Sucked All the Nitrous Out of the Whipped Cream at Work and They Blamed the Supplier for Months 🫠 – Stevie B.

Hi everybody, my name is Stevie B. I'm a recovered alcoholic, recovering alcoholic, and to be here with you guys tonight.
I say recovered and recovering because I'm recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, as we already went over tonight,
what that means from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which means I don't think about things the same way that I used to.
But I'm also recovering in other areas, like being on time.
And, you know, there's really no excuse for being late.
And my mother was telling me it on the way over here, which is always hard to hear from your mother.
And then when I came in and realized they were holding up the entire meeting for me, that was a really tough pill.
So when the pain of change becomes great enough, you'll change.
And I think today was like the epicenter.
Like, okay.
Like the epicenter for change.
And whatever it takes, it takes.
Because I have so much respect for this meeting and for Michael and for Peter and everyone that put this on that I would hate to disappoint again.
So Mike made a great suggestion.
He said to sleep in the parking lot tonight and to just stay here until next week.
I thought it was a great suggestion.
So if you guys want to talk to me about the program, I'm in a Ford Explorer for the next week.
I want to show you an example of humility.
I want to give you two examples of humility.
Because last week we were talking about how we asked God to remove our shortcomings.
And then we're going to get right into step eight, which is made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
And then we're going to go right into step nine about making the amends.
I'm going to give you two real stories that happened.
And I'm not going to say the people's names or ask me people name afterwards.
I'm not going to hint none of that stuff.
And I'm being serious because I'm not going to break their anonymity.
But I know personally two famous people in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And, you know, they're very famous and they have awards and they're known all around the world.
And and Maddie's not going to tell you who it is either.
But Maddie and I were having lunch with with one of these people.
And.
And on the way out.
I noticed that the table we were on and all the other tables, they were named after the famous people and they had famous people pictures in each one of the booths.
So let me give an example, like the Frank Sinatra booth, the Elvis booth, the you know, the you understand.
And on our way out, I had to use the restroom and I went back inside and.
I saw the the manager, the owner, and I said, you know, I was we're just here with this very famous person who's like a local like who's a legend and happens to live here locally.
You guys should really have a booth with this person's pictures is all happened.
And the owner said, well, that's that person's booth right there, and that person's pictures were all over the booth and they have a booth in there.
You guys left.
You don't.
And you're not you're laughing at the wrong part of the story.
It didn't happen yet.
So we were in the restaurant with a famous person.
That didn't even mention.
That on the other side of the restaurant was their booth with their photos.
With a whole thing of their records and everything with their picture, didn't even mention it.
That's humility.
I mean, if it was me.
And I came in and someone else was in my booth.
I'm like, that's my booth.
I think the guy needs to move out of my booth.
Didn't even mention it.
That's that's humility.
That or not, maybe not ask someone to move that.
That's ridiculous.
But but just to say, I would say something like.
It's so cool.
They have a booth after me.
Something.
That's humility.
And then earlier today just happened today.
I was on a meeting at four o'clock and one of our friends, also a famous person, was in Dubai.
You know, raise your hand if you've been to Dubai.
I'm sure guys probably been to Dubai.
You got to be in Dubai.
Seems very serious.
Dubai.
Like like when I'm in Fort Lauderdale, I announce I'm coming from Hollywood.
You know, like like this guy's in Dubai on the meeting.
Doesn't even say anything.
I mean, no, he's family, but even if.
You know like.
You know, all the business.
Goes into Gaza.
You need to include people of your time and opportunity.
You know, I already talked about that.
That I would go in the office.
And then go in the committee and then focus on the audience.
I think that's what he meant here.
I'm talking about the community obviously.
believer, any one of the believing religions, there's the epitome of humility in the front of
that religion. For Christians, that would be Jesus. And you know which religion you're in if it's not
Jesus. So that's something for us to strive for. Not to have to announce who we are and just be
comfortable in our own skin, which for me was very difficult, is very difficult, still continues to be
very difficult because on any given day, based on how much work I've done on my spiritual condition
in that day, it's very hard for me sometimes to feel comfortable in my own skin. So if I can
maybe draw attention to either someone else or be humorous or deflect, then I can feel comfortable.
But the true definition of
humility in the many different aspects of it is that just to be one of God's kids in the situation
you're in. We don't have to be the smartest in the room. We don't have to be the best looking in the
room. We just get to be who we are. Sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous, striving to be better.
And one of the ways we strive to be better is by working the steps. I mean, it's really true. Why
are we working the steps is not to tell other people we've worked the steps. I don't know if
you've ever been in a meeting where someone
says for months that they're in the four step for months. Every week they got the sad look on
their face and hey, what's going on? I'm in the four step. You've been in the four step for like
months. It's time to move on to the fifth step. And so last week we were in the seventh step,
the six and seven steps. It's going to be ongoing. Look, defective character of tardiness just got
brought up again today. I'm sure Matthew spoke to me about matter of fact, Matt has spoke to me
about it. He showed up at my house and said, listen, we're all in this together. We're all in this together.
We're on our way to a step meeting. We're late because of you. You're the speaker. He's mentioned
it to me. My mother's mentioned to me. Now Mike's mentioned it to me. And thanks for mentioning to
me. John mentions it to me every day. My partner's here. He mentioned to me every single day at 905.
The meeting starts at nine. He's like, it's good to see you at 905. So a new awareness in the seven
deadly sins, the pride, the anger, the greed, the envy, the lust, the soul, a new one awareness of
that subcategory that could come up anytime.
And I hope that we never get to a place. I hope I never get to a place where I'm like, well, I'm this
many years sober, so I don't have to take a look at it. Or I'm this age. I don't have to take a look
at it. Or I've already done that. I'll take a look at it. And I have a great example of my mom and
dad. My dad, God, my God, rest his soul. My dad went to be with the Lord with 27 years of recovery.
And my mom's been in 44 years of recovery. And I, and I get to watch people that still work on
themselves and still allow God to remove those defects of character. And, and to say that we
don't have them would be the greatest, uh, would be the greatest shame. Not that you have them,
but that you're willing to let God remove them. So hopefully Matthew, if we get to go up to Boca
again this year, I'll be early. That's what I'm shooting for. Now I'm going to be shooting for
early. So look, my partner laughing in the back audibly. So this is going to bring us to step
eight. Made it, made a list of all persons we had harmed.
And became willing to make them immense to them all in the 12 and 12 does an incredible job in,
in describing step eight, nine. I think it's, it's phenomenal steps eight and nine. So I'm just
going to read steps eight and nine are concerned with personal relations. First, we had to look
backward and try to discover where we had been at fault, confession, admission, submission,
asking for this type of work to be done is going to take work.
Next, we make a rigorous attempt to repair the damage we had done. This word vigorous is being
used all over the place in the big book and the 12 and 12 vigorous means a lot of strenuous work,
work, work, chop wood and carry water. It's going to take work. This is going to take work. This is
not going to come easily for us. You know, it comes easy for, for, for, for me when people
tell me I'm late, what comes easy, I'm busy. You don't have any calls I've made today. You know,
people I've tried to help today. We just had,
an insane call on the way over here today that you can't even believe the type of call
that's easy for me to deflect. You know, it's not easy for me. I have to change
vigorous action. And the vigorous action that's going to take to change the people we've harmed
is we're going to have to go back and we're going to have to make amends to them or make amends to
institutions that are surrounding them. If to do so would injure them or others like many of the
many of the women that I hurt in my life,
I was instructed not to go back and speak to. And I was like, why? Cause I had like a dating list
and I wanted to go back and show them how amazing I was. And I wanted to like carry the big book in
one hand and my 12 and 12 and the other and show up at their houses and be like,
this is what you missed out on. And my sponsor was like, you know, the way you're going to make
amends to all those girls on the list, you never to contact them.
Speaker 1
again, that's, that's what you're going to do. Hey, Harry, that's what you're going to do. You're
not going to contact them. They don't even remind them that you knew them. I wanted to meet them
again and rekindle the idea that they could have had me, which would have caused them further harm.
So, so, so, so how did I make amends to the girls that I lied to? I misrepresented who I was.
Yeah, I didn't, I didn't attack anybody, but I certainly attacked morality. I certainly
misrepresented and lied. I certainly hurt people's families. How did I hurt people's families? I was
sober and I relapsed and this beautiful family in the Midwest had to come out of, uh, and bring
out moving truck to their, to their daughter's apartment that I live with. Cause, cause I just,
I used over and over again until they had to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to.
evacuate her. How did I do harm to all these women? I didn't have to attack them. I harmed
them by being in relationship with them. So how do I make amends to them? Well, first I need to
put their names down on the list. And that's the eighth step. I need to make a sincere attempt to
put down all people I've harmed. And where I'm going to get that list is by looking at the fourth
and fifth step. That's where the list is going to come from. Because where it says harms cause
others, that's where the harms are. Now, in between the fourth step and the eighth step and
the ninth step, there's going to be names that you forgot about, that you're going to have to
maybe talk to your sponsor about. Maybe like do a little mini, a little mini fourth and fifth step
with your sponsor. Hey, I just remembered another name. And that name is going to go immediately on
the eighth step list. By the way, that's been happening for me for years that I've had to do
like little mini four steps and little mini eighth and ninth steps. Peter goes through the work every
year.
And I'm sure that there's other people that have come here that go through the work every year.
I don't necessarily go through the work every year. I'm very, very much involved in church.
And there's a lot of confession that goes on in church. Plus my mother is making me confess daily.
So we consider how with our new, not to say that when I need to, I don't go through the 12 steps
again. Of course we do. We consider how with our new, newfound knowledge of ourselves,
where's the newfound knowledge coming from the fifth step? Where were we wrong? The fourth column,
where were we wrong? All of a sudden in the fifth step, we're writing down all the stuff.
We're resentful. We realize a lot of this stuff is we're selfish. Where were we wrong? Where's
the new knowledge coming from? It's coming from the fifth step. That's why all the new people
that are here don't take a lot. Don't, I don't want to use the word waste time. Don't spend
more time than you need to thinking about the perfect four step. You could do a four step in
a day. You know, the stuff you've done, you know, the people you resent, you know, the things that
have to be fixed. You could write them down in a day and have that done the fifth step. The next
day, if you can make an appointment with someone that's your sponsor or a rabbi or a priest or
whatever it is, who are you going to do it with? You don't have to carry garbage in the 12 steps
of Alcoholics Anonymous longer than you need to. The program in the beginning was not take you a
year. They did this stuff in like days.
And you can still do them in day. I'm not saying you have to, but you don't want to wait until you
get sick and suffering or possibly pick up or die because you're carrying things that you don't need
to. Most major religions have an instant confession step, a self confession step where you can just
dump it immediately. Alcoholics Anonymous has that too. It's called the fourth and fifth step.
We consider how with our newfound knowledge of ourselves, we may develop the best
possible relations with every human being we know. How do we have the best possible relations
with every human being we know? We go back and repair the ones that we damaged. So the new ones,
we're not doing the same thing over and over again. This is the last time I'm going to bring
this up, but if I show up, I'm not going to, but if I showed up late last week, next week, shame on
me not to have changed. If I'm doing the same thing that I did to Sally from 23 years ago,
and I'm doing it to the next person, shame on me for not changing.
God has given us every opportunity in the program, Alcoholics Anonymous, not only to change
the surface, but to change the inner core. It's not like we're putting on a show. We are changed
people. We have been reborn. The big book says we have been reborn into new people.
And when that happens, you'll know, because your heart will go from a stony heart and a sarcastic
heart and a heart that's pessimistic and the whole world sucks and they suck and that sucks.
And the next thing you know, you want to be paying for people.
You want to be paying for people's halfway houses and buying them lunches and, and stopping
on the corner and telling people there's another way of life and feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving.
When, when, when you used to want to have everyone take care of you, and now you want
to take care of people, opening up your homes to people, you, you, all of a sudden you become
altruistic. You start thinking about other people's needs. You, you, you don't even,
you wouldn't even comprehend a basket of Alcoholics Anonymous coming by. If you had $5 in your
pocket, you couldn't even comprehend not putting money in the basket because you know how much
Alcoholics Anonymous has done.
For you. Now, unless that happens to me until that happens, not to freak out. You just have
not went through the pro you haven't went through the process yet. Yet the change has
not happened. The metaphor, the metamorphosis, which has changed just didn't happen, but
it will it right. Thomas, if you stay here long enough, you go from prisoner to jailer
and the jailer is opening up the jail cells for us.
That's what happens.
It's, it's not just magical. It's supernatural.
This is a very large order. The 12 and 12 says it's not going to be easy to go back and make
amends for the things we've done. This is the hardest step. There is people say fourth and
fifth. That's not what self confessing. What's the big deal. You're going to say the stuff you've
done. You're going to bring this stuff out, but you don't have to do anything about it.
This is a step. You have to do something about it. You have to go back and tell people you
stole their jewelry, that you said it was the guy next door. And it's you.
You have to go back and say, remember that time I helped you look for your wallet. That
was me. Remember that terrible thing that happened and someone spray painted your whole
garage and everything. That was me. You have to go back and face the things you've done
in your life in order to have a free life going forward. How free do you want to be?
Are there people that don't do this step? Yeah. You see him in the meetings that they
have hunchback.
They have a curves or curvature in their spine. You're sitting in like,
because they're not willing to let stuff go. They want, they, they, they believe that the
program of Alcoholics Anonymous is about staying sober. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous
is the, is, is it only one little half of the first step is about staying sober. The
entire program, the 11 and a half.
Other steps is about having a personal relationship of God that with God that produces sober.
You're going to have sober. If you work this program, that's, that's one of the benefits,
but the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is actually like a shill game. Like we, you come
in and we're telling you, it's all about staying sober. And the next thing you know, you become
a God person of your understanding. I don't know if you know what a shill game is. That's
the three card Monte, where you think, you know where the coin is and you think you came
here because you have a.
Alcohol problem. And you're actually on Alki. The next thing you know, you're holding the
door up or you're like an altar boy. How did that happen? You were the guy that stole from
everybody. Now you're putting money in the basket. We were reborn. This is a very large
order. It is a task that we must perform. We must perform with increasing skill. This
is going to take the help of a sponsor. Nobody should be doing the eight. My opinion. I hear
a lot of opinions in Alcoholics Anonymous that are totally.
Ridiculous from the podium. This is my opinion, whether it's ridiculous or not, will be up
to you to make that decision. I don't believe anybody should be doing an eighth or ninth
step without the support and direction from a sponsor, because I don't know what's best
for me. I don't know how the best, the, the, the people I already told you, I had Susie
and Sally and Denise and Carolyn. I had a whole dating list. That's what's best for
us. What I think is best for me.
Speaker 1
My sponsor just took it. He says, tell me about all the people you stole from. I said, Whoa,
Speaker 2
Character assassination right off the bat. He's well, remember we just did the fifth step. You,
you stole from that place you worked at when you were, you know, if your sponsor's paying
attention, he's going to be able to help you to remember the stuff that you should be remembering.
So instead of me going back and speaking to all the girls I harmed, I had to go back,
and make amends to institutions. I stole from workplaces. I stole time from
gimbals department store that I stole thousands of dollars of clothes from him.
Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. The, the, the, the burgers and company, um, uh, ice cream place that I worked
at that I basically, you know, almost destroyed their reputation because I was the manager. And,
Speaker 4 , um, and, um,
and we used to get busloads of people and the busloads of people would show up and we would
have to make within an hour, like say 500 Sundays or 400 ice cream Sundays. And those ice cream
Sundays, they take whipped cream. But I was the person in charge of the maintenance of the whipped
cream and ordering the whipped cream. And the whipped cream actually has nitrous oxide in it.
And so every case that we would get when we would go to put the whipped cream on the ice cream,
would just come out without the gas in it. And I was in charge of reordering it
and then restocking it and then sucking it down. And so the restaurant would get it,
got a terrible reputation. That was all me. I was stealing from the company by sucking the gas
out of the whipped cream. I had to go back to my fraternity brother, John Riccobono and make
an appointment with him and say, listen, in all those months of terrible,
uh, service that we were getting from that company. And you guys
said it was them, Cisco or whoever the people were. It wasn't Cisco, it was Misco.
I sucked all the gas out of the whipped cream.
And how do you even make a financial amends for that? Thousands of cans of, you know,
hundreds of cans of whipped cream. You, you, you, you, you tally it. How much is one can
and then do it for months. That's how much I owed.
Now, thank God in that instance, my fraternity brother was just glad that I was sober and was
like, you know what? We've moved on. We cut that off the menu. We're just doing burgers now.
Go be with God. You know, that, that worked. That was a good one. That one worked out for me,
but there was a lot of organizations, including gimbals that I stole from. And I'm, and I'm sorry
that they actually, not because of me, it's a multimillion dollar company. They went out of
business. So how do I go back and make amends to a company that's on my list for, for stealing from
them? That's out of business. Well, you make donations to other organizations. You become
very generous. You, you, you spend time being generous. You spend time being financially
generous. You, you, you make it a point that this is the amount you stole from gimbals or whatever
it is. So it's $7,000. You make a donation to a company that's out of business. You make a
$7,000. Now you make an account of $7,000 that you're going to send to organizations.
And when that $7,000 is done, that's when you've paid back gimbals. It works just like that. The
Bible says that when you're responsible with the small things, God will bless you with the big
things. My dad, a member of gambles are anonymous. Oh, Donald Trump and that organization, not
president Trump. Let me take that name out. Oh, the Trump organization, hundreds of thousands of
dollars from gambling. And right for every month,
every month, he would write a check to that organization, a billion multi-billion dollar
organization. My dad's a little guy working, you know, to try to rebuild his life and gamblers
anonymous, but how he rebuilt his life. So they had a life beyond their wildest dreams is every
month. He would send a check, handwrite a check, not, not, not Instagram, you know, not none of
this stuff, handwrite a check, put it in an envelope with a stamp. You know what I mean?
Like cash out. Sorry.
For 27 years,
he did that. And then they wrote him back. Even though he hadn't paid the hundreds of thousands
of dollars, they said, your debt is paid. When my dad went to be with the Lord, Harry knows my dad.
When my dad went to be with the Lord, he was debt free from all the casinos. Why did he pay back all
that money? No, he did everything he was supposed to do. And then the debt was relieved. That's your
responsibility. You owe tens of thousands.
You owe hundreds of thousands of dollars. You owe tens of thousands of dollars. You owe hundreds of
thousands of dollars. Your responsibility is to start making amends. In that process,
you have someone on your list, you owe them a hundred thousand dollars. You go there with
an envelope and you start and you make a payment program. The thing about what you, what you never
want to do, in my opinion, with financial amends is to go there with a promise. My opinion is you
always go there with an envelope. Like I owe you $10,000. Here's the first 1000 and now it's going
to be a hundred dollars, you know, whatever. It depends. There's always a trusted provider. There's
always a trust agent. There's always a law side to a trust agency. There's always a contact lawyer. So,
you know, whatever you make the, it's your job to make it right. Not to say, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. It doesn't make anything right. We say, listen, last time I promised, I said,
I'm sorry four or five times tonight for being late. If I show up next week late, I'm not sorry.
I didn't make amends. I didn't undo it. I didn't make it right. The immense process is to make it
right. You should be able to look at every single person in the world in the eye when you see them
in a meeting, in the gym, in church, at Publix, and be able to look at every single person after
this step is done, when it's completed, eighth and ninth step, and every single person, you can
look them in the eye and know you've done everything you can to make it right. Now,
are all the people on your list going to forgive you? Absolutely not.
The girl that I mentioned that they came in, they had to back up a trailer and
she's never spoke to me again. They won't speak to me. I've contacted the family.
I've contacted.
The brothers because that specific one, my heart is right. And I really do need to make amends
for all the harm I caused that entire family for being a drug addict to that family. But
they don't want to see me. They would rather not see me. That's their prerogative.
But I have to be willing to make amends to them all.
And I have to at least go through the process of contacting them. And this is another thing I want
to mention about the ninth step. We don't do the ninth step on the fly. That is, I've done that.
Like you see somebody and now you just remember you own a thousand dollars. Let's take the amount
out. And you see them at Starbucks and you start making amends to them in the Starbucks. No, no, no.
If you see them in the Starbucks, you go to them and make an appointment to see them at their
convenience. Hey, you know what? I'm in the program Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to just tell you I
would like to make amends for you. Could we set up an appointment where I could come and make right
what I did to you? They might tell you to go. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know. It doesn't matter. They may change and contact you later on and say, listen, I want to
meet with you. We never do it on the fly. We didn't harm them on the fly. We didn't. We don't
we don't make amends in a text. We unless you did the harm in the text. And then I guess, you know,
I'm not sure how that goes. Where you can, you make it in person. Now, is it sometimes people
are in Boston or in Italy? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know. I don't know.
You do your very best to contact them and to make it right. You know what's going to happen? You
know, Bill W and Dr. Bob and my dad Stan and many people that we know, they left planet Earth free.
Free. Clancy, free. Totally free. Not because they were good people. My dad was a good people
because they worked the program. And my dad wasn't always a good, he was a good person to my mom,
but he was a,
you know, a tough guy on me.
He was a tough dad
who turned out to be the most amazing dad in the entire world
because of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous.
He left planet Earth with me,
worshiping the ground that he walked on
because he said what he did,
and he did what he said,
and he was a man, he was a godly man.
That's the 12 steps.
That's what that will do.
Now, the nine-step promises tell us
that we're going to be amazed
when we're halfway through the step.
Nobody casually does the ninth step.
I mean, you may be able to do one of them casually,
but to really do the ninth step thoroughly,
to go back and make right what you've done wrong,
you know you're in it.
You know you're in the program.
It's not a talk step.
It's a walk step.
You're showing up at people's houses
after you make an appointment.
You're coming, not groveling.
We don't grovel.
We don't go on our,
we don't show in there like we come in there
like a man or woman of God,
and we set right what we've done.
Now, some of them are big.
Some of them are cheating.
Cheating on spouses and,
doesn't matter.
We take it on the chin,
and we go back and make amends.
Now, if the person doesn't know about it,
talk to your sponsor.
No, no, I'm not saying don't do it.
I'm saying talk to your sponsor.
Just recently, a good friend of mine,
his name is Doug P,
Doug Peters, because he's with the Lord now.
I was sponsoring him,
and he had cheated on his wife several times.
And he came to me, he said,
I'm going to tell my wife.
She doesn't know.
I said, whoa, let's hold on a second.
That doesn't seem like the great course of action.
The step says,
made a direct amends to such people,
except when to do so would injure them or others.
It seems like you're going to injure your wife,
and you're probably going to injure you.
If you tell her.
My recommendation to him was don't do it.
He went over my head.
He went to God.
And God told him to go do it.
And he did this thing we call full disclosure
against the sponsor's wishes.
But I'm not God.
You got to talk to God.
So he went, and he told his wife everything.
I knew this was going to go terrible.
It went amazing.
They had the most incredible life.
He went to be with the Lord
with about nine,
nine years of sobriety just recently of a freak accident.
He was a young man of not an accident of a thing in the hospital.
You know,
I don't know what you call a medical emergency.
And he went and he went in one day.
He left this planet for his wife knew everything.
So you there's not always a right and wrong answer.
Okay, to me.
I'm always like,
you know,
you don't want to tell anybody anything that's going to hurt somebody.
But you know what?
Sometimes if God tells you that you need to do it,
and then you have Counselor,
they had the pastor from the church also saying it was okay.
Me the sponsor.
I stepped aside.
I thought better not tell anybody,
you know,
you better.
You just can't handle the burden.
It can go both ways.
But with most of the steps,
you're going to need to go and make direct amends.
Some of the what some of the amends I made not steps with this step.
Sometimes you're going to have to make indirect.
I have a bunch of indirect men's now.
I heard a speaker say a couple weeks ago that I totally disagree with not.
I don't disagree with.
The person I disagree with the statement that there's no such thing as living amends.
Of course,
there's living amends.
There's living amends.
We need it.
We get to make all the time.
All right,
man,
of course there is,
but the person said we don't have to make living amends because our whole life should be a living amends,
but that's not true.
There's things that you did to your family that took years.
You abused your family for years.
You don't just get to go back in one day and be like,
you know what?
I'm in a I want to make this right.
How much do I owe you?
Let's move on.
Let bygones be bygones.
Your family's like what you abused us for 25 years.
It's going to take 25 years for us to have you back in the big bed.
And you know what you make living amends.
I made a ton of as a matter of fact,
one of the men's I'm my mom doesn't know but tonight when she was really giving it to me,
I kept my mouth shut because one of the ways I make living amends to my mom is not answering because she's from Brooklyn.
So it's not Caesar.
She's not always like hell,
you know,
why don't you pray about it?
You know,
she's watching you on the side of the head and she was going to give me a bunch of whacking tonight more than the being late.
She was like your life is out of order.
You're out of order.
The whole country's out of order.
And then she let's see.
She whacked me with my whole life has been in order.
You know,
you don't want to hear that from your parent.
You're like your life's out of order.
My life was amazing.
So you know what?
I did one latest.
That's called living amends.
She didn't know I was working it,
but I was working it as a father.
God,
like,
give me the shade to be making living men's right now because I want to rebuttal her great.
I'm in this helping people's life business.
I was involved in a lot of lives today.
My living amends to my mom after all,
I put her through to 30 years of insanity and,
and,
and all the things I did to her in the family,
the Christmas is ID.
I was lost on the money that I stole from them.
The things I did,
the lies that I did saying I was sober and I wasn't sober driving drunk.
All the things I did.
My grandfather may God,
his rest his soul,
picking them up by his neck by his collar.
When he was 80 years old,
the way that I make amends is every single day being a different person.
That's living amends.
My wife is a long talker.
She's she's from Columbia and she's a long talker.
I'm explaining what that means.
It means.
I would prefer her just to tell me to take out the garbage.
Okay,
like,
like the way I operate.
If she could say,
sweetheart,
just take out the garbage.
That's how I operate in like quick form.
I'm in the moment.
I need quick instructions.
My wife will explain to me how garbage is collected in Columbia.
Where it goes.
Her uncle,
her Tio,
Jorge,
what he did in,
in,
in,
in the,
in the war.
How her Tia,
you know,
how she used to help Tio,
Jorge in the war.
And then she can goes and tells me about the children.
My mother's laughing because she knows it's true.
There's a backstory for everything in my house.
You know how I make living amends to my wife for all the harm.
I did her for being a new wife.
For how her having to look out the window and see if I was ever going to come home for me to lie in the teller to the different places.
I was,
we would only married a year when I relapse.
I had seven years and I relapsed.
She used to spend every night looking outside the window to see if I was dead.
You know what I do when my wife goes on and most of the time.
I just listen.
I get to the I'm like.
So what you want me to do is take out the garbage.
That's called living amends.
And then there's family members of her,
which I'm not going to mention from the podium that I've been making living amends for the last 23 years to that.
When I relapsed they stuck up for her and said they stuck up for me and they said give them another shot.
A lot of people in a and Alan on here said you got to leave them her family.
From Columbia stood by my wife,
even though we were only married a year and said stick with them.
And so a lot of the times over the last 23 years,
I wanted to say something sometimes when I go down there and I want to,
you know,
because it's,
you know,
Latinos are,
you know,
very drunk,
you know,
dramatic and I want to say something.
So,
you know what I do except for one time in the last 23 years when I open my big mouth,
you know,
I did in the last 23 years.
Keep my mouth.
Close.
Buy them extra stuff.
No,
no,
I don't mean but they don't need my money.
They're fully self-supporting but going out of the way.
Making sure that they know how much I love them.
I blew it once in 23 years and I'm not going to blow it again.
I go put my big mouth and I shouldn't.
But for 23 years,
I made direct amends because that family stood for me.
That's living amends and I live my life like that and the people that live their life.
Like that the people that brother Lawrence in the book practice the presence of God the people that put this they don't have to put this meeting on in this type of excellence.
The banners are not in the in the how it works the podiums and and lights and and perfect sound and and and this is not all part of the AA thing.
There's a coffee pot and a rickety table in most meetings.
The way that these people put it together is in excellence.
They put it together in excellence because I would imagine they feel the overwhelming responsibility to alcoholics and animals.
They feel like they've been reborn that their life has been changed and every single Thursday for years and years and years.
I've been coming in for 20.
I would imagine 20 years Michael, right?
16 years 16 years.
They've been doing this in excellence.
Showing up early staying late banners up microphones on.
Cameras in excellence lights on this is how we live a different life.
We don't talk about being a different life.
We don't go and tell everybody will live in a different life.
We live a different life.
The people that we get to look up to which is a lot of them here.
Paul's not here tonight, but people that we look up to the people that came before us the ones that we get to emulate.
They remind us of who we are and not about the opinions.
I want to just say it again.
There's a lot of opinions from the podium.
I don't I don't think opinions have any place.
It's about the action.
I don't really need your opinion.
I have my own what I need is your direction.
I need to explain to me how it worked for you.
How did you get to be that type of man?
How did you get to be that type of woman?
Please tell me the things you did so that I can arrive at the same destination that you seem to be at and when that destination is not attractive.
They know how to pivot at 80 years old.
They know how to change.
Because it's not chronologically that makes you better.
It's the work that you do along the journey.
There's a dash.
We're all living in it.
You've heard the story.
We're all in it.
Norm was a big guy.
A couple years ago.
Really big big.
This guy was like tremendous big and you know what he said?
I want to change my dash.
I want to live long.
I'm going to change my dash.
1959.
When were you born Norm?
56. Yeah.
1956 to wherever that is.
I'm going to change my dash so that my story doesn't read.
I died because I didn't want to take care of myself.
My story reads.
I lived a good life in Alcoholics Anonymous helping as many people as I could not being perfect.
But following a program that is perfect for imperfect people.
The result is a close relationship with God.
And the byproduct is yes, I get to go to the grave sober.
God bless you guys.
Thank you so much.