The Truth and the Fact of Step One – Paul F.

I'm a great for recovering alcoholic my name is Paul Efron and my home groups the Express Group Fort Lauderdale Florida and it's a privilege and a blessing to be here tonight I know you were all expecting Russell and no I'm just another fat guy I'll try to try to keep at least I don't know if his work at James, so I don't know what to tell you. Rachel, come and get that because he needs it. Russell tracks me everywhere I go. He wanted to make sure I didn't ruin his name or screw up whatever. It's really an honor to be here at that man's. I'll do this by Russell for Russell. And he told me he thinks he's on the third step. And everybody's shaking their head. I said, well, that's okay because I'm not going to do anything like the third step. Why should I keep it like normal, okay? What I told him I'm going to doing, and we have 50 minutes and I'll just do what exactly is. I'm gonna do all 12 steps in one hour. So from now on, do whatever you want on Saturday night and you'll be able to tell him when he gets back, why were you wasting your time an hour every week and we've got to listen to you? Paul did it all in one night. So it's like four minutes a step. Let's see if we can do it. First step. First of all, I mean, I really did what I had to do. I don't know what Rush is, actually. I'm a Jim Morrison, Doris Beatles guy, you know what I'm saying? And that's a whole other story. But that got me my first step, you know? We admittedly were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. Well, my life had become unbearable by the time I got to you people. I'm from New York in case you have a hearing problem and the reality is I'm form the 60s, you know tune in, turn on, drop out and I did it all. Okay, like that song goes by Jackson Brown 65, I was 17 that's my age. 69, I was 21. Well By that time, by 1969, I was already in so much trouble and I was already spiraling so out of control at 21 years of age that I really needed you people then. It took me another 11 years crawling in the streets of New York City, degrading myself, humiliating myself, abusing everyone and anyone I loved until by the grace of God I was brought to you people. And, you know, we'll get to that in a minute. But so the first step is real very simple. You don't pick up. I know it sounds like, oh boy, it's rocket science. You don'T take the first one, you can't get loaded no matter what. And that's what was told to me, okay? And if you're new or you're coming back, welcome home because you're off the hook. And that'S what they told me. They said follow a few simple directions, you'll have a life like Chris just said Is that who? Chris somewhere? Where is he? I lost it. I thought you went back to Rush or something. I hear Rush, man. I go out there. And, you know, and you'll have a life beyond any comprehension you can have. That's what we offer here. We sell hope here at Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm, I don't know, cross-addicted. I don'T even know what that's about. But anything that I do that affects me from the neck up, I'm in trouble. okay and in the 60s you did it all okay that's the bottom line uh you know i love when they say you don't talk about drugs and alcoholics anonymous the only people that get angry when you talk about drug and alcohol so those that are still taking them the fact of the matter the fact that a matter is this is what we got this is about total abstinence it's what we got we live we love we laugh and uh all right so now let's get a little bit on here okay By 1969, I had already been arrested three times, and I was spiraling down. The arrests were progressing from misdemeanor arrest to public intoxication to felony arrest to felony sale of narcotics. I mean, that's what happens with progressive disease. Wherever you are now, if you pick up, it's going to get a lot worse, and that's a promise, a guarantee. So the first half of the first step, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. That's a truth, and a truth can never be changed. That was the truth the day I got here. It's going to be the truth until the day I die. The second half of the first step, that our lives had become unmanageable, that's a fact. Now, that's a fact that can and does change if you become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and you work the 12 steps of recovery. The truth can never change. the fact does change. And how does the fact change? We come to believe in the second step, we find a manager. It's no real mumbo jumbo. It is written so simply and specified so directly that now we admit we are powerless. If you are powerless, it means you have no power, so you better find the power. Coincidentally, they send you to the power." We came to believe, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And it's a process. It doesn't happen overnight. No one hits you with a magic wand. The first meeting I went to someone had a t-shirt on and it said, I can't, we can. Well, you know what? A lot of years later, I still can't do this alone. I need everyone's help to help pick me up And together, we're a power much greater than any of us individually. And that's really what it's about. If you're having a problem conceiving or believing or saying, you know, like, I mean, I didn't know when I got here whether I was an agnostic or an atheist, and I found out I was in ignoramus because I really thought that I had the answers, man. You know, for the streets of New York, you don't like say, oh, I hope I can find a power. You know? You don't do that. You've got to act bad, be bad, you knows, whether you are or not. You just, you know, you got to have the walk and the look. So anyway, I'm going to make it real simple. To find a power, I am going to give you a very simple example. When you go home tonight, it's not going to be a mumbo-jumbo thing. You go home today and wherever your light switch is in your house, turn it on. And what I am gong to tell you right now is when you turn that switch on, when I turn that switched on in my house tonight, I've come to believe that that power is going to be there. Now let's process this out a bit. I've comes to depend on the fact that that power is gonna be there, I've came to rely on the back that that powers gonna be that if I choose not to use that power my life is going be a lot more difficult I'll be stumbling around in the dark so I come to depend on a power greater than myself that makes my life easier, makes my life simpler, makes by life more full. So my dependence, my reliance on that power has become great and it's not anything to do with religion. It's just the fact that without it I'm in trouble, with it I have a phenomenal life so why wouldn't I want more of it? And when it was explained to me that simply, hey Paul this is it Turn on your light, and you're going to see that's the light. And that's how we get here. So anyway, you know, I've had three, four sponsors since I'm sober. And I'm going to get to that little bits of times throughout the meeting. Just so you understand my opinion, a sponsor is the second most important thing to get into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. A sponsor is a guide. A sponsor I look at as like a triptych, which they used to have in AAA. Anybody remember that? How old are you? They don't have triptychs anymore. They have Google and computers and map lists. So when I got here, it was this, you know. And so a triptech is, let's say you're going from here to New York. And so you say, send me a triptych from here. From here to new york. They send down this whole book. And what it basically says shows you, okay, here you can take 95. And then here there's construction. You've got to slow down. And then here you go a little bit further, and you know what? There could be some real dangerous roads. And here you Go a Little Bit Further, and there's some lodging. And here You Go a little Bit Further and a Place You Can Relax. And you know What? That's all the sponsor is. He's telling me about the journey that I'm experiencing because he's experienced it. Real simple. We share our experience, strength, and hope so that someone else can get this gift. That's my responsibility. That's each of our responsibilities. It says it somewhere, I don't know where, but it says whenever anyone anywhere reaches out for the hand of AA, for that I am responsible. I don' t care how long I've been here, I'd better stay responsible or I'm not going to be here for very long. That's just the way it is, okay? So now just to get to, let's get to my first sponsor because this is a cute little story. I came into my first meeting and happened to be a program borrowed from this program that had just started called Narcotics Anonymous. It was one meeting, saved 12 steps and everything else. And I walked in and I'm beaten and I'M petrified. And there's six people in the meeting. And some guy shares that he got sober in Trenton State Prison. And he had scars on his face. And you know what? I was pretty afraid of him. and I was tired of spending my life bullshitting people and I wanted this thing so desperately that I said, Joe, would you be my sponsor? He says, sure. So we start working. Now, I'm not telling you what I'm about to suggest that it's a good idea. I'm just sharing my experience, strength and hope. This was 1980 and 1980, for whatever reason a lot of us were getting involved together with each other, boys and girls whatever you want to call it. And it's not recommended, James, but it's just what we've done. And so here it is 90 days. I'm sober 90 days and I'm living with the love of my life, okay? And she's also sober 90 years. So we're like we have the greatest thing going in the world. We're going to meetings together. We're living in her boyfriend's house on the intercoastal Because he was on a drug run in the islands somewhere. So she says, move in. When he comes back, you'll leave. Okay, great. I think it's wonderful. We're going to meetings together. It's like the most amazing thing. Meetings, dinners. That was incredible. And I'm on disability insurance, by the way. When I got sober because I was a mental patient, which maybe we'll get to, they put me on government disability insurance. So I really only had to go to the mailbox on the third of the month, and I was like a paid member of AA for almost two years. So anyway, 90 days sober, Joe calls me up. He says, Paul, could you come up to the 101? He lived on the side there. I want to talk to you. I said, sure, what's up? Just come up. I go up tothe101. He was in the air conditioning business. I knock on his door. He says come out for a minute to the truck. He had his truck outside. He goes, and I'm following him like a puppy dog. That's when you have a sponsor. That's what you do. And he goes to his truck, and I'm standing there, and he reaches under the seat of the truck, and he pulls out a 357. And he puts it to my head. And he says, if you're not out of that house by the morning, I'm going to blow your effing brains out. Now, let me tell you something. I have read this big book of alcoholics tonight. Forward, backward, numerous times, every sentence, every line. Working with others into action. Helping solutions. Nowhere does it say sponsor pulls piece on piece. Just not there. However, I did move out the next time. I'm only sharing truths here. I'm not making this stuff up. Like my friend Don says, somebody should sell tickets here because they really could because we have such stories. You know, I'm going to share about coincidence because I don't believe there's such a thing. I really believe coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Okay? There are so many inexplicable things that have happened in my life since I'm sober and before I got sober. I just wasn't awake enough to see them. So I'm just going to tell you one because it was probably the most impacting for me and it was right at my first day. I walk into this meeting in the St. Francis Mission on 6th Street in Fort Lauderdale, right next to the courthouse. It's not there anymore. And it was the first N.A. meeting, and I'm sitting down there, and I didn't know why I was there. I wasn't at a bottom. I was so far from my bottom. My bottom was 69. This is 1980. I mean, I was getting paid by the government. I didn'T have that many people looking for me. I was okay. I wasn'T in that much trouble. and I'm away from New York, I was doing all right. So I go up to the guy who took me, and I say, you know, Curtis, thanks for taking me. I'm sorry for bothering you. It was about five minutes before the meeting. I said, I'll get home on my own, okay? If I ever need you, I will give you a call. But this thing isn't for me. I was looking at this stuff. It was a dank, dark room. the major coincidence that happened to me a very, very long time ago that to this very minute not only can't I explain but I realize that for me it was my guiding light my direction post to get here and stay here at or about 8.27pm on February 12th, 1980 as I had enough of this thing without investigating it. And I'm walking out of St. Francis Mission on 6th Street at that exact minute, in walks a guy from my block in Queens, New York City. I hadn't seen him for 10 years. He hadn't see me. We ran the streets together. So we talk outside. Somehow I end up back in the room. I pick up a cup of coffee and I look to the front Mark was at the front table that night Mark had been asked to speak at that meeting three weeks before that night now you can say that's very odd but I'm going to tell you it's very God there's no maybes about that I sat there and I listened to Mark and he told his drunk-a-lark I didn't need to listen to that I lived it with him his arrests were in the papers just like mine I mean he was just like me I knew that he sat up there but I'm going to tell you when I started listening when he said I haven't found it necessary to take a drink or a drug for six months I knew I knew Mark so well that he couldn't go six weeks without a drinker or a job he couldn'T go six days without a tricker as a matter of fact very much like myself the only time he ever refused a drink or a drug is if he misunderstood the question. I mean, you know, I wasn't the kind of guy that ever said, no, I've had enough, I'm getting a buzz. I mean really, come on, this isn't the had enough kind of crowd here. And by the grace of God, by the grace of the power, by the grace of you people, I haven't found it necessary to pick up a drink or a drug since that night. In two weeks, I will be celebrating 32 continuous years of sobriety. It's not possible. I can't do that. I can'T go 32 days. And when I look back on it, I say, look how amazing this is. I got here two months before my 32nd birthday, and I'll be 64 in April, 50% of my life. Fifty percent, I was a dirtbag, low-life leech taker. And I've tried for the last 32 years to be giver, lover, and embracer. Okay? And God has showered me with blessings. Showered me with blessing. One day at a time. Okay? So, you know, we're supposed to be on the third step tonight. He said, let me tell you, I'm not getting into any Russell mumbo jumbo third steps. I'm going to make it real simple, okay? You make a decision. That's all it is, is a decision. The decision is you're going to go on through the rest of the steps. Okay? A decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand them. By the third step, you have no clue, no understanding of anything. It's your sponsor. And I'll tell you a third-step story with a guy I sponsored. We were just together the other night. I used to live in the Bay Colony Club because the government was paying for it. I mean, I had everything going. I have this little Z car and I'm living on the water, you know. And so Steve is ready to do his third step. So I say, all right, come on over, Steve, and just the door will be open. So just come in because I'll probably be in the shower. So he comes in and he says, he yells to the shower, I say yeah, Steve go in my bedroom and pick up the big book and go to page 63 and I want you to read the third step and get ready, I'll be in there in a minute. here's the example of willingness in Alcoholics Anonymous please keep this in mind I wasn't like this in fact I was 145 pounds and I was tan I looked like a player you look like a player but we know you're not but I looked like a player I had to walk and to look and you know the whole bit and I was the man so I only had to use one towel to wrap each day today they haven't you know what happened to me I was on a cruise a few years ago I got out of the shower and I looked in the mirror and all I saw was the letter Q but anyway let's get back to this third step so now Steve's in the bedroom reading his book on my bed I'm coming out of the shower, I have a towel on and I walk into Steve and I say ok Steve, on your knees the willingness that Steve exhibited by the grace of God he's coming up on 31 years of continuous sobriety no questioning, no asking just believe that we believe believe that nobody's going to hurt you in here just believe we need you to get this thing so you can give it to someone else that's how the whole thing happens it's no secret No real, you know, mumbo-jumbo. You know, what got my attention, my sponsors were so good to me. I mean, other than Joe with the gun. But the others were really pretty loving. And one of my sponsors, Ray Allen, he used to get my attention with humor. Okay? He couldn't tell me to work the steps at home. That wouldn't work for me. I failed out of everything I ever had to do where you told me instructions. So this was just, like, generic. And he says to me when I got here, he says, Paul, you know what? You remind me. You have a real attitude problem. And Alcoholics Anonymous is about changing the attitude. He says, you remind me of a 6-foot, 6-inch wrestler who marries a 5-foot tall little girl. And they go away on their honeymoon. And they're in the honeymoon suite. And the wrestler pulls off his very large overalls. And he throws them across the bed at her. And he says, here, why don't you put these on? She looks at him, what do you mean? I'd be swimming in those. They're three times my size. He says, that's right. I want you to know from day one who wears the pants in this family. Well, she thinks for a minute. She sits down on the bed. She reaches under her tiny little miniskirt, pulls off her tiny little panties and throws them at him and says, here, why don't you get into those? He says, what do you mean? I can't get into that. I can get into the clothes. She says, that's right, and you never will until you change your attitude. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous is. An attitude adjustment. If you don't change it, you're not going to stay here. If you do change it great things will come to pass and it's a problem. So anyway, we've got to get to the fourth step. And what is the fourth steps? Just to write. This is where you really have to start working and writing and doing something physical, okay? And what are you going to do? You're going to either write a life story or you're going do it like here with Mr. and Mrs. Brown in the big book and the columns and the lines. I was told to write an autobiography, my first one. I've done multiple fourth steps, and thank God, multiple fifth steps. Because you never get to wherever it is you think you get. We're always right here. So we're continually growing, God willing. So my first one, I wrote this incredible autobiography. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know whether to call my sponsor or call Warner Brothers. It was just like that incredible. Very little of it was true, but it was just there. And, you know, then you find somebody. You find this sponsor, this person you've decided to trust with the whole deal, the whole enchilada, okay? And the way you do that, by the way, you don't have to worry about it. You know, when you're getting a sponsor initially, and this is just what everyone does, you say ask someone to be your sponsor, and you give them a piece of information. Not a real dramatic piece, just something. And you wait a week or two to see if it got around. and then you give them another little piece, a little deeper, until you get to the point where you know intuitively inside and out you can tell this person anything. And that's what is the necessity in here, to come to believe that this other individual is there for you unconditionally. And I've had the privilege of being a sponsor for many and being sponsored by a few, and it's the greatest reward and experience in the world. You can't put a price tag on that. So anyway, and thank God when I was, so Fred and I would go and meet, that was my second sponsor, Fred T., God rest his soul, and we'd go and eat and I'd start going through this litany of what I've written. Thank God he never looked at me, ever, and said, you did what? You know, like looking and saying, you know, like in a sense of how could you be such a dirtbag in my house? And instead what he did was he shared with me stuff in his life that was equally as tragic, equally as humiliating, equally as demeaning, equally als embarrassing. And we had the common bond. And it was not a reading experience. I had written for a day. I mean, pages of it. He said put it down. He says, just look at it for just a thing to give you a key and then let's share. We're going to share tonight, Paul. And four or five hours later, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Okay? Because that's the fifth step. And why would you want to take this fifth step? Why are you going to sharing with someone the deepest, darkest secrets of your entire life? And I'm not going to tell you all the reasons you want do that. I'm going to tell you the one main one because it says it at the first page of the fifth step of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous it says if you don't do this step invariably you're going to get drunk my entire life was spent with invariably doing what I wasn't supposed to do and invariably ending up with the consequences by the time I got here I was so beat I was pleading for an answer I didn't know what it was, and I thank God today that you people showed me that it's real here, and it's all about surrender. It's all About Giving Up. It's All About Saying I Don't Know. It's Al About Asking For Help. And my sponsor would always say to me, Fred would always says, You know, you're very fortunate. He says, You Have the Gift of Desperation. I'm going to tell you something. Thirty-two years ago, I had the gift of desperation. today I have the gift of desperation different thing I'm looking for more Ray always said to me he says Paul you're feeling pretty good I said I'm feeling great he says let me tell you something that's only the tip of the iceberg and as any iceberg most of it is underwater you can't even see it yet he says keep doing what you're doing and great things will come to pass this isn't something where you just come on Saturday night and you hang out and like you don't feel better and your life doesn't get better, because then none of us would be here. I would not be here tonight unless you people had given me a life that's not even believable. And I've got issues, and we all have issues, so what? I've not found an issue or a reason or an excuse to pick up a chemical since I've been here, since you people gave me that promise that I don't have to. How do you not pick up the first one? You don't. You make a phone call. I'll tell you one great story from Ray that so impacted me. He was sober, bouncing in and out of the program for a few years, and he was from Brooklyn, and he's a little beach bum, the greatest guy in the world. And he says that he was in a meeting, and some guy comes up to him and says, Ray, I'm going to give you my phone number for when you want a drink. because you're going to drink, and I want you to call me before you drink. And Ray looked at him and he says, Dan, I'm three-and-a-half years sober. I haven't had a drink in three-an-a‑half years. Why would you do this? He says, Ray, you're not sober, and you're never going to get sober unless you change. You're goingto drink again, andyou better call mebeforeyoudo. now the reason I'm sharing this story is because it was shared hundreds of times with me by Ray personally and from the podium two days later he found himself in a gin mill two days and he sits at the bar and he orders his drink and the drink and the change come to the bar and he remembered what Dan said so he says you know what I'm going to go to the phone booth right here and I'm going to call Dan before I get loaded so he'll know where I am when I need the help and he'll pick me up he told me to call first I'm gonna do that he goes to the telephone booth he talks to Dan he gets out of the phone booth he leaves the booze and the change on the bar and he walks out never to have drank again Ray's sobriety date was March 23, 1956 Six, God rest his soul. He was a major involved person in Alcoholics Anonymous in New York City, and then he came down here and helped thousands of people down here. The mind can always be changed. Once you pick up that drink or drug, then the upset, the compulsion sets in. Initially it's an obsession. That can be changed, share it. It'll be changed once the compulsive sets in all bets are off. We don't know where it's going to go. We don't know how bad it's going to go, but it's not going to be pretty. So if you're here, stay here. Then we get to the six and seven steps. After you're a while, that's really the meat and potatoes of the program. Okay? The sixth step is we ask God. No, no. Wow. That's weird. I've never forgotten that. Obviously, I need to. We were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. What defects? The ones we just wrote about and shared in the fourth step, our whole life of being maladjusted. And I love the way this book says we're maladjusting to life. We're incompetent of dealing with the world. So we're asking God. We're entirely ready. Nobody is ever entirely ready, by the way. Trust me. No, no, I'm just telling you it's not a possibility. But when the pain of the pain gets great enough, then the pain or the change doesn't seem that bad. When you're in here and you're in a fetal position in pain, then you're going to do one of two things. You're going either pick up and run or you're gonna get to the tools, the blueprint, the answers to living and you are going to cry out to God for help and help will come and the first person will appear. So when you get sick and tired of whatever you're doing after you're sober, then you get entirely ready. And then you got to the seventh step and Ray always said this to me, it's the shortest step of all of them. It's only seven words. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. The most powerful seven words in this program. You know these twelve steps have two hundred words total. From the beginning of first step to The end of the 12th, it's exactly 200 words. And if you're like me and you don't believe me, please go home tonight and read them. Count them, I mean. Because the first time I heard that, I'll never forget it. I had six or nine months. I was at the 12-step. There's this guy, Jim Monahan, doing the 12 steps, and he said that. How would this guy know it is 200? I went home as soon as I got home. I opened this book, and I counted it. Trust me. Don't trust me. It's 200 words, so anyway. Ray would say that the most powerful is we humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Please, I can't take this anymore. You know, what are the shortcomings? They're your seven deadly sins. That's just a basic doubt. And if you can't remember them as I couldn't, I'll give you a cute little way to remember them. Padules. Pride, anger, greed, jealousy, lust, envy, and sloth. Padules, pride, anger. greed, jealousy, lust, envy, and sloth. And any time I'm in trouble today because one of those defects is taking over my life and I have to beg God to please don't let me run any further with this because I know where the eventual end will be. And so we try to stay the course and we're all going to make mistakes, you know. So what? I mean that's why they make erasers on pencils. We're all human becomings. Nobody gets here and gets perfect. I promise you that. And anybody that tries to have that halo around their head in AA, it soon becomes a noose. Trust me, I've watched it happen. I've watch those perfect AA guys. It doesn't happen. There's no such thing. We're a defective group. What are you, kidding me? You look around this room, there's more felony convictions in this room And then half of these people look like they're in the witness protection program. And all of a sudden, they're going to become lily white? I don't think so. It doesn't happen that way. God has a lot of power, but not that much. Come on. Ray also told me you grow like a tree, not like a weed. You dig your roots deep in the soil. So when the storms and adversity of life come up, you won't get blown away. A weed gets blown away when there's a storm. A tree has its roots deep down, and it won't blow away. Then we get to the eighth and ninth step. And the eighth is real simple. You're making a list of everybody you screwed in your life. I mean, really, that may not be the way it's written here, but that's what it means, okay? And where do you get this list? Well, you've written it in the fourth step. You've written your resentments. You'vewritten everybody you wronged, everybody that wronged you. Because I'll tell you what. if you're here for any length of time and you get into this resentment anger and fear that's the triangle of self-obsession and like Ray always said a resentment is like peeing down your own leg you're the only one who feels it you don't want to do that here I mean, how could you if you had a terrible resentment against someone and it's happened, it's happen to me oh, I hate that guy, I can't believe and then I go to a meeting and he's speaking I mean really, I'm not getting much out of that meeting so I go another meeting and he's the secretary. I mean, so you better get rid of it or you're not going to stay here. So, I mean that's just the way it is. So you make the list, okay? And then we get to the ninth step and it says we made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. I'm going to tell you one ninth step story about how not to do the ninth step, okay, because I can see you guys are the kind that do everything right, so I'll tell you about how not to do it because I'm so impressed at the vibrations. This is how you don't do the ninth step. Obviously, the people we hurt the most is our family and our relations because they're the closest, they're easiest. My sister, I totally ruined her life in every way possible. I mean, I abused her not physically but verbally. And what I did, she was three years younger than me. Well, she is three years young. So I'm sober now. I did my fourth step when I had five, six months. Now I'm on the way up and I say, you know what? I better write Tina a letter. And I write her this incredible, unbelievable letter. I mean, I'm a pretty good writer. And I wrote this amazing letter to Tina about my whole life. And I'm so sorry. Two things with that letter I need to share with you. Number one, it was such a good letter, I didn't feel I needed to share it with my sponsor. That was number one. As a matter of fact, number two, I felt it was going to become the standard letter for the ninth step in Alcoholics Anonymous. They were going to put it in the grapevine. What to do when you hurt a family member? This is the answer by Paul E. I swear to God. And the third thing that I did incorrectly in that is I didn't have an eight-step list. I just, well, I went right, oh, my God, I got to save Tina, I've got to help Tina, and like that. Let me share with you what happened. I nailed it. Thank God I had the foundation I had in Alcoholics Anonymous because two weeks later I got the answer. And the answer, my sister is also a very good writer. She wrote me a two-page letter. I'm just going to share with you the first paragraph. Dear Paul, how do you expect me to forgive you? You ruined my life. When I was 17, I had to leave home because of you and move to San Francisco because I couldn't be anywhere near you because of what you were doing to our family. And she went on and on. And obviously now I'm at my sponsor's on his couch in a fetal position. Thank God today, just to fast-forward, my sister and I are like this. I made the proper amends in the proper time in the way it's supposed to be done. And I thank God that that misstep, that mistake, that God was able to keep me from really any further medical destruction or medicated destruction. And Tina and I aren't in great shape today because I did it properly. You know, you do it in a row. That's the way. I mean, you can do it initially however you want. I mean I put down the drinks and drugs and I went right to the 12th step for a long time because what else did I have to talk about? Well, I was on the streets. Now if you're on the street, I can help you. Follow me. And that's really what we did early on. And you know what? Then that got old. So now we get to the 10th step. It says we continue to take personal inventory. And when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it. Very simply, the 10th step, I don't believe in this maintenance stuff. The only maintenance I was on was methadone maintenance. There's no 10th Step that's a stay here. It's a continual growth. Alcoholics Anonymous is about continually growing. So what I'm doing in the 10 state is I'm clearing out the garbage of today so I can start tomorrow fresh. because if I don't clear out today's garbage, then it's going to fester and it's going to build up. And tomorrow it'll be a little greater. And if I don't clean it out tomorrow, then the next day and eventually what am I going to have is a house full of garbage and then I will not be here for very long. So you need to keep it current, to keep it in the now and to continue to follow this process. Now we get to the 11th step and the 11st step is very, very simple. And it's a long step. Oh, you know what? That's pretty weird. Oh, I was going to say, I knew that I took, and I haven't even read one of these. It's so funny. I sit home and I like take these notes about what I want to say. I haven'T looked at it. I don't have any idea what's on this. You know, but like what can I tell you? Anyway, the 11th step which is a very long step was taught through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him praying for knowledge of His will for us and the power of the... I swear to God, you know, I don't know where you'd want to be, but it wouldn't be. Anyway, let me cut it real simply. We saw it, we looked for it. It tells you how, through prayer and meditation. What are we trying to do? We're trying to improve. What are мы trying to prove? Our conscious contact with God. What God? The God we found in the second step that we enhanced in the third step that has gotten us through the rest of the step. That's all we're trying TO DO. We're TRYING TO IMPROVE IT as WE UNDERSTOOD IT. And what are we PRAYING? Only FOR KNOWLEDGE. It's all a prayer for knowledge of his will, what he wants us to do, and the power to carry that out beginning and end of that step. You don't need to get into mumbo jumbo. You started at the second step. You came to believe. You turned on the lights, you know, whatever you had to do. And the fact is little by slowly now you're up there and you want to continue. And you're feeling it. That's another thing. I put continue in front of every step, every day. Tonight being here, I'm continuing to come to believe that I have power greater than myself. and I'm continuing to make a decision and I am continuing to try to improve and I continue to ask God for help with my defense and now we get to the 12th step and the bottom line is that's what keeps us here ok we tried after having had a spiritual awakening which is what happens when you've gone through these steps you've had a change a change different from everything I used to feel think or believe, and it's now totally different. And that had to happen from a power greater than myself. So now I've had this spiritual awakening. What am I going to do with this? Having had a spiritual awakening, where did it come from? It came as the result of these steps, not a result, not by coincidence. As the result OF THESE STEPS, you must have a spiritual awakening! Not that you might, you MUST! If you work these 12 steps, you incorporate them, You do them a couple of times, you're going to have this spiritual awakening. Okay, then what are we trying to do after having this spiritual waking? We're finding someone in the gutter and we're trying to carry the message to let them know, you know what, you don't have to die from addiction and alcoholism. Come with me, I've got a better way. You don't like tell them, you Don't give them lessons. You say, come with me. Walk with me and we'll walk together and you'll have a life that's not even believable. This isn't something where you mail in assignments. It isn't somebody where you get graded on AA, you did it good. You do AA good if you don't get loaded, okay? And then if you get a little bit better and you have someone that you're picking up and bringing with you, then how can you have a problem? How can you having a problem if you're thinking of someone else? We come in here, we're selfish, self-centered, gutter rats, I'm sorry, but that's really what I was. And we stay here a little while and we become selfless. People say it's a selfish program. Absolutely not. It's a selfless program. The less I think of me and the more I think of you, the happier I am and the most peaceful I am. That's what it's about. Letting go of my ego. My psychosis of thinking that I'm really important. Letting it go and realizing that I am a cog in the wheel. A little spoke in the will and, you know, do the best I can, you know. So so I had Ray, I had Joe as my sponsor then Fred as my supporter. I need to tell you this one story about Fred. Fred told me Paul, I want you to call me every day at 530. He says I don't care just to tell me where you were and tell me where you're going that night so I know that you're still sober. Call me every day of 530 and I did I was so petrified about doing this thing wrong I followed most of the directions every day, 5.30 I called them let's fast forward, I'm sober a year and a half my life's getting better now I am living on the intercoastal now I'm speaking at few places so one Sunday morning at the one-on-one club I go over to Fred I said, Fred, you know what? I have a resentment. That's a word we learn in here, by the way. You'll learn it early on. You're pissed off. You know, I mean, what's a resentment? And he says, oh really? What is that? I said Fred, listen to me. You ask me to call you every day at 530. And I have and I haven't missed a day. And Fred, in all that time, you haven't called me once. Let me tell you what happened. Fred had these little glasses and he looked at me and without missing a beat he took the glasses off and he said, you know what Paul as soon as you have something I want I'll be sure to give you a call now if you said that today to someone they report you to general service I can't believe how mean they were oh my god, I thought you were supposed to love me and you know why I was so grateful man And, you know, by the way, before Fred died and long before that, he and I became golf partners. We played every weekend together. I was the person that took him for the last two years to all of his chemo treatments, God rest his soul. We developed a relationship. He was at the brisk of my son who's now 26 years old. Okay? The fact of the matter is a relationship has to be created. It has to being embraced. And it can only happen one day at a time. As we learn to trust, we let go of our armor, of our protective shield, and we realize, come in, please, we need you, welcome, and let's embrace each other. And then the last part of the 12th step, which is what we're all going to do for the rest of our lives, is try to practice these principles in all our affairs. It's a virtual impossibility. I still, somewhere near the surface, still like that quick money deal. I still somewhere near the surface still like those strange beautiful women that happen not to be my wife's. And you know what? That's okay to say that. The key is I can't act on it today. Why? Because if I act on that today, I will slowly be unworking these 12 steps and I don't know where that will end me. So I'm very cautious, I'm very grateful to this power that has saved my life. And I don't want to smack him in the face I mean I don't wanna, you know I only wanna like give him cause the way I look at it is I try to help a lot of people and I donno that I do it that much out of really wanting to help people although it makes me feel good, but I play this little game and I figure God's looking down from wherever he is and when he makes the decision about who's gonna live and who's going to die? And he looks down at my little corner, and I'm always helping somebody. Equally as important, I always have someone that I'm thinking of helping next. And so what I think is God looks down, and he says, you know what? He's so freaking busy down there. I'm going to leave him for a little while longer. And I mean, that's my little game I play. Not to say it's rational. I'm not telling you to play it. It's my game, you know. You know, there's something else, a cute little thing. Somebody, I was once speaking at a meeting and I'm praising God and saying all these things. And I'm saying, you Know, God has kept me clean and sober. And I asked God for help. And so some guy came up to me after the meeting. And he looks at me and he gets in my face a little bit. He said, Let me ask you a question. How do you know it's God that's doing all these days to you? and I looked at him I didn't miss a beat he's the only one I asked and that's what's happened to me since I've been here I went to the source the source hasn't let me down and it continues to get better and I'm going to close in a minute here because I promised everybody that I wouldn't go over time and then obviously now Saturday night we can go party because Russell does not need to come back here And I'm going to tell you what I do every night before I go to sleep. I go home, and I play this little game with God that God has a helper, and the helper's name is Max. And every night God checks in with Max, and he says, So, Max, what's going on down there? He says, God, it seems like a billion, two billion people, they're very unhappy with what they do for a living. The carpenters want to be doctors, the doctors want to Be lawyers, lawyers want to Be salesmen Nobody's happy with what they're doing He says okay What else Max? He says God it seems That 30% of the people 3-4 billion people They live on the east coast They want tobe on the west coast The ones that live in California Want tobe in Europe The ones in Italy want tobee in Thailand that nobody's happy with where they are. God says, okay, is there anything else, Max? He says, yeah. It seems literally 50% of the people in relationships that are talking to us, they're all very unhappy with the person they're with. The men want to be with another woman. The women want tobe with another man. I mean, everybody is unhappy and complaining about their life partner. God says. Is there anything elsmax? He says, yeah, just one thing, God. He says there's this one lunatic in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He gets on his knees every single night and he says thanks. And God looks to Max. He says you know what, Max? Give that guy anything he wants. Thanks for listening.