Why the Solution Should Never Be Diluted – Mike S.

And thank you again, Kiyoki and Richard, for all your behind-the-scenes work. All right, we're going to start the afternoon off with Mike Yetz again. He's going to come up and do eight and nine for us. So why don't you come right on up and join us. Speak up, Mike. Speak up, Mike. Mike, in case you got that on. Thank you for that rousing introduction, Danny. Appreciate that. It was wonderful. Good afternoon. My name is Michael, and I'm a recovered alcoholic. It's good to be back. Nothing like a pasta lunch to put you right to sleep. So it's good to have a wake-up call. You know, I'm trying not to mention this, but I have to because it's on my heart. It's surreal for me to be here right now. These two gentlemen are heroes of mine, Pat and Pete. They have 25 and 28 years of sobriety. Their sobriety has been road tested. Quite honestly, I'm coming up on six, and if you want to continue the metaphor, I'm just backing out of the garage. I've learned such an incredible amount from both of them. Pete is my teacher, but Pat I encountered early on in recovery, and your workshops lit me up, you know. So thank you to both of you. And, you know, I, you know, again, this wasn't the plan. So I often, I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I often have to pinch myself to realize that I actually had nothing to do with this. you know i pete was talking about um in his talk this morning about um essentially to paraphrase what he said how he hit the jackpot now i didn't feel that way when i first got here i felt cursed as a matter of fact i would scream things like no no you got the wrong guy you know i was convinced that i was wrongly convicted but um it was around 90 days into this deal i went to treatment for 56 days and I got out. And I still didn't know what was wrong with me, by the way. And it was about 90 days in, I was sitting in a meeting and I was staring at the 12th step. I really, I quite honestly, I really didn't understand what this whole thing was. I was in that other Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, Sunday nights, they would bring in meetings to my treatment center. And I noticed that there were, I started to notice at least that there were two kinds of AA. There was It's the look to your left, look to your right, half of you are going to die. And my reaction was, great, just give me a gun now. Let's just get it over with. And then there was the really, the next week, you know, that central AA office, whoever was spitting these speakers out to come, would send another speaker who would say something completely different. And they would start off with, basically, rarely have we seen a person fail. It was thoroughly followed our path. And they said, not only did none of you have to die, but all of you can recover from this thing. Now, I didn't know what it meant to be recovered at that point. But if I had a choice between death and living a life beyond my wildest dreams, I'll take this one. That's okay. I'll go over here. And I also started to notice something else. The look to your left, look to your right seemed to be, like Pat said, the hanging in there crowd. They would say things like, I actually once heard this at a meeting. Hi, my name is, you know, I have 15. years, and I'm really excited. I'm going to a wedding tonight. That's a great thing, right? But don't worry. Don't worry. You know, I have my cell phone with me, and I have my sponsor on speed dial, and I'm taking my own car in case I get triggered. And everyone started applauding how courageous this person was. And again, my reaction was, if that's me at 15 years, then just kill me now. This is not what I came here for. This can't be what this is about. And sure enough, the way Pete became my teacher is I heard him speak with about four or five months of sobriety and literally the heavens opened for me. It would take a little bit more pain and suffering for me to actually get up the courage to ask him to sponsor me. But along the way, the seeds were being planted by gentlemen like Pat, by other people in here. And I'm just so grateful. And, you know, I got a lesson. When we call ourselves recovered alcoholics, we're actually speaking the language of the big book. And I always clarify this exactly how Pete does. We're not trying to separate ourselves from anybody. If I came in here and spoke French, and nobody in here spoke French, that would make no sense, right? By the way, I don't speak French. It's just a story. So what we're doing is we're discussing the first promise in the big book, that essentially if you do this deal and you do it thoroughly, just to put it into everyday language, you will become recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. So what does that look like, right? I ran into this headfirst last night. So as a lot of people know, I have this monstrous Muppet head golden doodle puppy that follows me around everywhere and is my life, right? So I take him to the dog park last night up in Delray. And we have the windows down. It's a beautiful evening. The sun is setting. And we're coming back to Deerfield from Delray. And four nice, lovely gentlemen pull up in the car next to me. And I'm, you know, I don't know. I'm singing worship music or something. I don't know what I'm doing. And the guy asks me if I want to party. And, you know, I think I'm probably the only person who's been in South Florida for six years and has never been offered drugs. So this was a big event for me. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, by the way, I'm doing this talk in the car, which was much better than the talk I'm about to give. But I'm thinking about what I'm going to talk about. I'm getting prepared for these wonderful things I'm going to say. And this guy's offering me drugs. And I just started laughing. And I said to him, I said, this isn't going to make any sense to you, but you picked the wrong guy. And he said to me, oh, you know, your dog's really beautiful. I said, thank you, you know, God bless you, and be safe this evening. Perfectly safe and protected in a position of neutrality. There was no anger, there was no fear, there was no nothing, there just was. It just was a funny story that made me realize how far I've come in such a short period of time. Six years is not a very long period of time. I used for 31 years, and I drank for 31 years. So it really was quite an eye-opening experience. and it leads me back to the notion that I had absolutely nothing to do with this because I tried to stop a million times and talking about Saul who became Paul one of my favorite lines of scripture that I love to refer to is he says in in 2 Corinthians 12 he says in order to keep me from being conceited so to actually think that I had something to do with this right I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it from me, but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that God's power may rest on me. That is why, for God's sake, I delight in my weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So it wasn't until I surrendered, it wasn't until I admitted my powerlessness, it wasn't until I finally realized there was nothing that I could do about this alone and got down on my knees and begged God to take me, that I actually got taken here. And there's no other explanation that's possible for me. So I always have to remember, in my times of weakness are my times of strength. as long as I turn to God and rely on God. If I go back into self-reliance, self-propulsion, I get picked off very easily, and I wind up in a state of discontent. It happens time and time again until I learn my lesson once again and turn to God, and then peace, ease, and comfort is restored. You know, there's a promise, actually, that comes in the back of the big book. It's in the family afterward, and I wanted to share it with you. It's on page 124. I first heard this during my first 56 days while I was in the treatment center sitting in the chairs as they took us to meetings. It says, showing others, it's about halfway down the page, second paragraph towards the end. It says, showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now. Cling to the thought that in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have, the key to life and happiness for others. With it, you can avert death and misery for them. Now, again, I was not there when I heard this. So essentially, just to paraphrase that, it says that my dark past will become my greatest asset. That's a pretty cool trick, right? I'm sitting in treatment, post-suicide, 31 years drinking, can't stop on my own. My life is over. My daughter thinks I'm an animal. My wife has thrown me out of the house. I'm down to three bags of clothes. I have no plan for the rest of my life. And you're telling me that if I do this and I do this thoroughly, I will live a life where my dark past becomes my greatest asset. Okay. Let's do it. Let's go. because that is something that I had never been promised before. And by the way, I was seeing the results in the people who were telling me this, and I believed them because I could see it in their eyes. I could hear it in their stories. I could feel it in their heart, quite frankly. So I kept a hold of that promise, and I remember the first time that it ever came true for me. I didn't tell anybody about my attempted suicide. I didn't tell anyone in the hospital. I didn't tell my family. I didn't tell anyone in treatment. I had one of these very skeptical minds. I'm a trained attorney, and although you therapists, you know, promise me HIPAA protection, I know there's ways around that. I wasn't going to tell anybody. I was so scared of losing my daughter. And there was this guy named Justin that I went to treatment with. And while I stayed sober, Justin went home. And it turns out that people that go home don't do very well. and Justin was about half of my age and we just related to each other really good guy Justin called me from a car about three months later he was homeless, shooting heroin and suicidal and he didn't know what to do I told him my story he was the first person I told my story to and he found his way down to Florida now he didn't stay sober on that trip but he is sober now, he lives in West Palm Beach And we talk about it all the time. He was the first person I let that go. And I remember when I got off the phone with him and he said he was going to find a way down. And when he actually got down, I remembered that, my God, my dark past is becoming my greatest asset. They told me it would. And they didn't lie. And for that, I'm forever, forever grateful. I came here for things like, you know, when I woke up, what wound up happening to me is my wife found me unresponsive been unconscious the next day. I was foaming from the mouth, and they told her that I wasn't going to live, and if I did live, I was going to be a vegetable. And I wound up being in a coma for three days, and God does what God does, and I'm your speaker here today. But the interesting thing is that when I came out of that coma, I had no desire to drink anymore. And I couldn't explain that. I actually used that as an argument in the hospital to try to convince the psychiatrist that I wasn't an alcoholic. Well, if I really was an alcoholic, wouldn't I need a drink right now? Or wouldn't I need a drug right now? I couldn't explain it. It was mind-boggling to me. What I really wanted out of AA when I first got here, what I really wanted out of all of this was salvation. That was the word that kept going through my head time and time again. I was sitting in these chairs, and I would just be either crying out loud or crying inside that my soul was so sick, was so black, how could I possibly ever find salvation for the things that I had done? My daughter was seven feet away when that happened. My wife was downstairs. I had stolen all of their money. I left them penniless and homeless. So now you understand that when the gentleman walked up to me and said, well, if you didn't have a drink today, you're a winner. Yes, that's sort of true. It was a miracle that I wasn't drinking, and it's a miracle that we're all not drinking. But it didn't go far enough. I needed to go further. I needed salvation. So one of the reasons to go do a fifth step with a priest was I wanted absolution. What I didn't understand was anything about Catholicism. So, we're done with my fifth step, and he starts to say goodbye, and Pat does the Irish brogue. I don't. And I said, what's that? Sounds like a pirate. A pirate? Okay. I don't do impersonation. So, I said, aren't we forgetting something? And he said, oh, you want absolution. And he said, son, if I had a nickel for every Jewish kid who walked in here and wanted to be absolved of their sins, he said, this is a fifth step, not a confession like that. So I sort of tucked that away. You know, I got baptized two years ago, and I'm about to start RCIA for my conversion to Catholicism in September. It's an important part of my journey. it's something I've felt in my heart my entire life and I didn't know how to express it I take those lines in the big book seriously where it says we encourage church membership and be quick to see where religious people are right and I was able to circle back around thanks to my sponsor and resolve my resentment at my religion of origin it turned out it went much deeper than that it was a resentment at my dad So I was sent off to talk to a rabbi, and the rabbi said to me, I think you need to go talk to your dad first. And when I sat down with my dad and made amends to my dad, much of it was lifted. He was absolutely right. But I didn't, just to back up a little bit, my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous didn't start with any of these spiritual disciplines. It started off, quite honestly, being sponsored out of Hazleton Pamphlets, and going to meetings and doing a lot of service, doing a lot of service. Actually, I was going to 16 meetings a week. It was the only place that I felt comfortable was in a meeting, and I needed it. I thought I didn't know what it was to read this. I didn't know what it was to work this book. I didn't understand what it was to work steps. At the time, I wanted what my old sponsor had, and I was willing to go to any lengths, so I did these Hazleton pamphlets. And I did them thoroughly. I did them thoroughly. This book just got rebound because after working with Pete for a bunch of years, it was falling apart. It didn't look like that then. It used to be a doorstop. For 10 months, it was a doorstop collecting dust. And the only time we had opened it was to do a third-step prayer. And I was doing a lot of service. I was a coffee maker at my group, my home group for two years. I volunteered at intergroup, nonstop. I was doing a lot of service. I was a service guy. The difficulty was, is that while I was done drinking, those feelings were coming back. And if I'm being very honest with you, there were some nights early in recovery, before I got into the work, that I was just happy to get into bed without harming myself. and that was a good day or at least hating myself so much that I couldn't even look in the mirror and it was starting to get unbearable unbearable and I was getting ready to leave I make no bones about that I wasn't finding the spirituality I was hearing in meetings I would hear a war story for 45 minutes and then the speaker at the end would say and about that God thing. And they would sort of add it on as an addendum at the end. And I would hear about the spiritual aspect of the program. And I would think to myself, what other aspect is there? This whole thing, if I'm staring at the 12th step, is about having a spiritual awakening. If I know that my solution is on the other side of the mountain, I'm going to go to any lengths to get to the other side of the mountain. And I was trying to get there. So I had to take some personal responsibility for that to realize that if my way is blocked, I've got to find a new way. And so I finally did that when I asked Pete to sponsor me. And I'll never forget the first thing he said to me. He said, where are you with God and the 12 steps? Right out of his own experience. And I didn't have an answer for it. I did not have an answer for it. And then he said, well, you have about 10 months. You've obviously read the book. And my reaction was, you know, I've skimmed it. It's got some good parts. I like where they talk about God in here. And I remember exactly what he did. He shook his head, and he said, oh, we have a lot of work to do. And it was the greatest thing I ever heard. I've been waiting to hear those words. And he launched me off. He gave me an assignment. He gave me seven days to do it. I did it in four because I was afraid he was going to forget my name. Why would I waste time? I was desperate. So when it came time for us to start amends, I had questions. I owed an enormous amount of money. I had tried to kill myself with my daughter seven feet away, like I just said. I hated my mother my whole life. My mother, by the way, a couple of months into sobriety, had tried to stab me. I lived with them, and I was holding on to that forever. I had cheated a business partner out of a quarter million dollars. The list goes on and on and on. It was enormous. I remember when we came out of, when I came out of my first six and seven with Pete, I've never been one of these people that thought that the paragraphs were too short in six and seven. The way I always looked at it was, God either is or he isn't. What is our choice to be? So what do I believe the power of God is? That's what it really comes down to. What do I believe that God can actually do? Do I actually believe that God can take away my character defects? So if I do, how many words does it take? There's 56 words in the seven-step prayer. Does it take more than 56 words? Does it take more than one word? Does it take a word? Does it take 57 words? I don't know the answer to that. But if I don't believe that God can take away my character defects, whether it's one word or 56 words or 100 words, I've got some problems on my hand. So when I take sponsees through the work and I hear this, well, this is all there is, I ask them the consideration. How many words would it take? if we need more words let's do some more work but really we don't need more words we need more faith there's just some current agnosticism showing up so i hit my knees with the desperation of a drowning man and beg god for him to take these things from me because i desperately don't want to go back to that life ever again i want to be a dad i want to be a good friend i want to be a good worker. I want to be a good ex-husband, by the way. I needed to make things right with all the people I had wronged. Because when I went into my first fourth step, I thought I was a pretty good guy. I came out of my fifth step realizing the enormity of what I had done. It came crashing down on me. The relief that I felt from my fifth step lasted about 20 minutes. I felt so good. I remember calling him and saying this is amazing i feel the nearness of my creator oh this is wonderful i'm floating on a cloud and 21 minutes later bang it all came smashing down and i felt like literally like i had to purge it all out and i did and i did so i went to work on my amends 212 direct amends i had to make the first time through and i'm still working on them i'll be working on them for a long time. One popped up the other day. I keep the cards, and I keep them right near me. I keep them in my briefcase every single day in case I bump into somebody. And the other day, anyone on, what's that, LinkedIn, right? I get this ping. Oops, it's my old pharmacist. Boy, do I owe her an amends. So we're talking tomorrow, uh, Monday at five o'clock. I made the approach and we'll see what happens. I was deathly afraid that she got arrested because of what I did. Thank God she's okay. But, uh, I've been waiting to talk to her for a long time. I've had some amends that just did not go very well. I sat down with one of my best friends from childhood is still one of my best friends. She did not let me off the hook. She did not let me off the hook. I said something to her just using the words that we use, like, well, that's my story. And she goes, oh, so this is just all a story to you. I said, oh, boy, this is going to be a long afternoon. And it wasn't the money that I stole from her which she was upset about. She was upset that I had lied to her. I didn't realize that. I took great pride, actually, in the fact that I had never cheated on my wife. And she said to me, what are you talking about? You cheated on me every day. I didn't realize that that's how she felt, that I had chosen alcohol over her. We knew each other for 20 years, and she felt that way. I had no idea. I had no idea. So our book says nine out of ten times the unexpected happens. And I had to have faith in that. And I had to have faith in this process. And I had to have faith in those that came before me and listened to their stories and trust God and launch into this. so i remember saying how do you make amends to this little girl she was about seven years old at the time seven and a half what do you say what are the words when do you do it what do you tell her how much do you tell her i mean the questions went on and on and on and the answer was you'll know okay so i hadn't planned to make amends to her the day that i'm the day that i did and we were coming out of a coffee shop down in Delray and if you've ever had this experience you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about. I got driven down to my knees in the middle of the street and I grabbed her little hand I looked her straight in the eyes and I said, sweetheart, do you remember when I used to tell you that you ruined every day of my life? And she said, oh yeah, daddy, I remember that. I honestly don't remember what I said to her for the next however long we spoke for but I do know that we were in the middle of Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach and there were probably cars beeping and I didn't hear a thing somehow we made it back into the car somehow we made it back to my apartment and when I came to where I became aware again we were on my couch and we were still talking and it came time to ask her that magic question what can i do to make things right and again the ego re-emerged and and i lost faith and i started thinking to myself i i don't even know if she's going to understand those words she's so young so i was dancing around it and trying to find some other way to ask her and finally it just occurred to me to bow my head and ask for help and i did that. And I asked her, sweetheart, what can I do to make it right? And she said, I never imagined, daddy, that you would move to Florida and become a better daddy. I was a horrible dad. And she said, so just keep doing what you're doing. And then the funny part at the end. And she said, oh, yeah, every time I see you, I have to paint your toes. So she takes that very seriously, by the way. I'm probably the only single man in South Florida who has nail polish and nail polish remover under my sink. A couple of cool colors, actually. This fluorescent purple that she really likes. So my amends with her obviously continues all the time. You know, she just went to camp for the summer. My ex-wife is remarried to an amazing guy. I love him. His name is Michael. My middle name is David. Guess what his middle name is? David. We're both born in January 1967. We both love dogs. The difference is he doesn't drink, so we call him the non-alcoholic Michael. But I was pissed at him at one point. He, you know, I came down here with three bags of clothes, and it's just not really important anymore. I probably have four bags of clothes now. He sends her to this very expensive camp every summer with his daughters. And I remember the first summer that that happened, about four years ago, I was devastated, just absolutely devastated. I'm less than a man. No one should see me unable to afford camp for my daughter. And I was seething. but yet i was grateful so it occurred to me that i needed to reach out to him and what came to me in prayer was to write him a letter and i wrote him a letter thanking him from the bottom of my heart for the way he treats my daughter because he treats her as if he's her own and what kindness for him to do this and i never expected anything to come of it i never expected to mention it again And I got a call from my ex-wife a couple of days later. And she started off with, I read that letter that you sent to Michael. And I was like, oh. And she started crying. And we have one of the most amazing conversations. And so every time I see him now, we have a great relationship. I'm so grateful to him. The resentment is absolutely gone. He's not looking to replace me as a dad. First of all, he has three daughters of his own. He has his hands full. but she's my daughter i'm her dad and nothing's ever going to come between ever you know the first time that um i went to see her in sobriety was uh father's day 2011 and um i hadn't taken a sober plane trip yet if anybody's about to do that it's an interesting experience because i was afraid to fly for for seven years and eventually what got me over flying was scotch, Klonopin, and first class. So this was going to be my first sober flight. And I get to New York, and the flight goes amazing. And it's Father's Day 2011. I have about eight months of recovery. And my daughter is suffering from my alcoholism. This is way before my amends. And she is beside herself, irritable, restless, discontent. She had expressed some notions about being suicidal herself. We didn't know what to do with her. We're in a hotel room in Manhattan, and it's Father's Day, and I have plans and designs for the day that include brunch and a Broadway show, and we're on a schedule, and we've got to get going. And she's under the cover screaming at the top of her lungs. She just will not come out. and this had happened a million times before in our relationship and every single time i would drink over this but things had changed so i was on my knees praying next to the bedside and um i guess i felt her peek out from underneath the covers and she said daddy what are you doing and i said i'm i was kind of pissed actually i said i'm praying can you leave me alone And I felt her get up from the bed and walk around the bed. And if you've ever been to a hotel room, you know that the bathroom doors are very heavy, right? And my daughter was a big door slammer when she was younger. And so I was expecting her to walk around and go and slam the door. I didn't hear the door slam, and all of a sudden I felt her next to me. And I look over, and she's on her knees next to me. and and she says to me she goes daddy how do you do this and i said there are you know there there are no rules honey she had never seen me pray we had never done this and so she she she goes am i doing it right and i said yes we heard there are no rules and she said daddy do you talk out loud or you just talk in your head and i said you could either way i i like to talk out loud but and your head is fine. And then she looked over at me and she said, Daddy, is God a boy or a girl? And so I laughed. It broke the ice, broke the tension. And I said, well, sweetheart, my God is a boy, but it can be whatever you want. And she said, oh, good, because my God is half boy, half girl. He has pigtails on one side and a crown on the other. So we sat up on the bed. We were both cross-legged across from each other. And I was just inspired to start telling her my story. And at that point, it was without the alcohol and without the suicide and without the graphic details, but I started to tell her about, I remember the first thing I said to her, I said, sweetheart, when I was your age, I could be in a room full of people and still feel alone. And she said, daddy, that's exactly how I feel. Mommy doesn't understand. And we started having this little meeting together. And it was the first time in our lives, I was 44 years old, she was seven and a half. And it was the first time of our lives that we ever related to each other. And our relationship has been like that ever since. Whenever we're apart, our thing is always, you look at the moon, I'll look at the moon. We're looking at the same moon. Our hearts are always connected to each other. She's, I call her this little Buddha girl. She's an incredible little girl. Her spirit of forgiveness. I always say I want to be just like her when I grow up. Just like her. I had to make amends with her mom. The healing started very early on. My first home group was this open destruction group, and I made the mistake one time of sharing about the fact that I was about to go through a divorce. Oh, boy. I was surrounded after the meeting by what I call the He-Man Woman Haters Club, right? If any of you are familiar with the Little Rascals. So a bunch of guys came up and surrounded me, and as Pete knows, it took me a very long time to take my wedding ring off. I had this thing that I had made a vow before God, and I was having a hard time sort of spiritually separating from her. And they started saying things to me like, you better be prepared to go to war and she's going to take everything you have. Meanwhile, I have nothing. And you better take that ring off and all this stuff. And we have this group on Thursday nights and you should come talk to us and we'll help you through this and you're going to get through it. And I was like, with all due respect, you guys know more than I do. You have more time. I have like 40 seconds. but i'm going to try to i'm going to try to go through this divorce with dignity and respect and all the things that i didn't give her when we were in this marriage and they're like yeah good luck with that so um we were at it we were at a hearing up in the stanford courthouse in stanford connecticut and uh i walked into the courthouse she was sitting there with her lawyer so i walked up and gave her a kiss i don't know i just walked up and gave her a hug and a kiss And we got into this little arbitration room that you go into to try to settle the differences before you go in to see the judge, and I was starting to have a panic attack. Pete was not my sponsor at the time, and the advice I had gotten was 30 seconds of courage can get you through anything. 30 seconds of courage was getting me drunk, I've got to tell you that. I was sweating. I was anxious. My heart was pounding. Pete's not going to remember this, but I ran out, and I called him, and he told me to go pray. And the only place to go pray was in a public bathroom in the middle of a courthouse. And I went, and I hit my knees. And I don't know how much time went by, but all of a sudden, I look over, and my lawyer's standing in the door, and he goes, what are you doing? And I said, I need another few minutes. I'm praying. And he said, fine. So I went back into this little room, and I said something. I don't remember quite what I said. And her lawyer said to me, he said, I know a recovered alcoholic when I hear one. Now, I didn't mention I was an alcoholic, and I certainly didn't mention anything about recovered. And I said, how do you know that? And he said, because my son has 13 years. And the entire hearing changed. and there was all of a sudden the spirit of cooperation that entered into the room because God had entered into the room. That self-reliance and 30 seconds of courage almost killed me but as soon as I asked God for help in my weakness I was strong now and we got through it and afterwards I asked her out for coffee and our amends started there and it continued and it continues to this day. I've made a formal amends to her at least twice i could never ever repay her she did not bargain on finding her husband dead on the on the floor i'll tell you that she did not bargain on me but she continues to love and support me and she always said to me she said i will never ever ever keep you from your daughter and she's done everything she possibly can to keep our relationship Amazing. Now, sometimes she calls up and she's not very happy with me. By the way, guys, don't ever say something like this. Well, honey, oh, you're getting married? Uh-huh. Oh, isn't it cool how things worked out? I had to hold the phone out here. She said this was not her idea of things working out. And I understood what she meant. I understood what she meant. She would much rather have not had me have alcoholism, tried to kill myself, and still be part of the family. I should not have said that. Nine times out of ten, the unexpected happens. I was a filmmaker for 18 years. I used to travel around the world and make films for Discovery Channel and HBO and TLC and all sorts of stuff like that. And after I had burned every bridge imaginable and bankrupted my company, I, of course, convinced a friend to put in some money, put in a lot of money. I took that business and drove it into the ground. And as the business was closing, I was nice enough to back up a truck and empty out all the equipment and put it in my house. The guy's name was David. And as I went through my amends and I had a card for David, I knew exactly what I owed him. But David lived in Michigan. David couldn't really touch me. David wasn't really looking for the money. David sort of, even though they all fall under the same category of I'm willing to go to them, David was one who could wait. My parents were important. My daughter was important. My ex-wife was important. And David would be a little bit down the line. Well, let me tell you, God had other plans. Because I was taking my daughter back to the airport one time in West Palm Beach. And we parked the car and we walked in and we're getting into the elevator and the elevator opens, and there's David. Now, David had never seen me with a beard, so I was trying to play invisible. I thought maybe I could just hide behind it. Maybe he wouldn't see it. And I said, hello, David. And he said, hi, Michael. And we knew exactly what was up. And we got out of the elevator, and he mentioned that he was in town for about a week. And he mentioned he would be in town for about a week. So I kept that on file. And I was talking to my daughter afterwards and she goes, well, dad, it seems like you owe him an amend. So I was like, thank you. I appreciate that. So I put her on the plane and I got into the car and I called my sponsor, and he said, obviously, you know what you have to do. Now, the problem was is that I wasn't entirely ready to make an amends to him. There was still a but. There was still a huge but. David was a pain in the ass, if I'm being quite frank. He was annoying. There was a but you did this. And I knew I needed to get rid of it, and I needed to get rid of it fast. I had two days to work on this and get entirely willing. So my sponsor gave me some work to do. And Thursday morning rolled around, and David wouldn't see me. He said, call me at 9 o'clock a.m. on Thursday morning, and I'll give you five minutes. So I called him Thursday at 9 o'clock in the morning. I was in my car, huddled in there praying for the willingness to go to any lengths. And I owed him a lot of money, and I had no idea how I would pay it. And I was just willing to make the best deal possible, as our book says. he had actually had no idea what was wrong with me he probably was the only person on earth who had no idea what was wrong with me and so i told him my whole story and i asked him what can i do to make it right what i didn't know about david was that david's father was a rabbi in detroit what i didn't know about david is that david was a very religious person What I didn't know about David is that David was probably the most forgiving person I had ever met in my life. David said to me, you know, I could make you pay me $10 or $50 a day for the rest of your life. He said, but what good would that do you? He said, so I want you to remember this and I want you to pay it forward. And I want you to never, ever, ever contact me again. I don't want you to friend me on Facebook. If you see me, I want you to walk the other way. He said these things to me. They were hurtful words. And I thanked him. And I got off the phone, and I started to cry. The power of God had showed up. It wasn't about not repaying him. I would have paid him every dime. I would have paid him interest. As a matter of fact, I thought I deserved the punishment. It was about the forgiveness and love that that man showed me, because I did nothing but hate him and steal money from him and then slap him in the face. I don't think I would have been that forgiving. But again, once I invited God into the conversation, the miraculous happened. So I've had this consideration lately that's been going through my mind. My mom, who took me four and a half years to make amends to my mom, four and a half years. And my parents are still my parents. They are, like I said, they're difficult. They're an old Jewish couple who live in Delray Beach, and they are difficult people. But I love them. And my mom is going through cancer treatment right now. As a matter of fact, she just had her last chemo treatment last Tuesday. And my dad called me last night that my mom, somehow the garage door hit her in the head, and she passed out, and now her hip hurts. And so I get to go there tomorrow morning and make breakfast for them. but as my mom was going through these chemo treatments I came across an article it was an article about a doctor who was arrested for diluting cancer medication and I started to think what would happen if my mom's doctor was diluting and cutting her cancer drugs for profit. So he was getting a chemo, he was cutting it in half and selling both at full price. Now obviously I wouldn't be very happy, right? And what if that was happening to your loved one who was going through this? I don't think you'd be very happy either. So when it comes to cancer, we want the full strength. We want it all. If we hear of something like this happening, we're outraged. As a matter of fact, this guy will be prosecuted. They'll make an example out of him. It'll be on the news. It is in the paper already. So why do we accept a diluted solution? Why do we accept watered-down Alcoholics Anonymous? Why, when I go into some meetings and share about the big book and talk about God, do I get the strange reactions that I get? Why, when I bring this solution to sponsees, they say, Eh, that's great. I don't think so. For some reason, the fact that we can't put our disease up on a CAT scan, an X-ray, or an MRI makes it different to us. And we say things like, I know I need to do that. I know I need to make that amends, or I know I need to do this nightly review, or I know I need to do service, or I know I need to do that, but I'll do it tomorrow because it's nice out. right I know I should stay away from girls or girls I know I should stay away from guys I know I should do this and my sponsor told me to do this but it's nice out my daughter almost didn't have a father I almost wasn't here today lots of you if we raised our hands lots of us shouldn't be here today as a matter of fact probably most of us I'm so incredibly grateful that for whatever reason, at 43 years old, I woke up and got this solution. I'm so incredibly grateful for teachers like Pat and Peter that have been put into my life, and Marion and Shannon and Mike and Scott and all these other people, and Dana, all these other people who offered me something that I never knew existed. I never knew that God was in the alcohol saving business. I just never knew it. so from the bottom of my heart thank you for including me in this today and I couldn't be more grateful to be here thank you for allowing me to share