The Seventh Step Prayer and the Defect of Trying to Look Good – Mike S.

I was too spaced out to buy anything at the bake sale. I'm Mike, I'm an alcoholic. Before I get on a roll, I better qualify or disqualify some things. I am an alcoholic, first of all, and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is in the first 164 pages of the book. Anything you hear that comes out of me, please take with a grain of salt and double check. If it's not in the book, disregard it. If you like it, feel free to steal it. I truly believe in the singleness of purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous I am an alcoholic first and foremost there are some other substances that come up in my story because they were part of my story I hope I don't offend anyone but I found that those substances kept me awake so I could drink more I passed out several times with my eyes open and my mouth still moving So if you can relate, I can tell nobody here did drugs anyway. So probably a waste of my time. I want to thank Jeff for having me and for taking care of me and walking me through getting out here. And I can get lost pretty easy. And I wantto thank you guys for being here. This is really, really,really nice. Everybody's been really friendly, taking careof Leilani and myself, and I wanttothankyou for that. I want to thank you for being sober so I don't get beat up and with that I will tell you I got to tell you about Arizona I am extremely I wantto tell you how much I like your state well I'll tell you on Thursday I asked Leilani to marry me I can't believe I just said that That gave me the chill. Yikes! That's a psychic change right there. She said yes! What do you mean, what'd she say? I gotta tell you though, I think there was a combination of things. I think I was in a vortex because I asked her to marry me in the first place and I know for sure we were in a vertex It's because she said yes. You know, there must have been some kind of electromagnetic play going on there for her to say yes. But I've got to tell you, that's a product of Alcoholics Anonymous, the fact that A, I would want to get married, and B, that I could feel that I Could Do a Good Job of it. And that's thanks to people in AA. I had no clue how to live my life, and you'll see that's painfully evident. but I could probably qualify by telling you that I went to a party when I was 15, I came home and I was 31 you know, I just what what happened you know it's like, what happened and you do that thing where you're looking in the mirror and you're thinking, you know I'm going to quit when I'm 21 you know then you're looking in the mirror and you're going I think I'm gonna quit when I'm 23 that's old you know and then 25 whizzes by and pretty soon you're 30 and you just don't care anymore and you know that's the definition of an alcoholic he's a little kid with an old face laughter and you keep looking in your mirror going looks like my dad laughter I'm stealing John Strick at taking to drink, but I don't know what to say. I never know what to say, um, some things happened to me when I was younger, whether or not they made me an alcoholic, I don't know, when I took the first step, it said I fully admitted to my innermost self that I was alcoholic, and after that, it didn't really make any difference where, why, or how, uh, I knew I had to embrace the tools that you guys had offered me, but when I was younger, I'm quick, I couldn't wait to get up in the morning, I don' t know so much that I didn't go to sleep. And I would lay in bed waiting for something to do. I was in the bottom bunk of my bunk bed with my little brother, and I kept kicking the bunk. Come on, are you awake? Are you awake? Well, they got rid of that and put me in the top bunk. And i remember this. I just thought about this a little while ago. There's a bar that goes across to keep you from rolling out of that top bunk? I chewed through that thing at night, just waiting for the sun to come up so we could do something you know my poor dad would say things to me like relax he might as well have been speaking Chinese man I did not know the meaning of that word they were going to give me Ritalin I found out later on that's just a better way to do that's meth they'd call me right dad but my dad wouldn't let me do Ritaling you know and so he rather than prescribing Ritalin, he did the next prescription, which was spankings. And I got the daily dosage of those things because I just could not sit still. One of the other things that I had that I don't know whether it makes a difference or not was that I had the feeling that I was supposed to know how to do everything. If I had a problem, I was opposed to be able to figure out how to take care of it by myself. And if I asked you to help me, that meant that I was weak. I don't know where that mindset came from, but it went through a lot of things, got me in so much trouble because when I would have a problem, I would get drunk and try to come up with the answer. Oh my God, I got the wrong answer every time. I've since found out that even when I'm sober and I try to find out the answer myself, I usually get the wrong answers. My sponsor said, Mac, the guy from Alabama, Mac. all your brain knows how to do is to get you drunk he said you need to borrow my brain and i did for a while i still borrow it on a daily bill you know here when i get the bright idea i call him up he would say things like mac you're a sick man from the minute i called him first thing and we established you know how things were and then from there i would tell him what I was thinking. And he'd say, Mac, does that sound like a good idea? And I'd say no, that's why I called you. And we'd laugh at what I had planned. I want to welcome the newcomers. If you're new and you don't have a sponsor, man, you're probably cheating yourself out of the best part of this program. There's five people I call every day to tell them what I'm up to. Because I think I every once in a while I think I have a good idea and then I'll call these five people usually by the time I get to the third one I'm doing I'm gonna do something different I just don't have my own best interest at heart I still think every once a while i should put my finger in the fan I don't know where that comes from but it's like it seems like a good idea you know the fans going I'm thinking I should stick my finger I have a deep, and I think this is probably one of the best definitions of alcoholism I've ever heard. I have an underlying masochistic need to self-destruct. And it manifests itself in all kinds of behavior. Oh my God, I need help. I need monitors to keep an eye on me. So if you're new and you don't have something in the book that says we want to be happy, We need to be capable of being completely honest with at least one other human being. I have five. If you're new, I'm rooting for you, man. This is really, really, real hard to do. My sponsor used to say, Mike, be good to yourself. This is hard to deal with because if you're new, it's like coming onto LSD. Everything's really bright and you're smiling and sweating And you don't know if what you saw was really what you just saw. You know, and you're like, these people are strangers are coming at you. And it's like, it's just hard. Being new is hard. So be good to yourself and try to find some people that don't look too goofy and try and ask them to be helped. I thought, I don't want to be a part of this. I don' t know about these people, but I don''t have anybody else left. so you know i'm gonna you know could you help me could you help me you know what are we doing now what are we doing up i gotta tell you god is really um god does things that i just can't believe he did leilani and i were eating and she was talking with a gentleman ben from her home group in tustin california and then i was sitting here and and denise came up as a friend of mine that we got sober together and oh my god when we were brand new I had my sponsor and Denise her sponsor was my sponsor's wife and they would send us places like Hansel and Gretel we'd be like where are we going now you know you go places because they tell you to and you don't have a life and you just go there so they say well Matt you know you and DeeDee I want you to go down to Bill this guy who said 26 years he was having a birthday party I'll never forget this in my entire life so we show up on the door I think we bought a card Denise will tell me later if that's true but I'll never forget we're holding hands and we're all sweating and this guy opens the door and we go, hi we're Mike and Denise and Bob and Zeal told us to come down here and they go, oh great, come in and we walk in and there's all these people and it's a huge party and I'll ever forget The guy whose party it is, he comes over and he says, hi. And we said, Bob and Ceil sent us to come over. And he said, oh, and Denise says, I have 60 days. And the guy goes, that's great. And he goes, oh wait a minute. He's an old-timer. He goes, I'm getting soft. He goes big deal. What do you want, a brownie button? We're thinking, oh my god. Well they have this huge party for this guy. I mean, it's a giant to-do and everything. And we're like, you know, standing around drinking Diet Coke until it's coming out of our ears. And it comes this time for this guy's birthday. And everybody sings happy birthday. And the camel's got 50,000 camels, 26 years I think he had. And it becomes his turn to speak. And he says, I don't know what to say. You're here. I'm here. We're all sober. Thanks. i say more than that in two minutes i i well i was born talking more than that but i was so impressed by that guy's humility but those were the things that you do so if you're new and you're doing weird stuff it's okay there's more weird stuff coming later but i'm not gonna tell you about that man they don't tell you they don'T TELL YOU ABOUT THE OTHER STUFF UNTIL YOU'RE LIKE you know six and eight and you're going oh my god because if they'd have told you you know my friend I did a panel with her she was about 17 years sober and she was having a really bad time and we're in the hospital doing this panel and she said when we came out she said you know Mike I had the hardest time not saying turn back now this deal gets weird but I tell you what it beats it beats what was going on before you know if you're not having fun try something different you know rule 62 i love those guys my sponsor he made that up that's you know if you that's the only rule in this deal you know you can even come drunk just don't take yourself too damn seriously that was my problem i thought any minute now i'm gonna have the answer or any minute now. I'm going to figure out the answer. I got the wrong one again. And it was just a constant battle with that. So, you know, I got these feelings when I went into high school in the morning, I felt like everybody was looking at me. You know, I remember thinking, oh my God, I hope I gotthe right clothes on. Oh my God. I hope I'm hanging out with the right people. I don't hope I don' make an ass out of myself. It was constant pressure of everybody look at me as that overwhelming sense of self that they talk about in the book. Nobody cares. But man i felt like it was very important by every move that's tons of pressure well these guys in high school said mike drink this it'll make you feel better oh my god i still get the chills thinking about the very first time i drank it relieved all the pressure that had been on me my entire life. Oh, my God. I'm going to savor that for a minute, man. No, that was big. That was a big deal. The very first time I got drunk, I got to kiss girls. I got to smoke cigarettes and I got drunken. Well, I'm done. I had, I was focused. I bad direction. Seemed like a pretty good plan, you know? It felt so good. That's the thing about alcohol. It felt right. No wonder I drank. Everything else was a cheap second place to being drunk and I loved it and I was good at it. This is how much alcohol worked for me. I went from a guy who was going to go into school thinking, please don't look at me, worried about what everybody thought to being elected school mascot talk about a psychic change i went from don't look at me to everybody look at you look at me too i felt so good i didn't care man i'm wearing a dress i'm a warrior i'm cartwheeling around the world man like a fool and did not care anymore what you thought about me so it worked another pivotal thing in my life happened when I was about 16 almost 17 my father my father god bless him was a high school teacher so I'm the last thing he wants to see when he comes home I'm a high student and plus to make it even worse I'm me you know hey dad hey dad hey dad I'm just you know a poor guy it's a wonder that he didn't put me in a bag and pitch me in the river I was just always and then to top it all off when he would tell me to do something I'd look at him like it was a fool oh you're stupid that's stupid I said to my father when I was 42 years old for the first time in my entire life hey dad what do you think I ought to do I never asked him once his opinion because I thought man you're wrong you know I'm smarter than you just because I'm littler doesn't make any difference well he he left you know he and my mother their marriage was you know it was their marriage and so i could tell it wasn't working you know if you're a kid in a marriage that's bad you know long before everybody else that it's not going well and so we were kind of relieved when he was leaving i i kind of thought he was a dick anyway and he's leaving and i thought okay that's great and i remember thinking to myself here's one of these pivotal things i remember thinkin these guys been running my life forever and they don't know what they're up to so i'm out of here man another thing that happened to me when i was younger was i was born in oklahoma and i had a really really great family really big extended family everybody loved me i got a lot of attention and when i Was seven we moved and that wasn't too bad it hurt and i cried and i was torn away from the people that i loved and then we moved to california and then i made some new friends they moved me up a year, a grade. So I was the new smart kid. I got my butt kicked all the time, but I made some new friends and a year later we moved again. Something else happened there. Like when my father left, I remember thinking to myself, you know what? Every time I love somebody they leave. So i'm not going to do it anymore. And I remember it started a pattern of behavior in my life that carries itself to and i still have trouble with it sometimes now is i have several different sets of friends i started making a lot of different friends because a if they left i had other friends over here and b i never really had to really play fully and that worked for me for a long time i just a fringe player don't like me too much and i won't like you too much but you tell me the role i'll play it and we'll get along just fine and if you give me a hard time i'll go play with them and that's how it worked for a long long time something snapped and something snapped when my father left so you know what i remember he said mike i don't really care what you do with your life as long as you can take care of yourself and i took that to heart and i moved to huntington beach california i got a job working construction if you're not sure if youre an alcoholic get a job working construction okay It's like a litmus test, man. It's psychotic, you know? We drank beer all the time. Oh my God, it was great. I'm 17, taught, we're drinking beer. My back hurts, oh, we drink beer. We're drinking bear. Every day we drank beer. I thought, man, this is great, you know? And I'm making money, paying my bills, and I'm living in Huntington Beach, which is the breeding grounds for human beings. It's just a great place to live. Well, my girlfriend at that time, She said, Mike, you know, you drink every day and you're drunk. And I said, I know, honey. She said well do you think you could not drink tomorrow? And I said sure. And I remember 3.30 rolled around the next day and I remember thinking I got to get a new girlfriend. There was no question as to girlfriend, drink, drink girlfriend. I'm drinking. Because it worked and it felt good and by God, I'm paying the bills and shut up. That was a lot of the dialogues in my relationships. Shut up. You know, they look at you like and you're like, shut up, just shut up Well, a strange thing started happening to me You know when you're drinking and you get tired and then that weird thing starts happening when you drink like X amount of liquor and you gets jacked up and you're cranking and things are going really well and you drink the same amount of liquor the next day and, like, you black out and weird stuff starts happening. You know, it was kind of weird. It was like I didn't want to get tired. You know? I'm a young man. I'm living in Huntington Beach. I want to do some things after work, but, you know, I'm working pretty hard physically and I'm drinking beer every day, so I'm tired at 6 o'clock. I eat my dinner. That's all I can do is crawl into bed and get up and do it again. Well, these guys at work said, here, Mikey, they have these pills. They said, eat these. They'll make you feel better. Oh, my God. They gave me bennies, these crosstop whites, whatever, man. And I remember eating these pills and I thought, I want to eat these pills for the rest of my entire life. This is wonderful. Being a young adult was so strange because it was like everything was okay. It was okay, you know? I look at my ID, I'm old enough to do it. It's okay. well i eat these pills and i'm getting paid a piecework framer i get paid by what i produce oh my god i was rich i'm quick anyway maybe a couple of power tools it's a wonder i have fingers left i've got hammers and power tools a cigarette hanging out my mouth you know and it was great because not only do i have all this money but i go to work i make a ton of money i feel great all the time i feel so good and i get drunk after work you know that's fun and then i come home and i'm tired well i eat some more pills and take a shower and i am ready to go and i stay up all night man and you know how it is this is one of those pivotal points when like we are and you start wondering is this okay? Because you know it's like Tuesday and it's like two in the morning and I'm up just in case and I feel good I'm smoking cigarettes and I've got I'm cleaning my house up and I am drinking wine and I am looking out the window to see if you are coming by i know you're i know you're gonna come by because i feel really good and we should be doing something there's nothing to do on tuesday night at two o'clock okay you're supposed to be asleep and you start going is this but that's the paradox of alcohol is that you feel so good but what you're doing is not right it's not right. I stayed up a whole year one time, just in case. You know when you do that thing where if you've done speed for an extended length of time, you don't sleep, you pass out from drinking and the next morning, you catapult out of bed and I'm out the door man, I'm smoking cigarettes and it was working, you know? It was working. I want to talk about cocaine. I have nine friends that are dead because of cocaine. You know, I miss those guys, you know, and it's a strange thing because there's only two differences between an alcoholic and a cocaine addict that I know of. Number one is I've never seen anybody shot because they didn't pay their bar tab unfortunately that's not the case cocaine and an alcoholic will steal your money but a cocaine addict will steal your money and then he'll help you look for it very very sneaky God put that substance in my life because he knows I'm not very smart and I'm not a very good learner. I don't listen to people. Well, I want to share this because I need to hear it for myself and I need you to let you know this is how my mind works when it comes to alcohol and substances. I got caught up in a lifestyle that goes with that thing where you do those drugs and you stay up for six or seven days in a row on cocaine and what's strange about that is the people that you start out with on the fifth day are somebody different and they're all cops. and this really strange thing happens on the sixth day as you you eat and then you fall asleep and then you wake up and this really magical thing happens where it's like it never really happened and you do it again and I did that for probably eight months in a row I was all involved in all that stuff non-stop drinking around the clock smoking cigarettes They didn't have cable TV back then. And remember the TV went off at like one? Oh, God! There's nothing to do between one and five when the jets go off, you know, and the Indians on there, the test pattern. And then the guys from Jesus in the morning. And you're like, oh no, I'm evil! Well, I didn't feel very well, so I didn'T feel well. I went up to my mom's house, and I walked in, and I did that thing that you do when you see your mom, you know, when you're like we are. And I went, hi, Mom. You don't look her in the eye because you'll melt. And she looks at you with that mixture of who are you and what'd you do with my baby? And so I said, hi. And I said hi, mom. And I go, hi mom. And I got to bed, my old bed, and rolled around in bed. And this is, I gotta tell you, this is how my mind works. I'm rolling around in bed for like three days and I can't get out of bed and I'm thinking oh my god fever and sweating and just oh my God well I finally after the third day I get up and I go into the bathroom and I look in the mirror and my hair was really long at the time because I was a surf dude my hair anyways does whatever it wants to do and it was in a cone and it would stick straight up like a dunce cap from rolling around the bed you know It was like a big old windsock. And I'm yellow. I'm bright yellow, and my eyes are yellow. And I look at it, and I'm thinking, you know that self-diagnosis we do? Something's wrong. And this is really spooky because this is how my mind works, and it didn't get much better after I got sober. I went to the doctor, and he said, Mike, have you been drinking a lot? I said, kind of. He said, well, your liver's toxic and I think you might have hepatitis. He said if you drink anymore you're going to die and I remember thinking my first thought I swear to God oh my God New Year's Eve's coming up. That was my first time. And instantly my mind kicked in and I thought you know what I'll tell them about all the cocaine I'm doing forget it I got a lot left and this is scary this is how my mind works I kept doing the cocaine, and I would get ill violently. I'm throwing up. And my brother, God bless him, he says, hey, man, look at you. You're yellow. And you're still doing that shit. He goes, what's up? And this is how my mind works. I said, hey. It's cool. I said I told the doctor about the cocaine. He said, Mike, you can do cocaine. Just don't drink. That's how my mom works. If I can convince you of my lie and you believe it, it's okay. I don't really care about my personal safety. I don'T really care ABOUT THE TRUTH. I DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT I WANT TO GET TO DO WHAT I WANTA DO. IF YOU'VE BEEN SOBER FOR A LITTLE WHILE OR A LONG TIME AND YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT NOW THAT YOU SHOULDN'T BE DOING, YOU MIGHT AS WELL GIVE IT UP. WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE. I tried that later on in sobriety so anyway I figured out what was wrong with me was the people in Orange County were just money oriented keep up with the Joneses they are but they were ruining my life killing me so I moved to Fairbanks, Alaska back to nature I love being out here man it reminds me of Fairbanks if you get a job in construction and you're still not sure if you're an alcoholic move to Fairbinks, Alaska step two I never knew where the hell I was the sun goes around in a circle and it's like this it's trees I didn't know where I was what time it was I didn' t know north, south where it was I was drunk all the time too which didn't help. The bars closed for an hour. We stood outside. Why bother? Why bother, and it always looks like nine o'clock in the morning. It's beautiful. We got a party. This is great, and then this weird thing happens in the winter. The sun comes up at 10 30 in the morning and goes down at 1 30 in the afternoon. Oh, and it's dark like this all the time. And it's cold. It's like 65 below zero. Oh we got a drink. This is horrible. But you know I went through those things that says in the book that if he has a medical problem, a change of location or geographic as they call it, falling in love. I did all those in Fairbanks. And they worked for a little while you know i started a new construction company i was going to do it right for her we're in love none of these people knew what a derelict i was and it worked for a little while and then things started happening you know in chapter two in the description of the real alcoholic it says he's a perfectly fine fellow but let him drink for a day or two and he becomes disgustingly anti-social and it says he he has a builds a perfectly fine outlook up for himself and his family and he pulls the structure down on his head by a series of senseless sprees and he's a real jekyll and hyde and it also says that he's pretty sane in everything that he does except for when it comes to alcohol when he's strangely insane and that was me i had a knack for getting tight at absolutely the wrong time when some important engagement must be made or an appointment must be kept and i just couldn't do it you know when you're doing those things and you're going my god why am i doing this and you blacken out and then the next day your your significant other is reminding you of what you did and that first half an hour of coming to when you go and you recall what's going on and they're telling you and you went oh my god oh god oh God, oh God, oh God. And then I found out what took that away was to drink again in the morning and it made it all okay. I reached that point in my life and if you've reached it, you know what it's like and it's the loneliest place I've ever been in my entire life as it wasn't a question of am I going to drink today? It's I don't know what time I'm going to start drinking and when I do I don' t know what's going to happen afterwards. In A Vision for You it talks about us being subjects of king alcohol so we were shivering denizens of his mad realm oh my god i was a shivering dennison i became and i did things that i didn't think i was going to do and i didn'T think it was bad you're talking about significant others i want to welcome all the al-anon people too i had this guy that i sponsored whose wife was one of the big cheeses and he couldn't stay sober. And so she was the key opening speaker at the Orange County Convention and I said, you know, we need to go support her and watch her speak. Well, we got there and they didn't have a microphone and the meeting was held up for probably 15, 20 minutes without a microphone and then finally he looks around and he says, you know in that alcoholic voice where we think we're whispering but everybody can hear you, it echoes and he goes, they sure as hell didn't need a microphone when they were yelling at you. And everybody turned and looked right at us. I went, oh, God. So anyway, I want to welcome all the Al-Anons and thank you for not killing us when you had the chance. The people in Fairbanks were bugging me. They started acting like people in Orange County and I'd forgiven the people in orange county by now so I came back home. and i i'll tell you what happened was uh i ended up living in a four-bedroom house that's why i like being out here tonight in a full bedroom house with no gas and no electricity i put my girlfriend on a train and sent her back to new york because she brought my truck back an hour late i was pissed i got a fistfight with my brother you know he rolled me over and he was going to hit me and He looked at me with that look of, you know, you're not even worth hitting. And he left and I remember thinking, oh boy, I don't have any problems now. I can do it right. And I started to drink really, really hard and I started using drugs and I ended up in that four-bedroom house by myself with no gas, no electricity. And I got around by using candles. You know? Not candles, like birthday candles. you know how hard it is to walk down the hallway with a birthday can without going out and i had them all over the house i thought this isn't that bad you don't have the fireplace going through a lot of light and i thought man this is not bad you know this is really not bad my truck broke down and i didn't fix it you remember thinking the choice of like transmission no and at 31 years old i rode my skateboard to the liquor store i only fell once and i thought you know it wasn't that bad and i remember that that alcoholic mentality if you know i got the system beat man i got no bills my brother and my mother thank god you know they knew something was wrong i didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought I was really evil, and I just didn't think I could get any better. I didn't know about AA. I had no clue. Well, they set up an intervention for me. If you ever get invited to an intervention, don't go. It's one of those days where you're going hmm it's like going to the dentist forever but at this intervention the people that loved me the most thank god they did had letters they wanted to read me and tell me about things and i got in there and i said you know what please don't read those letters i know i know what i've done to you please don'T READ THOSE LETTERS but they wanted TO THEY WERE PISSED and they wanted to read the letters and I said please don't and this big guy from Alabama was doing the intervention and he got up and he came over and he gave me a hug and he said you leave him alone he's been sick that's the first time in my entire life that I felt like somebody knew what was wrong with me you know I just didn't know what was right what was going on with me and I just couldn't stop drinking I clung to that guy like there was no tomorrow I said, can I call you in the middle of the night? That's when I have most of the problems. I hate my bed. I have to go in there and evil stuff happens in that thing. I think. He said, yeah, Mac. You can call me, but make sure it's important. He goes, because that will make two of us who can't sleep. But something about the fact that he would let me call him any time. And I thought, man, and you know what else? He acted like he knew what could help me. And that was the first time I ever met anybody like that. Well, you know, he introduced me to you guys. I've been looking everywhere for you. Oh my God, the club I was in, the only thing you needed was some money and a desire to hurt yourself. And I got here and I thought oh boy, I just wanted to belong to something. I faked like I was a Catholic. One of my girlfriends was Catholic And I went to church with her for like six years. I did all the stuff, gave the reading. Didn't take communion because I thought for sure I'd go to hell. I knew I was going to hell anyway, but I thought if I did that, I'd really be going to Hell. But I always wanted to belong to something. I got here and it's like, yeah. My very first AA meeting, I remember asking the people, what do you do in an AA meeting? And they said, well, you hide in the back and hope they don't call on you. I said, cool. I've been lurking in my house for about the last year in the dark. So, you know, I can hang with that. Well, I went, and you know what? The speaker, the very first meeting that I went to, God bless her. I used to call her on my birthday every year, Molly B. from out of L.A. She sang that Dow commercial, Dow Chevrolet commercial. And she said, this is the only thing I got on my first meeting. She said, every time I go to the baseball game, whenever the catcher goes out to talk to the pitcher, I know he's saying, I wish she'd leave. I thought, that's me. That's me and nobody likes me and they're going to catch me any minute. You know me, I don't do anything halfway and I'm hyperactive as hell. So I've got 50,000 commitments. I'm going to every meeting in the world, you know? I'm just having a great time. You know, Denise, I'm so glad to see you. We did things I never thought we'd do, basically because we had nobody else to do them with them. I remember being at Central Office picking up literature for something. I was always something. And the woman goes, and I'm talking to her, and she's saying, your sponsor's Bob? And I said, yeah. And she goes, are you Mike? And she said, yes. She goes, you're coming to my house on Sunday. And I go, I am? Yes. And I went to her house. I'd go places. You go places to meet people you don't even know you're gonna meet and you keep thinking hope they're okay i don't know these people and they used to drink a lot i hope they'RE okay um i want to talk about the steps because to me the steps are the whole thing steps are the real deal um i had all these commitments and everything was going really really well the first step i'll tell you i took i had to move back in with my mother i'm 31 and i moved back in with my mother and i'm in my room that i left when i was 17 when i moved out you know take on the world and i'M ON MY TWIN BED AND I'M DOING THAT THING YOU KNOW WHEN YOU FIRST GET SUBBER YOU'RE LIKE OH GOD YOU JUST KIND OF SIT AROUND WITH YOUR HEAD IN YOUR HANDS GOING OH GOD AND I'm LOOKING AROUNDS MY ROOM AND LIKE MY MOTOCROSS POSTERS AND MY DAVID Bowie posters are up. It's just like it was when I left when I was 17. It is a twin bed. And I look around and it dawns on me, you know, I tried as hard as I could to live life on my own with my own advice, drinking. And I ended up right back where I started. I can't do it. I need help. Help. I cannot do it by myself. I ended up right back where I started. And I fully admitted to my innermost self that I was powerless over alcohol and my life had become unmanageable. I don't think a second step kicks in until about the third year when you go, I haven't drank for a long time and I'm still kind of an ass. Is it the drink or is it me? And your sponsor's there to help you with that one. Oh, that would be you, Mac. The third step is, in my opinion, the whole deal. But the God thing I had trouble with. The last time I went to church, I was seven years old. I was so far behind. I was never going to catch up. And I don't like doing things that I'm not really good at. So I'm thinking, you know, this God thing, I'm not really sure. You know? I mean, the only prayers I knew were, God, please don't let me get pulled over. I couldn't drink in Arizona. of those signs say, don't drink and drive. I can't do it. God, please let the guy get here with a blow. God let me go to sleep, please. And I'll never do this again. And God damn it. That was the extent of my spiritual life. Those were my prayers and I used them all the time so i'm driving over to i had this truck you know i i've i love these trees because i bought this big four-by truck when i lived in alaska you know because you got to have it to get around and and i went out drinking you know you go four right in the middle of night and you end up nowhere and i got stuck and i had to come along because i'm in construction so i hooked it on a tree well in alaskan the ground freezes so the roots on the trees come down and go like this. And I'm jacking that come along, and the trees are falling. My truck's not going anywhere, and I kept pulling these trees over on me. God, but that truck, I drove it from Alaska down to California. And about the Oregon border, the windshield wipers stopped working. oh that's rough they stopped working so bad I left them on for like three or four years well I'm driving around to central office of one of the 6,000 commitments I got and I'm thinking about God what am I going to do I've got to get one and I don't know how to pray and I think it starts to rain and I thought oh great God you know I'm trying to help these alcoholics to do these commitments and it's raining. And I thought, my next thought was okay let's check you out. And i started praying for my windshield wipers. The minute i stopped praying they started working. I said i'm easily impressed. You know burning bush whatever man that was from then on i started having a pretty good working interest with deal with God. I also had a lot of help. My, my, my grand sponsor was Dr. Paul. I was very fortunate to spend time with some great people in AAU who told me, you know what, Mike, if you're not having fun, you might as well drink. You know, I remember sitting, I used to get to eat lunch with Paul and Bob on Thursdays and I'd have a problem. And I'd say, okay, Paul, you're the big guru on acceptance. I said, what's up with this? And he said, he said Mike, the reason why you keep asking why is because we haven't explained it to you in terms that you like yet. And he'd keep eating. And I think, well, that didn't help me a bit. But he used to say things like, you know what? If I get up in the morning and I turn my will and my life over to God and I tell you to go to hell, that was God's will. Simple things like that that took me out of the equation. That, you know, you know What? God is getting stuff ready for me right now and he's going, oh, I'll wait till he sees this. he's gonna love it because you know what you told me it's my higher power and you know bobby say mike free him up a little bit raise the bar see what he can do put him through the paces i make a wish list every year of things that i want him to fix within the next year and things that you know that point in your life when you've arrived and you've got everything you need well he had me start putting that on paper because he said you knowwhat god needs a help He needs a hint. Those wish lists, I've gotten everything on those wish lists that I've ever put down. I mean, I shoot the moon. I'll tell you about that stuff later. God's as big as I make him. And why would I have a little tiny God? My God can do and will do anything that I want. All I got to do is ask. After seven months, I wanted to drink. And I said to Bob, I said, look, what's the deal with this man? I'm all these meetings. I got all these commitments. I'm doing all this stuff. And I wanted a drink. And he said, Mac, fellowship meetings will carry you for a little while. But the only thing that will keep you from drinking again is the 12 Steps to Alcoholics Anonymous. So I want you to write an inventory. Oh, man. I figured if I told you what I'd done, that would make two of us that hated me. But I did it because it said in the book in italics. I checked the italics, man, and it says invariably they got drunk. And I thought, okay, I better do that. So I did it, and I felt better. I felt really good. I went home and tried to feel bad about something. I couldn't do it. You know me, I'm going to test this stuff out. I'm not going to take your word for it. Sixth and seventh step, I think, are the big deal for me, and I'll tell you why. The sixth step says, I became willing to have God remove this defect of character. Like, I am going to go, Okay, God, Iam ready to have this defective character removed. They don't tell you it's going to hurt. and you've got to pull your pants down in front of everybody look at me, I made a mistake look what I'm doing because only another alcoholic knows what you're up to that's why God stuck us all together we know exactly what you are doing you're the last one to know well when you're sobriety I needed a girlfriend and I had that truck well I rented these Cadillacs big ones quit laughing to these and I would get there I'd peel the snappy rental car sticker off and slap an AA magnetic unity sticker on there driving to conventions man check me out babe you know my sponsor would come out and go Mac that's a nice car I wonder who owns it you know and it's like drinking it starts on the weekend I kept it on the week and then I kept for a week one time and then one time I kept up for a whole month You know, the seventh step said, humbly asked him to remove that shortcoming. I took that Cadillac back and it cost me $1,600 for one month. I humbly ask God to remove that defect of character trying to look good. At three years of sobriety, I was secretary of a big Friday night meeting. I mean, it brought big dough in. I was treasurer. and I was in construction and things were really slow God's will I started taking that money I thought well you know God that's cool it's a loving program but you know what this is what I found out this is usually what happens with me and AA is my disease will do anything it can to drive a wedge between me and you it will do everything it can to alienate me from you so I can get drunk again and it can kill me. I started sitting in that meeting thinking, they know. I'm telling you, if you've got a secret right now, we know. Because we did it. And I remember thinking, oh my God, any minute now they're going to catch me. They didn't care. I finally broke down And I gave them, I said, I told you, I stole your money. I took it. I'm sorry. I broke down. You know what they did? They reelected me treasurer. You can't get kicked out of this deal. I tried. In the beginning of my sobriety, I humbly asked God to remove that defect of character of being a thief. In the beginnig of my sobriety, I went on a date and a girl pulled out a bag of cocaine and I said give me some of that. And she said no you're trying to get sober. And I said so what? Give me someof that. Well she made me buy it She charged me ten bucks. And i did ten bucks worth of cocaine. And remember at the concert place going in front of the bar that they had and standing there going if you start drinking it's all over. And I didn't drink. And I came down off the cocaine pretty quick And I remember on the drive home thinking, I'm not telling. And I didn't. Well, you know me. I'm going to 14 meetings a week and I'm taking chips. I take my one-year chip. Grace of God, fellowship of AA. I take an 18-month chip. They have an 18 month chip in California just to keep you from getting high between the two. And I'm expounding on my wisdom of AA and everything, you Know. Well, what happened was my prayer started going something like this. And if you're doing something wrong, good luck. Because my prayers started going something like this. Oh God, please don't let me have to tell the truth today. And it eats you up and the chip on the back, they put that tooth I know in self be true. It's like you can't look at it. And I'm at this meeting where my sponsor is taking 16 years and I'm leading the meeting. And all my friends are there and it's a big deal. And I can't stop thinking about this. And I break down in the meeting. I said, oops, sorry. I lied. I've been lying about my sobriety date the whole time. Right in the middle of it, my sponsor goes, Mac, if I were you, I'd kill myself. I sat down. I didn't know what to do. I sat Down and I went over it like I do always afterwards. I said Bob, what should I do? And he goes, well, Mac, if it were me, I'd have to go back to all those meetings and apologize to those people and tell them I was sorry I was a liar and give them their chips back. Oh, no. I became willing to have God remove that defect of character of being a liar. And I went back, and I gave those chips back to every one of those meetings, and I told them what went down. And you know what I figured out? Nobody cares. There's no cops here. Your cop is your stomach, and it's whatever your stomach can handle. And believe me, your stomach is going to speak up if you stick around here long enough. At six years of sobriety, I was faced with paying my insurance premium or going to the Masters Golf Tournament. I'd still toss up now if it happened now. You know, and I've been sober longer, andI'd do it. Well, I didn't pay my insurance preview. I got in a car wreck a week after I got back totaled my car out lost my license suspended license for a year I sponsor a lot of guys could you please give me a ride to the meeting I don't have a driver's license Clancy says no matter how many times you work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous you can never rise above the level of human being if you're thinking about as Bob would say, getting sober and jumping into a vat of spiritual bleach and coming out lily white. Forget it. He said, Mike, shake hands with your character defects. They're not going anywhere. But the best part about this all is the sixth and the seventh step is through a series of listening to myself and getting over the fear of the inventory. I do an inventory every year because I'm afraid of me. the process is what happens leilani and i were talking and she said why do you love me and why do you want to marry me she's been sober 12 years and i'll be 15 in october and i said because you are a product of what your stomach says is okay through doing the inventories and talking to people and trying to work on those character defects and praying over and over again for god to fix them you have become the person that you think you should be and i have too and we both like those people and i can't believe what a gift that is until i had done that the women that i was with were not right for me nor was i capable of being with them so if you're new relax there's no finish line bob used to say mike i never felt like i was myself till i was nine you're sober. And I thought, oh boy. What does that mean? Stick around. It gets really, really good. I want to talk about God and improving meditation. You know, we went out and we prayed in the vortex things. You Know, I'm not one of those guys, but I am. And i can only tell you because it feels better. It feels better to do this. It may seem weird and goofy and hippie-ish, and I grew up during that period of time, but you know what? It feels good. It feels much better. And that's what I think God is. God feels better." Ninth step, I paid a lot of money back and that was because God gave me the money to pay that stuff back. the 12th step I want to talk about the 12 step and then I'll sit down I gave up the right to say no to anything in Alcoholics Anonymous when I got sober the minute I say no I will probably get drunk shortly thereafter because a guy like me God uses me because I'm a big loud mouth and draw a lot of attention to people and then i can introduce them to God but I got a call in the middle of the night from this guy and he said would you come over and help me there's a guy here trying to shoot himself in the head and he wants to get sober you know I did that first thing where i went oh god and then i said i said yes and i put my clothes on i went over there's about two in the morning we went overthere and the guy's sister was there and she said uh she said i'm really worried about him he's trying you know he tried to kill himself and i said well i'm not really worried About him i said he tried To shoot himself in the head and he missed i said I'm not worried about our self-preservation skills i said i'm more worried about his want to stay sober he has 1100 bucks in this pocket well we went through this deal and he said yeah i want to get i want to get sober so he went to the recovery home that we take people to and the next morning the guy calls me up and he goes what do you think about that guy and i said i don't know i just don't know if he was seriously now he goes yeah on the way home he told me that he he took a pocket knife and cut a little hole in his head and put barbecue sauce and pepper on there to make it look like he had a gunshot wound and i thought you know that's me i want all the attention that comes with trying to commit suicide but i'll be damned if i'm gonna hurt myself um i want to thank you guys for being here i want to thank you for saving my life. I want to thank you for giving me my human dignity back through the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to think you for introducing me to God, which was all I needed. But I mainly want to thank you being here because if you weren't it would be like it was when I was living in that house with no gas and no electricity. I'd be talking to myself. Thank you. Thank you.