The Disease of More – Stevie B.

We thank you that men and women had courage to write it down so we can follow it. We ask you to help us to stay focused tonight, wide awake, like this was the last meeting and the first meeting all combined into one, and we pray all these things. In your name, amen. Hey everybody, my name is Stevie B and I'm a grateful alcoholic, and a recovering alcoholic and a proud member of the West Side Men's Group. It's great to be here with you guys tonight, and you know, it's been a little bit of a strange week. It's been a great week, but it's been a little bit of a challenging week. Anybody would just by a show of hands, anyone else had a challenging week? Wow. It's been a challenging week, and I think that traditionally during the holidays it was always challenging for me. But I think for a lot of my life I drank, and I drugged, and then the challenges were lessened for a while, and then of course became greater as those challenges then turned into the actual drinking. But I think that always, and it had nothing to do with my parents that are here, they gave me a wonderful childhood, and we had great Christmases, and you know, up until recently I believe that we celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah, I believe that. Recently my parents said that that's not actually true, but that's the way I remember it. You know, my mind remembers things differently than theirs does. I'm the alcoholic, so even before I had put a drink into my system, I perceived things differently than maybe my family would, who was looking at it in a different way. But I always thought that we celebrated both holidays, and they said that that wasn't necessarily true. But, you know, all I can tell you is that. I grew up in a great home, with a lot of love, no reason to drink, no reason to take other substances other than alcohol, there was nothing physically going on that I needed to do that. Thank you, Don, I appreciate that. And, you know, last week I mentioned from the podium before I get into the talk that it was just so hot up here. So I really appreciate them turning down the air conditioning, it feels great in here tonight. You know, my... My childhood was just great, it was, I grew up in Long Island, New York, and it's a suburb of New York City, and, you know, I grew up in an area where my parents could let us out in the morning, and we could come back at night, and we'd never have to think anything of it. I grew up in an era of the 70s and 80s, where there weren't the things that are going on today, we would go trick-or-treat, we would leave at 1 in the afternoon with our bags and a jacket on, because it was cold in New York. And... We would come back at 10. The bags would be full of treats, and, you know, as I got older, of course, it was less treats and more tricks, but, I mean, they never had to worry about it. You know, it was an area where... It was an area where we didn't have a terrible amount of pressures, and you could take your bike out, and you could go bike riding, and you could go play football, and I would say to my mom on a Saturday that we would leave early in the morning, and we wouldn't have anything but a football or a soccer ball. And we would come home at night, and somehow we ate during the day, and we got water, I don't, you know, I don't know where that came from, but it all worked out. So I didn't have a lot of reasons that, from the first time when I had a terrible ear infection, and I was prescribed Tylenol with codeine, I don't have any reason that I wouldn't have taken the prescription as prescribed. There's no reason that I know of that I would have taken, it said take one every four hours, and I was 12. Perceived that to say four every one hour. And, but what I want to tell you that I didn't set out to do anything harmful to myself. It just seemed like the natural progression that when one, and this was my first remembering, and this is not to talk about drugs on the podium, I'm just telling you that the first thing that I took was something from my earring. And then I took another one, and another one, and another one, and another one, until I got sick. That seemed like a natural thing. More for me was... I wanted more of everything. And being around guys like Church, and Jimmy, and Mark, and all you guys, I think that that's a common theme for us. That if one is good, more would be better. I mean, I really, to be honest with you, now that I break it down, I really think that way today. And that is an erroneous thing. The only thing that I ever feel better with more is my relationship with God. I feel better. I feel better when I put more relationship into prayer. I feel better when I put more relationship into meditation. I feel better when I put in more meetings. I feel better when I put in more service. That's what really fills up my more. All the other stuff is just fleeting, which means it goes away fast. You know, we were at my mom's house for Christmas dinner, and she's just the most amazing cook. I mean, I will tell you, an invitation to my mom's house for Christmas is a real blessing. So, that's her over there. And if you want to kiss her now, you've got to... You've got an entire year to get invited. And, you know, we had the most fantastic meal. You couldn't find Fulton even if you wanted to. There was lasagna, and there was prime rib, and there was, you know, just everything that I... All my favorites. And I left that meal full to the top. We had desserts. We had coffee. I know there was some other... I know there was some other stuff, but it was great food. Shrimps. We're Italian, so we have a lot of fishes and different things like that. And I left there from the house, and I came home. Now, I was full to the top, but my mother had given me some prime rib to bring for Justin because Justin couldn't make dinner. And she had given me two pieces. Now, by the time Justin had come over for dinner the next night, I was full. Now, by the time Justin had come over for dinner the next night for Christmas, there was only one piece left. Now, I want to tell you that I wasn't hungry. The only reason that I ate it, because I wanted to have more. And it seems to be that I suffer from a disease of more. It seems to be that more must be part of our alcoholism. And it seems to be that one of the few things that I like to do more, that I like to do more. I like to do more. I like to do more. I like to do more. I like to do more. I like to do more. And to be honest with you, it's work on my relationship with God. That seems to be something that I have to do more. It doesn't seem to come easy for me. It seems to be something that I need to set off as a course of action. And so last week, because we're going to be talking about step three. Irish John, get him before he leaves the building. Last week, we're talking about the beginning of step three. And what I say about the beginning of step three is there's two parts for me as a step three. One is, I'm going to do more. Make a decision to turn our life and our will over to the care of God. The first part of step three is making that decision. The second part of step three, for me, I'm not saying that this is from the big book of Alcoholics and Drugs. The second part of step three is why we want to do that and how we want to do that. I believe the step is broken up into two parts in my mind. Because first, we're going to need to have the why. What's the benefit of turning my life and my will over to the care of God? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? spoke about last week. I was talking to you about some of my step two stuff of craziness that I've done over my life and talked to you about when my sponsor said to me that if I wanted to stay sober that I need to get on my knees in the morning and I need to get on my knees at night. And I was telling you that at first it sounded religious to me and I was kind of anti-religious. I wasn't anti-God when I came in, but I was a little bit anti-religious because to me I thought if I got religious I would have to make changes. I thought if I would be religious that I would actually have to change something. And I think one of the things that we like in Alcoholics Anonymous is that it's not religious in terms of religion, so we have a broader spectrum of things that we allow to be acceptable. Listen to what I just said. I think that we allow a broader spectrum of things to be acceptable in Alcoholics Anonymous and I don't think that's what practicing the principles and all our affairs has anything to do with. I think when they wrote down practicing the principles and all our affairs, they meant much more than staying sober. But when I came in, I didn't want to have anything to do with religion. I wanted to have everything to do with staying sober. And that proceeded on through my entire, first my sobriety. I have two sobrieties. One, I stayed sober for six years and now I'm coming up into nine years. Which, by the way, Steve, last week I heard a guy said he was coming up to double digits. And I kind of like that. I want to kind of use that starting next week, coming up into double digits. I mean, in the next two years, I'll be coming up into double digits, so I figured I'd start using that. Jimmy said, no, you can't do that. All right. So, the why of turning our will and our life over to the care of God is if you take a look over your life in the second step and you take a look at all the things that you're hitting the brick wall on and you take a look at everything that you're running your own show and it has more than drinking and drugging. You're running your own show, but your life is a mess. You're running your own show, but you're sober. But you're having problems with your relationships. You're having problems at work. You're having problems with your husband, your wife, your girlfriend, whatever your relationship is. You're having problems with family members. And you continue to run into a brick wall. Whatever your brick wall is. At work. For mine, it's usually at work. I mean, before I started working for myself, it was always I'm having a problem with work. And even as I'm working for myself, I'm having problems. Because my partner is my wife. She's actually my boss. And that's tough. That's tough. Because not only does she, she knows all my capabilities, but she also knows my lack of capabilities. So that can be difficult. So, why did I get off on that? I don't know. But before, it was in the program, me running into a brick wall, me realizing I was doing it on my own. Running into a brick wall, me realizing I was doing it on my own. Me running into a brick wall, realizing I was doing it on my own. And then I relapsed. Then I relapsed. And then everything got erased. What I mean by that is, everything that I was doing wrong, paled in comparison to me not being able to take a sober breath. So all the things that I was half measuring in the program, they all got just, just wiped away when I couldn't take a sober breath. During this time of year right now, during the 25th to January 3rd, it's a time of the year that I remember my sister, and my mom, and my wife, and my grandparents, my brother-in-law, they were sitting around on Christmas table, at the Christmas table, and I was supposed to have 35 days of sobriety. I was supposed to have graduated, well, I didn't graduate, I'll tell you why, but I was supposed to have left transitions treatment center, and I was supposed to have been sober the entire time in there, and I was supposed to have 35 days of sobriety. And I remember my sister saying to me at Christmas Eve dinner, we're so proud of you, Steve. We're so proud of you that you have, you know, how many days? And they were like counting the days, like we do the Advent calendar. They were counting the days for me. My sister would say, you have 30 days, and 31 days, and 32 days, and 33 days, and, and, you know, those days are precious. If you really have those days, they're precious. You know, Gus shared about having 30 days, and then, and I'm sure he has 30 days, and that's precious, but I didn't have 35 days, so it wasn't precious. It was a lie. Because when I was inside the treatment center, and I was taking back my own will inside the treatment center, and I was trying to run my own show, and the council would say to me, do this, and I would do that. Could we just close one of the doors? Could we close that door? And they would say to me, Steve, you don't have a pass for Thanksgiving. I remember it specifically. They said to me, you don't have a pass for Thanksgiving. It was a treatment center where they go around, and they say, like, Sally, four hours. Johnny, three days. Annie, two hours. Stevie, no pass. And I remember that that continued to be a pattern there. Now, what I found out, Marty, is all they were doing was testing my willingness. It wasn't that they were worried that I was going to relapse. They were testing my willingness. They were seeing where I was at with my third step. They were seeing if I was trying to still drive the bus. Drive the car. You see, you'll know that you've given away the ownership of driving the car when someone says to you, you can't have something. Alcoholics' worst nightmare. Someone says no. That's an alcoholic's worst nightmare. That will offend an alcoholic so fast, you say no to an alcoholic, and you will actually see how spiritual they are in their program. I mean, I just say, just try it just to see where they're at. You know what I mean? Do a spiritual MRI for them. Just say no. You know you want to. I mean, can you clean up the chairs at the end of the meeting? No. You just say that. And then you just watch. The wheels just go ballistic. Now, of course, you need to clean it up real fast because we don't say no in alcoholics. Of course, I'm just joking. But you can just see exactly where a person's at. So they told me, no, you can't have a pass. And then they would watch the wind-up toy, which is Stevie. Stevie B, just go into full action. Wah! You know, I returned from, you know, I was like the guy in the insane asylum that's pretending he's not crazy so that he can get out. So the entire time up to Friday night, I would be happy, joyous, and free and pretend. I would be like, hey, can I get that water for you? Or can I get the big book? Can I pick up your 12 and 12? And then Friday night would come. It would be pass time. And then they wouldn't give me my pass. And then all the facade would just fall. And the horns would come out. And my neck would explode. And I would be like, ah! And they could tell I wasn't ready for my pass. But one time, even though I wasn't ready for my pass, they decided to give me a pass. And it was Friday, right after Thanksgiving, right after I just lost my cool. You know, one time I lost my cool in the treatment center so bad that they sent me to detox. Sober. That's true. God is my witness. That's true. It caused my parents toothache. I was $10,000, a four-day stay at the Fort Lauderdale Hospital, just to be assessed. They just said, listen, you need to leave and go to detox. And I was sober. And they didn't think I was using it. They just needed to get me to a detox, just to see where I was at. So that's the type of behavior that I exhibited in there. So after I lost myself crazy for Thanksgiving, they decided the next weekend or the weekend after that to give me a pass. It was like the second week, maybe the first week in December. So they come around the room and they say, Stevie. They say, Steve. They didn't have the courtesy to call me Stevie B back in those days. I was sniveling, Steve, you know. They're like, Steve, pass, four hours. And I was like, oh. And I owned a car, which in treatment is like, you know, owning a hotel. So they were like, unbelievable. They were like, and you have your car. And I was like, wow, this is awesome. But I hadn't turned my will and my life over to anything other than... the counselors to get a pass. You know, I was like a dog going for a bone. And they finally gave me the pass. And I am sure I didn't pray on my knees that morning because I had already attained what I had come for. I had already achieved what I had come for, which was a pass. Now, what I thought I was going to do on that four-hour pass, I have no idea. My wife was working. I was going to go and be at our store in the flea market. And I don't know what I was, the big pass that I was trying to get, but I got it. And they gave me the keys to my car. And one of the reasons that I have such a strong belief in God, because you can see that before the meeting started that I prayed, so you know that I have a strong belief in God. But I didn't always get there. But one of the reasons I have a strong belief in God is because I have a strong belief that there's something that is out there that wants to destroy me and kill me. And the only thing that can help me with that is God. Now, you know, when I pray before the meeting, just think of just a sidebar. I want you to understand. I understand that Alcoholics Anonymous is not allied with any religion or sect or denomination, and I get that. But Stevie B is allied with God. He's the one that came and saved me, and this is my personal story. And he's the one that I turn to for my health and my strength. So when I share from any place, I have to ask God to come into the meeting for me. I'm not saying that anyone else, that's the way they pray. But as I started to do more research, and I started to do more research in Alcoholics Anonymous, I found out before the serenity prayer and after alcoholics, Alcoholics Anonymous started, before the serenity prayer and after Alcoholics Anonymous started, people were just praying the way that they wanted to. They asked them to be non-denominational so it wouldn't be confrontational, but they asked God to come into the meetings. That's the way Alcoholics Anonymous started. And guess how the way that it ended? They ended it with a prayer. Some places in the United States ended with a prayer, with a serenity prayer. Some places ended with the Lord's Prayer. Some people do the third step prayer. There's places that do the third step prayer. But the call for it is to do prayer in the beginning and prayer at the end. Now, I wasn't always... I wasn't always a big prayer guy. I wasn't a guy that could just pray out loud like that. But I had so many things happen to me where I started to need to pray, that I needed to turn my life and my will over to the care of God, that God started to come in and do miraculous things for me, that I started to say, What? This is true. He's really real. This is the real deal right here. This is not something that you learn in AA and you resuscitate. This is something that actually works. So they give me the keys to my car. And the reason I know that the enemy is real, whatever you want to call it, whether it's the disease or the enemy or something out there that wants to kill and destroy me, is because of this story. In all of South Florida, and they had given me the keys to my car during rush hour, Alan, during rush hour, so it's a time from 5 to 9. They had allowed me to have 5 to 9 as my pass. It doesn't seem like a good time to give a person a pass. I was thinking Saturday all day, but they gave me Friday night from 5 to 9. And this is the first time I had ever, drove my car since I had given it away for $11 worth of super alcohol one time during a run. So they give me the car and I get on to go on to 95 and I'm about to go 95 north. And I'm in South, I'm not in South Dade, but I'm in Dade. It's definitely south of what I know. It's definitely south of Broward. It's definitely not where I'm from. It's definitely not where I hang out. And it's definitely not where my family is. It's definitely not where I live. It's definitely not where I was traveling to. It was a place that I wasn't familiar with. But they gave me the keys to my car and I'm about to go 95 north and it just so happens, if you don't think that there's an enemy out there that wants to like disrupt your day and disrupt your life and make things happen so that you actually think that you can't stay sober. At the car in front of me, out of all the cars in South Florida during rush hour and all the cars where they could be and all the cars where they could be the car right in front of me happens to be the car of my super alcohol dealer. Now you can imagine that after being in treatment for 35 days and not having and thought about contacting him and thought about how it was to have stuff airlifted to me during an in-treatment that maybe it would fall out of the sky. You have that fantasy that maybe bales would fall from heaven and it would be an act of God. You know, after all that thinking about it it turns out that as I'm going to have my first four hour pass the car in front of me happens to be the dealer of super alcohol in my life. And he gets out of the car in 95, entrance to 95 and he goes, what's up? And I say, because I haven't turned my life and my will over, I say, pull over. You see, left to my own devices without any defense, without any help from a higher power, without, like Rob spoke, about help from a higher power. Anytime it's Steve and the stuff, Steve's going to use the stuff. As a matter of fact, I didn't even have the stuff. The guy said, what's up? I was 35 days clean and sober. My parents had flown down for family week. My wife was coming every Tuesday listening to my nonsense. I was seen by the best psychiatrists. You know, I was seen by the same psychiatrists as the Miami Dolphins. I had everything going for me. 35 days sober. The guy says to me, what's up? And I say, pull over. And I go and I proceed to do what I do. Throw away my sobriety like that. I'm sitting in the house all full. I never make it to the store. I'm full of shame and remorse and guilt and self-pity and I want to throw myself out the window but I live in the first floor. So I'm in the kitchen and I'm just so upset and I'm so just destroyed. And I actually take it and I just throw it away. And then I proceed to go back down to the treatment center all full of that self-hatred and self-loathing. So by the time Christmas comes and I'm lying about my sobriety because they don't actually catch me. And Christmas is coming and I'm lying about my sobriety and I'm like some of the people that we know that are inside the meetings that are like, I'm two years sober and they're drooling. When you drool, we know. There's a problem. I don't know if you get that. So I'm at Christmas dinner and I'm doing whatever I do and my sister says to me, we're so proud of you. And my wife says to me, we're so proud of you. And my parents say they're so proud of me. And I know that I'm a liar. A liar. And I don't know how to come out of being a liar. You see, I don't know how to turn my life and what I will over to care of God because I can't get out of my own way. And during that time, I have a six felony car crash which I actually was not high in. But remember when I gave my car away for $11 worth of super alcohol when I was in the treatment center and my parents came and they cleaned out and my wife, they cleaned out the entire car. Well, they didn't clean it out perfectly because when I did get into that felony car crash and I went to go give my license and registration to the officer, it turns out when I had given my car away for those couple hours and that other person that was selling stuff out of my car, he had hid that stuff in my Navigator handbag. So when I went to go give it to the officer and it all fell out on his feet. And I was like, wait a minute, that's not mine. He's like, I'm sure it's not. And I actually haven't heard that one today that it's not yours. But we'll talk about it downtown. So during that time of when I got kicked out of the treatment center, oh, and I got kicked out of the treatment center too. So I didn't graduate the treatment center. How did I get kicked out of the treatment center? So I got kicked out of the treatment center and I have a six felony car crash. And I actually do use the day before I left treatment. And I'm at Christmas and I'm all full of shame. And then I decide during that time since I really can't keep the lie going that I actually might as well just use. And I go and I use inside the house. And I go underneath, under my stairs in my house there's a closet. And I decide to go drink inside the closet. And I figured that no one will find me inside the closet because maybe no one will look in the closet. So I go drinking in the closet on January 2nd and I can't make it out of the closet and my family's looking for me and they find me on January 3rd. And, you know, like I always do, I'm full of guilt. I'm full of shame and I'm full of remorse. But that doesn't get you sober. You see, shame only goes so far. Remorse only goes so far. And it usually gets to like the second day. My shame and remorse is a 48-hour window. I feel horrible on a Monday but by Tuesday night it's not so bad. Whatever I did on Monday I feel really, really bad about it. I'm usually fantastically shameful all during Monday but Tuesday night, you know, it wasn't that bad. So if the only thing that's keeping you here is shame, guilt, remorse and wanting to get back what you used to have, it's not going to be enough. So why do I tell you that whole thing? Because after my sixth month of praying on my knees in the morning and praying on my knees at night and miracles happening in my life and another miracle happening and then my sponsor says to me those magic words, I want you to memorize the third step prayer. And then he tells me, I want you to say it and say it in the first person, which is some, I get confused on it sometimes because I say it in the first person different than maybe some of the other people say it. And you can take out all the these and thous because he wasn't a thee and thou guy. And he says, I want you to memorize this. God, I offer myself to thee, which is you. I want you to memorize this in terms of not taking out the these and saying you. So I'll read it that way. God, I offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as thou will. Relieve me of the bondage of self so that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help with thy love, thy power, and thy way of life. And I memorized that prayer and then I went out to California and I did it with him on my knees and he said, Steve, I want you to understand that I'm not asking you to ask God to remove those difficulties from your life so that you have a better life. I don't care about if you have a better life. I'm asking you to ask God to remove those things, those difficulties so that you can be a witness of God's power in your life. If he cleans up your life, that's up to him. But we're going to ask him to do it so that you can be a witness of God's power in your life. Now back in those days, I didn't have a real serious God consciousness but I did what my sponsor said and I really recommend that you get a sponsor that you love and respect but more importantly, respect. Love can come down the road. My sponsors don't love me. Some of them love me now but a lot of other ones in the back don't love me yet. But they got to respect me because if you don't love me, if you want what I have or if you want what the woman that you asked to be your sponsor has, you have to at least respect them enough that you do what they do. And if you don't, then you have to get yourself another sponsor. I loved and respected this guy, mostly respected, loved King with this guy Jerry because he was so hard and he was so mean that I just thought if this hard, mean guy could get God in his life, so can I. And I did that third step prayer. And then the next line says, and then all sorts of remarkable things happened. And all sorts of remarkable things started to happen. When I wanted to get into the driver's seat and take the steering wheel, I didn't. When things weren't going my way, I started to say stuff like, maybe it's meant to be. When traffic was happening, and I'll tell you something, an amazing thing that God did for me in my life in terms of traffic is I don't get frustrated in traffic. And I don't get frustrated when people are driving slow in front of me. Because of Eddie, who I sobered up with, with Gus and a bunch of other guys. Eddie, for all his craziness and things that he comes up with, he started to tell me this thing that if we're in traffic, maybe it's because God's saving us from an accident or something that bad's going to happen to us. Or if we can't get in front of the guy in front of us, maybe it's because we're supposed to see something that happens on the side of the road. And because of that, because I started to give away the steering wheel of my life, every time something happened that was putting a pause in my life, I started to say, no, maybe it's meant to be. I'm sure this is. Because everything in God's world happens for what? A reason. If you can't get past the train, like right, now my wife and I almost couldn't get past the train, it's because we needed to work something out. She needed to forgive me for something. We were stuck behind the train. It's true. We were stuck behind the train and she forgave me for something. My parents tonight, they were supposed to come in the same car with us. All of a sudden, they got the whole thing mixed up and they came here without my wife and I and we were sitting in the driveway waiting for them. It turns out we needed to talk about something. You see, listen to this. This is what I want. I'm going to explain to you. If you're having a hard time in your life, it's because you're running your life. If you're running into brick walls, it's because you're the one with the map. If you're having a tough time in your life, and I don't mean external stuff, if you're running around like a little mouse in a maze, get out of the driver's seat. Let God drive you through the maze. It says this is the how and why of it. First of all, we had the quick play in God. It didn't work. Next, we have that here and the after drama of life. You know, because this was read so many times when Russell was doing this, I don't think we'd get on how important this paragraph is. Let's slow it down a little bit. Let's take it slow for the next couple minutes. I want you really to understand how important this is on page 62. That if you don't have page 62 and 63 and page 86 and 87 and 88 of the big book almost memorized, you're not doing enough reading in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Listen to what I just said. And that means for you guys that have 30 years and 40 years, it doesn't... 30... 62... 63... 67... 68... 69. They're very indispensable pages. 86 and 87. We should have that stuff almost memorized. Now, I'm not saying you're going to have... I'm not saying you need to go around quoting it, but that stuff should be like on the forefront of your mind. You're having a tough day. Did you read page 62 today? You didn't have time for your meditation in the morning today? Did you start off with page 87? How did you do tonight when you got home? Did you get on your knees and maybe read where it says upon retiring? Because the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is not meant to chain us onto something. It's meant to free us out of something. Because most of us, because in the paragraph before it says, so our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. Alcoholism is not about drinking. Alcoholism is a syndrome that you think about yourself all the time. It's me, myself, where am I going, what am I doing, who's talking about me, what do I look like, do I look good, am I fat? The whole thing. So alcoholism is something that centers in the brain. If you can't surrender to that, you're going to be walking around exhausted. And when you're walking around exhausted, you're not going to be any good to your son, to your friends, and other people in the rooms. You won't be of service to the people that you're running a halfway house for. You're going to be only thinking about your little problems and your concerns. But when you're laid over to God, you're going to have all this free time because you're not running the show. So in page 62, so it says, so our troubles are basically of our own making. The reason they say that is why? Why? Because our troubles are basically of our own making. And once you can get that into your own head, once you understand that it's not the externals that are giving you problems, once you can stop blaming the world and start looking within, then you're going to want to look for the problems. See, if I think Joe Kavanaugh caused all my problems, I'm looking at him to stop giving me the problems. But when I look at myself to understand that I'm keeping myself bound to this world, then I look to how I can get myself out of the way. That's why steps six and seven are where the rubber meets the road. It's where the men get separated from the boys and the girls get separated from the women. If you don't have six and seven as one of the most important parts of your program, stick around in this journey with us here at the 12-step house and I'll explain to you why six and seven are one of the most overlooked steps there is. They're not some footnote in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. They're the life-changing steps that'll take you from a thumb-sucking crybaby into an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. So, so, next we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, and life is a drama, but let me tell you something. Hello, some of us create a lot more drama than there would be without us. Okay, we're in the drama making business, okay? We're like, here's some drama, want some drama? You know, we're in the drama making business. We're like Facebooking and Twittering and we're dramaing all over the place. Get out of the drama of life. You know, once I get out of that, all that nonsense and all that trying to run the show and what people think about me and what they're going to say about me behind my back, once I stop worrying about that, now I'm not saying it doesn't affect me. Hear the difference. Once I stop worrying about how you think about me, I don't have to deal with it. Does it affect me? Of course. I'm a sensitive alcoholic. Of course it affects me. 300 people come in here and tell me I do a great job. One woman said a couple weeks ago I spoke too much about drugs. I thought about it for an entire week. That's alcoholism. You know, I don't know, maybe Marty or one of these guys, Jimmy will tell you when you get to a certain level that leaves, it hasn't for me yet. But because the problem still centers in my mind, I do this all day long. God, please remove this bad thought from me. I'm so glad you're with me. You know what, Tony? Today I was in the supermarket or I was in some store today and a smell came over me and it smelled like a substance that I used to use when I was out there. It was overwhelming. Oh, it was in my mall that I work in. An overwhelming smell came over me. I don't know if it was the enemy, if it was my own recall of something in the past, but it just came over me. I didn't want to battle that with my own thinking process. I said, God, please remove this bad thought from me. I'm so glad you're with me today. And I opened up the channel between me and God. I'm not going to battle some type of smell that might be trying to take me off my mark. I want to make sure He's battling it. I'm not the creator. He's the creator. He's the principal. He's the director. He's the father. We are His children. Most ideas are simple. This is the cornerstone of the new and triumphant arch to which we walk through. This is page 62 and 63. The stuff that I'm saying to you right now is in the book. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Page 62. Page 62 and 63. Page 86, 87, and 88. Set your entire day up. The rest of the stuff is great too, but those are my five pages that I carry around like this. And then, of course, the prayer time. God, please remove this bad thought from me. I'm so glad you're with me today. And that was given to me by another guy in Alcoholics and Alchemists that was passed on to him. That was passed on by Clancy. It didn't come from some ancient hieroglyphics that I wanted. I wanted it to come from some ancient Talmud book that was, you know, opened up the Dead Sea Scrolls. It turns out some drunk from Wisconsin made it up. But it works. How many people in this room, including Jana, who I met when she was sniveling inside of a treatment center, and now she sponsors like millions of people and is an incredible member of Alcoholics and Alchemists and just picked up three years. How many people have used that prayer and it's gotten them through tough times? Come on, be honest with me. It's an amazing prayer. God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt. It takes a long time. You got to go through the whole third step. Prayer for the miracle to happen through the third. So sometimes I need, God, please just remove this bad thought from me. I want to be able to open that channel. Sometimes I'm in the firing lines and a lot of times the person with the gun is me. But let's just, I want to tell you something. The journey of the 12 steps that we just began in here tonight that's going to happen over the next eight weeks starts and ends with your desire for you not to be running the show of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once you can get to the place where, you know what, you get out of the driver's seat, every time that you start to get in the driver's seat, every time you feel yourself with your hand on the wheel, you step over to the passenger seat, you move over, you slide over because you are going to get, you can stay sober forever without a third step. I guarantee you. You can do step one thoroughly and never use again. But be miserable and tired the entire time. Be having to smoke cigarette after cigarette and coffee after coffee just to get through and be one of those people that say, I can't do night meetings because I'm exhausted. You're exhausted because you're not letting God run the show. You're not exhausted for anything else. At least I'm not. Let me rephrase that. It's when I'm not, when I'm exhausted and I was exhausted today. You know why I was exhausted today? Because I thought about me the entire time. And yet tonight when I got inside the meeting and then I started to think about us and him and you, I could just talk for hours and hours and hours. This is endless for me. I'm not going to. Take it easy. Relax. Let me just finish with saying this. When we sincerely took a position, all sorts of what? Remarkable things happened. We had a new employer being all powerful. He provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more, we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we become conscious of his presence, we began to lose fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn. Reborn. Amen. Thanks. Thank you.