Soul Sickness – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 24 of 25 – Afsi V

my name is afsi and i'm a grateful recovered alcoholic uh it's an honor and a privilege to be here and i am definitely nervous there's a lot of people here i'm just trying to stay on this one page and just pretend there's nobody else it helps but uh truly it's uh it's in honor i'm excited to be here to share with you this this power that i call god in my life and the miracles that god has done for me and the fact that it has actually taken me from the gates of death and brought me to a life that i i never never ever dreamed that i would have and that is the truth and if you're new i welcome you welcome really welcome because this is where life starts this is what life started for me this could be the new chapter in your life and if you're struggling i hope i say something that will give you some kind of hope um i remember when i first came into the rooms and and and i heard people talking about god and talking about sobriety and you know none of it made sense and when people said they were grateful it was like what are you kidding me what are your grateful for but i get it now you know and i am so grateful i'm grateful to be here with all of you and and i always say this we all come from different walks of life and there's a lot of us here um but i i connect with each and every one of you because we all suffer from that same soul sickness and uh so i'm i'm here to share with you about god's power in my life and how i've come to to know this god in my life and so i'm going to tell you a little bit about my my story first and how it unravels into my life so um i um as you all know i'm married to ali and he's probably set a very high bar a lot of you haven't heard me speak before and i don't talk nearly as much as ali does so lower that bar a little. So I'm also from Iran much like my husband, I was born there and we lived there until I was about seven years old with my mom and dad and I have an older sister and a brother and my younger sister was actually just she was just born when we left Iran but what happened is that when i um at seven years old my life sort of just turned upside down there was a revolution in iran and i don't know if many of you know but back then there was a king and a queen and and uh the shah of iran the queen and my father was very closely affiliated with the shaw at that time and when the revolution started things just went south and our lives just kind of turned upside down and at one point there was they threw a tear gas into our house and um it just it got really ugly and they were after my father to sort of anybody who had anything to do with the king they wanted to take and execute and put them away and so we were on the run for a while um and um actually so this went on for a couple of years and and things got pretty scary and um and then the war between iran and iraq also broke out a couple of years after that and uh that was pretty scary it's i remember being so fearful as a child as a seven-year-old and you know watching like next door neighbor's house blowing up and iraquis are bombing bombing the city and pretty scary stuff and eventually we came to a point that we had to escape from iran they were either gonna capture my father and execute him or we had to escape so we did we escaped and we went from the border of iran to turkey and my little sister was just a toddler she was on a backpack on my father and um we went on quite a journey we went through mountains and slept in caves and they stole everything that we had on the way and we were on horses and it was just it was it was quite quite the story and uh you know i'm telling you this because i just want to tell you about my my story it's my story and that's where i come from um it doesn't necessarily make me an alcoholic um my brother went through the same things my sister went through same thing it didn't make them an alcoholic alcoholism to me is is a soul sickness as i already said and it's like an emptiness and it has a god hole that i've always carried through my life and that i've tried to fill with whatever i could get my hands on um eventually um so that's what it is for me and it's definitely a progressive disease and it it was definitely progress it definitely progressed in my life um and uh so basically going back to to um my story we so we escaped from iran movement to turkey and then from turkey we stayed there for a little while and my father was also very well known in the karate world he was the founder of karate in iran and uh he had some connections in uh in france and uh karate federation of france invited us to go to france and we went to franz and we literally went there with our suitcases and no money and nowhere to nowhere to sleep no food and we we were living quite poorly for a while and my grandmother who lived in the u.s um reached out and helped us and we stayed with some of her friends and we just basically built our lives and started our lives from scratch in paris that's where i spent about eight years of my life and uh eventually we came to canada so um when um i guess i was in my early teens when we came into canada and uh drinking for me i started dabbling in it when i was um in high school um and you know guys it was it was fun for many many years to come uh it didn't take a toll on me but it definitely was as i said progressive for me and um so high school i started dabbling into it and when i was in my early early 20s it started to really pick up and i actually started bartending and at that point um i was like a kid in a candy store i remember just loving that whole scene and just falling so nicely into it and you know it picked up really fast for me um um and i just felt at home there you know just i love that whole scene and just drinking and um first i started three days a week and then it became a full-time thing and then on my days off i was drinking and then before you know what it was just it had become my life um and um i was also i know this is alcoholics anonymous i have a lot of respect for alcoholics anonymous uh but my story does include outside issues as well and for a very long time my nickname was coca hontas and you know and and what what that allowed me to do was was drink more you know it uh it allowed me to not fall on my face and you knows nights were longer and days were longer and it just it just kept me going and uh it just took me to a whole different level of ugly and uh and uh I'm glad actually that I did that because I may have never found myself in these rooms I'm proud that it took me there uh but uh so this continued um and um drinking was drinking and using was my everything like I just I didn't you know and and the first few years it was it was a social thing but it's um after a few years I started to lose lose the social aspects and it started to become smaller uh and then and it becomes started to become behind closed doors and um i was drinking alone and it was an everyday thing i didn't know what to do i didn t know how to cope without it it was it was part of everything and it s started to take uh destroy relationships around me and um um i remember that i just i would look at i was i was getting darker and sadder inside and i didn't really know and i was way i was very very far from knowing what was what was wrong with me or that i had a disease of alcoholism or anything i still had many more years that's the thing about alcoholism is that it's uh if you're done if it's not done with you it's not done you have so much left so this continued on for for i don't know a few more years until my life was very very getting really ugly and dark and um i remember at one point looking at people that that were happy and they were laughing and they had families and and here i was like still stuck in this thing and i just couldn't you know i couldn't get out of it um i don t want to talk too much about how ugly things were but just to you know draw a picture for you you know it was i'm sure a lot of you have experienced that i would like to spend time talking about the power of god in my life there rather than the the ugliness of my dark days but you know, it was a lot sleepless nights behind closed doors feeling suicidal um you know I've been you know i'm an alcoholic so i put a drink in me i'm not done until it's the allergy kicks in and i have to keep consuming until i'm done with everything so if i'm behind closed doors i could go on for days until i m out of everything and i'm suicidal and the sun is coming out and i want to just kill myself and i can't handle i hated the sun because i i just i remember hating the sun and the birds and i just wanted it to be dark and raining. I wanted it to be the way that I felt inside. And so I remember at one point, I decided that I have to get away from this life, and I want to be married, and I wanna be a housewife. And so, I had met some crazy guy in an after hours, and him and I decided to take off together, and we went to California. And of course, when you're not in your right mind, you're gonna only attract another lunatic to you right like attracts like so you can only imagine uh what it was like the two of us so i left my family and i moved out to california and i said no really and i really meant it from the bottom of my heart that i really i'm gonna i want to be a good girl and i don't want to live this way anymore and i want to have kids and a family and and and i realmente meant it you know uh and i took off and i told my family see you later and uh i'm gonna be all right so i went out to california only to you know the only thing was that i took myself with me so it was it was craziness i mean i had within a couple of days drug dealers were throwing drugs up in my balcony i hit the bottle uh it was drinking was my solution for many many years right it was it was what allowed me to breathe and without it i couldn't function and so when when people would tell me put it away or it's not good for you and you really should you know it just was like what you're gonna take the air that i breathe what am i gonna do are you kidding me you know it was it was my solution and and and actually you know when i came into these rooms i i actually thought that you know you know drinking was my problem and and i didn't know that actually drinking was not it was my solution for a long time and it stopped working if that's what happened for me right my my my problem is my brain it's my thinking that's my problem um so anyhow um that when i was out in california that ended in a disaster and i and i hit a pretty ugly bottom um i wasn't led to aa yet i still had many few years ahead of me but i did come back crawling back to toronto with my tail between my legs and i i moved back in with my parents i was in my early 30s and uh i remember my father uh looking at me and and saying what's wrong with you you know and i didn't know what to say to him because i didn t know what was wrong with me why is it that friends that i that i've had their you know their lives are together and they're married and they have careers and they've gone to university and they do all these things with themselves and what's up with me why don't you know what is wrong with me i don't know why are collection agencies after me why am i broke why am I living with my parents why do I not know what to do myself and why the only thing that I can do is go and grab that bottle of booze you know and go into oblivion that's that's that's it that's all i could do so um i left my parents house because uh it was too difficult for me to to look at my dad and he was look at me with disappointment and i had so much remorse and guilt and i moved in with my brother which wasn't which wasn'T much better and he wouldn'T really let me drink the way that i wanted to so i ended up going back to bartending and i got myself a little rat hole of an apartment and oh it was just disastrous I had a few years of hell in that place whoo um I remember I had this like uh this this water bed and one rough night when I was all sketched out the water bed broke and there was water all over my oh my god it was juste what a disaster um this went on for another few years and uh so how I found myself in the rooms ironically was there was a girl that i used to drink and party with and uh her name was krista and she had been she had come to to aa and she talked to me about alcoholics anonymous and and um you know so here i am sitting in my uh i'm sitting on my high horse and i'm like well my life is so terrible but this kind of sounds like a clone you know like a cult or something and she's like no no you really should come with me and uh so she planted that seed for me and it took about three months until i remember until i was ready for my first meeting so i'm gonna just fast forward and and get to uh the first time that i actually um that i that i really deeply from the bottom of my heart fell to my knees and prayed right so i had been behind closed doors by myself because that's the only way that i like to drink and do whatever i wanted to do it was i didn't talk i just would drink and smoke and just be and um it's pretty horrifying but i'm sure a lot of you can relate to that right so four four days into it i'm out of everything and um and i'm and the sun is coming out and i'm shaking and i i'm walking around my apartment and i am suicidal i just am done with myself i'm just done i'm done with this life i'm gone with the darkness i'm just ah a ball of fear inside me and i don't want to live anymore i really don't want to leave anymore and i fell to my knees and i prayed for my soul and i said help me if you're out there whatever is out there please help me i don't want to live this way anymore and i can't do this on my own i just i felt like you have to take me and you haveと lock me up you have to put me in a room and lock the door and just because i i can' t control these feet and i can'T control what i'm doing i just don't i don' t and i something miraculous happened in that moment when i prayed that day and that was the first time that i prayed like that that one week later I went to my first meeting and ironically actually the first speaker that I heard is Butch who's my husband's sponsor. And if you guys know Butch, I'm sure most of you do, you know how powerful he is. Imagine hearing that your first speaker, right? So I sat in that meeting and tears were just coming down my face. I didn't know that there was other people out there like me. For the first time, I knew that I was not alone and I heard his story and it just was amazing. That seed was deeply planted for me that day and believe it or not, even after that, I walked out of there but the disease was still not done with me yet. It's like this disease has to chew you up a thousand different ways and spit you out you have to bang your head so badly on the wall to to surrender i wasn't there yet even after all that so i left that meeting that day and i went back out and uh um that summer i remember just waking up shaky one needing to drink to to quiet my nerves and to be able to function and my feet are walking me to the liquor store my fingers are dialing my dealer and i didn't want to, but I had no control. I had no solution at that time. It was my it was my air that I was breathing. After that, that summer, I I just I just had a I reached my bottom, I reached my bottom and I remember it was another huge bender that I had. And there was a woman at that um there was a woman that i had uh who was it there was somebody that i was speaking with and she she just told me to go to uh she told me go to a meeting and i and i found myself uh in i i went to the primary purpose group in toronto um i had nothing left in my life and i basically was i had my i had my head down i couldn't look up at people anymore i had demolished everything in my life i was flat broke i had nothing left in me no relationships nobody wanted to speak with me i had no friends my family wanted nothing to do with me I had nowhere else to go so i turned and i and i just went there and i went and i opened up my ears i walked into this meeting and i remember people greeting me all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and i was like a little it was a little annoying at that time but i went in and they welcomed me and i sat my tushy down and i just sat and i listened and in the beginning they told me to pray because i had now been out there for 50 for nearly nearly 20 years um drunk high or hungover every day never had a like i couldn't string two hours together of being sober so what they say to me and is just pray okay so my concept of god at that point was not at all my concept the god that i have in my life right now but in the beginning that worked for me you know so i got on my knees and and i just that's all i did simple as that i just said please help me to stay sober just for one day and uh and it worked it actually worked like one day i didn't have to drink and at night say thanks that's all i had to do in the beginning and i did that for the first few months all i did was get up in the morning and say please help me stay sober and one day turned to two days turn to three days and i couldn't believe it i mean that that fog was lifting and i was able to see some light and um i hadn't felt that way and i don't know when it was incredible and and i did the to do things you know i got a sponsor i joined that group i started to work the steps and um i i started i started to have a transformation in my life um those those were the early miracles you know of prayer that i saw with god and it was it was unbelievable uh so um i as i said i I did the to-do things, which we need to do, was start to go through all the steps and get a sponsor. And my life started to really repair itself. And I started repairing relationships around me. My family was talking to me. I got on my feet sort of financially. I actually started a business. And within about eight, nine months, I felt like I was a complete different person. and um it was it was crazy the transformation that i had in this short period of time um and the fact that it happened so short um was a little my ego started to kind of feed on a little bit because i so here's the thing with this program is that when you take your foot off the gas and you're you take yourself well back and you'RE not aware that you are doing so it's a very scary place and I definitely experienced that because I took my foot off the gas a little I wasn't working the program as much as I'm supposed to and uh no I was like oh you know I'm very important now don't you know I have a business and I don't have time to meet with my sponsor and I do not have time work with sponsors as much and go to as many meetings and and I started to it started to lie to me I started rationalize which is what my disease does and um so I was at nine months sober and um I I remember at that time I had also met somebody who was not in the program and he he would drink in front of me and I didn't tell him when I was alcoholic and at first it didn't bother me we'd go to dinner and he would drinking his wine in front me and and at first it didn't bother me at all but after a few times i was like getting a little bit like okay um and and my alcoholism was talking to me and before you know it i found myself at a party with a glass of wine in my hand just cunning baffling powerful that's how my disease is right after everything that i had gone through and finding coming into the program getting sober bringing god into my life and you know and veering away from it that's what happened to me so this actually uh was a slow progression that continued for five years i was out there for five years and some people end up on a park bench when they go out within a week for me it wasn't like that it was a very very slow increase in trying to control it and control try thinking that i'm controlling it but it's controlling me but it definitely had me out for five years and then i found myself back on my knees and i didn't necessarily lose the things around me like i still had my business but i was dying from the inside so after five years i was after five hours i was just as devastated and um i was spiritually bankrupt and i was just a dead soul inside i was like i was done i was down with it and um my sponsor now who is my sponsor heather a i had met her in the program and she's she was always my soldier sister in the program um i remember she uh having a conversation with her um i'd fall down on my knees and i and And I had another bender and I told her I'm suicidal. And I think that I'm one of those people that just not gonna get this thing, you know? It talks about it in the big book. I'm not capable of getting this program. And she said, no, that's not true. You gotta keep going. God is gonna help you. And so I went back in. So that was almost 10 and a half years ago. That day I walked into, actually it was the same primary purpose group. It was a Monday afternoon. The sun was shining. had on my big shades and I was shaking and I wanted to kill myself. And as I was going into the meeting, I saw an elderly lady sitting outside and she saw the pain in my face and she said to me, she said, come sit beside me. And I sat beside her and she said to me you know God is God is gracing you and giving you his hand. Take it. And when she said that in that moment, something happened. And I realized that this is it. If I don't do this, if I don' t take God's hand, I'm going to end up dying. There is no other way. And I was done with my ways. So I walked into that room and I picked up my chip. And by god's grace i have not felt the desire to drink or use since then by god's grace um i i dove into this work i did the to do things i joined i joined a home group i joined uh the hill group um i was going to two meetings a day at that time i did what i had to do i shut my mouth i opened my ears i threw in the towel and i said show me tell me i'll do it i'll whatever i'm done with this i can't live like this anymore the gift of desperation ain't it beautiful i had that it's a beautiful thing and um i started to i started work these steps and these beautiful steps that we've been given and i had a spiritual experience as a result of working these beautiful steps i started to realize that i am responsible for most of the things that happened to me in my life and that my whole life i've been blaming the outside and others and that finger was pointed right back to me right i get to i getto do this inventory and to clear up the air and to put away fear resentment you know work on my character defects what a beautiful thing right and to be able to open the door more for god you know god is always there god has always been there god is shining on us but the only thing standing between us and god for me it was just my stuff that had a big curtain pulled and when i started when at first i had that gift of desperation when i just invited god and just a little bit and i and i broke that wall down by doing the rest of the steps it's oh it's action right it's actually on my part that invited god into my life um and and from that from that darkness um the the life that i have today guys is um is unbelievable i mean this what i said uh we need the light of god's reality the nourishment of his strengths and the atmosphere of his grace because without god's grace and without god guidance i wouldn't have the life that i have today um you know step step 11 for me is a prayer meditation it's um step 10 11 and 12 are the meat and potatoes of our program and um uh step 11 to me is basically when i is is what i get off my knees after praying is is demonstrating that power and working that power in my daily life bringing that into my life it's it's about how i am it's how i'm with others how i treat others and how i live it in my day life right so it's about i live i try to live this program and live bring god into my daily affairs and and it's amazing like i mean prayer has taken taken many uh forms and shapes for me in the beginning i said it was just praying asking god to to help me stay sober but my days a day does not go by when i don't start my day off with prayer it's become second nature to me that when i wake up my sponsor said just fall right on your knees right there on the bed or you know i i will always pray in the morning some days i may not meditate because just kids business and whatever but i'll try to find some time during my day to just sit still praying is me communicating with god it's me turning it over to god there's you know sometimes i just pray from my heart you know god just work through me help me be of service i open up my arms and i just ask him show me what to do what is your will for me today you know whatever it is you want me to do show me what is how can i be of service to you or records i could say the third step prayer or i could stay the seventh step prayer um i i try to um end my days at the end of the end of at night to just say thank you or and end the day with a home meditation which is gratefulness um meditation is is to me is is uh one and only god's voice right silence sitting in silence because praying is me talking and communicating with god and and i don't know about you alcoholics but this alcoholic has a lot of noise up in here as soon as i open my eyes this committee is going and it's like so i need to shut that noise down so that i can hear god i have to shut it down um meditation has been a huge part of my program and uh you know um sometimes silent meditation um a lot of guided meditations as long as i'm shutting the noise up that's up in my head it allows god to to come in and to communicate with me and my god talks to me through people you know there's there's many instead alleys at least you know there's certain people in my life that when they're when theyre talking to me i know it's i know its god giving me a message you know um i'll tell you an example the just the other day um i woke up in the morning and it was like six o'clock in the morning and i woke as soon as i opened my eyes um there was there was fear setting in fear about nonsense about stuff at work and what's go it was just i had like my stomach was filled with fear and i was like what's going on i almost wanted to pull the covers over my head and nothing was wrong and then out of nowhere usually ali gets up before me and he does his prayer and meditation in the morning and he's gone he's leaving by the time i wake up but that day he just he walked into the walked into room and the lights were dim and i saw his shadow and he walks up towards me and he looks up at me and usually when i'm worried about something ali will say to me one thousand percent everything is gonna be okay and he always says that whenever he says that i believe him because it's always true and he said to me one thousand percent and i said what why what are you saying to me right now why are you seeing that what are you doing here why aren't you at work and in that moment i knew that it was god talking to me and my eyes filled up with tears and i was just i could you know and all that fear and nastiness i was feeling inside because most of the time the fears we're feeling are so far away from what's gonna actually manifest or happen it all fell from me and i became so present to this power of god in my life and it's like wake up look where you are today i got your back you know and everything just kind of fell for me and uh and i got out of bed and i was just i was on top of the world i i ran to my mother's room my mother is 82 years old what a blessing that's god's miracle my mother who was 82 years old is living with us and i'm able to care for her that's God's miracle right there right I go to my mother and I hugged her and I said I love you so much I want to tell you a little bit about what what my life is like today and and the miracles of God in my life um I am not that helpless selfish, trampling on everyone woman that didn't care about anything or anyone and was useless person anymore. I am today a pretty good wife sometimes. We have our deal of problems. Me and Ali have gone through ups and downs and hell and separation and all kinds of stuff and you know we've come back with with the help of god and the steps and our sponsors and work and theresa can tell you a story or two but let's not get her started so where was i i lost my check so i don't know what i was saying you're at the woman you are today yeah Yeah, I am the woman I am today because of a loving God. I'm able to be a good wife. I'mable to bea good daughter. I'mable to beagood sister. I'll tell you a story. My father, when I sobered up, my father got diagnosed with cancer. And one of God's miracles and gifts of sobriety that I have is that the five years that my father um had cancer and was alive i was with him day and night i was with him um i was by his side until his last breath and him and i had a connection at that time that i can't even explain to you and i would not have had that if it wasn't for me coming into these rooms and for living this beautiful life that god has given and being able to to be that pillar of strength for him and take him on trips. And at one point, I remember guys, I took him to I took them to my father got sick with cancer. So I took him to Brazil to see a spiritual healer. Actually, I was pregnant at that time, too. I took hem and my my brother to go to Brazil, to see John of God. I don't know if any of you know him, but that was an incredible experience that we had two weeks. So when I do things like that i know that it's god inspiring me and moving me and the actions that i take right it's god talking to me um i haven't i have a memory of early sobriety i was after meditation i got i got off my knees and i went straight to the phone and i booked a ticket for my to take my father to see his mother in washington so my father at this point I was on a wheelchair. He was not really in a good shape to travel, but I knew that this had to be done. I said, I called him and I said I'm booking a flight we're going to Washington to see your mother. He hadn't seen his mother in years and she was sick. And I, and we went on a flight. I remember, I'll never forget that trip. We were out in Washington together and it was like, I was pulling him through the airport and I had this huge bag of all this medication that he had and we made it work when we went there. And he saw his mother and he went to her bedside and he was able to say goodbye to her and tell her that he loves her. And he felt peace when we came back home, we got a phone call that she passed away the day after we returned home. If that's not the power of God, if that's no God talking to me in meditation, then what is? That was incredible that I was able to I don't know where that came from. But things like that, you know, um, I recently I have a I built a business about 13 years ago, which which I'm rich and really blessed because it's it's truly my bliss. I have A placement agency where I'm able to work with people and place them in jobs and help people to find work which I you know, I bring I try to bring the program god into my my work um i as i said this is a program of we have to bring god into our daily affairs and i spend a lot of my time at work and so with my team at work they're not alcoholics but when we have team meetings i bring a little god into it i do we have we i read them spiritual quotes i send out spiritual quotes every day seriously alice laughs at me because i've done inventories with non-alcoholics I have and it works they don't have it hey normal people are walking out there with lots of fears and resentments believe you me and it you know I've done some sort of inventory with them I try to you know I try be of service I try to bring when I'm bringing God into my day at work everything's beautiful it's when the days that I try take control and they happen you know that's you know but as soon as I turn it over how many times i had to get on my knees in my office because i feel things are going sideways die will be done god help me i just have to sit silent in the middle of my office i do it i get on my knees i'll get on mine wherever i have to i remember early sobriety i uh i i keep jumping back and forth because this is just what's happening tonight but in early sobriet i was three months over and i went i took my three months sober i took my father and my stepmother to mexico because my father had just got cancer they were going through a hard time and i said let's go i got this thing i'm sober now i'm all good i took them to a resort and all drinking booze and it was hard for me and and it would drink not not drinking was really really tough for me at that time and i remember watching people drinking wine and i was sweating i was like it was oh so i would run to the washroom and get on my knees and pray for help god please help me i don't want to drink i want to do it again it worked it worked miracles those are miracles to me and i said god if you're here just show me a sign show me a sign that you're listening to me show me a sign here the next day i was by the pool and i I was taking pictures by the pool, and somebody took a picture of me. And I looked at the picture and there was a picture of me standing beside this huge billboard. And when I looked at the billboard, I was amazed because it was a bottle of wine and wine glasses with a huge X on it. And I said, that's my higher power talking to me right there. um what else can i tell you um so this this business that i have as well we uh something that i'm really proud of is that we we recently built uh built a school um i always had a dream that i wanted to do something to help god's kids in some way you know and i had this dream about potentially doing something and starting a school and being of service in that way so i put have put a portion of my sales away and saved money. And, um, a few months ago, our school in Senegal was completed. I was able, we were able to build a school for children in Senegal and, and, and that's the power of God. And that's, that's an inspired thought backed by inspired action that is able to manifest into things like that. You know, that'S, that' s step 11 for me. um so um you know step 11 also suggests some other readings um i you know i i also fell into um fell into a lot of other readings by wayne dyer by um esther and jerry hicks the teachings of abraham love attraction um jovi tale you know and all that stuff is all just basically the arts of manifesting and and cool creating with god it's all that's been a huge part of my journey as well i'm always got dream boards and vision boards going on i'm a huge fan of that and and honestly it's who i am ali will tell you like every almost everything that i have in my life it doesn't have to be something material it could be a state of being it could be me be getting pregnant i got pregnant at 42 are you kidding me the doctor said you have no chance ma'am of getting pregnant and i looked at him and i said but you don't know that god that we have in our lives and he said okay i got pregnant at 42 right that's god working in my life so vision boards are huge for me it's it's you know having desires and and and bringing god into it and and co-creating with god co-reating with god learning to co-create with god it's been a huge part of my journey which is really fun and i i just i just love this program um guys i have a i have uh i have a six-year-old boy sleeping upstairs right now if that's not god's miracle then you know I live in a beautiful home, I'm married to my soulmate who's my best friend and we work this program to the bone. We've had our share of tough times as I said but there are so many beautiful gifts in my life. I love my life, my life is so full and it doesn't mean that, excuse my language, shit doesn't happen in my life and that it's always lollipops and rainbows because that's not truth sicknesses happen you know there's bad days there's things that happen there's there's sicknesses people dying all life happens but but i have a solution today you know um it says in our book spiritual principles will solve all my problems i didn't say i'm not going to have problems it means that i don't have to put that bottle to my mouth now i pick up the book i go to my sponsor i i bring i invite god into my life to help me when my father passed away i didn't drink i i brought god in to help me i mourned i cried i got through it i helped other alcoholics i am so grateful for this this beautiful life uh and we know i was saying that i used to wake up on the you know i'd hate the sun i love the sun now my life my life is big and it's full and it It's, yeah, I am, I don't know if I have anything else to say. The St. Francis prayers is, I know that we end the meeting with the St. Francis prayer. It's ironic because I always end my talk with a portion of the St.-Francis prayer. I love that prayer. That prayer is written by a non-alcoholic. Isn't it beautiful though? You know, that we can cut that into segments and just meditate on each little piece of that meditation every day. St. Francis prayer, I love it. Guys, I'm so grateful that I was here to share with you. I hope I said something that resonated or helped someone. If you're new and you are suffering, if you, but I'd love to speak with you after the meeting, please reach out to me. this is this is where you're going to find a beautiful life and I'm just very grateful for my sobriety guys thank you for allowing me to share