The Simple Answer for a Complex Person – Steve B.

Here's our speaker. I don't know much about him, so I'm going to let him tell his story. Come on up here, please. I'll leave too. Okay. Hi, everybody. I'm Steve Bordner. I am an alcoholic. I want to thank the committee for having me here and all you folks. I'm sorry I got here so late. I just have not had balance in my life lately, and I don't know if any of you struggle with that, and it's darn being of service stuff. My sobriety date is May 25th, 1979, and I still haven't got balance yet, so if you've got less time than that and you're struggling with balance, somebody else has got it. I've got a big map. I've Got a Big Calendar up, and my wife and I talk about how much I should talk in my, and I just can't seem to get it all in that box, you know? And I'm not operating on much sleep right now. So I'm kind of afraid when I get this tape, it's just going to be blah, blah, so I'm sure I'll wake up and then fall asleep after this and wake back up for Earl. But you know, it's nice to be in the South. I didn't get sober in Southern California. I got sober in Columbia, of South Carolina. So, yeah, huh? Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, I actually know that the correct name is the War of Northern Aggression. So I don't know if any of the other California speakers know that, but I do. And I went down and saw the Confederate soldier down in Times Square today. I was looking for him. I grew up in Virginia, and my father was in the service. We lived right next to Arlington Cemetery when he was working at the Pentagon, and we lived right behind the Confederate part of Arlington Cemetery, and they had that Confederate soldier there, and he was facing south. Only one time the wind blew him and he came facing north again. He wasn't quite done. And then I noticed out here in this little park out here where it's got the Declaration of Independence, it says the United States. It's real big there. So I know I'm in the South, but last time I left the South in 1981, I've been back. My sister lives in Winston-Salem. I've got an aunt in Myrtle Beach. But Starbucks wasn't really in the South when I left. You know, I knew the coffee movement had made it when on country and Western television you had some old cowboy going, I'll take a pickled egg and I'll have some pigs knuckles and give me a latte. You know, I knew whoever had started the coffee movement. So I hit Memphis this morning and I'm going up to Starbucks to wake up and I hear, give me double latte. You know? That just, wow. Just sounds different. You know what I mean? And, you know, Southern California AA is very different than South Carolina AA was in 1979. I think it was sort of more a little bit like California A.A. was in 1959. When I got sober, all the old-timers, I lived in Columbia, South Carolina. There's a little place there called Fort Jackson. Some of you might have been there. A little basic training place. Now what this means for the newcomer is all the Old-Timers are retired sergeant majors with eighth grade educations who just love little college educated white boys like myself. They look at you and go, there's no such thing as a stupid question. And you know you just ask one. These are people who didn't have feelings. They don't know why you should. They're not really interested. I don't mind you, and I won't talk much about drinking. I'm the guy that I've had this reputation of not having much of a drunkologue. Mine was boring. Most speakers in AA, it seems to me, that speak have like one of two drunkologues. Either they were tied down in Folsom doing life. I'm short, I'm white, in jail, I'm an hors d'oeuvre, I're not going. Wash him up, get him ready, we'll do him before lunch. No, ain't happening, okay? Then the other guys that seem to speak a lot are the ones who woke up in Reno with $100,000 in a suitcase and 12 hookers in the room. That didn't happen either. Yet. So I just sat in my chair and drank myself to death. You know that sweaty, drinking alcoholics can't have leather chairs. We have to have cloth chairs so you sweat in it. It gets a nice sweaty smell, and you throw it out when you get sober. I just said in that chair, tip of the hat to Norma, drinking myself to Death seconds and inches, laughing hysterically because Jillian was leaving Seneca one more time on Ryan's Hope and crying hysterically because they'd missed the big word on the $10,000 pyramid I don't know about you but that's one of the things I've lost in sobriety is the ability to cry like I could cry when I was drinking it was just those animal sounds I don't identify as a drug addict. I have never met a drug alcohol couldn't help. Everything goes better with bee feeders, all right? That's just my story. I mean, if you're a drug addict, you're fine. Alcoholic addict, alcoholic, whatever. I have no problem with that, but it's just me. I just never met a drug that if it got in the way of my drinking, it went. But during that quaalude phase, don't you hate that on your sexual inventory when you have to get to the quaalud phase? I did an inventory with a nun one time. I don't know how that happened. I was on retreat. I went to the priest. I said, I've got an inventory that says Sister Carmel does the private retreats. I go, Father, I'm an alcoholic. i don't think sister carmel wants to hear my sexual inventory said sister carmelle handles the private retreat so i just figure out so i go down there and i'm going to test her you know how we do i'm gonna test her so i start giving her the resentment list so i give her the fear stuff so i gave her a little bit of the college sex high school sex oh i figure i'm boring her you know what? And I figure if my sexual inventory is boring a little nun, maybe I stopped drinking too soon. So I gave her the quaalude part, you know, the camels and the trapeze, all that stuff. The problem with quaaludes is you're still tied up the next day. But anyway, what I was trying to say is I never did real well in the bars, but I walked into a bar one night, I was doing quaalades, and I was sitting there next to, it was a place called group therapy. And the men's room was right next to the women's room. This was in Columbia, South Carolina. And I'm waiting, trying to get in the men'S room. And this girl comes out of the women'S room and I go, I'm quite a little drunk, right? You know, and who could resist that really? Come on. That's my best character. And she looked me in the eye and went, we're out the door in five minutes. It was great. You're going to meet those people when you drink it. But those stories are very rare. I just sat in that chair dying and I really believe that my drunk log is if we take out all the high points, all the running the Lear Jets and all the funny stuff. That's what happened to most of us. We just died by seconds and inches, one gray day after the other, slipping into oblivion. And then somewhere along the line, all the fun stuff, even the tragically funny stuff, stopped happening. And we got to that point where it talks about in the book whether we're going to live by spiritual principles or die an alcoholic death. We have to make that choice, which like it should be really tough. But I want to think about it. Let me think. I don't know. Do I want to give all this up? Sitting in my chair, my best friends at television. But you call ANA. You call ANA, you're going to finally call AN A. Everybody, your ex-wife, the dog, your therapist, everybody's saying call ANa. So you call them. Now what you really want, I don' t know about you, I didn' t go to ANA looking to stop drinking. I went to AN A looking to give up the consequences of drinking. See and if I could do that, I would be drinking today, but I couldn't. But what you really want on the end of the phone is a pre-Al-Anon. You do. Because you're going to call and go, please help me if you want something. Oh, poor baby. A little sickie come down, we'll rock you. Well, remember, these are retired sergeant majors. John answered the phone. Hello? ANA, what do you want? Well, Yeah, the meeting's at 8. Click. Boo! You know, and you get in your car just to go down there and find him because you're going to kick his butt for some reason. But, yeah, the most amazing thing happened, and this is part of southerness too. As I started to walk in that club, because I didn't know you guys made house calls. I know you're like dominoes. You come get me. I just got in my car and took that 3,000-mile 15-minute drive. and and i would make the 21st question on the 20 questions do you need to have facts to have an opinion if the answer is no you're an alcoholic right because i'd never been to an aa meeting but i knew all about them 22nd question would be if you're opening a fifth do you throw away the top yeah if the answers yes you're alcoholic right what are you going to need the top for it's just a fifth maybe if it was a court and it was like three o'clock in the morning we'd need to save the top but who needs a top on a fifth do you realize there are non-alcoholics who have had fists in their house for decades they have alcoholic alcohol in their home and they don't even know where it's at i mean as far as i know and sometimes i have alcohol in my home because people come in in my family and drink and but i don't think there's any now but if there was i'd know where het was and i'd be taking care of it you know looking in on it every once in a while, you okay? Need anything? I don't know if I'm going to need you today, but I just wanted to make sure you're okay. I mean, I got addicted. I'm gonna digress here. You'll notice I do this all the time. I sometimes get back to what I started on, but sometimes I won't. You'll just be left with the question. What happened to him going into that first AA meeting? You can put it on one of those little cards, which I'm not sure this is AA. If there's complaint cards up here and nobody's writing, I'm not sure you're alcoholics like I know alcoholics. Because where I go to meetings, if they said there's complaints, man, I don't like the coffee and why all these California speakers. So, no, but when I got sober, I got addicted to antique stores. Antique stores? Yeah, yeah, you got that down here? And, you know, what I found in antique stores were shot glasses. Did you guys know about these? Let me explain the concept to you of a shot glass. A shot glass is what a non-alcoholic uses to make sure they don't get too much alcohol in their drink. Kind of bizarre, isn't it? I mean, you know, here they are. Oh, the recipe calls for an ounce of alcohol. I don't want to get too many. Too much in there, yeah? We know what an ounce is. You just free pour it, huh? Yeah, we'll top it off a little bit there. See, if you're new, it says that the greater demonstration of these principles is in like other places than AA, in our work, in our community. And so it's tough enough to do it in AA. But we're supposed to do at other places. So you're going to get some like non-alcoholic friends someday. And you're not going to like do something really stupid and lame like go to a movie and have dinner. and so you're going to go out to the movie and they're going first ask you do you mind if they drink and the reason they know you're an alcoholic is because you have like jewelry all over you and all your chips on your side just being anonymous Bill Wilson is my friend t-shirt and you're gonna say something do you find if we drink and you're going to go, I stopped drinking. The world didn't. You know, just being humble. So these mooks, these people who could have anything they want behind the bar, kamikaze, Long Island iced tea, a drink I never had. You are encouraging me to relapse. Do you understand what you're doing? You just woke him up. Oh, they said it was okay to have one. Oh, I said it wasn't really good. I already have my relapsed drink. Vanilla Stoli. So, but anyway, these idiots. These idiots. These idiots can have anything they want. And they go, yeah, boy, it's been a tough week, man. They ate my lunch this week. I'm going to have, I really need a drink. I'm gonna have a white wine spritzer. On the rocks, not too much wine, lots of spritz. And when they order it, you kind of want to hurt them for some reason. grab them but you're not because you're monitoring because you know what you used to do you used to belt three or four in the house or at the bar when you went to the bathroom and so maybe they're just kind of hiding their drinking and so they sit there and they sip it all through dinner just sip you already know they're not alcoholic they'd be swallowing right they sip it so now it gets time to go see the titanic or some dumb movie and i just want to say one thing about the Titanic. They didn't like that movie. I can have a good relationship with a woman if I know I'm going to die in five hours, okay? And that's all I want to say about that movie If I'm gonna freeze to death tonight I'm your guy, okay But you know I want see those people five years from now when she wants to buy China and he wants to ride the wild horses That's when I want it That's what I want to see that relationship So anyway You got it it's time to go to the movie, you're getting up and you notice there's still wine in the glass and they're leaving and you know you can't let this happen. Somehow you've got to get them to drink the rest of that wine. You know this isn't like normal so you're trying to hide it. You're going to go, did you know there's wine in your glass? Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Well, why don't you just drink it then and we can go, no, I'm done, I'M done, See, that'S the difference between them and us. They go, I'm done. They walk away. We go, I'm done. One more. Right? So you're going, all right, well, just drink it. Just drink it and we go to the movie. No, I don't want any more. Just drink her, would you? Would you just throw it? Just chug the thing and we can get out of here. Well, if I do that, I'll get sick. Then why the hell do you drink? So you just can't make a non-alcoholic drink like us. I identified didn't I see because what happens is you give me six or seven ounces of ethyl alcohol I swallow it it goes down my throat hits my stomach the sun rises paralyzes my legs comes up my chest, goes out my fingers flushes my face and every pore in my body goes ahhh your sphincter is a little tighter isn't it the little sweats, cause you know the ah see we know the ahhh, they don't know ahhh it doesn't go ahhh for them the most fascinating drink i've seen is is uh what is that new one uh zima only drink i have ever seen fascinate old-timers i see new guys come in can you help me with the steps you tell me what a zima tastes like i'll help you with this stuff what is this bubbly and clear how does that work? Because this guy, I don't, does this guy talk to you? He talks to me all the time. You know, you're a good person. You can have just one drink. You got sober when you were 30. We've been sober a long time. Maybe you just had a problem. You have just one drink, John. Let's have a Zima. What is a Zema? Clear and bubbly, clear and bubbLY, clear and bubbling. He's, I try to find, he's the rain man of demons who is who he is, you Now, I'm a very good drinker. I'm five minutes to Jack Daniels. Five minutes to you, Jack Daniel. Let's just have a non-alcoholic beer. Let's try that. Now, I have no opinion about that. I know people drink them. That's up to them. I don't drink non- alcoholic beer. For me to drink a non‑alcoholics beer would be like to go to a house of prostitution to listen to the piano player. It ain't going to happen. You know what I mean? And I'm going to tell myself I'm just going for the music, the Bach, the Mozart. I'm gonna get a room, okay? I know that. So then he goes, and if you're new, he's talking to you too. He just talks. See, I woke him up with that ah part. He said, let's get the hell out of here and go have an ah. If you're knew, he says, I'm not going to do it. He's saying something to you like this. He's going, okay, okay. Okay. Okay. You got 90 days. You better drink before you get too much time or you won't be able to drink anymore. you get 120 days you won't be able to pick up again or he's saying something like this okay maybe we're an alcoholic maybe maybe I'll be reasonable which is a big lie I'll do it I'll just be reasonable let's drink tonight which is always his plan let's Drink Tonight and if we're alcoholic we'll come back tomorrow now there is only one group of people in this room that can guarantee if they drink tonight where they will be tomorrow the Al-Anons and if they're not working a good program they can guarantee where you'll be tomorrow okay but but not me if i drink i can't guarantee where i'm gonna be june july 2000 i don't know where i'M GONNA BE once i get back on that roller coaster yeah and he still talked to me he's like you're a very good person you're very good now i know i know in the deepest part of me because i've been restored to sanity in the second step which to me only means that i look at alcohol and know it will kill me when it talks about insanity in the big book. It always talks about taking a drink when we're stoned, cold, sober, thinking this time it will be different. This time it won't be so bad. It hasn't got anything to do with my relationships, my jobs or anything else because you know what? I can take a rock and hit somebody right now that has just the same relationship problems as anybody in this room. They would never think about drinking as a way to solve them. I can takerock and hit somebody that has the same employment problems. It's not alcoholic insanity. They just never would think about drinking as a way to solve them i will because it solves them i don't care anymore i care too much or i can cry or i could shut you off i can do something it's magic for me so if that guy ever talks to me he says okay you can have one you can just have one and have one and i believe him and i take that one drink and it hits my stomach bam he's right over here you rotten loser you you just threw away 19 years why don't you drink your miserable self to death you know and if I could ever get those guys out in front of me and went, you guys aren't consistent they'd go, we don't care we don' t even like you our job is to kill you so why are you talking to us rather than your sponsor that just has never Peg M from Nebraska was the speaker at the Friday night meeting at the San Fernando Valley Convention last night and she said something that I believe And it's always nice when you hear people you really respect say something you believe, even if they're just validating your mistake. It sounds good. And she talked about she just had given up on getting well. You know, I've just given up On Getting Well. And the great thing that does for me is it keeps me in my meetings. I've got to go to a certain amount of meetings just to maintain the kind of hold-on reality that I've Got. How about you? I can get real depressed just reading the newspaper. I can get really upset getting on a plane Let me tell you, I got one of those things Sometimes I want to get into the How stupid are you category with people When they're sitting there You're driving down the road And they're pushing the cross sign like 14 times You want to stop your car and go How stupid aren't you? Just do it once, okay Get back in your car This is what happens on airplanes You ever notice this? You're sitting in your seat on an airplane Somebody comes on They've got like seat 37 They look, one Okay? They've got seat 37. One. They move one row down and look again. This has got to be two, okay? It can't be anything other than two. What are you doing? You just want to grab them. How stupid are you? I'm not well, okay. Just in case you thought I was the well speaker. They're happening later. I mean, one of the greatest spiritual growth places for me is the 13-item line at the grocery store. Right? Thirteen items. Great place for alcoholic spiritual growth, you know? Because you get in the 13-item line and you're waiting and you are going to be tempted to count the number of items in the basket in front of you. Don't do this. It's a loser play no matter what happens. Because if you count them and there is 13, you kind of go, oh, 13. Now what am I going to do? Read the Enquirer, find out about the guy with two heads. Hmm, okay. But then if there's like 15, you can get up on that spiritual hilltop and go, oh, can't count when you're old. I guess some people just get to put 15 items in their basket. See, if I was God and you'll be glad I'm not and you had 15 items and the 13 item line, I would shoot you, gut you like a deer, hang you up over the cash register with 13 items in the 15 item line and nobody would do that anymore. this is the attitude i had before i drank because see if i could change aa from alcoholics anonymous i would change it to does not play well with others anonymous we are the kids that went in the kindergarten grabbed the t-shirt and went i'm in charge now give me the cookies and the bankies and nobody gets hurt the future drug addicts who are in the back crushing up the cookies mixing them with other things so let's just take a little inventory here we've got all the blankets all the toys and we're selling the other kids bad cookies wondering why doesn't anybody like me I don't know about you but the literature describes me perfectly I do not know how to be a worker among workers or a friend among friends I don' t know how to do anything but dominate or be dominated I have no idea how to come into a meeting and make the meeting, as much as it's in my power, as good for you as it is for me. I learned that all here. I learnedthat because I had a home group. And I would just really suggest if you don't have a homegroup, get one. They will drive you crazy. But don't change your home group, because if you get a resentment and go to another home group those people will just go with you. Now they'll have different little earth suits on, they'll have different names, different bodies, but it's the same people. Because see, if God has a lesson for me to learn, I'm not going to avoid it by moving down the street. See, I always think I can manipulate God. You know what I mean? I mean, he can make a butterfly. All I can make is caca, but I think I'm going to fool him. What's behind you? Nothing, guy. There's nothing here. See, nothing here, so you get a home group, and then if you stay in that home group long enough, my spiritual grandmother was Alabama, and she always said, you know, someday you're going to have to you know be the leader around there for at least a minute and you gotta be careful because if you you can get shot for that in some groups uh but i was sitting in my i go to this home group it's in a church it meets in the morning they only have a couple of rules we're not supposed to use profanity or because little kids are coming in the church and don't smoke on church grounds and and don'T bring pets and i don't know why they have the pet rule it doesn't bother me but they have it maybe it's a liability thing so i'm sitting in the doorway one day and this guy is walking up the steps with this little puppy and it's a neighbor. I'm hoping he's going to walk by, but he's coming up. And so now I'm there and I know I got to do the deal. So I start breathing deep. Oh, you know, anytime you give alcoholics bad news, they're not happy. They don't go, oh, thank you so much for sharing. It's not generally what they, the most unused part in this book is like when the husband and wife fight and it says, excuse me, dear, this is getting out of hand no yeah yeah right yeah we all go right to that i know you do i certainly do after i kill everything you love this is getting out of hand so he's coming up the steps and i go hi good morning how are you nice to see you listen the church has some rules not us bad church bad church bad church control issues but they have a few rules and one of the rules is you can't bring the dog into the meeting. He looked me in the eye and he said, the perfect alcoholic thing. It's just a small dog? Isn't that it, you know? I mean, why are you so uppity? I just had sex with your sister for a little while. What's the problem? I like this row. They're all late. You guys are really ill. If you're laughing this much at this stuff, you're... And this is the non-smoking section, too. Too much oxygen. Don't go there over here. I like it. I haven't been in a smoking meeting in a long time. I remember, yeah, I remember AA when if you could go in the meeting and see the leader, you knew you were an Al-Anon. Where you could got down at a convention, if you didn't lose a lung, it wasn't good, you know? And remember in AA when all the walls were like nicotine yellow, remember that? Yeah, I think you had to order that paint from New York. I remember the Radford group was my home group And I moved there and it was like nicotine yellow Because they had smoke from Bill Wilson there So they painted it this nice white And that's the first time I knew alcoholics would complain about anything Because they painted this nice one for two weeks The sharing meetings, I don't like it this way I liked it better the other way Because if you're new, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous The most rigid organization on the face of the earth It is. You wouldn't think it. We don't like to think of ourselves that way, do we? We like to thinking of ourselves as bohemian, laid-back rebels. That's only with alcohol. Once you take the alcohol out of the alcoholic, very rigid. Now, if you don't think this is true, just get in your inner group. GSO. Just join your picnic committee. And as the picnic committee is going along, say something like, Mr. Chairman, I think we should move the tables over there this year There will be a deadly silence And one of the oldest of old-timers will go Son, we don't move the picnic tables at the Huntsville group Bill Wilson put those picnic tables there Dr. Bob had some potato salad right there, son We don't moved the picnic table Just take those liberal ideas And hold on to them I said this meeting I was speaking at this meeting At Lockett Yotta the other day It's a very nice meeting Very, very old You know in AA Most of the meetings I go I'm Ward Cleaver Which is a really Unfortunate thing Because they're all young They're very young This was an older meeting And they were doing chips And this nice lady down front They said Got a 30 day chip Anybody got 30 days And she went I have 29 Can I take a chip You would have thought She farted My God These people No you can't have them A 30-day chip at 29, you'll get boils and plague. Watch it, y'all will fall apart. It'll be bad if you do that. These are people who went out for a pack of cigarettes Halloween, didn't come back to Valentine's Day, but God forbid this woman take a chip one damn second early, you know? It's scary what happens to us, you don't know? All the double winners are going, yeah, we know, we got a solution for you. I told that story, and a guy came up to me. True story. He said he was in his home group, which was a club, and they were trying to obey by the traditions in this club, and they Were debating whether to have a Coca-Cola machine, well, they were debating whether to have A soda machine in the club or not. And they debated this all day long, as only alcoholics can. And finally, they decided They were going to have A soda Machine in this Club. And just to mess with him, He raised his hand and said, Mr. Chairman, there is a vast issue here We have not addressed. And the chairman said, What's that? and he says, I like Pepsi. So the chairman came up out and he was going to kill him because he knew that meant like three more days of debate. Screw the impeachment! Pepsi, Coke, Pepsi, Coca-Cola. I love it. I just love it and I don't know about you but if you're not having fun in meetings you're nicht going to the right meetings because the great thing about AA meetings is one old timer might get in a fist fight with another old timer over gratitude. Or the punctuation in the big book. I remember, you know, they'd get in their walkers when I was new and try to hit each other. We'd bet on them. Heart attack, win the fight. Heart attack win the flight. It's a terrific program, man. They tell you they don't lie to you? I lie to newcomers all the time. I do. I lie all the time. I lie. That's a lie. See, that they don' lie to you in AA is a lie. My experience with people in AA is they will lie one side of you and down the other if they think it will buy you five seconds of sobriety. I have guys call me all the time. Me, me, me. My, my, my. They, they, they. Me, she, she. Those little black holes of early recovery. If you're new, don't take offense at that. Everybody is that way. I'll listen to it for a little while and I go, well, why don't you read page 36? I don't know what's on 36. I have no idea what's on 36, just came to my brain, 36. About 10 minutes later, thank you so much. Then I get a write read 36, found out what I said, you know? Oh yeah, that was pretty good of me, wasn't it? Another way I like to mess with newcomers is I go up to one i've been watching i go how much time you got they go uh 35 days i said great at 40 days we send you a gift and they're new they're not stupid they go really oh yeah yeah we send you a guest yeah right i said yeah right to your home they go how do you know where i live i go we know what get scratch that paranoia just a little bit we know we know so i'll go i won't see him for a while they get like 95 days they'll come up to me hey man where's my gift oh well we moved that up it's 120 days 120 days you get a gift 120 and it goes on for about six months finally they'll come up to me hey steve i know what the gift is i know what it is it's sobriety isn't it yeah shipped right to your home so i mean i love alcoholics anonymous because i'm one of those guys that takes 50 words to say anything and i love the guys in aa that can just put you straight there was a guy that sat out in front of Radford. His name was Big Jack. He's passed away. Big Jack was a railroad guy, you know? He was just one of those guys and he helped so many guys. And I remember I had this job. First job I got when I moved to LA was waiting tables in a restaurant, just like almost everybody who moves to LA. And, you know, and it was a great job because it let me learn how to play with the team. I'm an, you Know, I think one of the paradoxes of recovery is the lone wolf have to join a group in order to survive. Because I'm a loner. I am not a communal beast. And so this, I learned how to play well with you guys and then I go out and, you know, they didn't always seat that restaurant the way I liked it set. I was in, you now, I was a waiter but I wanted to get, I had a management person in here telling, and Jack would just say, they didn' t hire you to do the restaurant, did they Steve? Oh no. So one night after I got off work I would go to the 7-Eleven have a Diet Coke and a Snickers bar and played a video game to kind of calm down. That's a real paradox right there, right? And all I had was a 20 and the guy wouldn't break the 20 and he just infuriated me. I don't know about you, but my first three years... See, I am the president of the Nice Guy Society. I'm the guy that was giving flowers to your mother while you were riding the Harley with Guido, okay? Because I would get in with your mother then when he broke your heart, I'd be there. Mr. Nice Guy. I'm the guy in the big book that talks about trying to get his way by being nice. I wasn't nice. That was just my way of getting what I wanted. And so when I got sober and stopped drinking, all of that stuff came up. And for the first three years of my sobriety, I was enraged most of the time. I was working a hell of a program, going to a lot of meetings, praying. I remember I was in the shower one day just screaming at God, would you take this character defect away? And I could hear him just as clear as I could here you say, if I took it away, Steve, you wouldn't talk to me anymore. Your anger's keeping you on your knees, and I like hearing from you, so I'm not going to take it. My football. So this guy just enraged me, and big guys would walk away from me. I'm the biggest guy, and not much of a fighter, because they would see the insanity in our eyes. They knew it was like they'd have to kill us. It's not a fight. It's a death throw. And so the fact is I just wanted to reach out and rip this guy's heart out for not changing that 20 The red veil came down. I was there before I was There so I walked out of that 7-eleven I drove home I wanted to I was so mad I wanted To drive back and I didn't Which was spiritual growth and the next day I saw Jack And I told him the story and I saw it he said Yeah you see Steve and you didn't have to Go back and make any amends did you And I went I asked him this question I said yeah Jack but when do the feelings Change and he said Eventually you know i mean and it was like oh okay good eventually and i was okay i mean i'm a very complex person or at least think i am and what i love about a is just the simplicity of it that i just get eventually and somehow it's like okay i can live with that there's a guy he's passed away and he passed away 20 years before i ever got sober alan McGinnis was from Los Angeles. And he said, let the tailgater pass, which is quantum physics for alcoholics. Let the tailgate or pass it. I would have never thought about that on my own. I had to come here. I got a master's degree. Would never have thought about it on my home. I have to come to Alcoholics Anonymous and say, let tailgaters pass. Wow. Cause you know what we do with tailgaters? You either slow down so their head gets big and their eyes explode, or you let them pass and then you tailgate them. That's what you do. But to let them pass on and go down and not be highway patrol? Oh, come on. How would that ever, ever occur to anybody? The only way to stop drinking is to stop drinking. I learned that here. I stopped drinking trying to drink champagne. I stopped drink beer. I tried to drink boone's farm apple wine. It almost worked. But it wasn't until I came here that somebody said the only way to stop drink is to drink. I'm too complex for that. I'm too, too complex to almost miss the simple answer. And I'm so grateful for the simplicity of Alcoholics Anonymous because my life isn't necessarily very simple. I mean, there is some complexity to it. There just is. It's not that I make it. Sometimes I do. Sometimes, I make the drama. But you know what I mean? Life can be a very complex thing to do. And, and I get to come back to the sanctuary of Alcoholic Anonymous, where I remember things can be just very simple. I was walking in this meeting, my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. No, what I wanted to say is the simple things. I'm walking in this meeting and this guy, remember, I think I know what it is, it's all old people, right? And this guy named Tim is walking out. And Tim's in tennis clothes and he's about 35 and he puts his hand out and he says, hi, I'm Tim, I can't stay but the meeting's just starting, go on in. now that was may 1st 1979 and i'm still talking about tim because i honestly believe it's the little things in alcoholics anonymous that make the difference i can tell you who spoke at my first convention it was amazing the guy that wrote the professor in the paradox from the second edition uh the woman who got first nasa clearance from houston texas was the friday night speaker normay was a saturday night speaker and the guy who wrote living sober was the sunday night speaker i was still one of the best lineups i've ever seen but you know what i and i can remember a lot of Norm A's pitch because he used to play it all the time. But I'm not sure, except for the guy that wrote Living Sober said that they found the cause of alcoholism. It was a volume deficiency. I remember that. But I'll tell you what I remember. I remember all the little stuff. I remember going on vacation and coming back and somebody went, how did it go? I remember that, see? And this is a great job. Can Alcoholics Anonymous get up here and get to talk? I'm one of those people. I don't understand people don't like attention. I think they're lying, but I'll accept that maybe there's some... For me, there's no such thing as too much attention. And if you've got any spare, I'll take it. If there's attention in the room, I'll tell you. I like doing this. I like meeting... I like being at conventions. I'd like to come for the whole convention. I like to go to almost everything. I used to go do everything. I've changed that a little bit because then I get to see the town and meet some of the folks and have coffee with people. But the fact of the matter, being a speaker in aaa is sort of like being a tony curtis and spartacus you know it's just really not that important you know you remember sparticus they're like gladiator killer guys fighting the roman empire and then there's tony kurtis and they go well what do you do and he goes i'm a singer of songs they go oh great that'll be really good good when they they come with the hot lead enema we'll really need that a singer a song so that's what that's that's all a speaker is a singer of songs i mean if i drop dead you could push my body over and somebody else would sing the song but it's the folks it's who's ever sitting in the archives room in that chair just waiting for one person to come by. You know, it's whoever breaks down the meeting. It's whoever is breaking down the meet-up on Sunday and wants to go home and some guy comes up to him and looks him in the eye and goes, can I talk to you? And you know what that means. Thirteen pots of coffee at Denny's. Well, they go, me, me, my, my. No, no, no steps. Nah, nah, nah. Me, me. My, my steps. No steps. No steps, no. They just won't invite me to that party I don't want to go to and I'm so mad. You know, that's the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. And if this makes it possible, that is all this is for. And so I went in that meeting and I will tell you the other thing. And you have to be southern to understand this. When I tell this story in Southern California, I don't think it means as much because there was a guy there, Reginald Darlington Wilson III, all right. That is a southern name. And Reggie had been the mayor of a little southern town in South Carolina, Fort Mill. And I love Reggie. He was one of those Southern Democrats. Remember when in the South all you had to do was win the Democratic primary and you were elected? Remember, he was one OF those. And they started a rumor in Fort Mill one time that Reginald Darlington Wilson III, the mayor, had too many empty liquor bottles in his wastebasket. And ReginalDarlingtonWilsonIII decided to answer this publicly. He said, of course there were empty liquor bottles in his wastepack. They didn't expect him to throw away full ones, did they? Fort Mill re-elected Reginald Darlington Wilson III And I remember that if I had about 30 days And Reggie asked me to Sunday dinner And you've got to be Southern to understand Sunday dinner, right? I mean with the white tablecloth And his wife and his children And it had been a long time Since anybody other than my family Had me in their house for Sunday dinner Those little, little things I talked with a guy that He came in in 65 And he wasn't a shaker He was a jerker So the old guys gave him a cup of coffee And he proceeded to jerk it on them So they went and they got him another cup of copy Only half full this time But they got ihm another cup o' coffee And he said it was the first unconditionally loving thing anybody had done For him in a long time Now, that happened to him in 1965. I heard him tell that story in 1996. And you do. You do something nice for somebody or you just check on something. You ask them and about two years later at her birthday they're going, and Daryl there, Daryll asked me about my vacation when I came back. See, you can't fake that stuff. And I have deep inside of me this ability to not care about myself. i have learned to care for myself because you cared for me far more than i cared for myself when i first came into age i just have to believe the exact nature of my wrong singular is that i hate my guts i'm trying to kill myself i don't base that on anything other than my behavior the way i treated myself you know i just hated myself i'm not sure why i got a lot of answers for that i'm sure why it just must have because that's the way so i come in alcoholics anonymous and you guys you know you love me yeah i mean there's just touchy-feely people in aid anything you do oh that's so great you know flatulence and early sobriety that's really wonderful we haven't seen that too much you know and then there's the guys they're not too proud of you all right son we'll see if you stick around those are the ones you're begging to like you you know but all of a sudden you leave a meeting and you feel good about yourself till you get to the car and then you lose it so then you go back to the meeting you feel good about your self when you get home then you loose it then you're able to keep it for a couple hours when you go home then a couple it just gets bigger and bigger and longer longer, but I have never in the almost 20 years I've been coming to A found a way to keep it without being involved with you. In the book, I know it says somewhere in the book that we have found that solitary self-appraisal is insufficient. I can't stay sober unless I'm in a community of recovering people. And the great thing about LA is you get to find all kinds. I mean, in LA we got them from one end to the other. Yeah, I had a share about this. I'm married now. I married to and we're a very wonderful woman, although marriage is very dangerous. If you're not married, it is. It can get very dangerous, very quickly. I think this is more for men than women. I think women recognize this, but men, we're not that bright. And we don't. We just don't, it's kind of basic and we don' t see when the danger is coming. Let me explain to you. My wife came up to me the other day and she said we were going to go down to Cancun and she says, I need to buy a couple of bathing suits. Would you like to come along? Well, this sounds like a wonderful journey to me. She's going to put her little body in those little bathing suits and a little bit like a strip show, you know? And I get to watch and then when she's in there trying on others I can look at the other girls, you know. Sounds like a good time. So we get in the car to go to the mall. Now I don't know what happened but somewhere between my house and the mall my wife gained 400 pounds. Because all I know is she got back behind that curtain and all I'm hearing is fat, side elite, I hate to rob, shaving suits and health care and there's like green smoke coming out. And she sticks her head out of the curtains and she has like four bathing suits and she's going, which one do you think I look better in? And I don't know why, but I feel like my life is threatened here. And I'm like, well, I don' t know I don''t think there's any way out, butI go, well I think you look good in the black one, honey. Andshe goes, what do I look fat in the blue one? Now, I'm old enough to know that as soon as the woman in your life says fat and you're in the room, you might as well. Put the bullet right in your head. Just, all right, Gary, you know, hit yourself. You're the little mouse waiting for the snake to get you because there's no way out, but you try and I go, no, no, honey, you look fine. You are not fat. Yes, I am. I have gained some weight. What are you? Some kind of idiot? All right. Maybe you've gained a few pounds. Oh, you think I'm fat? You think I am fat? I think I'll go to the craftsman sale and just hit myself in the hand with him. But I have a good marriage, and it takes us a lot of work. She's got 10 years, and we both have a program, and we Both have sponsors, and We both have the traditions. And I don't know how anybody Does it without that. Maybe other people can't. I don' t know how I do it. I couldn't stay married Without God. My sponsor, you know You're sober when you call up your Sponsor, and you know what That idiot's going to say Before you ever ask him. When I have a fight with my wife, I don't even have to call him. I can write it on a card. You can't change anybody. What's your part? Avoid retaliation and argument. Okay. Well, you can't change anybody what's your point? What's my part? Avoid retaliating and get that inventory to me. That's all that idiot says. And he's always right. But a couple of years ago I had gotten married to a woman, a different woman And I've been serially married in drinking and in sobriety. But it was a good deal. I thought everything was going well, and then I found out it wasn't going so well. And then I find out the reason it wasn' t going so well is she was having an affair when we got married. Well, you think that's funny, do you? I love alcoholics. They'll laugh at anything, you know? You were really bleeding and horrible And post-traumatic stress disorder That's great And once you tell these stories Once you tell those stories They always want to hear them They're like kids They want to here them again Tell that part where you were in jail And they stabbed you And you bled And you almost died I love that It gives me so much hope I love it Don't skip anything Just relive the pain for me Over and over again No, it really is That is a conversation stopper and I was 16 years sober and I got to tell you, I didn't go mad. I didn' t get mad. I went mad. I went bad. I just went... There are people who have worse stories. Things happen to them than that but for me, this was a betrayal at a real deep level and she didn' T understand the rules of cheating. You know? I mean, after you get over it, you want to give her the rules or something You don' T cheat at the wedding. You marry them thinking they' R the one forever. They turn into a bitch then you cheat on them. All right? That's the way it works. You don't cheat from the gates. What kind of stuff is that? But she didn't understand. And I've got to tell you, I went mad. I didn't want a drink. I have not been close to a drink in 20 years. I mean almost 20 years now. That is just my story. I could be close tonight. I'm just saying I thought about suicide. I thought About hurting myself. And after you're sober for a while, you can't commit suicide. It's not a good example to others. It's not. I mean, a fireman's got to find you, and that's not going to do anything for his or her day. And if you take pills and don't make it, she wins because you're new. That's not gonna happen, right? So you're stuck living. And I'd go in my meeting, my morning meeting, and I'd sit there because I've been taught to go to meetings when it's good, when it' s bad, and when it''s the worst, boring, average. And I''d sit there, and all of a sudden, I start crying. Didn't mean to. Didn't want to. It would start happening. All of a sudden, I'd have an arm come around me. Sometimes it would be just like a guy with three years. And I didn't go, no, no. I'm sorry. You have to have 17 years to hold me. Got to go up line. Sometimes it wouldn't even be an alcoholic arm. It would just be a drug addict arm. I wouldn't go. Primary purpose. Can you identify as an alcoholic? I mean, don't get me wrong. That's important. That's very important. I'm an alcoholic. But when your guts are on the floor, it's not important. And I would just sit there. And you know what? Alcoholics Anonymous did something for me. They just laughed when I laughed and they cried when I cried and they let me heal. Nobody says you're pick or broke or what step were you on or any of that stuff. They just sat with me and let me healed. And the thing I found in AlcoholicsAnonymous is not true about out there is my failures sometimes are the most important things that happen in here. Because as I have shared about this, not only have I healed but I have talked to so many people that have betrayed and been the betrayer. And we've talked at length, and I've been able to sit there and have people that were able to share that with me. But you know what was happening is I couldn't sleep because I was traumatized and I was online talking to all these people online and I thought, you know, there was this meeting at the time in AA over at the Drug and Alcohol Center. Now you can look at me. I look like I come from a fraternity, right? I obviously don't use a whole lot of profanity in my pitch. I mean, I just I'm sort of a middle class guy. These folks have got black hair. They're tattooed and pierced in places I don't even touch on my own body. If you don't use profanity, they're not sure you're sober. OK, it's like the only meeting I've ever been to where they announced from the podium, if you are dealing drugs in this meeting, we will kick your butt. i mean it's real but you know what i knew was there were newcomers there and i needed to work with a newcomer and so i went over there mr college fraternity into this rock and roll kind of sobriety and i tell you what i have never been loved so much never been given the opportunity and you know why then after the meeting the meeting starts at 11 30 at night and i'm one of those guys if mash is on i'm up too late why am i up and and so the meeting would go on then And after the meeting, they'd go to this all-night cafe and drink lattes and play cribbage all night long. And I don't know what they did during the day. So somewhere around 2 or 3 o'clock, I could finally go to sleep. And I would leave them. And as I would Leave, there was this one guy in a black leather jacket with a latte and a package of Marlboro Reds in the big book talking to another guy in the leather jacket with a package of Marrboro Redds. And that's alcoholics and alcoholics. That's all it is. I don't know that I could stay sober in that meeting on a constant diet, but you know what? I don' t know that there's some kids that went to that meeting that could come to mine and stay sober. Too middle class. Too North Hollywood. Too straight. Five years from now maybe. It's interesting because I had a friend I played tennis with. He's got 18 months of sobriety. He' s a writer. He' ve been through psychotherapy and nothing worked. and he came to AA and he's just got straight AA and he doesn't want anything else, right? And a friend of mine took him to a writer's meeting in the Pacific Palisades on Monday. I asked him how it went and he said, I didn't like it. They talked about writer's block and they didn't talk about the steps of the books. I don't want to go back. But I got these two guys. I can't get them to go to AA. And they're writers. I said, hey, I got a meeting for you. They won't talk About the book. They won' t talk about The steps. They'll just talk About writer's Block. And they went, okay, we'll go on Monday You know, and my book says, do I care about methods or do I care about results? And for me to stay flexible. Because see, I've got enough time, I think I know what a good meeting is now. And I probably do. I've Got a pretty good idea of what a Good Meeting is. But every time, especially in Tradition Meetings where I'm sitting there going, they're not talking about the traditions. Not a good Meeting. My Meeting is not a good Meetin'. God usually hits me upside the head and goes, whose Meeting is it Steve? Mine. Whose? Mine. Whose? All right, it's your meeting. But could you run it a little better, please? Could you get these idiots to talk about the traditions? Well, why don't you raise your hand and talk about the traditions, Stephen, rather than sitting in silent scorn? Okay. Because, see, I am totally incapable of unconditional love. I am. My 12 and 12 says that if I work a really good program, I can be a channel. and what I have learned from you people is I've always got strings. You know, that's what the fourth column teaches me. My character defects. Selfish, selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, and frightened. Dishonest. Selfish. Mine. All mine. You can't have any. I don't know what they are but I'm not giving you any. They're all mine. Self-seeky. All right, I'll give you some. But the day will come when I will ask a favor of you i'm going to ask you to do me a favor and if you say no then i'm gonna say something like after all i did for you self-seeking dishonest you know dishonest just lying lying but you know what else i'm dishonest i've discovered in this program you do something to hurt my feelings and i never tell you i just cut you off and you're dead and i don't talk to you anymore i never ask you to lead my meeting i don's not really very friendly at you and when you've got a problem I'm not really very interested. And I've never told you, you know when you did this, could you not do that anymore? And you might say yes, I'm just dishonest, just cut you off at the knees. And frightened, everything scares me. Everything scares me, my buddy Gary died a couple years ago and I'm one of those people I'm unhappy about death and Gary was my friend for 14 years and he was older than me so he's like my older brother and I was his sponsor so we'd sit down and we'd switch around and he passed away. And you know what? I would give a couple of days of my life to be able to have lunch with Gary again. And if you stay sober long enough, sobriety will break your heart. Life will break you heart. That's just what life is about. It'll break your hearth. But the gift you guys have given me is I have a heart that can be broken today. And I don't have to anesthetize it with alcohol because I love Gary and I want it to hurt when he left. And the other thing I know is I've got to get another Gary in my life. I haven't outgrown the need for that guy, and I got a guy like that. There's another one. So I've got to suit back up for somebody else leaving again. Alabama's gone. Mike Ross is gone. British Bill, who was the town drunk in the town, was London. Big Jack, you know? All of what I call the Damon Runyon generation of Alcoholics Anonymous are moving on down the road. And one day I'm going to be the old one. You know, and that's just the way it works. I'll tell you what happened with that marriage, how it got healed. And I believe this is, well, I call it the bomb. The bomb goes off in sobriety. Somewhere along the line it will go off. Maybe it's not a relationship. Maybe it is your job, your health, your kids. I don't know what the bottom line is for you. But the bomb goes off. You are outside in front of your house. All of a sudden, the bomb Goes off and it is all gone. It is moonscape. Huntsville is not here. There is no downtown. You know, there is no Independence Park. About downtown. Why are there so many bail bondsmen down there? What is up with that? There are like 12 Bails bondsmen Down there. Anyway, it is All gone. You know? It is just moonscape You're sitting there, your hair's on fire, and you're naked. Because everything you ever believed in is gone. See, what that woman taught me is I can bring somebody into my life, trust her with everything I've got, and she can gut me just as impersonally as the person next door that doesn't know my name. That's the real world, and it's not changing. But after you stagger around for a while, in my imagination, in this moonscape, there's this little bomb shelter down at the end of the moonscape and it says Big Book Blue. you kind of wander down there and there's these old guys playing pinochle smoking cigarettes drinking coffee having a meeting and you kind to knock on the window now remember you're naked your hair's on fire most people would go they just kind of go come on in come on come on you walk in the door they go could somebody put Steve's hair out and give him a blanket please bomb went off huh and they just sit there and they let you heal if See, and when you get time, I don't know about you, in everybody's book there's a chapter called Where You Should Be By Now. And the problem is you're never there. See, at 16 years of sobriety he was telling me you shouldn't have let this happen. Nobody in my group, nobody was telling me that. They just told me love me, come to me. But I was telling him that shouldn't happen. You can't go to AA anymore. You're a loser. You're blah, blah, bla, blah. And you just take him to a meeting because he hates them. It's like garlic on a vampire. He disappears. And I healed. I healed that one day I just got up and realized that I couldn't be in love because I didn't know who she was and she certainly wasn't ready for a relationship and the light went out and I was able to move on. There are things in life that have taken me longer than that but I've got to tell you Alcoholics Anonymous has never let me down in the 19 years and some odd months that I've come here. Two things and I'll finish. One is, I don't believe you have any option i believe god's got us all in a double bind the double bind is that god wins oh what a surprise i always think i could take him on forget all that literature than anybody that wrestles with god limps you know so so so this is double bind god's win so i the deal is here is i thought about that and i have a friend that says he always wants to see the newcomer's literature because they know that's got it and i was thinking you can tell i've got a little bit strange in here okay it's very strange in my mind i'm going well literature well okay there's The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, what are the 12 steps of alcoholism? And I don't know what kind of program you worked when you were out there, but this is the kind of problem I believe we will work if we don't work the 12 Stepes of Alcoholic Anonymous. Which is one, I declared I was in complete control of my drinking and my life was fine and dandy. Thank you very much. Two, I always knew there was no power greater than myself, but all of you needed to be restored to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn my will and my wife over to the care of alcohol because it was the only thing that understood me. Four, made a paranoid and immoral inventory of anybody but me. Five, admit nothing to nobody ever. Six, became entirely willing to have God remove all your defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to go bug somebody else. Eight, made the list of all persons who would harm me and became willing to take revenge upon them all. Nine, took direct revenge whenever possible, especially when to do so would injure them and others. Ten, continue to take your inventory and when you were wrong, promptly told you so. Eleven, stop through alcohol and medication to improve my unconscious contact with myself, praying only for what I wanted when I wanted it and the power to get it. And twelve, having achieved spiritual death as a result of these steps, I tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and take just as many of them with me as I could. Now there's only one tradition in that program. Do whatever you've got to do to get through the night. so i have two 12-step programs side by side and i will work one or i will work the other but as an alcoholic what i won't do is i will not not work a program you know by the grace of god the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous good sponsorship in the steps i get to choose which but not if and it's nice when that battle is settled It's nice when I can just withdraw from like a hot flame and stop fighting. The other story I'll end with, which is yours now, and I keep trying to drop it and people say don't drop it, so I won't. But it's yours. It's about the third step, and it's the deal I believe that God cuts with all of us in the third steps. The drunk is walking home one night, and he's sick, he's hurting because he's been on a run. It's all tore up, and he runs into God. And God's got something in his hands, and the drunk goes, what's that? And God goes, this. This is sobriety. And the drunk who's really hurting goes, man, how much does that cost? See, he only understands buying things. And God goes, well, how Much do you got? And the Drunk goes, Well, I got about $50. And God Goes, Okay, for you, sobriety costs $50 and the drunk trying to back out of the deal goes, Wait a minute. If I give you all $50, I won't have enough gas for my car. And God Goes, Oh, you have a car. Oh, well sobriery is going to cost you your car. He says, Wait A Minute. If I Give You My Car, How Will I Get To My Job? God Goes. Oh, You Have A Job. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mention, but sobriety is going to cost you your job. He says, wait a minute. If I give you my job, how will I pay for my house? He goes, you have a home. Oh, I thought you were in the cardboard box down by the railroad tracks. No, no, no. Sobriety is going to cost you your home. He says what about my wife and my kids? A family. You have a family. Your list is really out of date. No, no, no. Sobriet costs you your family. He goes, then what good is my life. And God looks him deep in the eye and goes, that's right. Sobriety costs you your life. The drunk, because he's at that magic moment of surrender, is willing to give his father his money and his car and his job and his house and his wife and his kids and his life. His daddy gives him sobriety and then he looks him deeply in the eyes and goes okay, I'm going to give your money back. It's not your money anymore, it's my money. You get to spend it for me. Give your car back. It's not your car anymore, it's my car. You get to drive it for me. I may give you a Mercedes, but you better Scotchgard that puppy because I want some people capable of throwing up in it. Because if you've got a car too good to throw up in, you've got a card too good for a sober alcoholic because it's not your car, it is my car, but you get to drive it for me, I'm going to give you your job back. It's not your job anymore, not about being anybody other than me for the people you work with because it's not your job, it's my job, you're going to work for me. It's not your home anymore, it's my house, but you're going to live in it for me. It's not your family. Based on your behavior, they have a right to say your name's spit and you should die, but I'm going to give them back to you because it's not you're family anymore, it's my family. You're going to take care of them for me." Give your life back. It is never your life ever again. It is my life. And live it for you. Maybe somewhere in your sobriety, marriage, it is not your marriage, but it is a betrayal. But it is my betrayal. Your job is to forgive her and get in the car, go down to a meeting and talk about being 16 years sober, doing everything right, and it turning out all wrong and not drinking. Because this day you don't get to be the guy that did it all right and got it all. Are you willing to cut that deal? Every good, loving, kind thing I have in my life is a direct result of rooms like this, people like you, and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and the grace of God we find here. Please keep coming back, and thank you for letting me share. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Steve. For those who care to, let us stand and join hands in closing this meeting with the Lord's Prayer. Father, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen. Keep coming back if you're interested in working.