The Consequences Are Not the Bottom — The Bottom Is Admitting You Have No Power – Bart R.

Morning, family. My name is Bart, and I'm a recovered alcoholic. Sober date is June 12, 1995, and my home group is the Turn the Page group in Stewart, Florida. Jason and Nikki bribed me to get here. They told me the kids were coming. But you guys are my family. Fats is my family. AA is my family. I wouldn't have a life if it wasn't for AA. I wouldn't have God in my life if it wasn't for AA. If I lost this talk up, blame Tom, because he told me not to screw it up. And, you know, we get nervous enough as it was always that I do. So when you're told not to screw it up, it makes it that much more difficult. Thank you, Tom. Love you. Boy, blessed. Blessed beyond words. And not only just because we're not drinking, but because of the life that we're given, the life that we get to live. I used to want to hit people when they'd say, oh, I'm a grateful alcoholic. I'd want to smack them. If you lived like I did, you wouldn't be grateful. If you suffered like I did, you wouldn't be grateful. And today I know I'm sitting here in a room full of grateful, recovered people or people on the way to that. And the greatest gift that ever happened to me is my alcoholism. I wouldn't have the life I have today if it wasn't for my alcoholism. God, did I hear so much this weekend. And, you know, we were doing the Conscious at a conference, and they were talking about the importance of carrying this message to the newcomer. And that is the most important thing that we can do. And, you know, I came in late for the 12-step, but I heard a lot of that spoken about. It is the most important thing that we could do. As a matter of fact, what was the use of us suffering if we don't carry the message? Then we suffered for nothing, right? But we suffered for a purpose. So we're coming here. It's our opportunity not only to carry the message, which is important, but we're out there all year carrying the message. And coming to something like this, we fill our cup back up. Amen. Did I get my cup filled this weekend? And that, you know, we need to do that, you know, because it runs dry. You know, a lot of us give all we got. And so, you know, sometimes this is for us. I remember talking to Jerry, my sponsor, years ago. I'm telling him, you know, all the meetings I was running and the big book studies that I was doing and all the work that I was doing. And he said, what are you doing for you? This is what we do for us, right? We come together and share that. We don't have time to talk about this. So a topic that I heard a lot this weekend, you know, what got us here is because we're powerless over alcohol. And a lot of times we say that we're powerless, period. And for me, I don't know how powerless I am, period. Like I don't think I'm powerless over everything. Not in the sense that we talk about here. By the way, if you don't agree with something that I said, it's okay. Go ahead and say it. It's okay. Okay. Don't worry about it. Six months from now I might not either because I continue to do this work. If I'm driving down to Phoenix and I want to go see Bell Rock and it's on the left side, I'm powerless over whether it gets on the right side or not. I can't move it to the right side. But that's an inconvenience. My life isn't unmanageable because of that. We forget about that part two of step one. That dash, that our lives became unmanageable as a result of what we're powerless over. My life, our life became unmanageable because we kept trying to manage something we had no power over. I'm not powerless over everything to that extent and I can't underestimate what this disease can do to me. I can't make it seem like, oh I'm powerless over Bell Rock, I'm not moving, like I am over whether I drink or not. I have no choice whether I drink or not. Today, I have no choice whether I drink or not. I started my car on Thursday morning, or I went to start my car on Thursday morning and I pushed that little button and nothing happened and I'm pushing it and I'm pushing it. It ain't starting. So I get out of the car and I open up the hood and I notice that somebody stole my battery. So I closed the hood and I got back in my car and I started pushing the button trying to get it moving. Why are you laughing? Why are you laughing? That would be insane, wouldn't it? Isn't it just insane for an alcoholic to try to not drink? See, I didn't understand what powerless was. I spent years trying to not drink. I went to meetings and said I'm powerless and I woke up in the morning and said I'm not going to drink today. Then I throw step one right out the window, that's second. Because when I say I'm not going to drink, when we say we're not going to drink, we're not going to drink. we're saying we've got the power to not drink. Powerless. Powerless. Unable to produce the desired effect. There was nothing in this world I wanted more than to not pick up a drink. And I couldn't pull it off. And my life became completely unmanageable around trying to not pick up that drink. Without the power to do something or prevent something from happening. Yet we tell newcomers, we don't, but we hear it all the time. Just don't pick up, no matter what. Well, how are you going to do that if you're powerless? How can you tell somebody you're powerless but just don't pick up, no matter what? We need to understand, what do these words mean? You know, Nikki's favorite pet that Tara and I owned was a cockatoo. And if we wanted, we could have taught Louie to go, I'm powerless, I'm powerless! Well, I was a cockatoo. I would walk around going, I'm powerless. And then I would try not to drink. Giving it lip service. That first step is the most important step. That's why we're all here this weekend to talk about God. Because we don't have the power to keep ourselves sober. I grew up in a neighborhood in New York. And my heroes were the older guys. They were passing the bottle. And I wanted to be just like them. I'd look out the window and I'd see them and it looked like they were having fun. I was in school, and the schoolteacher would say, don't go on that side of the schoolyard. Those people are bad. And as soon as she would turn her head, whoosh, I went right for them. Now, before I get into that, I want to talk about one other thing that came to me over this weekend. This world, right now, pretty funky. A lot going on, right? We've got the pandemic. We've got lots of people fighting over things. Financial things getting rough, right? Think about that. The world's in pretty bad shape, right? There's a lot of people in the world today that are filled with fear. There's a lot of people in the world that are acting selfishly and self-centeredly. There's a lot of people in this world that have tons of resentments. Aren't there? Do you think they're all alcoholics? No. But they don't drink over those things. We do. But when I lie, it's because I'm a liar. I don't get to say it's because I'm an alcoholic, untreated alcoholism. We have a bad stigma as it is. We don't get to blame our defects of character, our spiritual malady on our alcoholism. We're just as spiritually sick as the rest of them. The difference is, if we don't work on our spiritual malady, we drink and die. They don't. But I've got to look at that for myself on a regular basis. I did that for years. I would blame my defects on how I'm an alcoholic. It's alcoholic behavior. No, it's not. It's a human condition. I just can't afford to live in that human condition because I'm an alcoholic, because my mind tells me it's a good idea to have a drink, and because once I pick up that drink, I can't control how much, and I have no idea when it's going to stop or what the consequences are going to be. But my behaviors are not my alcoholism. So with that said... It's warm in here. Excuse me. So I watched these older kids drinking, and I went and started hanging out with them, and in fifth grade, I got about to get left back because of my behaviors, and my family was moving, and they promoted me, and I spent every day going to the old neighborhood because I was scared to death to meet new friends. I don't know how to socialize. That's just my nature. I'm not a social guy. This is not what I... This is what I get to do. It's not what I like to do. So that whole summer, I went back to the old neighborhood and doing my drinking and whatnot, and first day of school, and I'm scared to death. And at the front door, there's a closet with some booze, and I knew what works. I'll just have a few guzzles of some of that liquor in the closet, and I'll go to school, and I'll be all right. And it worked so well, I kept doing it. And eventually, I got thrown out of that school because I was constantly getting caught for drinking or smoking weed or just misbehaving. So I got thrown out of that school, and I got put in a place called Project 25. And at that place, we educated my parents a lot, and basically what happened was I wasn't able to stay there, and I started becoming what in New York is called the PINS petition, personal need, or supervision, right? So education was out the window, and I spent most of my youth in and out of juvenile detention centers, juvenile jails, all that kind of stuff. And all they ever told me was you're a piece of garbage, which I already thought myself. You're never going to grow up to be anything. You're going to spend the rest of your life in prison if you're lucky enough to live. And I believed them. Then my parents would start sending me to therapy, and the therapist would say, if you just didn't drink, you'd be okay. And I would say, no, you don't understand. I'd say it to myself. It's when I drank that I'm okay. Right? Which is part of the delusion. Because I was two years sober still doing this work, and I would stand at the podium, and I would start my talk saying, if it wasn't for alcohol and other things, I would have blew my brains out years ago. And one day I was sharing that, and God struck me with truth. That's not true. That stuff was killing me, just slower than a bullet would have. That was part of the delusion. It didn't make me okay. It was destroying me. But my alcoholic mind told me it was working. But it wasn't working, because there was consequences from the first time I picked it up. And not all of us have consequences from the first time, but eventually, you wouldn't be here if you didn't start having consequences. So it truly wasn't working. So two years doing this work, and I'm still in that delusion that it's working for me. But today I'm so blessed to know that it never did anything for me. It never worked for me. Because if I believe that lie today, life might get difficult, and I might believe that lie again. We have to have a strong first step. It never worked. It was part of the delusion. And then when we're intoxicated, we have the illusion like everything is okay. Well, I had lots of family and lots of friends and lots of other people letting me know that I wasn't okay. And I would say, you got the problem, not me. Back off. Because I had the illusion like everything was alright. We can't see the truth. That's how we say cunning, baffling, and powerful this disease is. We believe these lies. So like 1979, I come home from being away for about 18 months. And while I was locked up this time, I kind of said, you know, maybe there's something to this drinking and my behaviors. So, I forgot to check the time. So, I'm not going to drink the way I was drinking when I get home. And I went to school for the first day, and I was called into the dean's office. And the dean opened up my records, and he said, we know your problems. We're going to be watching you. And if you cause any of them here, you're out. And I looked at him, and I stood up, and I said, you know what? I know I ain't going to be a saint. I haven't been in regular school for years. See you later. And I left. And I went home, and I asked my mom if she would talk to my father about maybe I can come work for the family business. Sign me out of school, and maybe I could work for the family business. There was a lot of discomfort. There was a lot of discussion about that, because my father's business partners knew all about me, and they weren't too sure that they wanted me coming to work for the family business. But after some discussion, they figured they'd give me a shot. I promised up and down, I'm going to change my life. So I woke up the first day of work. It was a cold October morning, the week of my birthday. And I was standing at the bus stop. And I felt like I had arrived. I'm going to make my family proud. I'm going to be a working man. I'm going to do the right thing. And a buddy of mine came over and he gave me a little bottle of Jack Daniels for a birthday present. And I put it in my pocket, and I said, this weekend, I'm going to celebrate that I'm a working man. And that my life is going to be different. And it started to get cold at the bus stop. So I figured a sip. And then I was on the bus. The bus finally came, and I was on the bus, and I started getting really nervous about work. And I apologized. I flushed off that bottle and stumbled into work and made a complete fool of myself and my father. And that wasn't my intention. My intention was to do the right thing, and I didn't understand why. I made so many excuses for my drinking. So many excuses. But I can't count how many times I said to myself, why the hell did I do this again? And sometimes I would even, you know, give the excuses to my family or whoever, and they would have empathy. They would say, I understand you're going through a hard time, but look what that stuff is doing to you. You need to stop. But once in a while they'd ask me why I picked up again, why I'm doing this to myself, and I'd say, I don't know. And they'd say, what the hell do you mean you don't know? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! But that's when we're telling the truth. I was puzzled for years. Why do I keep doing this? And we're God's children. We're not supposed to be killing ourselves. And we know we're killing ourselves. And we're asking ourselves, why am I doing this? But we can't not. That's what this alcoholism is. So that proceeded to get worse and I'm not going to get into all the horrible stories as I got older and the trouble got worse. The point is that I kept wanting to stop and I couldn't. And in 2019... God, I'm so bad with dates. Anyway, I met a woman who was a detox nurse. And I figured this is going to be my answer. She was 10 years older than me. She had a son that was 10 years younger than me. Pre-made family, detox nurse, can't go wrong, I am going to stay sober now. And that didn't last too long. Didn't stay sober. Because I started hanging out with her ex-husband and all his friends. Get pretty loaded. And she was an overnight detox nurse. So, you know, we'd be getting loaded and his son is in the house. And we're acting insane. And we'd also hang out, there were four brothers that had a house together. And we'd be close and there was a bunch of us. And nobody in the neighborhood would go anywhere near this house. Everybody would cross the street. And we all owned bikes. We all owned Hollys. And none of them ever left the garage. And Warren stopped hanging out. And every once in a while a bunch of bikes would pull up in front of the house and Warren would go in the garage and get his bike and he would take off. And one afternoon or whatever I saw Warren and I said, Warren, what's going on buddy? You ain't hanging out no more? What's going on? And I'm going to AA. Anyway, that's nice. And eventually one morning this is in 1987 and that's when I joined the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I called Warren and I said, you know what? I think I'll try one of these AA meetings. Now, I went and checked myself into lots of outpatient programs over the years. And a lot of them would say, $5. Sliding scale, just give us $5. And I would show up week after week, stumble in, and I wouldn't have $5. And eventually they'd say, look, you're always coming here intoxicated. You haven't paid us a penny. We can't help you. So here's a pamphlet for Alcoholics Anonymous. And I would see God all over and go, ain't going there. And she'd say, it's free. Ain't going there. Because I didn't believe in God. I knew Warren real well and I trusted him and I said, alright, Warren's saying go to AA. I'm going to try it. So he said, I'm not going to a meeting tonight, but here's an address. If you really want to get better, go to this meeting. So I said, okay. So I spent the day thinking about it. I went the next day to the meeting and I got there real early and I parked the car and I'm walking around. It's in a school and I'm walking around the block. Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to do this? I know nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous. Nothing. And do I really want to do this? And a guy sees me and he says, hey, I've seen you walking around the block. Are you looking for the AA meeting? And I said, yeah. He says, oh, come on. I'm opening it up. Come with me. And we walk into the school and we go through some hallways and up some stairs and we walk into this room and he starts hanging up some shades and putting out some pamphlets and he's talking to me a little bit and now people are starting to walk into the meeting so I'm so grateful that he gave me this blue card because I just keep reading it and reading it and reading it because I can't look at anybody. And then the room fills up and this guy opens the meeting and he says, I asked our friend Bart to read the opening statement and my heart dropped out of my toes. I had no idea he meant read something out loud. I thought he was just giving me something to read and I spent what felt like five hours, but I swear to God it was no more than five minutes planning my escape and I left the meeting. Because if that's what you have to do is read shit out loud in a meeting, it's about the same for me. And I got lost in the school and I couldn't find my way out. So I heard them in the meeting and I stood out on the hall and figured when they leave I'll leave with them but I'll go drink myself to death and at the end of the meeting they all saw me standing there and they surrounded me and they said, hey we're going to the diner and then we're going to the movies and come join us and I had so many things to do that I couldn't go with them and they wouldn't take one single one of them as a legitimate excuse and they hijacked me to the meeting I mean to the diner and that's the night I joined the fellowship and I met some of the most amazing well intentioned people and then they started asking me to make coffee and I said I've never drank a conscious cup of coffee in my life what the hell am I going to make it for and then they said why don't you clean the ashtrays you can smoke back there in the meetings and I said I've got a better idea put it in your pocket, throw it outside and we don't have to worry about cleaning any damn ashtrays and then they said why don't you be the greeter and I said I can't stand people you want me to greet them I got my sober dates in 1987 and then they asked me to share why don't you just tell people what's going on my problems are none of their business and I really don't care about theirs so I'm going outside to smoke truth was I was scared to death God kept bringing me back to you but I didn't really think I wanted to be there because I couldn't do the things you were doing I couldn't share my buddy Ralph and my buddy Artie used to say I'll give you 20 bucks just raise your hand and say your name just think not a chance, never did it now there's people who give me a thousand to shut up but I can't do that either I stayed in what I like to call sobriety for a long time and I married my second wife she was a normie and she would smoke weed and every once in a while I'd say oh let me give you a shotgun and we'd empty out the whip cream cans in the supermarket but I wasn't drinking and I didn't tell a soul and then in 1987 oh I'm sorry in 1994 and this is where my story goes away from alcoholism a little bit and a little bit into my addiction as well because I suffer from both and I go to different fellowships for both I had a friend of mine who was like a brother and he had gone out and every day I would just wish that Kevin would get sober I wish Kevin would get sober man I wish Kevin would get sober again and one morning Kevin called me up and he said I need help and I said I'll be right there and I go to pick up Kevin and he says you gotta do me a favor just take me into East New York because I don't want to be sick and detox and I said I get it, I'll take you there I'll drop you off two blocks away go do what you gotta do and then I'll take you to detox and we drive in I park two blocks away he opens the car door I reach in my pocket I take out a hundred bucks and he gets me a bundle suddenly all I wanted was for Kevin to get sober and suddenly I'm joining him and he goes to detox I take him and the nurse comes down from the elevator she puts a hand on my shoulder and says are you ready to go upstairs I go no no I'm fine it's him she's like are you sure and that run lasted for quite a while it wasn't my worst run and I've heard other people this weekend talk about that it wasn't my worst the worst part of it was that I absolutely didn't want to do it and I kept doing it the worst part of it was that I had a beautiful beautiful beautiful little daughter and I swore when she was born she'd never have an active alcoholic for a father and she's 31 years old and I'm 26 years sober so when the book talks about beyond human aid if that little girl couldn't keep me sober neither can you beyond human aid so one night on this run I'm going into a neighborhood to go get wasted and I couldn't succeed and where would a good alcoholic go if you walked into a bar and they wouldn't serve you to another bar come on are you sure you're an alcoholic I got in my car and this was the night this was it I was on my last night this is my mission I get off today and then I'm getting sober and they wouldn't give me what I wanted and I'm going to another place and I ended up in a meeting and I didn't know how the hell I got there I do now God and I go to this meeting it was called the utopia young people's group and there was a bunch of young people and they were talking about God and they were talking about steps and they were happy and they were going out into the city and they were dragging me with them and they were having fun and they were going to clubs and they're not drinking and I'm like how can they go to a club because I was told you don't go to a bar if you're not drinking you know but they were going to listen to music and have fun and I didn't understand it and one night Artie's sponsor was speaking at the home group and he introduced himself as a recovered alcoholic and he started talking about how happy he was and living this amazing life and I looked at Artie and I said Artie didn't you say that that's your sponsor and he said yeah I said tonight you better find a new one and he said why and I said because I'm going to kill him the more he talked about being recovered and happy the angrier I got and Artie looked at me and he said I'm sure he would love to talk to you so they set it up that the next day I would go talk to him at his place of business he owned like a recovery store where they sold tape cassettes CDs and what not so I went early that morning to go beat him up and I parked across the street and he saw me walking across the street and he went into the store and he had this big showcase and he walked behind the showcase because he knew I was coming to put a hurtin on him so he figured he needed something to distance us and he spent about two hours talking about the war stories talking about all the attempts that he made to stop and how he failed how many times he stopped and went back to it and I went that's me how the hell can you say you're recovered if you lived like that and he said I follow the directions that are in this beautiful book and I recovered and I went I've never read a book in my life that ain't gonna work for me and I started to walk out and he came around the counter and he put his hand on his shoulder and he said not so fast I'll tell you what I'll read it to you and the stupid question is the one you don't ask and I didn't think it was gonna work for me I didn't believe in God the book was written a long time ago I had no education I just thought there was no chance for me I thought I was doomed but I'd give it a shot I said I'll give it a shot and he started to teach me about what alcoholism was one of the first things he told me which was the best thing he ever told me was I don't think you should ever wake up in the morning and say you're not gonna drink and I said why and he said well how many times have you done that and I said I'll tell ya and it went obviously not very well because that goes back to that saying we're powerless and then trying to do something we have no power over so he started to take me through this book and this is where I hit my bottom I believe that every one of us in this room has to hit the same bottom I know we talk about we all hit different bottoms I'm not a believer of that some of us have never had a DWI some of us can't count on that how many some of us have never seen the inside of a prison some of us have some of us may just stay home and never leave the house and never get in any real trouble but they can't stop drinking the consequences are not our bottom that's our external consequences that's it our bottom is when we admit we have no power how do i know that i think we're all having a good time here right now right what would you do if this room got cut off of air completely what would you do run outside quick you would seek air wouldn't you you don't know if there's air out there but you'll try so what would you do if you admitted you were powerless you would seek power so that's the bottom step one and step two happen simultaneously we can't move on until we admit we have no power because we're not gonna seek power unless we don't think we have any and i didn't believe in god but i sure was willing because i knew i was out of it i had no power completely defeated sobriety was of absolutely no avail i could not stay sober no matter how desperate no matter how many good reasons no matter how much i wished i couldn't deny that i couldn't stay sober so i became willing to believe and then we looked at that third step and he talked a little bit about the second step and he he started to get to know me and he said what would you want god to be if there was one i just wanted to impress him and i said love and he started laughing hysterically and i thought i gave him a good answer and he said i know how you treat the people that you love if that's love and God is that, you're in trouble I went, then I don't know what God is he went, perfect so I became willing to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I don't understand them 26 years later, it's pretty much the same thing it was the most important decision I ever made in my entire life but today where I sit with step 3 as I'm aware, it was a decision a decision is a conclusion we come to after careful consideration I have made the consideration, I'm powerless and always will be so I'm not going to stay stuck in step 3 I don't say the third step prayer daily I say this third step prayer when I'm revisiting the steps but if I my bosses, I think they love me I think I do a good job but if I made a decision every morning to go to work how long do you think it would be before they fired my butt because I'd still be sitting home I'd still be sitting home it's just a decision so I'm not going to make a decision every day but I do ask my creator to take away what blocks me today I do the seventh step prayer daily because that's the action but the first time visiting it I said alright I'll turn my thoughts and my actions over to something I don't really believe in because my thoughts are pretty bad and my actions are horrible so I'll give it a shot and I'll do it and yeah I could agree that maybe I'm in bondage of self I think about myself a lot I still think about myself a lot what I really struggled with was if God takes away my difficulties then I'll bear witness to those I could help that means socialize so I made a deal in my third step if God really takes away my difficulties but there is no God so my difficulties aren't going to go away but if there is and he does I'll bear witness well guess what there is a God he took away my difficulties and here I am bearing witness right but that was the decision I made it says the wording is optional I am probably the I wasn't always but I am probably the least technical person with these steps I don't care how you do them just do them and there's a guy that I sponsor now that I met probably over 15 years ago in New York he's one of the worst drunks I've ever seen I mean just heart seizures and just heart could barely ever drew a sober breath if he sobered up he sat up to drink I mean and almost 3 years ago I was walking into a meeting it was an anniversary meeting in Florida and this guy comes over to me he goes your name Bart? and I said yeah and I vaguely recognized him right now recognize it but not too much and he could barely put a sentence together and he told me who he was he said I'm trying to get sober again you helped me years ago can you help me I said yeah so we started talking and he told me what happened he said he had hadn't tried to quit drinking again and had another seizure and he woke up on the floor of his room with blood on the floor from his head and his little puppy dead next to him and he picked up his puppy when he put it in the bed with him he laid down and he said God don't ever let another living thing die because of my alcoholism and I said that's your third step that was it that was his the wording is optional that's one of the best third steps I've ever heard guys almost three years sober today carries the message to institutions he does not get a whole lot of sponsors and meetings but he sponsors more homeless people than I've ever seen he goes into the woods in Florida and he gets these homeless guys and he puts them into like hospitals and detoxes and he goes and visits them that's God working through him right fourth step was a whole lot of fun because he really couldn't put two words together but this guy didn't have much time so we verbally did his fourth step right and it took a little while sometimes it was a lot of time to get my house sometimes it was on the phone but we did four or five together because he couldn't put two words together right so I don't care how you do it as long as you do it and and he had been drinking a long time so he looks a lot of things up and he calls it the Google machine so he gets on the Google machine every day and he looks up words that are in the big book and then he calls me up and he goes so what does this really mean and we're so we're studying the book together at his pace and he's learning where he Porque nos aprendimos. This way of life right so did this third step prayer together in my as God as I don't understand them and we got quiet and he handed me a pen and paper and suggested that I write down all my resentments and my fears and my sex conduct and he gave me a few days to do it I did it and then we shared it and he sent me home and he did why at the end this word is I know so I'm not gonna make it perfect but it's how it all그뗈 um all my resentments and my fears and my sex conduct and they gave me a few days six and seven. I still didn't believe, but I was extremely willing still. I was still extremely desperate. I called him in the morning and he told me to make a list of everybody I ever met and figure out how I screwed them over. That was my eight step list. And so I did that. I made a list of everybody I've ever met and how I screwed them over. And I know for sure today that we can't work on our character defects. One of my character defects was even if I had money, I liked to steal. You know, I'm new to this deal and I walk into a store that I would regularly steal from and I just needed a part. I didn't need the whole thing. And that's, you know, I'm getting better. Like I'm not going to steal the whole thing. I'm just going to steal a part out of it. And I go to do it and all of a sudden I can't. And then the next thought is you've been robbing from this store for years. You need to make amends. I went, oh my God, there is a God. Because things are happening to me that I never would have done. No matter what the personal consequences, I'm willing to do these things. And I can't do things that I was doing. And I'm not working on them. They're happening to me. Really strangest thing was in meetings. My arms started doing this really weird thing. And then even stranger than Matt, words were coming out of my mouth. Eight years in meetings, never once did I raise my hand and say my name. And all of a sudden, things are happening. See, I don't listen to your opinions. I don't really give a crap about your opinions. Nor do I care about my own. But I can't deny your experience, and I definitely can't deny mine. And the only thing I did different was I became willing to turn my life over to a God I didn't believe in. And my whole life started to change. So how could I not believe? I was in my first year of sobriety. And my wife and I decided we were going to take a trip to the Bahamas. And we were going to drop my mom off. I mean, drop my daughter off at my mom's because she lived there in Florida. And we did the trip. And while we were in, and I figured on the way home, this is early, early sobriety in my first year, early sobriety. And on the way home, I was in my first year of sobriety. And I figured on the way home, when we go to get my daughter, I'm going to make my amends to my mom. And my father also lived in Florida. They were divorced. My father was on the list, but my father was a man who, if he was dying in the street, I probably would have spit on him and kept walking. I had no love for that man. He was not an alcoholic, but he was one of those restless, irritable, and discontented, selfish, and self-centered, dishonored, you know, but he wasn't an alcoholic. And I hated the man. While we were in the Bahamas, we got a phone call. My mom died of a heart attack. She was remarried, and she was married to another dirtbag. And I got to the house, my mom's house, and he opened the door. He handed me a bag. He said, this is what your mother had of your dead sister. That's what's yours. Now get out of here. And I just lost my mom. It was my world. I kicked open the door, and I started breaking things. And my father was the one who drove me there. And my father ran. And he started. He started screaming, thought, please don't kill him. And I got on my hands and knees, and I prayed, God, please don't let me kill this man. And I didn't. And that was God. Police were on call at the funeral. They talked about my mom a lot. They talked about my mom. My mom was the perfect candidate for Al-Anon. I mean, she quit drinking when I finally got sober. And she did not have a problem with alcohol. She drank a glass of wine a year. It was a lot. But she would stop that. Like, if I cut my finger. She would have flown to New York. I mean, she was just an amazing woman. I'm in Florida. And I certainly wasn't the son that any parent wished for. And in my inventory, most of, if not all of the things I hated about my father, I saw in the inventory, guess who I had become. So I knew I needed to make amends to that man. So I sat him down, and I asked if we can talk. And I made the amends. And, you know, he was who he was. And he listened. He was a very cold man. So he listened. And I don't care who you are, what the relationship is. If you get into that circumstance or that position with a parent, the instinct comes out. So I started talking to him about how I felt about losing my mom. And I started talking to him about the horrible life that my mom had, you know, living with this man. And there was rumors. And I never investigated it. Because my mom. My mom was 52 when she died. And she looked as healthy as, like, and took care of herself. And they swore this man killed her. But I didn't need to know that. Because what can I do anyway? She's gone. So I'm talking to my father about how cruel this man was to my mother. And my father looks at me. And he says, you know, Bart, maybe Danny loved your mother with all of his heart. But maybe his heart's only that big. And I looked at my father. And I went, this man has loved me his whole life with all of his heart. But it's only that big. And I spent the rest of his life calling him on a regular basis. Telling him, I'm okay. Letting him off the hook. I need a bell or I'm okay. How you doing? And I got to hear him talk about himself for an hour. And not ask how his granddaughter was. Or any of that. Just talk about himself. We're living together. Phone call that my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And this was a man I would have spit on and kept walking. And we decided, and I was really okay with it, that he was going to come live with us. And I got to take care of my dad to his dying day. Because of this program. I got to be the son. The son that God intended me to be. Whether I got the father I ever wanted or not. That's what's important. About the amends. They tell us four times that we won't stay sober. That we agree to go to any length to win victory over alcohol. They're telling us if we don't do this, we're not going to stay sober. And God used this program in such an amazing way. To take our biggest character defect, selfishness. I got to do this for me. To go help others. Because I figured out real quick. These amends ain't about us and not drinking. These amends are about them. We harmed God's children. Now it's time to go set that right. I showed up at people's door and they were like, I don't believe I never have to worry about you again. Thank you. We set them free. Or if we owe them money, they needed the money. Thank you. We're setting them free. It's not about us. Same thing happens in the 12th step. Nothing will ensure sobriety as much as intensive work with other alcoholics. And all of a sudden we're doing that because we have to. And then we're doing it because we get to. Our defects turn into assets. If we get the hell out of the way and let God do it. It's the experience that we have with the steps that's important. Not the instructions. We follow these instructions and watch what happens. Right? We're showing up in people's lives because we imposed our will on them. Now we're just showing up to set it right. Whatever you need for me to do for you to be okay. Because it's not about me. When it was about me, I got in trouble. What do I need to do to make you okay? What can I do to try and make you okay? So about two and a half months sober. Practicing. Ninth step. We're being moved to do ninth step. Practicing ten and eleven. Eric and I read the twelfth step. And Eric says, I think I'm going to go to Utopia Group with you tonight. Right after we read the twelfth step. I said, oh great. My sponsor's coming to meet us. Meeting. Because that wasn't his home group. And we go to the meeting. And it's a beginner's meeting and the speaker shares for 15 minutes. And then he says, is there anybody new that would like, to share? And this young kid, about six foot five, shaved head, completely tattooed, no teeth, starts sharing in some very colorful language how much he hates all of us. He wants to kill us all. We're all full of it. And the judge told him that he needed to go to jail or to the Creedmoor rehab. And he's not stupid. He chose to rehab. But they made me come to these damn meetings and just angry. And Eric looks at me and he says, Bart, after the meeting, why don't you go see if you can help that guy? And I said, what are you, nuts? And it wasn't because of what he looked like and it wasn't because of what he had to say. I looked at Eric and I said, what the hell do I have to offer him? Two and a half months sober. And Eric turned his big book to a vision for you. And he showed me where it says, you're one man with this book in your hand and you just tapped into a power greater than yourself. Everything else is going right in this book. So the rest of the meeting, I didn't hear a word that anybody had to share. Because I'm all in my head, what am I going to say? This guy doesn't want to hear me. So it's getting close to the end of the meeting and I did what I was taught. God, what do I do? And God told me to go outside when everybody circles up to pray and instead of circling up, go outside and wait at the van. And guess who else didn't want to pray? And the two of us are out there and we started having a conversation and I told him, I'd love to come visit him and show him what was shown to me. And he said, do you want to visit me? And I said, yeah. He says, bring me a sandwich. You can visit me. No sandwich, don't bother. Deal. So I started showing up on Sundays with a sandwich and a big book. By the second or third, we started cracking open this big book. He got out of the treatment center. He started getting supervised visits with his son that was in foster care. He finally got home. He finally got to take his son out of foster care, become a sober, have a single dad and start sponsoring other men. That's what this is all about. It's about us carrying the message so they can carry the message, so they can carry the message. Nothing will ensure sobriety as much as intensive work with other alcoholics, but man, how do you know you've had a spiritual awakening? You can't help but help others. If you don't have that passion to go carry this message. Now I had it a little bit too much, and I have a feeling that there's a few of you in here that had it like me. Because in my home group, on the 12-step shade, I came in one day and it actually said in black permanent magic marker, F you bought and your big book. I kind of figured out that I wasn't being of maximum service to God and the people around me. My intentions were good. My motives were good. But I had to tone it down. But I knew I had a spiritual awakening. I just had to get out of it. I had to get out of the way and let God use me and not do God's work. It's not what we say, it's how we say it. Being here in Sedona is pretty cool. There's some people that have really affected my life. I got to visit with some here and I got to visit with some not here. I doubt that's going to happen, but we'll try. So all my sobriety was in New York. And there's a lot of people and there's no shortage of newcomers in New York. And so I was able to be active in service and active in sponsorship and fishing for newcomers and just being willing to help. And so then I moved here. And Sedona doesn't really have a whole lot of newcomers. And Tara and I were really, really happy together. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm practicing the first 11 steps and I'm going to meetings and I'm not finding any newcomers. And Tara was in love with New York Bart and she didn't even like Sedona Bart because I was getting restless, irritable, and discontented. And I didn't understand why. I didn't like who I was becoming. And Tara and I said, we talked and we talked some recovery and what's going on? What's going on? Why are you acting like this? Why are you so unhappy? And she said, I know what you need. You need to work with a new guy. I said, I'm looking. There ain't none. And she goes, I'm going to pray that you find a new guy. And a lot of you know Tara. And when Tara prays, God answers really quick. Not so much with me, but with Tara, boom. So that morning she prayed and we were having a sign made for our house. And she got a phone call that the sign was ready. And we weren't even married yet. We weren't even married yet. But our relationship was about to end. My sobriety was like, who knows? And she goes to pick up the sign. And after that she says, do you know where Stutt's Bearcat Road is? That's where the local meetings are. And this guy marked us sitting in the back, says, where you going, AA? And she said, yeah. And he says, yeah, I tried that. It doesn't work. And she goes, I've got a guy for you. And so, so Mark's here. And first guy I got to work with in Sedona. And he saved our marriage. He saved our life. He didn't know God was using you that day. And then shortly after that, I met a young man I was sharing in a meeting. And he said, you know, I just got a job. I'm in a men's sober house in Prescott. How would you like to come share Big Book like once a week? And for seven years I drove to Prescott, 60 miles from here, 60 miles back every Monday to run Big Book and get sponsees. Go to any length. And I got a commitment at the jail to carry the message in the jail. Any length. Seek and you shall find. Pray. The fellowship you crave will come. I'm thinking a lot about Eric. And it was my first sponsor that carried the message. And he had gotten really sick. And Eric was like laying on a hospital cot in a living room. And you know, he was on dialysis three times a week. And he was getting parts of his leg amputated slowly. And people were still coming. He was still reading the Big Book to them. And I remember we convinced him that we'd take him to a meeting. To speak. It was for a home group group, a one-year group anniversary. And we said, this is the guy. Like, we'll have Eric speak. And so we got Eric to go there. And a friend of ours, before we started the meeting, there was about 100 people in the room. He said, would everybody that's been sponsored by Eric please stand up? And a bunch of us stood up. And then he said, would everybody who's been sponsored by the people who just stood up please stand up? And I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. I said, no. And a bunch of us stood up. And then he said, would everybody who's been sponsored by the people who just stood up please stand up? And a bunch more people stood up. And he just kept doing that, until the entire room was standing, pretty much. That's the effect that this has. If we carry this message, we're hope givers. We take the worst thing that ever, worst thing that ever happened in our life, and it becomes our greatest asset. Hopeless. alcoholics and we take that pain and we share with somebody else and tell them I know the way out there's nothing better than that love you all thanks