coming up next month or 23 years, January 23 years. And it took me back to where they dropped me off 23 years ago, October. 11th, 2001. And I was in the hospital on Las Olas. Las Olas, if you don't know, is this beautiful street with all money and shops and restaurants and people that are frolicking, you know, just like out of the big book and they're having a good time and they have an ease and a comfort and, and they're buying stuff and it's great, great time. And I was in, I was in a psychiatric hospital on Las Olas. And, and I was on a psychiatric hospital in Las Olas because I had seven years of sobriety and I gave it away for the idea that I could have a drink like a normal person. Why? Because I had sobered up when I was 24 and now I was 31 and I knew as long as I didn't do drugs, of course, I'm not going to do drugs. That's not even in the equation. If I go to my first step on drugs and I see that I'm parallel, of course, I'm powerless over drug. I pawned a brand new car for $1,200 so that I could get high. That's, that's, that's evidence, right? I always thought the police were coming into the house and for days I would spend time peeping out a window, a peep hole for days. And I only have one eye. So you can imagine how hard that is. Okay. If you don't have to try it, that's hard. You have to keep going. It's hard. I thought you got two eyes. So you're like, well, it doesn't seem that hard. No, it's hard. I, I was arrested several times, which I didn't grow up that way. I drove under the influence. I got six felonies in one night, which I'll tell you about down the road in one night, six felonies charged with six felonies. I did jail time, Jerry. I did jail time, regardless of, how much you want to say. I didn't, I was in jail. That's not true. I don't need any heckling. I grew up in a good home that told me they loved me. We celebrated a religious holidays. We went to church. Most of the time we grew up in a spiritual home. There was praying. My mother did the sign of the cross on me. Every time I went outside, they, they were very, uh, they were very Catholic. We had a lot of, uh, holy oils and anointing oils and, and, uh, and, and all good stuff. Very, very amount of times. I saw my parents fight are on two hands in, in, in all those years. And yet I had an angst. I had, I had an anxiety. I had an agita. You know what that is? That constantly told me something was wrong. And I saw different parts of my family. The Italian side of the family had different anxieties, but, but, but, but they were happy. We always had some type of liquor on the table. Some, some, uh, sweet liquor. And then, and then always JB, I don't know what's that. I think that's Scotch always. There was always JB around and everything. JB was always at all dinners. And then the Jewish side of my family, there was always, they are that they, they liked, uh, the Jewish drink and, and my, but then there was an Irishman in there on the Jewish side. And then he would drink the Jack Daniels with my dad and alcohol was always a good time. In my house. And it didn't really seem like that was an issue. Wasn't that wasn't the issue. I was the issue. And I started to develop a lot of health issues. When I was younger, I was out of school a lot and was all in my head. Every time there was a test, I developed a temper, uh, a, uh, a fever every time there was a test. I didn't study for my fever spiked through the roof because in my room, there was a radiator. And I found out, if you put the thermometer on the radiator, you could spike that fever anytime you need. So I missed a lot of school. Plus my dad was not real. My dad and mom were, my dad never missed a day of work that I ever remembered ever. And he was like a, uh, like an amateur apothecary and he grew up very poor. So it's not like we went to doctors all the time. Even if we needed to, I can't remember going to doctors that much, but, uh, so my dad treated a lot of the things in my house with alcohol. He had a lot of, a lot of tinctures. You know, if you had a stomach, I had a lot of stomach issues when I was younger. If you had stomach issues, that's blackberry brandy that worked very, very well for stomach issues. If you have a sore throat, that's like a hot toddy. That's a hot time. You couldn't sleep. My dad, my dad was famous for the little shot. One of those sweet things like amaretto. If you couldn't say, so what happened to me? I developed a lot of issues. I had a lot of issues, but alcohol was always around and alcohol was always my friend. I don't know if you've ever heard that. It was, it was fun. Then it was fun with problems and then it ended up in problems. Well, I was in the fund for a long time. It's not like I just ran in here, you know, after being out of bloody Mary mix one night, there was a, it was a good time for a little while, but then drugs came in and I'm not going to talk about drugs for my story because I'm a real alcoholic, but I would, I'm definitely not a pure alcoholic and I want to thank drugs because drugs definitely accelerated me getting a day. Hey, cause I got into my first treatment center when I was 21. I, I, I, if I was an alcoholic like that guy guy, I could have been out there for a very long time because alcohol to me was a less disastrous, although a definitely menacing and I, but then I find out I was powerless over alcohol yet, but not right away. Alcohol is a very subtle foe. It's patient, it's cutting, it's baffling. It doesn't let you know that it's the rapacious creditor, which means it's the recredit. It doesn't stop coming. All the time. It's something that waits in the background for me. I wasn't, I wasn't a, you know, in the very beginning like drinking alcoholically because I had drugs and I grew up in the eighties and the seventies and the drugs I did, you could do more alcohol and it was like masking was like it was like they went well together and and somehow I against my own alcoholism. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, somehow got into college because I do a great, you see my mother laughing. That's not right. All right. I, I, I'm a great interviewer. I'm a great interviewee. Excuse me. I, I can, I'm, I'm, I'm phenomenal on into that. Now, now, none of the process is truthful. So you, usually they find out like, you know, the first week into the job, but I've gotten some of me, I've, I've gotten like, like directorships, doctor ships, you know, I've, I've gotten some very serious, I've been employed in very serious places for very short amounts of time. And one of those, that's how I got to college because they thought they were getting a superstar. And then they just found out they were just getting super. And I want to just backtrack for a second. Because what, what shaped a lot of my high school is, is that I shot myself in the eye and I'm not going to go over that. It's only six weeks. It's about, I'm just going to give you the quick story of that is that I wanted to put, I wanted to hang out with this kid so badly, the toughest kid in my neighborhood that I was willing to give him a gun, which was my gun. And I was willing to come up with a game, which is called shoot at me. And I was not very good at the game and he shot at me and I lost my eye. And, you know, thank God to alcoholics, anonymous and the fourth step and the fifth step that showed me, and we're not there yet, but we will be just in the next couple of weeks that showed me in something called the fourth column. Where was I wrong and where was I wrong? I was wrong. All I was wrong across the entire board. It had nothing to do with this other kid. He was just a kid, one year older than me, a kid. So at 12, I get shot. A 13 year old does it. And I carry this 13 year olds name on my heart for seven years or 10 years or 14 years, hating this kid for shooting my eye out, but finding out he was a victim of a game I came up with. And that's the most amazing thing about alcoholics and honors. You're going to be able to, by working these steps, are you going to have a spiritual experience as the result of these steps? Absolutely. Are you going to know a new freedom and a new happiness? Absolutely. God bless you. Are you going to have a light beyond your wildest dreams? Yes. And in that, in that process, you're going to let go of things that you would normally carry to the end of your life, because that's what we do as human beings. We carry poop, but alcoholics anonymous is the great poop master. It allows you to let go of the things that you shouldn't be carrying and that are going to cause you cancer. They're going to cause your relapse. They're going to cause you different things. If you can't let go of things, they will eat you up from the inside. And I was able to let that young man go. And as a matter of fact, something that's come recently, to me, mom is that I actually want to make amends to him for, for all those years of holding him hostage to a decision that I made with my own gun in my own backyard, with my own idea that it was his, that he was just part of it. And I, and I hated him for years. And I actually recently want to, I want to get together with him and, and just make amends for that, or just actually break bread. And that's what alcoholics anonymous will do for you, right, Jerry? That's what it does. It, it sets you on a new path of life. So I lose my eye. I lose time. I'm in school. I start taking some opiates because of the eye that doesn't make me an addict. My dad giving me alcohol when I was younger, that didn't make me an alcoholic, me smoking weed with the kids in school that didn't make me a pot addict. Me looking in a, in a strip club when I was 12, didn't make me a sex addict. All this stuff was in me. It was all in me. It was waiting to come out. I told you I got a little bit juiced up with the stuff with the joke. Bad Steve is in there. Good Steve wins in the meetings of alcoholics. And I'm bad. Steve doesn't want me to pray on my knees in the morning before I get out of the house. Good. Steve says, get on your knees, ask God to direct your day. Go to page 8687 and 88 where it says upon awakening, let's think about the 24 hours a day ahead. Don't get in the way. Bad Steve. Don't get in the way. Let's get good. Steve in there really, really quick because bad Steve wakes up and he's like, yesterday I even cursed and I don't curse. Bad Steve woke up before good Steve and I said the F curse. I couldn't even believe it. My wife said, what happened? I said, I don't know. Bad Steve woke up before good Steve. I immediately got on my knees. I asked the Lord for forgiveness. I asked him to direct my day, but what it reminded me that that guy's just waiting to get. We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems. The same readiness to change our point of view. This is page 52. The bedevilments. We were having trouble with personal relationships. Raise your hand before you came in alcoholics. So maybe even just recently you were having trouble with personal relationship. Yeah, we couldn't control our emotional natures. We, okay, let me just chime in here for saying, of course it can still be that on any given day, alcoholism does not need alcohol to make the situation worse. Alcoholism survives in an alcoholic in a lack of program in a lack of spirituality. I was seven years sober and I was, I was, as I was worse than I was before alcoholics anonymous and I was casually around alcoholics and not because I didn't think I had a problem. So I wasn't even aware of it. At least when you're, you're high, you're high and you rolled up in a carpet and you're driving drunk. At least, you know, there's a problem. So when you're at work, you're not like, you know, when you're drunk, you're like very nice at work. You're like, Hey, you know, you know, but when you're sober but you're not working a program, you think it's everybody else's problem. So my brother said over here, he goes, I can still be that way. Of course we can. I was an alcoholic at 12 and I never had a drink and I gave another kid a gun and told him to shoot me. I don't need alcohol to be a jerk. Alcohol only accentuated the problem. I could be a jerk sober on any given day without God. It's only by the maintenance of our spiritual condition that we say saintly at all, that we stay anyway, saintly and what I mean by saintly, godly. I have a friend that is very room, cursed out the apostle Peter one time in this very room. He said bad things about the apostle Peter. May God rest his soul. Of course, since then he's made a mess, but that's who we are on any given day. There's the good version and then there's the worldly version. There's the worldly clamors and then there's the spiritual rocket ship and every day we get up, we have a choice. We were prone to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. I couldn't make a living. Some of you guys were very functional. I was not like a Pat said last week. It's hard to be a functioning crack addict. I do agree with it on that. We had the feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. I want to stop at that. I was full of fear every day of my using life until I got a drink until I got a fix until I go. If I did not have my drug in me, whatever that was, this is, I'm going to just say alcohol going forward. If I didn't have alcohol in me on that day, I was full. I was full of fear and then there's 50 forms of feel around it. Am I going to have enough money to get the alcohol? Is it going to run out? Where am I going to get it? Are the police going to arrest me? There's a million forms of fear around the alcohol. Let along. When am I going to get it in me? We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be a real help to other people. These are the bedevilments on page 52. Now, maybe if you've been in the program or all, you realize that some of these sound like, they're going to get answered in step nine in the middle of step nine. It says, were these extravagant promises we think not and these get handled. Yeah, they get handled. Not only did they get handled, the bedevilments get taken away one day at a time. They get eradicated. I come into the program when I'm 21 years old by the grace of God. My mom and dad sent me to a treatment center. I stay sober all the way till, you know, I had a couple of relapses, but then I say sober for a very, very long time until I'm 31 years old. And at 31, I'm sicker than I was at 21 because now I got a belly full of AA. I got a pocket full of money. I've been shooting steroids so my arms are huge. I got all my hair still and I think I know everything. I got all the answers. I arrived to when I would go to meetings, I would park outside the 12 step house in the handicap so everyone could see my triple black Mustang Cobra with the top down and I would walk into a and be like, Hey, be like, yo, the kid is here. That was my mom. By the way, I was so delusional and so demented that I had no idea who I was. If you told me I look good, I felt like I look good. If you told me I was something that not everything had to come from you, God forbid you would tell me God forbid you would say to me something like, Oh, I see you stopped working out. You wouldn't. You wouldn't see me for a month. I'd be in the gym every day, all day. A simple word from you could could could destroy my entire life if I'm not with God. I am with me and with me. Alcoholism resides. The only way that I'm recovered from the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body is when I take my life and I put it on a spiritual plane so I'm on Las Olas. I drive. I parked my mom's beautiful car outside. She trusts me with the keys. 23 years ago. I remember we have to say to the behavioral health tech. We needed a tobacco break and then she would get us all together in our outfits, which was, um, gowns because I was not on the I was not on the well floor. I was on the floor that they took your shoelaces because I was on suicide watch. And I remember that they allowed us in a line to walk down Las Olas with the tech and I knew incomprehensible demoralization like I had never known before. I remember just a couple of months ago. I was in the hospital. I had a car. And a house and a wife. And a triple black Mustang, Cobra and Muscles and hair gel on suicide watch. They take your hair gel, that's terrible. And they're marching. Now. She wasn't debasing us. She wasn't embarrassing us. This woman was beautiful and she said to the director. They need some air and she took us out for an airwalk. She did something that nobody else was doing. You don't have to believe this government. Yon't believe that. And it's thisなんか, how al-tal-an adri, al-tal enhance of that. I came up here쪽에. have to take the patients out on las olas in their gowns but she knew it would be good for us because we were the suicide watch uh floor and i remember without a penny in my pocket without money for the soda machine tall tom came in from the from our home group remember tall tom mom and he came in to bring a meeting into the las olas into the fort lauderdale hospital and i saw tom and i remember what my first question was tom could i get could i get a dollar for the soda machine i had no hope i had lost it all i had no self-esteem i had no toiletries i didn't know if i was ever going to be able to get out of that and because some of the drugs that i did were also affected my mind i never knew if my mind was going to come back because when i got back to work i was not able to function at work i had no memory a person would come in and order joe remembers he was there a person would come in and they would order business cards for me and then they would come back and they say steve do you have the business cards done and i'd say who are you a person would put in an order for t-shirts and i would take the order for the t-shirts and they would come back a half an hour later and i'd say who are you if my beautiful mom who came out of retirement with my beautiful dad if they touched my skin during those first months i would jump through the roof because you weren't able to touch my skin i had lost all hope i had lost brain power and things i always relied on which was muscles and and smiles and white teeth and hair gel and and memory and quick wit gone everything had been stripping from not everything i gave away i had no idea that i could have one glass of wine after having seven years of sobriety i believed that i could have one glass of wine because as long as i didn't do drugs i didn't think that wine would ever bring me back to that place and i had never gotten high or drunk in florida next week i'm not wearing a jacket i'm just gonna tell you right it's too much i'm spitzing everywhere i got water flowing out you cannot see what's going on there's a puddle behind me right now i had never gotten drunk in florida i didn't know drunk in florida i knew drunk in minnesota i knew drunk in pennsylvania i knew well i knew drunk in florida before i got sober you know at the elbow room but then i got sober and once i got sober i had never known relapse i only knew sober i only knew sober people i only knew sober behavior my schedule was centered around sober but somehow in my mind by lack of working a program you could become powerless over alcohol and your life can become unmanageable sober i want you to know that this is not this is nothing this is not about drunk drunk is the end result of an unstable double-minded behavior there's people in the room tonight they believe they don't have an alcohol problem and this is what i've explained to them it doesn't matter if you don't have an alcohol problem if you drink and you gamble away your life savings you have an alcohol problem if you drink and you get naked and you're arrested for nakedness you have an alcohol problem so whether you so whether you believe that it's the problem it's always in the mix every time i got drunk i had a fist fight i thought fist fighting was part of drinking it was even it was an even allotted time of night we would get to a certain time and be like no girls are gonna be with us let's fight some people that's the most alcoholic idea in the entire world am i right frankie who comes up with these type of things wake up the next day my nose is smashed my one good eye is looking in the wrong direction i'm like was that a party on january 2nd 2002. i had been brought to the fort lauderdale hospital on october 11th of 2001. that's columbus day that's 23 years ago columbus day right down this street there's a 7-eleven i don't know if it's still there but there's a 7-eleven right down the street and i came up with a plan to throw myself into traffic because i had no hope i was this little red-headed guy i don't mean little i mean a a shorter red-headed man that i owe my life to at least that one time his name is randy in aa i never seen him again but i know he was a real person because he had been in our home group several times and randy happened to be there when i was crying my eyes out a grown man 34 years old in the 7-eleven crying is 33 years old crying his eyes out hopeless wanting to throw himself in traffic parents are in the next room right next door in the fort lauderdale hospital they gave me five dollars to go next door to get a yoo-hoo and a tin of tobacco and i'm crying and i'm holding on to the to one of the cabinets there and randy puts his hand on my shoulder a member of alcoholics anonymous happens to be there and he says stevie b you'll get back and i said i'll never get back that hopelessness and incomprehensible demoralization that only an alcoholic in the desperate throat of alcoholism knows you don't meet people on the street and then they say well how many times in your life did you want to kill yourself most people at zero they have a situation they handle it it's tough they work through it we drink and then when we drink we get drunk and then drunk tells us to do things that we would not normally do and i knew that when my wife had come back from the country of columbia and she saw our house completely destroyed and she saw the state i was in there was no way our marriage was going to survive and it almost didn't our house was destroyed and it was how did our house get destroyed because when i get drunk my house takes a toll i believe the police are going to rush in at any time so i hide stuff everywhere in pipes behind pictures i punch a hole in the wall and i hide a bottle behind there and then when i use bottom you know use your imagination and i hide a bottle behind a picture and i because i believe the police are coming in right at that moment and then i sit there on the couch and i act like i'm watching tv and when they come in i'm going to be indignant what are you doing here i'm watching the news you just barge in the house while i'm sitting on the couch in my house they don't come in i came down and i take a picture of the picture and i take it down and realize the wall is not solid which means the stuff i put in a paper in a plastic bag behind the picture is now behind the wall on the floor that's what happens now when i'm calmed down i become howie the handyman And out comes the tools. I got to get the stuff from the floor behind the wall. And that happened over and over until my beautiful parents came and they saw a house completely destroyed. And so I knew my only option was to take myself out. And by the grace of God, 23 years later, I get to be around amazing men and women. And I know a life beyond my wildest dreams. Is my life easy financially? No, it never has been. And it may never be. I'm on the Manna program, which means God gives me enough to eat each day. I want to be on the Excess program. He's like, no, Steve, you're going to be on the Manna program. I'll give you just enough for today. And tomorrow we're going to have a discussion about tomorrow. I have a beautiful family. I have an amazing mom. My dad left planet Earth. May God rest his soul. With 28 years telling me how much he loved me over and over. And he told me I was a winner and how special I was and how much. And he couldn't stand me. He couldn't stand my voice. When I used to speak, my dad used to cringe. And they went to every step series I ever did. For all the years that I was that they were here, they never missed one step series, no matter where it was. And if I was across the country, they watched it. And if it was in the middle of the day because I was speaking in Washington, they watched it. And if it was in this in this church. They watched it. And when I went to church, they came. So I want you to know something. I'll be back next week and then I'll do two and three together next week. Okay. By the way, none of this is going to flow like when the giants are here. Okay. It's going to be more like it's going to be more like Pulp Fiction. At the end of the six weeks, we will have done the 12 steps in their entirety, but most of them will be done in the last week. God bless you guys.