The 36-Hour Treatment Center Stint – Mike D.

Thank you. Wow. Better? Usually my stomach doesn't rumble that loud, but Brian's been feeding me well, so... My name is Michael Donnelly. I'm an alcoholic. I got to tell you, it's a pleasure and a joy to be here tonight. I want to thank Popeye and the committee for asking me to come out. I wantto thank Brian and his beautiful wife, Jo, for filling me around for the last couple of days. You have a beautiful, beautiful part of the country. I've been out here just briefly, but, man, these last coupleof days have been just beautiful. It's an amazing, amazing place. We were down on the boardwalk today. They dropped me off, took a little nap earlier, It was about a 15-hour travel day yesterday. I was a little wiped out. I decided to go out to the beach and just jump around the waves a little bit, and I took my shirt off. Four people, four volunteers from Greenpeace showed up, tried to push me back in the water. So I'll probably not take my shirt of around large areas of water anymore. I was born on the south side of Chicago. My father was a police lieutenant. My father, to this day, is my hero. My dad was an incredible guy. He was a Korean War veteran, served a couple of tours of duty. When the war ended, he came back to the States, worked in San Antonio, Texas as a TI, kind of a drill instructor for the Air Force, and moved back to Chicago after a couple years of doing that and became a police officer, quickly rose through the ranks and became a lieutenant. My mom was just a beautiful Irish Catholic mother, taught us right from wrong, loved us, more threats than actual follow-through. She was just great, you know? Always felt loved, always felt like I had a place in the world, wasn't abused. I feel very grateful for that. God blessed me with tremendous parents. And one day my dad, when I was six years old, I had just turned six, my sister Patty, next of my wife's probably my best friend on the planet. My dad went off to work and he didn't come home. And that wasn't unusual for a police lieutenant on the south side of Chicago, as some of you may guess at. But there was something different about this time. We could just tell something was different. And so anyways, as it turned out, an artery broke in his bowel. And at 42 years old, he passed away. And everything in our life changed from that point. I'm not really sure. I was sort of all a blur, you know? Didn't really have the language to describe it, didn't really know how to talk about it, didn't know what to say about it. Nobody did in our family. My dad was one of those guys that when he was around you just simply felt safe, you know? He was just a tremendous leader and I didn't really know what do with any of that stuff. I didn t really know that what was going on inside of me was even stuff. You You know, I was just a kid. But I think what happened, I'm guessing, is that I sort of turned it inside, right? I got really angry at life. I got angry at God. I got angry at my family. I didn't really know what to say about any of that stuff. And by the time I was 12 years old, you couldn't tell me anything. I mean, if you said left, I went right. If you said right, I Went left. I was out to do anything that was against what you told me. Even in trivial things, it didn't make any difference at all. Loved to play baseball when I was a kid, Baseball's always been a big part of our life. Played softball until I had grandkids, and then they intentionally retired me, you know? But so I've always played ball, and I was about 12 years old, and we're sitting in this field in Mount Greenwood Park, which is a little baseball diamond on the south side of Chicago. And this guy comes up to me, and he was honestly, at that point, he was the coolest-looking guy I'd ever seen in my entire life. He had hair to his mid-back, right? He had a bandana on it with a roach clip and one of those peacock feathers that comes off the back. That you like win at a carnival, right, you know? He had black Doors concert t-shirt on and faded bell-bottom jeans. And he looked at us and he said, hey guys, do you want to get high? And, you Know, we didn't really know what, I didn't know what to say. None of my friends even spoke to him. We just kind of looked up at him. and he reached in his pocket and he pulled out what appeared to be a joint in a lighter and he chucked it in my buddy's lap and my buddy lit that thing and it started coming around in a circle and I got immediately panicked like, I guess I'm getting high today you know, I don't know how to get out of this one you know and it was not on my 11th step that morning too by the way, I had no intention of having that happen and I remember thinking to myself right as this kid growing up on the south side that there were at least a couple of differences between smoking pot and smoking cigarettes. We had stolen enough cigarettes from my parents where we knew how to smoke, right? It was hard to be cool in the south side of Chicago. My mom smoked Vantage 100s. Those are not the... It's like the longest cigarette in the history of cigarettes. You know, when you're 12 and your arm isn't long enough to light your smoke, you cannot be cool. It's just an unwritten rule. Turn quickly, burn your friend in the temple. Like, it's just not... It doesn't go well. So I knew howto smoke, But it's coming around in a circle, and I remember thinking there were at least two big differences between smoking my mom's cigarettes and what was going to happen now. And the first one was when you smoke a cigarette, you hold it like this, but apparently when you smok a joint, you Hold It Like That. Huge difference. I think we can all agree with that. And then the second thing was that when you smoked cigarettes, you're supposed to exhale right away. But when you smoked pot, you're supposedly apparently holding it in, right? And you cannot choke on your dope smoke. Like, that is the biggest loser move ever. So it's Coming Around a Circle, and I have the index thumb finger technique down, and I grab it, take a couple of paths, and move it on. Held it in for a little while, exhaled, didn't get high, didn' t get stung, nothing happened. Didn' t eat, you know, postage snack cakes or Doritos, didn' T stare at a Blacklight Jimi Hendrix poster, like nothing happened, and so years later, right, I'm looking back at this, and like, I don' t even know if that was pot. Like for all I know, some 17-year-old thought he was really funny giving a bunch of 12-year olds some oregano rolled up in one of his zigzags, and I had no idea what I even smoked that day, but literally the next day, I'm walking down the alley in Chicago, and a buddy of mine comes up to me, and he says, Mike, do you get high? Well, with all my drug-using experience, two hits off some Mrs. Dash, I thought, you know, yeah, dude, I get high, and so he reaches in his pocket, he pulls out a joint and a lighter, and I had a fundamentally different experience. We did eat tons of Doritos and hostess snack cakes and spent the afternoon staring at his older brother's Blacklight Jimi Hendrix poster. And for the next few years, if you could light it on fire, I was smoking it. When I hit about 16, a whole bunch of stuff changed. A whole bunch of stuff change. We got wheels. We could move around the city a little bit. We can go into the city and buy booze. We go out to the suburb and buy boos. We cannot buy that in our local neighborhood. Everybody knew everybody couldn't do it. Unless maybe an older brother of one of your friends did it or you stole it from your folks at a party or something like that. But You had to have a thing. You had a deal going on to get booze, right? When we hit 16, everything changed, and the dope went away. People say, well, you shouldn't talk about drugs in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I think you're probably right if, you know, under certain guidelines, right, I think that's probably right. The reason that I bring it up is because I have a very distinct difference in my thinking on this. Mine goes like this. I got a list. I got two lists. So I got one list that says all of the things that I have used to distract me from looking at me in my life. And drugs are absolutely on that list, but you know, so is watching too much TV, right? And so is promoting myself, right, and so is money and career, right. And man, all kinds of stuff are on that list, right overworking, oversleeping, like a whole bunch of stats, a long list. The other list I have is the things that made me feel whole and complete. And I've only found two things on that list. Drugs is not on that list. Never has been, never will be. What's on this list is alcohol and the God that I found from working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Those are the only two things I've found on that list. Drank my way through high school. I missed 42 days of school my senior year. I went on to college. I was there about a year and a half. Drank my way out of there. By the time I was 19 years old, I was drunk five, six nights a week. I was always the kid drunk in the back of the seat, passed out. When your friend's got a car and he's riding around the city, I'm the guy passed out? I was the guy that had a smart aleck comment for the cute girl at the party whose older, larger football player boyfriend was on the other side of the party that nobody knew that was here. I was a guy who passed out on his lawn at 19 years old, clutching my second bottle of wild turkey. I don't know why I have this disease, but I know for a fact that I have the disease. And I say that today with some level of understanding of what that disease is. When I was 17, 18, 19 years, I had no idea what that meant. I thought it meant got drunk a lot. That's truly what I thought alcoholism was. I though alcoholism was something that meant you got drunk alot. Today I see it very differently thanks to the directions in the big book and good sponsorship. But when I was 21 years old, I decided to put myself into treatment. I was there for 36 hours and I left. I can't believe you're laughing at that. That's all right. Group four step group four step. It's the whole idea of that, right? I mean, I went in there with absolute certainty that I needed help, absolute certainty that I wanted help, absolute willingness to do whatever they told me to do. And I met a person in there who was worse off, in my opinion, at that time than I was. And the very first thought in my head is when I get that bad, I'm coming back. So I drank for another three years, did all the things we do, ran into all kinds of trouble like most of us do. I never went to prison, never been divorced. I had all these things when I came to the meetings, and I would listen to you guys tell your stories that I was different from you. I'd never been to prison, or been to jail, which is very different. I think we can all agree with that. Never been divorced, right? Couldn't get anybody to marry me, but that wasn't part of the thought process at that time. It's a very... I didn't know that was step one in getting divorced. I just... I was just different. I don't know, when I crash landed in Alcoholics Anonymous it went something like this I had about had it with my booze and myself I had hurt enough people I had a fiance, she left and rightly so She was a good, good lady and a good person a wonderfully hearted person and I treated her terribly in every way imaginable She didn't deserve any of that and she contributed really to none of it everything in my life was going crazy downhill except for one thing my work I would uh for some reason I was good at my job I landed this job with a big company they were opening up in a little town called Bolingbrook Illinois which is a suburb of Chicago and a buddy of mine who worked for the parent company said hey they're opening up a branch there you should go and apply so I went and applied they needed 32 sales reps you're looking at 32 had 33 people applied that day. I have no idea how my story would go, but it doesn't matter. 32 applied. So I show up for training, right? And I don't know about any of you, but some people are born with chips on their shoulder. I was born with a chunk, right. It's a little bigger than a chip. And I always feel, I always feels different. I just always feel different. I feel like all the rest of the world is all ahead of me and I have to somehow catch up. I'm sort of always in catch-up mode, right, and so I always feel like I have do twice the work just to be even with you. I don' t know where I got that from. But I'm sitting in this training class with the other 31 winners, and they're all from University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois, Indiana University, Loyola, Purdue, and there's me. And I drank my way out of college in a year and a half. I knew I was going to fail, I knew that I wasn't going to be good at this, but the one thing I remember my mom teaching me is if they ever ask you if you want training raise your hand. If they ever offer some training just raise your hand, so I did that, I almost dislocated my shoulder with that. I felt so far behind all these people, I felt like I needed to do twice the work just to catch up and be even. And so I'd always be doing this, always be doing this. So they'd give me opportunities to go to training. And I learned some stuff, and I did really well. And I went on to win a bunch of awards. I won national sales contests there. I did a lot of really good things there.I was drunk most of the time. But I did real good things with my career. And I feel very blessed because of that. So I'm at this work, and I meet this guy, and his name is Brian. And Brian was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He had seven years of sobriety when he finally 12-stepped me into the program, thank God. But I met him three years before that. And he would sort of drop, just every now and then, just sort of dropping a story about what life was like. And every now und then, dropping a little story about what he'd experienced inside himself, maybe something that had happened at a meeting or somebody that he knew or some crazy thing that was wonderfully blessing, some big blessing in his life, some wonderful blessing in His life. And it was just intriguing to me, right? And so anyways, I got nothing left except the job at this point. And the way my office went is there's an L-shaped hallway. And I'm leaning, I have two forearms like in the corners of that L-shape hallway and I'm putting my head up against my fists and I try to figure out how to kill myself without my mom knowing it was suicide. trying to figure out some angle to get off this planet without actually letting my mom know that that's how that was and I had two or three things that zipped through my head and from behind me I heard this question and frankly it's a question I've been asked my whole life I've Been Asked This Question and it's Mike are you okay hey Mike you okay hey Mike okay and I got to tell you every single time prior to that day I had some snarky, smart-alecky remark as a reply to it. I had som sort of writing off the question, hey, don't worry, it's okay. I got this man, everything's cool. I always had some arrogant little snark thing to say to that question. Never recognizing that the person who was asking me must have cared something about me or they would never even be asking that question, right? I was too afraid to tell anybody what was going on in here. They could see what was goin' on out here, wasn't pretty. but they had no idea, or at least I didn't think so that what was going on in here that they would have any concept of except Brian I kind of knew would so I turned to Brian and I said no man, I'm not okay and he said you want to go to a meeting and I lied to him and told him yeah and we went off to this meeting it's called the Lamont Oaks Group of Alcoholics Anonymous it's in Palos Park, Illinois on Monday nights at 7 o'clock to about 7.45 they have a newcomers meeting and it's a tremendous meeting there's a little attorney there and he runs up and down the little chairs and he points his finger at the new people and asks them questions about the big book and after that meeting you take your chairs which are red and you bring them into the gymnasium where there's somewhere between 250 or 300 people who have more than a year of sobriety you went to the newcomers meeting for a full year sat in those red chairs and you brought your red chair into that meeting so that the regular members the home group members could recognize hey, there's a guy hey, here's a gal with a red chair I wonder if they have a phone number I wonder If they have big books I wonder They know where the coffee is and wonder if They know where the bathroom is So if you sat in a red Chair You were like the center of attention, man Like they would come up and ask you those questions right in your face, right? It was unbelievable And I couldn't stand it I hated it I hated everything about it And I left, you know. About six weeks later, I came back. I don't think I drew a sober breath in that six-week period. It was bad. It was very, very bad. And I came to the hospital. I came home and I came out and I said, I came down to Alcoholics Anonymous on August 27th of 1991. Please God, just stay. And I haven't left since. And there was something very different about this experience than I had had with the treatment center or the things that I had tried in the past. I really don't know why, but I just fell in love with your stories. I was just so drawn to you as a group of people. I couldn't believe the things you would say about yourselves right in front of other people, right? I mean, into your pillow with tears running down your face, I get, right, but when it's just you and you're sitting there and there's other people some you know and some you don't know and your stories just come out I don't have anything more attractive than that in the spiritual life. I really don't. It's just fascinating to me, right? And so I started to listen and listen and I get this promotion that came going to meetings with Brian and I don't know, a couple of months into sobriety, I getthis promotion and I'm supposed to move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And I had heard in meetings all kinds of like warnings, you know, don't make any changes in your life for a first year, you know, all these things and I'm not saying any of those are bad, but I sat down with Brian about it and I said, hey, here's this deal and I don't know what to do with work and I're not supposed to do anything for the first year. Brian said, well, I don' t know if you remember us saying this about 7,000 times, but he looked right at me in the eye and he said, I'm going to say it again. He said, I don''t keep me sober. I don ''t keep my sober. I've never been able to keep me sore. He said the reason I have the time I have isn't really even about all the things that I do it's about this grace that I found it's God who actually keeps me sober and if it's God who is actually keeping you sober then you can go to South Dakota and you can flourish and everything can be fine if it is you doing it, bad deal it is going to end in disaster like the 4,000 other times you have tried this you know you know I found out that he was right I moved to South Dakotah I didn't, I was afraid of bank accounts I don't know if I have any bank account for your fellows out there, but that was me. I don't know why, I just, I was petrified of them. And what I would do is I would go to the currency exchange, I'd get my check and I'd go to the currency interchange. I'd pay everything in cash, right? I just—I mean, I were scared to death. It just felt like a commitment to me, you know? God forbid we do that, you Know? And so I don' t have any money. I'm making money. I'm makin' very good money. And that was another thing that kind of left my head after a while, was the idea that my money problems would leave if I made more money. I had no idea they're completely unrelated topics, right? Because if my spending pattern is $400 to $500 more a month than I make, I'm always going to have money problems no matter what I make. But I never knew that. Never knew that." So I'm living in this place called the Knight's Inn. By the way, I want to just give a little plug for my home group Meaning, if any of you are ever traveling west and you come through South Dakota, please look us up. We're the Treasure Map Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. We meet on Thursday nights from 7 to 8.30. The Treasure Map meeting comes from a line from one of my absolute heroes in Alcoholics Anonymous who has passed away. His name was Sandy B. And Sandy used to say that the big book is not the treasure. God is the treasure." The big book isn't the treasure map. You follow the treasure maps, find the treasure, and uh that's why we need our meeting that and so if you come there we have anywhere between i don't know 40 to 70 people every thursday night love to have you come by have a cup of coffee we'll chat a little bit we'll have some fun i hope so you're all welcome but if you Come There Don't Stay Where I Stay That Was The Nights In On 12th Street Stay Away From That Place Because If The Fleas Don't Push You Out Of That Room The Bed Bugs Will So Unless You Have No Money And Nowhere Else To Stay Then I Guess You're Staying There So Brian Would Wire Me Money through Western Union I would pay my bill for the next week at a weekly rate that I paid and then I'd get my check I'd run to the currency exchange and wire the money back to Brian. And I did that for months and I remember I was going to meetings and going to meetings and Brian would call me every day so I did that. And he said hey, did you go to a meeting last night? I said yeah, yeah, meetings are terrible here though there's no red chairs you know I just I was not you know it's compared I just wasn't there you know I didn't know what was going on and so I I get to this spot where I feel like I need to get a sponsor so I'm talking to Brian about what that might look like and he said just you know just keep going you'll figure it out it'll happen when you need to and so i meet this guy and his guy's name is Joe Friday that's a great name for an AA sponsor right and Joe's passed but he was that guy saved my life I mean he absolutely saved my life and Joe I would I could be in a meeting and I wouldn't know what anybody was really talking about and I would sit down with Joe for five seconds like it happened that quick and I Would say Joe they said this and they said this and They said this And I don't know What they're talking about he's like oh they mean that that that thought and I Would get it like Joe is the translator for me It's like you were all speaking a different language and Joe could translate right and it was just a immediate connection and we had nothing in common at all right, like I thought I was a pretty cool young guy up and comer from south side of Chicago, right, wore suits to work, did all that stuff, living in the Knights Inn with no bank accounts, that's not the point and then and then there was Joe, right and Joe wore pointed cowboy boots and those western shirts with like the snaps on them but there's no buttons, right chewed tobacco you know, had like a construction guy, just calloused up hands. I just didn't think we had anything in common at all. It's because I was looking at exteriors and not interiors. Which I recognize is one of the biggest problems in my life. But I said to Joe, hey, Joe, I was wondering if you, I heard about this sponsorship thing and there's this, we're supposed to have one or something and I'm kind of wondering and I am sputtering out sentence fragments to this guy And he just, he didn't make me feel bad about it, though. I think he was very gracious to me. And he said, I'll tell you what, kid, we'll go for coffee, and if, I don't know, I'll say my story, you tell me your story, and if we think we can work together after that process, I'll sponsor you. And I said, okay, that'd be great. So we went to this place called the Crack Pot. I know, how ironic. And, not kidding, wish I was making that up, but it's true. And we sat there and we chain smoked and chugged coffee in those days, you could do that, and we just, he just told me his story. And it was done. He said, okay, you go. And I said, well, and I started off on this rambling of just, I don't know what. And he kind of almost rudely kind of cut me off. And he said, kid, you have no idea what alcoholism is, do you? And I'm like, yeah. And I asked him, well yeah. And he goes, well what is it? And I says, well it's when you're drunk a lot. You have the urine stained Levi's, You have the legal bills. You have a broken relationship thing. You got the lies, right? And I said, well, yeah, kind of, but no, not really. And then he said something to me that literally altered the way I look at Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholism, recovery, everything. Everything. You could almost mark a line in the time of what he said to me next in my life. Because what he says changed everything. He said, hey, kid, alcoholism and drunkenness have nothing in common with each other. And it just sounded like a heresy to me, you know? Like, I mean, I've been in enough meetings now, right? And I know it's about drunkenness. I mean that's all we talk about. He said no, no,no,no. And so he very gently, very compassionately from his own work began to just ask me questions and have a dialogue with me about step one, and I didn't even know he was doing it. That's how kind he was, right? I didn' t have to look at the finger. You don' t know anything. You' re terrible. You' r a new guy. I didn''t have to hear that, right. He just said, well, let' s talk about your drinking a little bit, and so we did. I had no idea he was walking me through the first part of the chapter seven, working with others. I hadno idea. So we talked about my drinking a littlebit, and then we talkedabout some of the thoughts that preceded my first drink. talked about my desire to try to quit and try to quit and how I'd always go back and always go back in the thoughts that preceded that process. I had no idea he was talking to me about the chapter more about alcoholism. He never belittled me with his knowledge and my lack of it. They were never compared in his mind. He didn't expect me to know things he had already known because I hadn't studied or learned them yet. He didn'T feel it was his job to belittle me because he had that knowledge and I didn't. But he did feel it was his job to walk me through that. And so we went through this thing, and we started talking about this allergy to alcohol that Dr. Silkworth talks about in The Doctor's Opinion. And you know, I got that. And you knows what? I still got that, and it's likely I'm going to have that until I die. And I had no idea there was something physiologically wrong with me. I got to tell you, that changed the nature of how I view this thing. See, I thought I was weak-willed and immoral and a trash pot. And I thought it was all those things. And maybe some of those, right? But I thought the reason I was liquored up all the time was because I wanted to be. And don't get me wrong, I wanted to be, but I got to tell you the last six months of hell, and if you're with me on this tonight we'll connect, I'm sure. I did not want to be the person I was the last six months of my drinking. Did not want to be. Ended up being that, but did not want it to be that. Maybe last year, I don't know. But somewhere, the laughter stopped. Somewhere, it wasn't funny anymore. I became a joke. A huge difference between those two. And at some point, I wanted a different life, and I tried and tried and tried and failed and failed, and failed. And I had no idea why. so we went through this process and he told me about my drink and he would tell me about it he said did you ever go out and intend not to get drunk and end up violently drunk yeah do you know why that happened no well let's read a little bit and we talked about things like the phenomenon of craving and when people like me digest alcohol and what happens to us right that this phenomenon of craving doesn't occur in normal tempered drinkers they only occur in people like me. I didn't know that, and so he said something to me. Again, a very powerful thing. He said alcoholism, sorry, Alcoholics Anonymous does not have a solution for drunkenness. Alcoholics Anonymous has a solution the first drink. You never take a first drink, you never take the 13th. You see, I'm sitting here as a new person in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm judging all my problems. If this is the first drink. I'm judging them about number 13. Number four, I'm judging him about this. And I'm thinking if I can just not be this, I'll be better. I was like, no, no. Here's the problem. Right here is the problem. The first one. Okay. So then I looked at him. I said, so the goal is to not take the first one? He's like, yes. Good work. The progress you're making is spectacular. So he says, why do you think you keep taking the first drink? And I go, I don't know. And he goes, maybe, maybe it's the thoughts you have that lead you up to it. So let's talk about that. So we did. We talked about it quite a while and he asked me questions and we went through these things, talking about strange mental blank spots, the weighing it out, should I, shouldn't I, right? Pounding on the bar after too going darn i should just keep going now went through all that stuff i didn't know he was doing it i didn' t know he's walking me through the book he needed this to connect first because our book says unless there's not a connection here little or nothing can be accomplished if i didn''t connect with him at a level that was deeper than just hey we're drunks and we all drank together and we all drank maybe differently but we all drink a lot ha ha ha we all drank a lot he wanted to go differently than that he wanted to get me into Alcoholics Anonymous the program so he kept asking me questions and we went through that stuff and so I came to the conclusion that yes I got this thing this allergy to alcohol and I have this mind that lies to me the doctor's opinion says I have an inability to differentiate the true from the false that my mind tells me stories and I just believe them I live by this rule if i think it it must be true that was the rule i live by if i think it must be true sure you can go out and have two no big deal and if you hook me up to a lie detector test especially in those last six or eight or ten months of my drinking i would have passed that thing i would have absolutely passed that test because i had full intention of having two or three and going home because i didn't want the hell from last night to be repeated tonight truthfully i was done saying sorry to people that I loved. My guts ache about me so bad. Like, you'll, I think you'll understand this, right? Because you look like, you know, kind of a desperate crowd. Anyways, the whole idea of like, I got tired, I get tired of saying I'm sorry. People would say to me, my mom would say to be, why did you do that? And I'd be like, and I go to my answer file and I pull that out. File's empty. I don't know. I don't no. You're, you're, right? What else could she do? I truly didn't know why I did half the crap I did. I had no idea. I was as stunned at it as the witnesses. You know, I had no idea and lying. Lying was an art form. I was stunned at the lies that would pour out of my mouth. I mean, I could lie without any thought process and just have a stream of story pouring out of me and being like, that was good. Like I didn't even think about it. It wasn't pre-planned. I would just open my mouth and crap would flow out of it, you know? And again, as stunned as the listeners, I really tied that well together. Something was wrong with me and I thought it was drinking. It was not drinking. And truthfully, if I am honest with you, it never was drinking. So Joe, after doing this, he says, Mike, do you have an allergy to alcohol? I said, yeah. He said, Mike do you have a mind that lies to you? I said, Yeah. He said, That's really good kid. We're about two-thirds of the way through this threefold understanding that you need and I got some bad news. And I said what's that? He said if in fact you have a physical allergy to alcohol we have no help for you. Alcoholics Anonymous cannot help you because we're not doctors. We can't change your physiology. That means you're going to have that allergy to alcohol to the day you die. The only way to not trigger that thing is don't take the first drink." He said, oh and by the way that mind that lies to you that creates stories and fiction out of just thin air, yeah we have no cure for that either. Contrary to popular belief Alcoholics Anonymous is not loaded with therapists, counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists I'm sure it doesn't apply out here in Maryland but in Sioux Falls we have some folks who really believe, you know. And I'm glad he told me that. I'm glad he said that. So I looked at him and I said, well, then what do we do here? I mean, if we're not working on the body and we're not working out in the mind, what are we working on? And again, another line in the sand of my life. He looked me right in the eye and he said, we work on your broken soul, kid. It's the only thing we do here. We're fellow travelers and we share our experience about how God can fix broken souls. And I was like, wow, right? That's some heavy stuff, you know, and I was really new. But again, I didn't know he was going to that doctor's opinion, right. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have what? Depth and weight. Not a meeting schedule and a phone number in hopes someone calls. That's not 12-step work. Maybe it's a part of it. Maybe it is a part of it, but I'm looking at him like he said, Mike, do you have an allergy to alcohol? I said, yeah. He said, Mike, do you have a lying mind? I said, yeah. He said Mike, do you have a broken soul? And I wanted to say yes, but I have a broken soul. So I said I'm not sure maybe I mean I don't know because Because I thought, like, the Jesus talk was coming. Like, I was positive that was next, and I was scared of that, you know? And he said, well, I'll tell you what. Let's just chat a little bit, and give you some information. You can just answer the questions in your head. No, no, better yet, just answer them to me. I said, okay. So he said," Mike, is it wrong to lie?" And I said," Well, yeah." And he says," Do you lie?" Well, only when absolutely necessary. It's the only time, really, that I would do that. He said, Mike, is it wrong to talk disrespectfully to your mother? And I went, yeah. And he's like, how's that relationship going? Pretty bad. Although I was sober, I couldn't walk into a room without my mom saying hi to me and me hearing this. You disgust me. You know what kind of deplorable human being you are, my son? I mean, truthfully, like, I know you're in the family, but I really wish you weren't. I got to tell you, my mother never said that, never smelled at it, never sniffed at it. But when she said, hi, son, that's what I heard. And I responded to what I thought I heard rather than what she said. my mom couldn't say hi to me without me saying god-awful terrible things to her he said mike do you think it's wrong to objectify and use women and i went well yeah and he goes how's your relationships going well maybe not so good and he must have gone through i don't know 20 to 25 behavior questions is it wrong ought you should you is it wrong ought to should you and I got all of those right many talked about application questions and I all of those wrong he said Mike the number one symptom of a broken soul is lack of power and when you know what to do and you can't pull it off no matter how much you try that's a sign that that you're powerless, kid. And it was like, whoa. It just landed at that moment. And he goes, and by the way, all that criticism you do of your mom, and bytheway, I've heard you in meetings talk about your dad's death. You know, you say it so well, you can almost hear the violins playing in the background, like, and then when I was six, my dad died. You know? I mean, how disrespectful to treat my father's death as a tool for you to pity me or me to get an advantage over you. How disrespectful to my father. Like I couldn't even see that, you know? And he's like, look, I don't know who raised you or where you came from, but I just want you to remember one thing. And I said, what's that? He's like you got all the behavior questions right. So wherever it is you think you came from, you've got to at least give them this. They taught you right. Because you got them all right. Huh. Right? So he said, do you have a broken soul? I said, yeah. And you got the lie in mind? He said, yes. Allergy? Yeah. He said good. Step one is done. He said if you want to do the rest of them, I'll work with you but at least I know if you leave, you know what alcoholism is. And see that also helped me because what Joe taught me and countless listening to countless big book studies over the time I've been sober trying to learn more and understand what this thing is I think those early days kind of go like this. If we give newcomers the right information. They can do what we did, which is take that information and throw it up against their life. And then they get to answer yes or no. I got it or I don't. I've got a bodily allergy to alcohol. I go it. Why? Because someone told me what it was like. And then I could think about it and say does my behavior mirror that? And it did. It mirrored that. And Joe talked about the mind that lied to him. And I could hear stories about that And then I could throw my own personal experience up against those stories and say, do I have that? I did. And then the broken soul thing, same thing, right? See, I think that step one is a conclusion that we draw based on our own experience, based on the information we get from the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, whether it's the written AlcoholicsAnonymous textbook or it's in meetings or sponsors or friends or CDs. And by the way, just a moment on the side here, right, So Dicob is here. Tremendous people, right? Kenny and Mike, let's give them a hand real quick. Look, we have a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous that have gone on before us, from Bill Wilson all the way up to many of the people we talked about tonight, Sandy B., Chuck C., right? How would we ever get to hear them? How would be ever get that knowledge and wisdom passed on so cleanly? throwing in a disc in our CD player or an MP3 player in our earplugs. So thank you very much for the ministry you do, man. Support those guys. It's not an easy deal. Thank you. But the idea, right? The idea that I'm supposed to take this information and throw it up against my personal experience and ask myself, does that apply to me? Like, only I can answer that. Only I can answer that, right. But if I'm getting wrong information about what it is, and I'm throwing that stuff up against myself because we're doing it anyway, aren't we? I mean, we'redoing it anyway. I had to concede to my innermost self that I was alcoholic, that I had a bodily allergy, that i have a mind that lies to me and a broken soul. So I looked at Joe and I said, sure, I'll do the rest of the steps. I have no idea really what that means, but I'm in. He grabbed me somewhere that no one else said, grab me. And he said, well, tell me about your idea of God. So I lit a Marlboro and chugged a couple cups of coffee and said, Well, he must be big and he must be nice. Okay, tell Me more about that. And I said, Well, if you go outside and you look around, like there's a whole bunch of stuff out there and it's big. And so whatever made it like must be bigger than it. And he's like, not bad. You're crazy, but not bad, you know? And then he said, why nice? And I almost, almost broke a tear, but I didn't. And I said, I think he's nice because I know I don't deserve a second chance or another chance and I think He's given me one. And he said good. We're moving on. Do you think God, do you think that your God is big enough to restore you to some level of sanity. And I went, well, he must be. He must be, and he said, why? And I said, we have the same disease and you're sitting right across from me with eight years of sobriety. So if he can solve your problem, he must able to solve mine if we have this same problem. We have different problems, maybe not. But you and I, Joe, we are. We have the exact same problem and he's a good step two is done and we went to this Alano clubhouse and we got on our hands and knees and we said the third step prayer and we're done when we say may do they will always he said I'm standing up he grabs my arm he goes let's not be confused here he said what we just did was make a commitment that was verbalized through the words of the third step but it really means this I'm committing to working 4-12 that's what step 3 means to Joe on that day as we knelt there right it means a whole bunch more to me now but that's what it meant that day he said if you've decided to turn your will and your life over to the care of God I'm going to ask you Mike how do you do that I said I don't know he said then you got to trust the founders of this program and take that leap that 4 through 12 is how we fulfill the decision in step 3 because on page 64 which I didn't know them but I know today says our decision meaning step 3 was a vital and crucial step. It could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, I was taught that's four and five, and to be rid of, I was thought that's six through 12, the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. So step three is certainly a prayer and God bless that prayer. It's been a lifesaver for me many, many times in my recovery, for sure. But it's a commitment to do the rest of the work. At least that's what I was taught. I said, okay. We stood up and he handed me a piece of paper and a pen and he said, write down your resentments, your fears, and your sex conduct. And I went, my resentments and my fears? He said, no, your resentements, your fears and your sexual conduct. And I wrote down everything that I possibly could on resentment and we went through the different columns and we had a conversation just stepping it through. He didn't expect me to memorize the big book to do this. He was hand-walking me through this process. And we got to resentments and he said, pretty good. Now I want to talk about the prayer in there. He said, Mike, there's three parts to every four step. You're thinking about it, you're writing about it and you're praying about it. I said, oh, I remember hearing about this because I was in a meeting one time and there was a lady there and she said that if you resent someone you're supposed to pray for them for like, I think it was like 12 weeks or something and then it goes away. And look, I'm not going to talk anybody out of praying for somebody they resent. Like that's just a great act of love, right? So that's very good. But in our text, it actually tells me to pray for me. As if I'm the chief victim of my own resentment. God save me from being angry. Save me from my own anger? Yeah. And then we went on to fears. We walked through that. Columns, checks, did all this stuff. Slowly, one by one, went through the process, prayed, right? We asked God to remove our fear and show us who we would have us be at once we commence to outgrow fear. Then we moved into the sex conduct thing, and I had a lot of questions about this whole thing, and I was very confused about it. And I don't know about out here, but where I come from, right, we have tons of meetings on resentment and tons of meeting on fear, but almost no meetings on sex conduct. And when I first looked at that inventory, I thought it was a sexual intercourse inventory. I'm just telling you what I thought, right? I mean, what else could sex conduct mean? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We all know we're getting that, right? He said, no, Mike, no. Just relax, kid. We're going to be all right. See, on a job application, there's a few definitions of the word sex. One's a noun. That's, I think, the one we're looking for. It's not a verb. So if you fill out a job application that says sex, you don't say please right after the interview, do you? Well, depending on your benefits package, maybe. You don't do it. You pick one. You pick one, Mike. This is about your conduct as a man living in your life with your circumstances. And some of those other things, some of those other sexual things certainly need to be looked at here, but maybe not. Maybe that's not all. And I got to tell you, I was very afraid to look at what Michael Donnelly might or should be doing as a man that he wasn't doing. That scared the daylights out of me. But I got everything that I could down on paper, and I went through the four columns, and Joe walked me through that, and he said, let's open up the text again. So we did, right? Smack dab in the middle of page 69. He says, we got all this down on newspaper, and we looked at it, and we asked ourselves, what should we have done instead? What should we Have Done Instead? so I take this four step and I'm going back through it and I am answering that question what should I have done instead he said do you have all your insteads I said yeah he said ok let's keep reading it says in this way we try to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life so I took all my insteads as best I could and I tried to develop some level of principles that came from those because I knew the opposite It had been wronged me, and it hurt other people. So I shaped a somewhat sane and somewhat sound ideal for my future sex life. Now over the years that's been refined and tweaked and moved forward, right? With more inventory. But I went to this priest because he told me to. Go tell this priest your fifth step. Father opened with a prayer so it would be him and myself and God. And I invited God into that process. And I sat there and I told this priest everything that I had written down. And it says in the book that we're supposed to take an hour afterward on page 75 and ask myself some questions. Are the stones properly in place? Have I tried to make mortar without sand? All that kind of stuff, right? So I don't go home. I go to this park. And I sort of asked myself the questions, but I sortof didn't. Like, I wasn't good at this thing then. Not good at it now. I was worse then. But I tried. right? Like I was, I was a maggot who was trying not to be a maggott. And somehow in that goofy sincerity level, even though it was low, it was sincere and honest. God worked in that. And I left that park just sort of feeling different. Sort of knowing that he was going to be with me. Sort of feeling like I wasn't by myself anymore. sort of feeling like I was actually a part of this fellowship instead of someone who went to meetings and I went to Joe and I said I did that and he said good good now let's say the six and seven step prayer and we did and he had a very sort of literal way of looking at that you know we talk a lot and a lot a lot about six and seven and they're fairly simple they're prayer requests he said I want you to think about I want you to ask God to remove the things in your life that you have found objectionable, right? So I did. I went through and I said, blah, blah. He said, those things that you don't want him to remove, I want you to be honest about that. And those things, step six says, all we do is pray for the willingness we don't have. It doesn't say I'm a bad person. It Doesn't say, I'm crazy. It doesn't Say I'm the less lower member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It Doesn't Say That My Defects Are Bigger Than Your Defect. Doesn't Say Any Of That. It Says If I See Them And I Own Them And I still don't want them to go away. Pray for the willingness. Pray for what I don't have and keep moving forward. It doesn't say don't work eight and nine until you're ready. It says pray for the willingness in six, say the seven step prayer and then the next line is now we need more action. Now. I got to tell you I had very little willingness to change some of the ways I handled money until I got to step eight and nine. And when I got to eight and mine, I had to look at these financial things that needed to be made right. I suddenly became willing as I chipped away at the iceberg that was in front of me and found out it wasn't really an iceberg. I just thought it was. I had all these relationship things that I knew if I showed myself really to someone that they would leave, like why wouldn't they leave? Look at me. Why wouldn't you leave? Like I'm not going to tell you about me. I'm nicht going to have intimacy with you. I can share my heart with you. You're going to leave like why wouldn't you leave? I want to leave. I know what it is, and I want to go. If I show you, you're going to go, and until I started making relationship amends and amends with women that I had hurt and really got in and actually started checking names off my A-step of people that I had harmed in my relationships, suddenly those defects began to dissipate, and I began to become a little bit better listener to people that I called family, people that I loved, people that were close to me. And suddenly, over time of checking these things off that A-step, a whole new world came into view. A whole new worldview. A whole world. I had this idea because I lived in South Dakota that all the people that i needed to make amends to were somehow going to magically show up in front of me and that was God's way of telling me it was time to make the amend. And Joe is very clear. He said, Mike, you went out of your way to harm these people. You must go out of Your way to make it right. Thank God for that guy. He loved me enough to tell me the truth, even if it hurt my feelings. Because he knew that my feelings were based in lies. I just admitted that to him in step one. So he said, I've got a better idea. Here's what we're going to do. You're going leave work on Friday afternoon. You're gonna drive to Chicago, 10-hour drive. and you're going to make amends all day Saturday and as much as you can on Sunday and you have to be back home for work Monday morning on time and I did that for months I found people that I had hurt fellow classmates I found teachers and family members I went to my mom had a big long conversation with my mom and that didn't go very well so I came back and I was talking to him and I said I don't know how to make Amends to my Mom He said, the problem is, kid, you're starting with the wrong position. See, you have the idea that you had a bad mother. The truth is she had a Bad Son. Plus, you don't know how to love anybody yet. You don't Know How To Listen To Anyone Yet. Let Alone Sacrifice To Make Sure That Person Knows They're Loved In Spite Of Their Weaknesses. You're Not Even Close To That. So Here's What We're Going To Do. All I Want You To Do Is Call Your Mom Every Week. And I WantYou To Ask Her Two Questions. And the first question is, hey mom, how was your week? And whatever she says, whatever that answer is All you say back to her is, wow, that sounds interesting Could you tell me more about that? He goes, but early on You know, we're, I don't know, I'm four months sober at this point Or five months soberat this point He said, early on She's not going to trust you She still thinks you're the guy that broke into her living room window And took money out of her purse Right? And lied to her and ruined Thanksgiving That's who she thinks you are Give her some steed here, man let her let her experience you over time and he was right the first call is like hey mom how was your week fine wow that sounds interesting could you tell me more about that I mean that went on for weeks right she didn't know what to say to me how could she but I kept doing it and kept doing it and I got to tell you something amazing happened her answers got longer well you know mike uh i work uh this week and kitty across the street we're gonna go to lunch on sunday and roberta next door she's gonna take me to mass and i gotta get the dog cleo to the vet you know it's gonna be a busy week yeah and i didn't care about anything i heard but i kept doing it and i keptdoingit and finally one day and i don't even know when it was. A few months after that, maybe. Maybe it was a few weeks. I truly don't remember. But some miracle happened where I began to actually care about the answers that my mother gave me. And before my eyes, I became a son. I was five years sober and my sister, who again, is a great person and one of my best friends on the planet, if not my best next to my wife. She's so good, man. Like she's just so not like me, you know? Like she got all my, my mom had a stroke and so she had all this stuff organized right for the will and what we're gonna do with the house and all this stuff organized my mom would agree do it all she brings over the package she's like here sign this my mom's like is that the paperwork yeah it is and she sticks it my my mom always kept her mail like underneath the napkin holder on the kitchen table you know and she just sticks it under there patty goes aren't you going to sign that and she'slike we're going to wait for mike to come home this is a family decision and until all of our family is here and we talk about it Then I'll sign it. I got to tell you, man, that may not mean anything to anybody sitting in this room. It may not means anything to anybody. But it absolutely means everything to me. I was incapable of being a son. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous not to drink. And you looked past that. You gave me the opportunity to be a son and I can never pay that back. You can never pay that back. I wrote a letter to my dad, and I went to his grave. My dad was an extraordinarily honorable man. Very disciplined man. And I was not. And I wrote him this letter, and it took me about 25 minutes or so to read it next to his graved, and nothing happened. You know, he didn't rise from the dead, and the Lord didn't come down. Like, nothing dramatic happened. But I left that gravesite knowing somehow in a space I can't really pinpoint, but is me, is almost the real me, somewhere inside of me. That my dad was with me. And I venture to say that he might even be proud of me, which is miraculous. Money. I had $40,000 in credit card debt by this time, and there was no big screen TVs on there. It was all like pizza and beer money. It was just late fees and high interest rate. It was crazy. and I just went at it with a shovel, and I paid as little bit as I can. I didn't file federal income tax for four years prior to joining Alcoholics Anonymous or Illinois State Tax. That can happen to anybody, really, when you think about it. So I began chipping away at that. Three and a half years, I sent checks to the IRS. There's only two that I wanted to send. The first one so I could brag to Joe that I was doing it, and the last one when I found some freedom in that. every other month there was a reason why it wasn't going to work I just knew that this month wasn't gonna work I maybe had a medical bill or I maybe had more I don't know some quarterly utilities payment was coming out it just wasn't gonna work this month just mail the check mail the check mail the check it worked every month worked every month so during that process of step nine making amends to these people that i had heard as best i could i discovered something that i call the awakening that step 12 promised and and i think now my job is to stay in 10 11 and 12 and keep that connected and keep that alive and not not be satisfied with the fact i've had it how do i water it and keep it in the sunlight, right? And I think 10, 11, and 12 is how I do that. I think. And 10 is like, how do I live in the moment? I got nothing against people who write their inventories out at the end of the day. There's no criticism of any of that. This is just the way I read it. And the way i read it is I'm supposed to go out and live my life. And as I live my live these nads swarm around me and I don't want them but they're really there. Fear, resentment, dishonesty, selfishness. selfishness. And the book tells me that when I see them crop up, I'm to do four things. One is ask God to remove it. Two is talk to someone. Three is make amends quickly if I've harmed anyone. And four is resolutely turn my thoughts to someone I can help. And that's an extraordinarily practical way to live in the moment with the God who saved my life. When the guys I sponsor call me, they're like, Mike, you'll never know what happened. This happened, that happened, this happened, that happen, blah, blah. Let him kind of get it out a little bit. And I said, what's your part? Where's that in there? Resentment, fear, selfishness, dishonesty. Where is that? Well, there's a little fear and there's some selfishness. I said did you ask God to remove it? No, I didn't. Okay, I'll hold. I think my job as a sponsor is to point them to Him, not to me. He knows enough about fear and resentment in his life. He doesn't need a 25-minute lecture from me. He already figured it out before the lecture. He doesn'T need a follow-up lecture. He needs to go to the one and bring it to the One, the only One who has all power that can fix His heart. We need to talk about more later. We certainly will. But right now, in this moment, you need Him who is. You don't need me. Go to Him. I said, great. You called me. We're talking about it. You said the prayer. Great. Did you do anything stupid? Did you act out on it or are you just feeling it? Hey, I acted out on It. Okay, well, let's talk about that. Well, I did this, that and the other. Okay, go make that right. No, I didn't act out On It. I just felt It. Okay, no amends to be made, man. Let's move on. Resolutely turn your thoughts to someone you can help. I got to tell you, the men I sponsor, I am so blessed to sponsor them. They have taught me more about spirituality than I've ever read in a book or heard from anybody else. It is all about them, man. Because the list of things that they do for other people is astonishing. I got one guy, his wife has a bad back. He calls me one day after one of these moments where he just needed to talk and go through his 10th step. He said, I don't know who to help. I'm driving on the interstate. I said, well, you think about who you can help right now and call me back. So he calls me back five minutes later absolutely in tears. I said what? He's like, I should have told you this a long time ago. I said, what is it? He said, it comes up every time we do this. I said. I'm sure. What is it just? You know, I can't get it out of my mind. So what is it right? He said well, you know, he's the breadwinner in his house right and his wife sacrifices a lot of very smart woman. She sacrificed her career for these kids and is in the family. She's got a bad back. So she's changing diapers and she's cooking and cleaning all day long and I've known she's had a bad back, and I know she likes back rubs from me when I get home. And I just wouldn't do it. And through tears he said, but tonight and from every night after if my wife needs a back rub, I'm going to give her one. Now again, I don't know how that falls on anybody, but I didn't know that Alcoholics Anonymous was about back rups. Really didn't. I had no idea. You told me that when I came in, I'd be like, see ya. But you think about that. right here's a kid who really authentically truthfully wants to love his wife that's alcoholics and honest I think step 11 is about trying to grow that relationship with this God that I found through the first nine steps, I really do I don't think that's an endless I think that is an endless journey right, and I think it is wide open for us to search and to seek and to do things that maybe seem unorthodox or odd to us because we are afraid of stuff right like I you know I love to read I love to sit down like my thing is quiet like be quiet like be with him like I heard this guy talk one time um one of my sponsors and I only have one sponsor but the prior sponsor is what I mean to say and he talked to me he said he said Mike what do good fathers do because our book tells us that God is father right page 62 God has three things right God is the father God's the director God'sthe principal what am I I'm his child and I'm his agent or at least that's what I'm supposed to be that's the deal we make in three he gets to be his role and I get to be my role he said what do good fathers do I said love their children, he said very good he said well they clearly love their father he goes you couldn't be more wrong so I'm going to ask you again what do a good father do what do they love their child think about this he said Good children let their fathers love them. And I've got to tell you, if you ever want to read just a fascinating story, in our book, A Comes of Age, Father Dowling talks about the hounds of heaven and how we're running from God all the time. I've Got to Tell You, that was my problem from birth. Running, running, running. Distraction, distraction, distraction. Get away from him, get away from hem, get way from him. Although I would have never defined that. That's the only way I can define it in hindsight. But as I lived it, I would have never called it that. But truthfully, with some new glasses maybe, maybe, please God, I can see it for what it is. I desired to be chronically distracted from the moment. I was so afraid of God and his world and everyone in it that I would do whatever I could to be distracted from it. And I think step 11 asked me to just stay right here with him. Just like the 10th step. Shoo the flies away. Just be with him right now as best you can. That's what I think it's about. And then I can move on to this idea of what's his will for me? Man, that's a tough question. Like, I don't know how to answer that all the time. And so there's a great line in the big book and it says, I'm in the world to play the role that he assigns. Well, what roles have he assigned to me? First and foremost, I'm a husband. And I'ma husband when my wife is with me or when my wife is not with me. I don' t get brownie points for that, but it's real. like I love that woman and I think we the first five years of our marriage were just I mean man disastrous like they were just so hard because she was wrong about a lot of stuff and she had to come you know she'd awaken I guess would be how I'd say that the truth is I was a disastrous husband right I didn't understand what she was going through and I never took time to even care about that she hurt me and therefore it justified me hurting her back. And so we'd play tennis with insults. Here's the person I've given my life to, and we can't say a kind word to each other. How is that in step 11? I used to pray, please God, please God, help me not get divorced. Please God, help me not get divorced. And one day, and I don't know when it was, it changed. And I didn't change it, it just changed. It just came out of me. Instead of praying, God, please don't let me get divorced, it turned into, please God, help me love her in such a way that she knows you exist and you love her. I think that's the role he has for me as husband. Father, the same thing. I'm a dad. I got two boys, Kyle and Cody. They're amazing. I got this beautiful daughter-in-law. Her name is Teresa. She's everything anyone could wish their son would marry. Like she's just tremendous. Smart and beautiful. I got three grandkids, Rose and Hank and Gracie. And my life is full, man. It is full. and I want to keep it full so I think the next only honest response to all of that could be the 12th step. To turn the tables, to be the guy on the other side of the table like Joe is for me. To encourage the men I sponsor to actually work the steps instead of just be a meeting attender. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'll close with this, I came here to quit drinking. You guys loved me enough to not let me settle for that. I'm supposed to be a child and an agent. And I think child and agents, I think that means loving people. But I couldn't pull it off knowing what to do, failing at it all the time. And it reminds me of this story when I was seven years old. My dad had just passed and we were walking through Toys R Us. You guys remember ToysRUs was actually in existence at one time. It's gone now, I think. And I was walking past this one aisle and it had a bunch of end cap toys on it. And one of the end cap toy always was, anybody remember Lost in Space? Anybody remember that deal? Yeah. So in Lost in Space there was this robot right and there was a kid on there named Will Robinson like I always wanted to be Will Robinson man. He was like the coolest kid going all around the universe to have these adventures and Will Robinson when he'd get into trouble, danger Will Robinson, that thing would go off right. So I'm walking around this end cap and there's all these just robots like toy robots. And I said to my mom, please give me one of those. Please, please, please. It turned into like this amoeba. I just lost my spine. I was rolling on the floor. My mom says, if you're a good boy, Santa will bring one for Christmas. This was like the end of November or something. Well, she lied to me. I wasn't a terrible boy, but Santa brought one anyway. And, uh, I opened this thing and I gotta tell you, like, it blew me away. I mean, the couch was one planet, right? The stairs were like craters into a moon crust thing. I had all this stuff going on in my head. And somewhere around the 4th or 5th of January, my mom ran off to Woolworths and grabbed like six D batteries and shoved them to the ass end of this thing. And it lit up like the 4rd of July. And now pull this little thing out of the back. You push one button and it rolls forward. Another button, it rolls backwards. Push the red button. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger. It's the greatest thing ever. I thought I had fun with it before the batteries. Couldn't tell you the games I had after it. It's amazing. Here's what's odd though. The robot had all the potential to be what it was after the batteries, before it had the batteries? The robot didn't change at all. It just got power to do what it was always supposed to do. When our book says we lack power, I think that's a great description of who I was before I met you. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous batteries not included and I work these 12 steps and because of the grace of God great great sponsorship I got stuff I just simply don't deserve I'm a husband today and I'ma son today and i could have missed it I could have come here for sobriety alone that would've been a shame I love you all god bless you and have a good week