The Third Tradition Speaker Meeting in Studio City, CA

Happy birthday, everybody. Now let's give a warm welcome to our speaker tonight, Samantha. Hi, family. I'm Sam. I'm an alcoholic.

Yeah. Is that for me? I wanna thank Jeff for asking me to be here, and, thank you for having me. And, I'm not like a circuit speaker or anything really handy dandy, and I got a little ADA, DHDA, whatever going on. So I'm sure very nervous.

And, I can't believe how much how many things I used to steal to get this feeling. But anyways, happy birthday to the birthday people. Happy celebration of your surrender. That's how we do it at Santa Barbara. I this is the best singing I ever heard.

Santa Barbara singing sucks for sure. But, greetings from Santa Barbara, and, I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be anywhere. It's an honor and a privilege, definitely, to be asked to speak. They weren't asking me to speak too much 10 years ago.

In fact, they were urging me to exercise my constitutional right not to speak often, which I never adhered to. My sobriety date this time is September 5, 1995. I have a sponsor. She happens to be here tonight, which takes a lot of the fun out of the pitch right there, although I'm glad she's here. But the f word will be used sparingly, if at all.

Oh, shoot. And, my home group is the off center group, Sunday mornings 11 o'clock in Santa Barbara. You're all welcome there. We have a great a lot of food. Good food there.

Let's see. I get to tell you a little bit about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now, and I get to I I I end 8:15. What is it? 8:05? I drove 6 hours.

I'm gonna speak 10 minutes. No. I'm just kidding. What do when do I stop? 8 20.

8:20. Alright. Here we go. Let's see. You know what?

I got sober the first time when I was you know what? And Toby's here tonight. It was just kind of, I was really good to go. I didn't think I was gonna cry through this one. And then I saw Toby, and I thought that's all that blows everything to hell.

So Toby knows me. Like, you know me. Toby knows me. And, she knows that the last 3 years have been rough for me. They've been rough.

I've never been this old. I've never been this sober. I never gone through a divorce sober. I never I never been here before. You know what I mean?

So I, and I get to watch the people in front of me do this with whatever dignity, integrity. I don't know. I mean, dignity for me sometimes is just flinging snot from wall to wall, you know, and just doing the best I can. And I really do believe, you know, I was kinda raised in old school AA, you know, you wear a dress, you brush your hair, you shave your legs all in the same day, which is a lot for me right off the bat. Wow.

I remember when I was 7 months sober and so my sponsor turned to me and she just said, you know, you need to wear a dress once a week. And I I I came into this program, you know, and alls I wore was UGGs and sweats and flannels. My hair was in my face. The back of my head was shaved. My bottom teeth weren't knocked out.

They were knocked out. They were. She looked bad though. The other girl looked bad too. I'll tell you that.

Hands down. We know that was a draw for sure. But, and I looked at her and I just thought, wow. You know? And I didn't really say anything.

And she said, and brush your hair. And I did. I literally looked at her. I said, on the same day? I was terrified.

She said, laughed. And she said, no. No. We'll just start slow. Just start with the dress.

We'll do the hair next month. But, things have changed, you know. And, I mean, I didn't I didn't start out to be an alcoholic, you know. I I didn't I didn't, you know, go down to the guidance counselor and say hook me up with the classes that, you know, promote that kind of lifestyle. I, I was adopted.

You know, I'm the youngest of 4 kids. I was the only one that was adopted. I don't take that to the bank, whatever you wanna do with that. I was raised Lutheran. Take that wherever you wanna go.

I don't know. I'm I'm not a recovering Catholic. I'm, you know and I was raised in Arcadia. And, you know, I had a great I had a great family. I have a great family, and, I'm the baby, and, and I was spoiled, and I was treated like the baby, and I was also treated like the adopted child.

Although my dad tried very, very hard not to treat me differently than the other kids, he'll say today that by doing so, he treated me differently. I don't know if that makes me an alcoholic. Don't care. Don't care anymore. I think that what makes me an alcoholic is is that I I drank, you know, a lot of alcohol and copious amounts of other outside issues.

And I don't know if I crossed the line. I remember always feeling different. I'm not a follower. I'm a leader. I've, you know, I'm not, you know, you know, I'm not really easily swayed.

I'm the one that sways you, and I convince you to come break the law and do things and then blame it on you later and they believe me, except when they don't, you know, and that was a struggle later on. But, you know, I I I got sober the first time through a drug rehab, for kids, for teenagers in the eighties, 1983. March 30, 1983, that was my first sobriety date. And then we had one in September of 86, and then we had the one in 95. So step 1 didn't come easy, if you know what I'm saying.

And there was always something that was making me different then and different then and different then. You know, I I I wanna definitely get into the steps, you know. And if you're new or new or newly new or newly used or whatever you might be tonight, welcome, you know, and welcome to the Speed Freaks and the dope fiends and the tweakers and the, you know, whatever else you are and the and the Andas. And, hopefully, I'll have a sponsor that could teach you about the steps and the traditions and why it is that we have a singleness of purpose and why it is that we say, you know, I'm an alcoholic at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And you take me anywhere else, and I'll say whatever else you want me to say, because I eat the meal as it's served, if that makes sense.

And the meal, I don't know where you guys have it tonight, but, you know, it's in the book somewhere, that book, that blue book. The meal is the 12 steps for me. And when I got here, I was starving. And you know what I always think about when I was a little girl and I used to go to my mom and I used to say, what's for dinner? I'm starving.

And she'd say fish and I go, ew. And she goes, well then you're not really starving, are you? And that line I use frequently with women in this program, basically, because the steps are laid out in order as they are, and and that's the way I've been taught to to take them and to eat them. And, and as a result, I get a meal that has far sustained me and fulfilled me, beyond my wildest dreams. I love Alcoholics Anonymous.

I love it. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't always love the fellowship. And if you could survive the fellowship, you can have long term sobriety. Let me tell you that right now.

If I can survive myself, I can have long term sobriety. But I got the meal served to me through hospitals and institutions in 1980 3, the first time, and really my life was forever changed. It was never the same again. And I really believe that once we wake up, it's very, very difficult to go back to sleep. I'll say that again.

Once we wake up, it's really hard to go back to sleep. That's my experience. It is a bitch. And we'll try. I mean, the distractions will come in all kinds of different pretty packages.

And, as I stay sober longer that as one of my sponsors, he says, the character defects just wear different little outfits. They're much cuter. And, they shop at a wide variety of stores now, but the bottom line is is that I still get gangbanged by my character defects and I do not get them 1 at a time. Sorry. That's the way it is.

That's a little rude, Catherine, I know, but that's my sponsor rules really because she sort of has this attitude of what we joke about as having sort of a garden party sponsor. And they look at me and they look at Catherine and they go, Catherine's your sponsor? I'm like, yep. But they don't know that, you know, Catherine would carry around little bottle of spot remover in her purse and, you know, would come near pre coma sniffing that stuff. And everyone else just thought she was very clean.

She was a very clean child. Spot remover. I like that. Anyways, where was I? Drug, alcohol, rehab, whatever.

Got the meal, got sober, stayed sober, in and out, up and down, round and round we go. And in 1986, I stayed sober for what I thought was gonna be the last time. And, and I have a life beyond my wildest dreams, definitely. And, and I worked with, you know, people. I went to meetings and I hit my knees and I read the big book and I sponsored people and I had sponsors and yep, and on and on we go.

I know. It's so annoying. You know, and I I don't I don't even wanna tell you what I do for a living, but I don't need microphone. That's for sure. Anyways, so, you know, and then the 5 most infamous words that I hear when people go out are I quit going to meetings.

That's what I hear the most. Every now and then I hear, yeah, I don't know what happened. You know, I was going to meetings and I was hitting my knees and I was reading the big book and I was sponsoring people and I was going to commitments and I was fit. And I just got drunk. And I go inside, I go, well, you're you're doomed.

You're doomed. That's what I say inside. Either you're doomed or I'm doomed. Because the thing is is that the program works perfectly. I mean, if you don't wanna get sober, don't do the steps.

Don't do the steps. Because you will recover. I guarantee you. It's terrifying. Ask anybody in this room.

I mean, there's a lot of people, I bet you, in this room that didn't even think that we were an alcoholic. They may have caught alcoholism when they came in here, or they didn't think the steps were gonna work for them, or they didn't really think about it. But they probably had a sponsor just said, just shut up and do it. Just shut up and do it. Just do this, do this, wear a dress, go here, pick them up, call this.

That's what I had. Don't think. What are you, crazy? Yes. Don't think.

Do. Just do. Just do what we say. You know, I love I mean, I love what Clancy says. You know what?

I'm not a real big Clancy fan except when Clancy talks about himself. I love it when Clancy talks about himself. And you could take that to the bank wherever you are, Clancy. But, anyway, he came up the other a few years ago, whatever, and he really talked about the first three steps. And he talked about step 1 as being not that alcohol is my problem.

And I don't know if if you're sitting there tonight and you think that alcohol and drugs are your problem. For me, alcohol and drugs were not the problem. Alcohol and drugs truly were the solution. Alcohol and drugs truly gave me the promises. You know?

No, you know, I I I I did not need to shut the door, you know. I mean, I what are the promises again? Where where if I'm painstaking Well, I was amazed before I was halfway through. You know, I knew a new freedom and a new happiness. I could comprehend the word serenity.

I knew peace. I mean, that that's what alcohol did for me, for sure. No matter how far down the scale I'd gone, it didn't what what scale? I mean, I just drank past the scale. But the fact is is that step 1 is about I can't get loaded, I can't drink, and I can't get sober.

That's the jumping off place. If you're still successfully drinking, I don't know what you're doing here. And for me, it's gotta hurt pretty bad. I mean, it's it's, you know, it's it's icy shark infested waters for me. You know?

It's it's what's the worst way to die? That's how I had a picture. And a sponsor when I was 4 years sober said to me, what's the worst way to die? Now, I don't know if I'm dramatic or whatever. But the first thing that came to my mind is being eaten alive by sharks.

I don't know why. And so what I think about is the boat's going down and there's one life preserver. And the water the boat's going down in the middle of the day in the Mediterranean, where the water's blue, warm, gorgeous. And Jeff and I are in the water, and there's one life raft. Now I may be inclined to say something like, by all means, Jeff, you take that life preserver.

I'm good. I'm good. I could swim. I'm just gonna kick it here. I'm gonna lull a while, wait for that rescue boat to come by, come on, work on my tan, you go for it.

That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is, like, the boat's going down in the middle of the night, in February in Alaska. Right? And I'm and the water's pitch black, dark. And I I'm swimming.

I'm scared. I'm, you know, tired or whatever, and I feel this, like, tug on my foot, you know. And the foot doesn't come off, but the blood goes in the water. And So there's 1 shark and there's some blood in the water, and what happens? Come on, clowns.

What happens? That's what I'm talking about. There's more sharks. And so now here's the other thing. Now there's some probably doctors and nurses, so work with me on this whole physiological thing.

But is it not true that in the cold water, your blood rate is different than in the warm water? Your heart is pumping slower in the cold water. K? So my heart's pumping slower. My blood is bleeding out of me slower.

It's gonna take a longer time for me to go unconscious. I'm feeling every tug, pull, whatever. I'm getting eaten alive. I'm feeling everything. Now you wanna see me swim for that life preserver?

I'll be like, later, Jeff. Right? And so people say, oh, Samantha, she's she's she's like a Nazi about AA. I'm like, man, I see shark infested waters. That's how I do my program.

Because I'll tell you a little bit something about when I got 7 almost 7 years sobriety and I quit going to meetings. Okay? And I was at a bar with my husband and a wonderful, you know, woman, best friend of mine, and they'd never seen me drink, of course. And, you know, you could tell someone who's never seen you drink, I'm an alcoholic and it means like, wah wah. It means nothing to them.

You know? And they're having a we're having a conversation and we'd always had conversations. I'm always the designated driver for 6 and a half years or something. You know? And I don't know what it is.

I just reached over and picked up a half a glass of white Zinfandel and boink. Now I don't know about you, but, you know, at that table it was like EF Hutton, you know. And my girlfriend reaches over to me and she pats me on the leg. She goes, well, good for you. Yeah.

Now, I don't know what's gonna happen, and I don't know what, where, when. I don't know nothing, but I know this. From the bottom of my soul, pit of my stomach, I don't know, came a voice just like this, here we go. And for no other reason, if any no one gets anything out of this whole pitch tonight, I will remember, here we go. And for the next 2 years, I was arrested 11 times and put in 3 psych wards and ended up in Atlanta, Georgia.

Because I'm an alcoholic who slams methamphetamines, I'm a very busy alcoholic, who gets nothing done, and is incredibly scandalous. And, you know, and I love the people that get here with a job and, you know, a car and stuff. No offense. I gotta still work on that. I'm only 10.

But, you know, I I can't work when I'm drinking. I say, I can't work. I can't, you know, so associate. I can't socialize. I can't live.

I have to drink. It's what I do. And I do it scandalously, and I have to do things that can continue my drinking habit, which requires breaking requires breaking a lot. I think I don't think I I just don't think that with the bottom teeth, I was good enough good looking enough to really, you know I remember one time I went to a dealer one time and I was like, hey, you know, can you hook me up? And he's like, no.

He just sort of tossed me something like, no thanks. I'm like, he should see me now. Anyway, see what the dentist can do. It was a bad deal, though. It was a bad deal, man.

And, you know, the psych wards with the 5 point restraints and the whole 9 yards, man. And I remember vaguely a scene in my my head where there was 5 cops around my naked body and 5 point restraints, and one of them said something to the effect of and maybe he was looking through a, you know, the little glass window at the hospital once they got me to the hospital. Said something to the effect of she looks like she she looks like she could have been pretty or something to that effect. You know? And, that's that's icy shark infested waters.

That's just for me. That's where I go. I don't wanna you know? And, and that's my truth. And that in and of itself will not keep me sober.

No way. It's good to keep my memory green. Green. I love what Susan said. You know?

She comes to me because this is where she gets the solution. This is where the medicine is served. This is where the meal is served. This is where I get my dope. And if it weren't better this way, there's no way I would walk through life on life's terms at all, pretty much.

You know, I don't think. It's just it's gotta be better. And I need a tool. I need some tools for living, and I don't want survival tools anymore. I already know how to survive.

I want some living tools. I wanna learn how to live. I already know how to survive. Tired of that. You know?

I wanna live. And I remember the prayer I said in August of 95, and it was something to the effect of, 'Look mother, if you're not going to let me die, then you help me stop wanting to, now!' That was my prayer. If you're not gonna let me kill myself, then help me stop wanting to because I got another probably 30 years on this planet, and I'm not doing it like this. And I have said that prayer many times in the last few years. You know?

I don't know how to I still don't know how to do this. And I so I go to her and I say, I do not. I can't. I swear I can't do it anymore. And a lot of it is, I wanna go now while I haven't done so much damage.

Like, I've been a really good daughter, and I've been a good friend and a good sister, and I've been a good employee. You know? And I and I I just have this feeling that if you don't take me soon, I'm gonna mess it all up. And a lot of that has to do with me learning how to wrap my arms around my humanness. Because it appears to me that in my 9th 10th year of sobriety, I can forgive myself for things that I've done while getting loaded.

But I can't forgive myself for things I've done in sobriety. And I love some of the people in the room that are nodding their head, but I bet you I've been sober longer than I have, that are telling me that they understand. Because I can't you know, I tell this to a shrink or something, and I'm back in the 5 point restraints pretty quick. You know? But to you, you're just like, oh, honey, sit down.

Go get a cup of coffee. Oh, you're 35 days not smoking, oh sit down, light up, give her a cigarette, someone give her a cigarette. It's like, you know. I have spiritual chiropractors. I call them spiritual chiropractors.

They just, like, crack me into alignment. I'm like, thank you. You know? It's not about you. Boom.

It's all about you. Boom. Selfish self centered fear. It's the root of your problems. Boom.

Oh, sweet. Sweet. Okay. So so here we are, you know. And, you know, and I and I never had it so good no matter what I think, really.

And, so I I got back to this program. I called, you know, doing all the crazy stuff I did. And and finally in August that day, I I called someone who had been my sponsor previously and she said, get to Santa Barbara. Go to Santa Barbara. There's a woman recovery home.

Go there. And I did. And, the the guy that sold me marijuana drove me all the way out. God bless him, he used to say, why you gotta drink like that? Why can't you just smoke pot?

And I thought, why can't I? I don't know. I don't know. Still trying to figure that one out. Drove me all the way out from Atlanta, Georgia to California.

Gave Casa Serena $400 to keep me. That's something weird when your drug dealer kicks you out of the, you know, drives you out of the state. I don't know what that's all about. Anyway, and I am chewing gum because I am I am I am 35 days not smoking. I really wanna smoke.

So and I'll always let you smoke and that's the way that is. And, so, so I started my, you know, stay again, whatever. And I knew what it's like to be sober because I knew because I'd been that way, you know, I'd been that way before. And here we go, we start it, we do the deal, and I'm very inappropriate, and my middle name, inappropriate, and I get kicked out of Casa Serena at 60 days and I couch surf and I stay sober and by this time I'm already within 60 days, I'm well entrenched in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm It is It is.

And I got people picking me up at 6:45 or the 6:45 meeting. It's really hard to bullshit at the 6:45 AM meeting, and that's was my home group for the first three years of my sobriety. And I had people taking me there every morning, man, for that commitment. And and, you know, and I had some old timers there that weren't afraid of me, And it really warmed my heart, you know, that I could sort of put my head down on the table and growl at people, and they'd be just like, you know, you're really not that scary, you know. Go get some water, Sammy.

You're really not that scary. And that's, you know, a lot of healing was taking place. And, you know, and I really had to do what the what the big book and the 12 and 12 talk about, you know. The 12 and 12 talks about who wants to admit complete defeat. You know, practically no one, of course.

Every natural instinct, a god given instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness. You know? And it talks about the rapacious creditor. And the rapacious creditor for for me put a face and a relationship to this alcoholism. And my rapacious creditor and the visual that I see from my relationship with alcohol is that I am, you know, £90 in the back of someone's garage in granny underwear with bruises all over me in the fetal position.

And I haven't eaten or slept or taken a shower in 3 or 4 days. And I hear these heavy, heavy footsteps walking up to the back door of this swinging screen door in the back room of someone's broken down garage. And there's a huge figure, a huge figure, who is tall as he is wide with a trench coat and a 19 Fordora's, you know, 1940 Fordora's hat on him, and he pounds he pounds on the door just like and I'm like, yeah. Jeez. You know?

And I know who it is and, you know, and I and I avoid it and I avoid it and he, you know, and I finally just said, what do you want? What do you want? And he goes, you know what I want. And I go, I I I gave you everything. You got my my my car, my family, my job, my home, my clothes.

I mean, look at me. I I haven't eaten. I haven't slept. What do you want? There's I have nothing.

And he it's just like this little guttural laugh, you know, in the back of his throat. It's just like, pfft. It's not what I'm talking about. Give it up. Give me your dignity.

Give me your integrity. Give me everything that's precious. Give it up. You know what I'm talking of. Give it up.

And I say, you know, what do you say? Take it. Take it. And so I have a relationship with this rapacious creditor. You know?

And I have the girls I work with look up the word rapacious, man. Look it up. What's it sound like? The first three letters, man. You know?

It's excessively greedy. It's voracious. It's this hand that comes out of my gut and goes, gimme, Gimme. Gimme. That's my disease.

Nice to meet you. Hello. You know? And the 12 and 12 talks about the tyrant alcohol. You know?

And then I'm screwed. The whole first step is about you're screwed, you're screwed, you're doomed, you're screwed. Next. Don't rest. I mean, if you're new and you're resting in the first step, there's no solution in the first step.

The first step is you're fucked. Sorry. That's a dollar. Oh, that felt good. The first step is you're doomed, you're done.

And you're done now. Let's get into the now go rest in step 2. Go ahead. The rest of us sit in step 2 forever. You know, it's you know?

Don't stay in step 1. Step 1 defines the problem. I'm powerless and unmanageable. I'm I'm screwed. I can't get drunk.

I can't get sober. Help. Now we can come to believe that a power greater than ourself can restore us to sanity. And as clients, you'll say step 2 is, you know, a sponsor, sometimes. You know?

It's like, you know, I know that step 2 is just, like, this sort of creative way to get around the god thing, which I had no problem with god. I hated him and that was that. No relation. I want no relationship. I can't be as I can't be that good.

My sister was that good. I can't be good. I could be a bad good, a really good bad girl, but I can't be good. And if I can't be good, I can't be saved, so screw you too. You know?

And I never got the whole message of grace, which the luth Lutheran churches just slammed with. Grace, undeserved. No, you're not worthy. We love you anyways. No, you're shit.

You're great. We love you. You're perfect. You can never do good enough to be good enough. You just I just you I love you.

I I am not a parent. I don't even know if I can get that kind of love yet. I don't know. I'm trying. But that those those of you who are parents that have that for for kids like me, you know, I love you.

I don't want you my parents and my parents got into Al Anon 22 years ago. They are black belts. Families anonymous, really. Families anonymous saved their butt, and they are, like, world service reps and started meetings in Turkey and Greece, and they're just, like, on fire. But they would stand at the door like, here give us a clean urine sample and you can come in.

No? Okay. We're calling the police now. You've stolen 16 of our credit cards. They're coming to get you.

Bye bye. Now I didn't know that my mom and dad, and my dad especially, because me and my dad are can't even talk about it. It's probably Freudianly unhealthy. But anyway, my pops is my man, man. He's my hero.

And and and he I know, was wracked with the pain. I've seen his daughter in orange, you know, many times, high security, you know. I'm his baby girl. You know? And, but they saved my life.

They saved my life. Hands down. Do whatever you wanna do, but don't do it here. Don't do it here. Goodbye.

We love you. Goodbye. You know, saved my life. So, my sobriety has been a series of surrenders and rededications, over and over and over. And I imagine that as long as I stay starving, which means I stay in the herd, it's very hard to get picked off in the middle of the herd.

It's very difficult. You watch the Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel, you know, and you you see, you know, you see that the gazelles or whatever move from watering hole to watering hole, and they stay in a pack, man. You know, and the stragglers, they're nailed. They get picked off. Stragglers get picked off.

I'm so in the middle of the herd, I it's difficult for me to get out. You know, I started going back to school and I started just getting good at going back school. You know, all of a sudden, I was done with City College and I went on to the big kids school. And I got done with doing that and and, you know, had some money that was given to me as a scholarship and, you know, and I I decided, you know, I I didn't really know what to do and I decided to go to law school. I don't know because it's just like a lot of people seem to be hiding out in law school.

Why not? And I knew a little bit about the law. And I remember asking Dano, you know, what kind of my my ex husband, I remember asking him, what kind of law do you think I should practice? He's like, criminal, Avi. I don't know.

But, you know so I just started doing this, and I did it the same way I did everything else. And I'm telling you, in my 2nd or 3rd year of law school, I I was really hurting, man. I was going through a divorce, and it was very very painful and very shaming. And the my ex husband and I were sort of, you know, I don't know I don't know if we were high profile couple, but we worked a lot with with a lot of people and a lot of young kids and, and, and it was always Sam and Dan, And Danny and Sam. And Sammy and Dan.

And Dan and Sam. Sam and Dan. Jesus, God. And and, you know, when and he's a wonderful man, you know, and and a lot of my awarenesses come from a a process that I that I won't get into, but I'm just gonna say this. The the the awarenesses that I've got got in the last 3 years, this was one in particular.

I no longer am willing to spray paint my red flags green. You know that feeling that you go maybe you go to, like, shake somebody's hand, you know, and and and it whoop. Yeah. And you go, that ain't red because this is the job of my dreams, and I've never made so much money. And I'm gonna you know what I mean?

That one? And then just watch, like, as the bodies fall in the wake a year later or some crazy stuff. I am no longer willing to spray paint my red flags green. It's it's it's an awareness that it's so valuable that you must understand the price I paid for that lesson. And that's what these lessons have been, at least the last 3 years of my sobriety.

I've had emotional sobriety, which I'm so glad they don't give chips. I mean, they'd have to give, like, 10 minute chips for emotional sobriety for me. I got 10 minutes. Hurry. Hurry.

Hurry. You know what I mean? She got it. She's good. 10 minutes.

She's good. She's gotta do I don't know when that equals out. I really don't. You know? I don't know.

I don't know. But, I only got a couple of minutes here. But I I just I guess the the the biggest gifts that I can do is running through these steps, you know, is is the ability to learn to live in a way where I am constantly being realigned, constantly being realigned. And that can be painful. And why it is I can't rest in the alignment for more than however long it is, that's not really for me to figure out.

But I am being constantly realigned, And that is an amazing process for me. It really is. You know, and through step 2 is, as as, you know, as I say, if if you find someone who's doing better than you, then they might be a power greater than you for that minute. So that's step 2. Find somebody who's doing better than you are.

And then here's step 3. Just do what they say. Just do what they say. And if you got a lot of bright ideas, it's gonna be hard to do what they say. K?

And the 4th step ain't nothing. The 4th steps, you know, whatever. I mean, the 4th step's there. The 4th step's the 4th step, and here's all your stuff. Here's the stuff you drank behind.

The 4th step's nothing compared to the 6th step. The 6th step's the bitch. The 6th step's all about now that I've identified everything that's kept me alive for the last 40 years, Why don't you just go ahead and take that, god? Don't you take it all. Oh, I don't want that.

That armor, that nasty old piece of armor that saved my life, you take it. But come on, please. And now I get this year, this year, this is the awareness for step 6. You know what my character defects are? It's none of my business.

It's none of my business what my character defects are. And it's none of my business when they're gonna get removed. And my prayer on my knees I have this joke with my girls. I can't get down because the skirt's too tight, but I would show you if if it wasn't. The 3rd step prayer for those of us who are newer is like on our knees.

Please, God, I offer myself to do whatever you want. And for those of us at least that are 10 years, it's it's like this. Please, God. Please. Please.

That's my 3rd step prayer at 10. I don't know what it's gonna be at 11, but life is good. This is a wonderful process for me to come down and share with you guys. You know, I have carried the message. I have, hopefully shown you guys that this is a the woman that stands before you is not the woman that came to these rooms 10 years ago.

That if it weren't for people like you, and rooms like this, and the steps, and the fellowship, the whole package deal, you know, I might have missed all of this. And I'm so grateful. Thanks for having me.