Willingness and the 1-in-40 Suggestion Ratio – Keith F.

My name is Keith and I'm a sexaholic, and I am really grateful to be alive and sober in here. My sponsor told me that I should introduce myself by saying that I want to smoke a cigarette and have sex with my wife. I told him I didn't really want to do that. I mentioned it to Kelly, and she said she thought it would be funny. And as I was thinking about it, and I talked to my sponsor again just this evening before this, I told them that, and he said again that he thought it would probably be the way to start out being honest. As an addict, I have a problem being honest, you know. And he didn't care if it was funny or not. He just thought it was more important that I be honest. and I thought, you know, I wonder. It's really amazing how many times in my life I sat down and I had these plans and ideas and I mentioned them to my wife and my sponsor and other people in my Life and how many time they vetoed them. You know, they're like, Keith, that's not really a good idea. We think you should do this. And, you now, so that... I'm really nervous and I need to say that too. You know... You know, I've been thinking about how to incorporate my story and the promises. Because always before whenever we've talked or I've done any talks myself, I've always, you know, it's just been my story. You know? I'm just Keith Sexaholic. I don't ever have a topic. You know. Just talk. You know! Fill up 40 minutes. Fill up 50 minutes. Whatever. You know... And so I asked my sponsor again. And this is a big theme in my life, is that I ask for direction today. And part of that is the reason why the promises are coming true in my life. You know, I used to not ask for direction or I would, I like to say that the first years in the program, I took probably about one out of 40 suggestions. You know? I'd call people and I'd ask them a question or something and they'd give me a suggestion. And 39 of those suggestions I throw away automatically. And one, that seemed like it wasn't that tough, I do. And today, you know, it may be three out of ten. So I'm not there. I'm Not at a point where I'm entirely recovered, but I'm at a place where I have more willingness today than I ever have. And I'm really grateful for that. The nature of my addiction is compulsive masturbation, fantasy, and pornography. It's very boring. Most people who come into Sexaholics Anonymous have acted out in more extreme ways than I have. I think it's funny that the reason why I'm here is because I tried harder than most people to quit acting out with less success than mostpeople have. I tried every way I could possibly imagine, and it didn't slow this disease down at all. It didn't even make a dent. I guess it's kind of like jumping off a cliff and trying to flap my arms. And for some reason, it just didn't slow me down. And at some point in August through September 2002, there were pretty tough times in my life. And I was beat by this disease. My ego had a hole punched in it, and it's just enough to let God in. And I don't even understand this God thing, but it's juste enough to le this power greater than myself in that has given me some freedom from acting out. Now, you know, this whole thing with my story is they have interesting connections with Colorado. Some of the worst years of my life are spent in Colorado. I loved that. I lived in Durango. I think it was 84 and 85. I lived on the side of the river and lived in the Springs, or well, the residence was actually in the springs and I was detained in Pueblo in the state hospital in 86 on my 16th birthday. I actually got a spend in that facility in the maximum security facility that they had there at the time. I didn't even know if it's still open. That's been some years, and I know a lot of that stuff goes away. So I've had some fear and trepidation too about coming back to Colorado. We came back for nine years ago probably and visited my sister. But in the promises, you know, it talks about this, and I was told to go through these. And I guess if I just tell my story, it's probably going to get them all blurred up and mixed up. And it says, if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. Nine and a half, step nine and a halve. That's where, before we were halfway through, because we're talking about the ninth step in the big book on page 83. And before we're halfway through... And I can tell you how much step nine-and-a-half... This is what my sponsor told me. I'm a slow step worker. I don't suggest it, but just last week I went and did the amends with my grandparents on my mom's side. My grandparents on my dad's side are deceased and they haven't come up in any step work. I didn't really know them that well. I resented that grandma and was grateful that she lived long enough to treat my wife respectfully and that eased a lot of those resentments and I don't have any amends. But with my grandparents on my mom's side, I had some amends to make to them and I was able to go up. And one of the things that we will not regret the past or we are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness is the next promise. All the amends I've made to people, right? If something happens, I don' t feel any magic at the time. I went and talked to my grandparents and sat down. It was nice, you know, in this and that. I hadn't seen them for a couple of years, even though they only live 15 miles from me. But I'd always had this shame of going around them. So I made these amends to my grandparent. And I've made amends to one of my sisters and one of our brothers and Kelly and the kids. And the amazing thing about a lot of these resentments or these amens that I've make with these people is that when I'm around these people i have a freedom that i don't have with the people i haven't completed this step with it's an amazing thing you know that like with my brother that i owed money to because i was not managing my affairs i was acting out instead of working and then i had a hard time supporting my family um so i'd call my brother hey i need some money to pay my as we were separated and i needed money to play my child support and um you know and stuff like that and i you know made those ments back to him and I have a great relationship with him. And my sister that lives in Nashville, actually when we went there I got a chance to make a ment to her for some stuff that happened in Durango where I chased her with a machete. And now it's like when I think about her and when I talk to her, it's just really at ease. It's at at peace it's like this is okay you know um i don't have that fear hanging over or my other sister who actually lives in spring in the springs here i haven't had the opportunity to um you know and that's that's really difficult and they pray that the opportunity will will come up with her um now it says that we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it this is one of those promises that has to the most part come true to me sometimes it took in the other fellowship in a I attended AA for 14 years before getting sober and an essay for and in that fellowship I went to a lot of low-bottom meetings because I related with the guys that had just got out of prison and the guys have done that because of my experience with being and being locked up in different psych wards. And I wasn't locked up in psych words because, I mean, I was nuts. Okay, that's a pretty fair statement. But I was locked up in psych ward because I was criminally nuts. You know, I was a danger. And it wasn't like I had, I'm sorry I related with these guys, but for years I would never talk about this experience. I would not I would ever talk about the fact that I had spent a year of my life in psychiatric units in the state of Colorado. So there was a big portion of my story that I just wouldn't share. And in working this step, I talk about it now in meetings when it's appropriate, whether it's an essay meeting or an AA meeting or whatever meeting I'm at. If it seems appropriate, it's on topic, I'll talk about because it's part of what I've gone through. It's partof my life. Some of the things, like when Kelly and me have conversations and stuff, Sometimes, I don't know if it's so that I regret the past. It's sometimes I wish I hadn't had to been such a jerk and hurt so many people so bad to become teachable. And I don' t know if that's regretting the past, it's just like, you know, I'm grateful for where I'm at. I just wish it hadn't cost so many other people so much. And, you now, that's something I work on on a daily basis. And part of my amends to my family, my wife and my kids is actually not sitting down and going over every crappy thing that I did to them my whole life because there's a ton of them. And I don't always know when people like my children or my wife are willing to sit down and listen to this list. But being willing to listen to them when they want to talk about the stuff that I've done. And, you know, like our son, I attempted suicide in a garage on his eighth birthday. Well, when do I bring that up to him? Or do I just say, okay, he's going to remember it. And when he brings it up or the family brings it Up, hey, Dad, do you remember the time the police and the ambulances and all those people were over? Do I listen to them or just shut them down? You know, that's part of the way. And that's another thing with not regretting the past, just letting them talk about it and say, you know, my deal. The next one here. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. I used to think I knew what peace was. you know I think that did the thing say 90 or 99 because we got here at 99 okay and I know we'd go to meetings and I'd talk at meetings and this and that and I talked about every subject that was ever under the moon as if I was the end all ultimate authority and thank God some of my friends in SA are crossovers too and they've attended meetings with me in AA and they attended meetings with me an essay and they finally told me shut up we don't want to hear what you're saying because you're not living it you know and I talk about knowing serenity I had no idea I thought I knew what serenety was serenty was that kind of oblivion that you get when you act out enough that you don't feel anything anymore you know um you know that's drunk not serenity and you know today serenety is being okay no matter what's going on you know it's like okay god you know and that's something i actually have to work at and i wish i could just like wake up in the morning and be like okay God let's skip and dance through the day and i'm gonna be okay but oftentimes i happen to forget about God and it's just like not even there. And I'll get myself all disturbed and worked up and pissed off and life is just not going to work and this and that is going to happen and I'll totally forget that God's there. And then I'll remember, okay, maybe I should say a prayer. My head will say, that isn't going to works. Every time I think about praying, my head says it's not going work. Every time that I pray, it works. my head always tells me a lie you know and the serenity you know when we um when i actually got sober i thought our marriage was over um kelly had filed for separation and and there was restraining orders and and different things there and um i had to appear in court and do different things and pay huge amounts of child support which my disease had actually diminished my ability to earn an income even in a very early sobriety i wasn't earning as much as i had several years before this is having a really difficult time and um this is the first time i ever actually got to know what peace was because it's like that's okay you know i have enough today it's okay you're going to be okay keith just keep doing what you need to do you know and um i um kind of A little side note, I was told by an old-timer just about a month or so before I got sober to get on an injection to help with this disease. And I went ahead and did it, and I went head and acted out anyhow on it. And then I've continued to take that medicine. And I have guys call me. This guy gives them my number, and they call me, and they are looking for the magic bullet, so to speak. They want a medicine that will take care of this thing. and I always tell them that in my first 30 days I was taking the shot, going to counseling seeing my psychiatrist because he was kind of freaked out by the medicine that I was taken and go on to between 2 and 5 meetings a day and I don't ever hear from them again because they want to most of us want this magic and that's what I thought when I got this shot this would be it because I'm always looking for the formula to end this acting out I was tired of the pain of acting out. And I continued to act out even on the shot. And I always think it's funny because I'm really grateful that after I took that and went on the last acting out run that I went on that I was actually willing and broken enough to go to two to five meetings a day. And it wasn't all essay meetings, it was other fellowships because it's almost impossible to go to two, five, well I don't think there's five as eight meetings a day in any town in North America so but and that's part of the thing that during that first 30 days too I remember I was living in a part of Portland this my sponsor that I had at the time told me if you can stay sober live in there you can see sober living anywhere and God kept me sober living there you know i lived there for a month um right in the crack section of town you know and when it was raining out which it does thankfully a lot of times in the winter that helped me a lot and um you know that was you know september through october still raining stuff on the clear nights the streets were really noisy you know when it wasn't raining because the people were out in the streets you know getting their drugs and stuff but um somewhere in there um one of the Sundays I wasn't working I wasn t doing anything I had some laundry to do I got up and went to the 7 o clock meeting and then there was another meeting there was other meetings scheduled throughout the day but not an essay meeting until 7.30 at night our biggest meeting in the Portland area and the amazing thing in that 12 hours between those two meetings I was okay and it was the first time I d ever felt okay I was going to two to five meetings a day because i couldn't sit still i was withdrawn from my drug and my mind was going nuts and i couldnít sit still and the only place i felt comfortable halfway was in a meeting but within that first 30 days i started getting freedom and peace where i could sit there and not really do i mean laundry is not that challenging of a task you know and um sit there and do my laundry and clean up my room and watch the little NASCAR. And NASCAR's not that gravitating to me. It's something I can, you know, kind of as background noise. And just be okay. Man, what a miracle. I mean, that just being okay. And I tell people today, this is the reason why I come back. You know? I don't come back necessarily to stay sober. I have to stay sore. I have a sober to have that feeling. I come black because I want that feeling, you know I want that serenity I want to know peace I want a feel peace at about two months over I think it was our six-year-old daughter who had witnessed this on this life this is that um I had had brought into our home who her dad hadn't wouldn't show up but you know me I wouldn't you at the home or even after we were separated I wouldnít show up at visitations and this and that and she She has some, probably kind of like her dad, she has some mental health issues, you know. And she snapped at six. Some of it's biological about a lot of the situation and during that time when we had to hospitalize her two different times and we were separated and I think the restraining orders we thought they were lifted I'm not sure they were 100% legally lifted at the time we'd went to court and they had been lifted and I so I could hang out with the kids or take the kids doctor's appointments and do this and that so I was able to go and be a part of that and to watch her just lose it and be okay and you know talk to my sponsor and go to my meetings and no you know this kid is going to be okay if I just you know this is gonna be okay I don't know I didn't know really what's gonna happen with her I didn' know whether she's gonna continue to slide downhill or whether her treatment or whatever would help and you know so but knowing that I'd be okay you know was okay the next promise is no No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we'll see how our experience can benefit others. Other than probably my favorite person in the world to talk to, actually not probably, realistically my favorite to talk or listen to is Kelly. Other than that it's sexaholics. I prefer to talk sexaholics over alcoholics. I kind of get nervous. I don't say this to people, but when I meet people that I really like in the outside world, I kind OF wonder if I'm going to run into them in meetings sometimes. Maybe I should just slip them a brochure. And the funny thing is we talk a language here that I haven't heard anyplace else. You know, I mean, I'm a construction worker and you hear all this sort of stuff on the jobs. We talk about the same sort of stuff to talk on construction sites, but in a form of language that's actually healing and healthy. And it's only here, you know, we go to church and stuff like that. And I'm sure if they heard my story and our old church knew my story, our new church doesn't. I'm sure ifthey heard mystory, they'd be like, well, that's kind of nice. Stay away from our kids. You know, it'sonly here that my story has really any value. You know out there I mean you know people don't want to hear it you know people don t want to know the depths of my mind trolls yeah you know they don t they don t care they just want to that okay Keith you re going to show up and do the job you re told to do or you re gonna pay your bills or you re gonna do all that sort of stuff here when I m talking to people we had a newcomer come Tuesday night to our Vancouver meeting and this is um you He shared, we did a newcomer breakout and we talked about this and that. And at the end he asked a question. And his question was, he looked at me and he said, is it possible to live without lusting? I understood what he's talking about because I didn't believe it was possible to live with outlusting. But I know today, and I can tell him with confidence and the other guys in the meeting could tell him what to come, it is possible to live without lusting. And that comes from where I've been. That comes from not thinking, you know, I can't do this. I remember I used to call my sponsor during the years of acting out before he fired me. And I would call him and say, I just can't deal with this. I can do this, and he'd say, I know, and if you'd just believe that, you'd be okay. It's just really frustrating. I can't do this. Well, die, you can't. Read the first step. And so that whole deal in knowing that a person... And I've heard people say this before, and I believe it's true that if I can be kept sober, there isn't any reason why not everybody else can't be. My story isn't that much worse where I wasn't... It's like I listen to people in meetings and sexaholics in the way that we think. And I know that if I can be kept sober, then there isn't a sexaholic out there that can't be kept silver. And I believe that in the depths of my heart. And the other sexaholics I talked to, when I was... I think my sponsor's 15th birthday when I wasn't sober. When I was about 9 or 10 months sober. And I sat in that meeting and gave them this chip. And they kind of did it AA style, you know, where they talk about the person. Most of our meetings, they just give you a chip and they don't talk to you. they don't congratulate you, they don' t do nothing. But this meeting, they kind of did it AA style where people would say the things that this guy had done for them or whatever. And I got to thinking that guy had been sober every day one day at a time for 15 years. And the thing I realized when I got in that meeting was that no matter what happens today, it can't be as bad as all those 15 years put together. Because a lot of stuff happens in 15 years I mean, I'd been sober 9 or 10 months and a lot of stuff had happened already. Well, you crunch that down into 15 years, there's nothing that happened bad enough that I have to act out today. Period. And I believe that still today. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. again you know I don't know if it's quite the right word I sometimes struggle with words I'm not a big word guy but at times I feel like the work that we are doing each of us members of Sexaholics Anonymous is very important And not only to me, I mean I talk to people because it keeps me sober, but it's also important to life. To the general. I feel like there is value there. I feel that possibly I can be helpful. I think in dealing with my children, that whole deal was... I woke up one day and I had five kids. It's kind of the way I feel. I was there in a brownout stage for all those years and it was like all of a sudden and now it's like, okay, how do I be a dad? How do I parent these children? And there's some value there. I mean, it's pretty obvious there's some value there. And I can only do that by being a member of Sexahawks Moms, by working this program. And at work, I'm not drifting along, losing ground at work anymore. It's crazy. I decided to start my own business and decide to see what God would do. There's something, and as Bill sees it, where he's writing a letter to a guy who's going to try a new career. And I talked to my sponsor about it. And he says, as long as you're willing to try and it's just an experiment, you'll be okay. So I've tried to live that. And for years, I stayed in the same job with the same employer and going backwards because I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough money to act out. Well, towards the end of my disease, I wasn't carrying any money. if I had money and then I'd go to the meeting and I had 7th edition money in my pocket and sometimes it would be $5 because I was afraid of carrying money no credit cards and I'd have the obsession to act out and I'd call somebody they'd say throw the money out the window so I'd throw the Money Out The Window right and then and then I'd find myself stealing porn and it's like how does that work you know I kind of miss the whole thing of surrender. It doesn't matter how many dollars you throw out the window, if you don't surrender your right to act out, you'll end up acting out. But that whole feeling, and I feel like today more than ever before in my life that there's value and meaning to my life. There's a purpose for Keith to get up every morning and to do his prayer and meditations and to call a sponsor and to go to work and to do the best he can and to come home and to just be who he is. And always before, it felt like... I did attempt suicide. It was kind of a chicken way of doing it. It wasn't very serious. But I always wanted God to take me away. I didn't want to actually have to do the dirty job of committing suicide. But I didn' t want to live anymore either. I was just like, this is too much. This is crap. There's no reason for me to be here. And today I actually feel like there's a reason to be alive. I'm quitting smoking. I have been working on it for months. That's why I said I wanted to smoke a cigarette. I had about three weeks without smoking. I had 30 days before that and then I smoked for eight days. I'm doing kind of the same. It's crazy. I wish I could learn this stuff and transfer it over from one problem to another but I seem like I have to relearn it in each of the problems. But one of the reasons why I want to quit smoking is because I'm trying to tell my higher power that I want to live, you know? So I'm kind of trying to do things in my life to say, I care about my life. My life is important to me. I want a life. So I am trying to change my behaviors to express that. I mean, I don't know what God's going to say but that's what I want say. Whereas when I feel like I'm smoking and I'm doing all this other crazy stuff, I don't really care. And I'm also trying to have that message to my wife and to my kids and the other people that are around me that I want to be here. I want To be a part of this thing. This is the coolest show on earth. Pretty much the only one life is. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. I really like this one is partially true I think sometimes a lot of times I get sidetracked and think that I need certain things and that's always selfish anytime I need something it's selfish and self-centered and when I'm more interested in what I need than in what I'm getting or what God is going to give me then I am I'm not losing interest in selfish things. I'm obsessing about stuff. So I work on this one. That whole thing of thinking. And there is a story in here where she says at the end of her story that when she does the stuff, the program, and I'm terrible. I read this book over and over andover, two pages a day usually, and I cannot quote it for nothing. So it's not her lack of not reading it, it's just her lack of the fact that this stuff for me is foreign and I really struggle comprehending it a lot of times. Some of the stuff will come through but a lot OF times I lose it. But she talks about when she seeks her higher power's will she gets what she needs and then she finds out that what she need is what she wants and that's what I'm finding is true in my life too that when I'm seeking okay God, thy will not mine be done God provides what I need and in the end what I really need is what I want even though I didn't realize it so self-seeking will slip away our whole attitude and outlook upon life with change. This one is kind of an interesting one. My whole life, one of my friends in the program used to tell me, aren't you getting sick of being the center? He's kind of rude about it. He's one of those crossover guys who's got that AA in your face certain mentality you know and he told me that over and over and over again aren't you tired of being in the center and my whole life from the time I was a very little boy you know in and we um we traveled around the country quite a bit living in different places and this and that and I always looked to get what I could out of each place that we lived in. I looked to get everything that I possibly could out that place, you know if it was stealing money out of neighborhood cars or if it were stealing porn from a guy that rented a room from a house or whatever I took whatever I wanted, I tried. My life was all about getting what Keith thought he wanted all the time that was that was the focus of Keith's life I carried that through into our marriage into absolutely everything that I did my job everything it was all about getting what Keith wanted to get today and this one here too I spend time in prayer meditation a whole lot of to do not like fun life. Today, my life is about accepting God's will for Keith, whatever it is that day, whatever presents itself that day. I make a lot of beautiful plans. I sit down in the morning and I think about what's going to happen that day and have all these ideas and schemes and plans that are good to go through. It used to really bug me when these would fall apart. Oftentimes I'd leave the house at 7 o'clock and by 5 after 7, my plans for the day are scrapped. Now my job is to accept that and keep moving on. Okay, I had all these plans, I told you what I wanted God and you're saying no. That's how my attitude and outlook upon life has changed. It's okay today if my life is flexible. It'S okay today if the things, the beautiful plans that Keith creates, which generally are not very beautiful, but they look beautiful in my head. If those go away and are replaced by something else, fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. The reason why I'm nervous standing up here is because I'm afraid of what you guys will think about me. you know that's true I have to surrender my right to worry about what people think about me I've been told for a long time it's none of my business what anybody else thinks about you Keith I have a harder time practicing that than actually hearing her saying out loud and so the fear of people and I'm less fearful of people today than it would have been some years ago you know the this is a and the economic insecurity will leave us on it's kind of funny we had this um I had this project going on at work actually I'm done at this project at work and this lady owes me a substantial amount of money and um i've been attempting to collect it from her in in a way that doesn't cause me to have to make her amends you know that's kind of i hate making amends um and it's been really amazing because um sometimes it's come right down to the wire and i haven't known how i was going to pay my guys the guys that work for me um and then like the day before i have to have it paid somehow some money will come through and god will take care of them and me and through this experience i'm beginning to learn that it's okay you know i'm going to be okay my kids are going to be fed and clothed and housed the people that work from here are going to be paid and you know god's going to take care of it and and then ultimately too in the end if If the business fails, who cares? I just get a different job. I was looking for a job when I got this one. And having that kind of outlook, and it takes some work. This whole program is about willingness to practice these principles. It takes some worked to maintain that kind attitude because sometimes I want to get really crappy and I want fantasize about knocking this lady's house down and go through those sort of things in my head and doing all that stuff. But as I pray about it and surrender it and actually look at what God is doing for me in my life, I'm okay. It doesn't matter. When and if that happens, it would be nice. But until that happens I'll be okay. And that's really nice to have that feeling. We all intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. Twice in my sobriety, I've went on to job sites and found pornography. It's kind of funny because always before in the past that was a good reason to act out. God gave it to me. If God's given me porn, that's a pretty baffling situation. being as porn kills me both of those times um i i couldn't live with the porn there on the job site and work there for two weeks you know and have it there and not wonder you know so one time there was a couple guys there so i picked it up rotted it up with a try not to look at it and i took it to the super of the subdivision i said you need to do something with this and I gave it to him. That's intuitive. I didn't even think about it. It's just like, there's a magazine. I need to get rid of it because I can't have it hanging on because I'm allergic to this stuff. You know, scrunch it up, hand it to the guy. And I knew he was kind of a religious guy so I knew you'd be kind of like, okay, take care of it. Some guys you wouldn't want to do that with because they'd want to sit down and look at it with you. But that Patekhar guy was okay. and the time before that actually we were going to be there for about a day or two and I knew the garbage guy was going to come by and I took it and I had a bunch of wrappers and I just shoved it underneath the wrappers and then left the job. That's one of the blessings of being self-employed is you can leave. The garbage guy is going to come by and he's going to scrap this thing out and I can just kind of float the schedule until that happens and that was another way if, you know, okay, I intuitively know how to handle this situation. So he used to baffle us because you know then the other we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. I'm sober today. I've been sober. It's actually September 24th of 2002. If on September 20th, 30th even, or September whatever of 2002-2003 you'd have told me that that would be true today I would have not believed you. I didn't believe this program went to work until we went to Nashville and we did the couples meeting. And I was terrified. I was so there if i'd i block that out i just like i'm not going to think about it i'm not going think about we get into the room and as we sit down at the table I lean over and I say Nancy what's the topic because I totally like just like I wasn't gonna deal with it you know it's just not gonna deal and she told me the topic and we talked I don't remember what it said and it went okay and I left that room and I realized you know before September 2002 people were telling me to shut up we don't we're tired of hearing you talk Keith you know you just need to start showing us we don't care what you say start showing us and something had happened and now people actually asked me to talk that's when I actually first began to realize that this promise was coming true because they didn't ask me talk because i was a cool guy they didn't even really know me you know um you know they asked me to talk because god is doing something for me that i couldn't do for myself you know the first steps are powerless and life has become manageable you know i am powerless over lust i cannot stop i cannot start masturbating it's not stop buying porn or looking at porn or doing all of that stuff. And, you know, I'm sober and free. And if that isn't a bigger example, and the fact that we're married. I was just telling Kelly we were walking around and I told her how grateful I was that we were able to be here together. Because that was not a very probable situation a few years back. And the thing that I realize about these promises, all of these promises is the fact that the reason why the promises are cool, the reason Why the fact they're coming true in my life is really cool is because of the depths of despair that I've got to experience. I think there's people out there who are non-addicts. I believe they probably experience these promises without having to work the steps. So for them, it's no big deal. It's like this is just the way life is. We have friends and I hear stories about them and their behaviors and this and that and things they do without even thinking about it and with absolutely no consequence and I'm absolutely floored and amazed. People live that way and they stay connected to their higher power. You know, people can do things that I can't do. And one of the big things for me too is today, as a result of being beat up by this disease, I live by a certain set of rules. They're my rules. They're not Kelly's rules. They're nobody else's rules, they're Keith's rules You know? I don't drive down certain streets. There's a funny story about that. I called my sponsor and was complaining about I was being harassed by Kelly's sponsor and Harvey, her husband. And I called him and was harassing him because I'd stopped taking the medication at about seven or eight months and then I'd actually looked at porn. and they were wanting me to get back on the shot and I wasn't wanting to at that time. And I called my sponsor and was complaining about how rude these people, these old-timers from Nashville were. And then I happened to cast out the fact that I was driving past a video store. And he called me back and he said, whether you take any medicine or not, if you drive past those places. Actually, what he said, recovery will look like for you is if you're not driving past those places. And he was very rude about it. He wasn't even very nice. He's usually generally a fairly nice sponsor. He likes to make fun of me. But he's not generally mean like that. So, you know, and knowing that, you know. Then we get to the, are these extravagant promises? the next line is the three words we think not which we usually say in the meeting when the promises are read most meetings I go to that read the promises everybody says that those three words and it says they are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly sometimes slowly they will always materialize if we work for them I think that's kind of important you know in the fifth chapter after some debate bill wrote rarely have we seen a person fail certainly followed our path according to the stuff I've learned he wanted to say never but it was changed too rarely and there's other examples in here and that's the most but where they use a word that isn't again my language skills for failing me but you know they use the word that leaves some room for wiggle like rarely you know it's possible that one out of a million alcoholics fails after completing this 12 steps that's what my mind interprets here it says always so they took an oh really before than 12 steps and at nine and a half they're saying always so because if there's a one in a million chance these aren't going to work they won't work for me you know what I mean because I'm always the exception. That's my life, you know? They'll always materialize if we work for them. And what time is it? How much time? Eight, okay. You know, this is the deal. And a lot of the things that I like to talk about with people is, you Know, I have guys call and I talk to five or six drunks every day, sexaholics. and I'm really grateful for that. It keeps me sober, you know? And I talk to my sponsor and I hear guys doing this sort of crap that I did to my Sponsor. You know, I want this. You know I want to be sober and I want do this and I always ask them what are you willing to do? Are you willing get on your knees? Are you will to call somebody every day? Are you willing to keep your hands above your waist no matter what happens? Are you willingly to drive a mile out of your way? You know, are you willing... And I asked them those questions because that's what it really blows down to. It doesn't blow it down to wanting. I could want this thing and I wanted this thing all day long. I just wasn't ever willing to do anything for it, you know. And the real point in life for me came where I got beat hard enough And I became willing enough to say, okay, I'll do whatever it takes. And the guys laughed because my sponsor I have now fired me several months before I got sober. He's kind of nice about it. He said if you're not willing to listen to what I'm telling you, you need to find a new sponsor. So I found a new sponsored. And he was exactly what God wanted for me at that time. and one of the things this is kind of funny he told me to wear welding gloves to bed at night and I did you know and it's a funny thing you know because I'd wake up they're kind of greasy really gross But I had reached a point in my life where I was willing to do absolutely anything if it helped me. Help give me a second to actually work my program because that's really what it takes for me is it takes a second. The thought comes in, I've got to get it out. It takes a moment and it takes just a second before. And I'm really, really grateful. This is a beautiful facility. I'm grateful that you guys asked us to come out. I'm very grateful for the committee to put this thing together. You know, and I'm grateful that I think my hour is done. Yeah, yeah, cool.