Greg P. of Marietta, GA at Connecticut Regional Convention 3

My name is Greg. I'm an addict. And I'm a real person too. And I'm the disease of addiction. And I'm recovering.

And I'm Narcotics Anonymous, just like all of us are. I'm really glad to be here. I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. I rarely do. Probably talk about the way I feel.

Because I look out and I see a gang of faces. And I see a lot of little lights on those faces. And some of them are real clouded, and some of them are real well hidden, and some of them shine brightly. And really all I have to say is take care of those little lights. Nurture them and strengthen them and let them shine.

That's where the miracle is. Let them shine. When I talk, I like to start with another moment of silence. And if you will, please, for the addict who still suffers. I'm not going to talk a lot about what got me here.

I love it when people come in and say, I can't use anymore. Sure, you can. You don't do that good. So do I. We are experts at the disease of addiction.

We maintain that long into our recovery, at least I did, An expert at the disease of addiction. I know how to use. I know how to go out there and die. I know how to go out there and hate myself all the time. I know how to sit backwards on a toilet and grip blood on the floor.

I know how to do all those things. But that's not what we're here for, is it? I'm not here for that. That's kind of like when we're doing the steps in traditions and reading, I get a funny feeling when I hear people try to turn them into the midnight movies. I get an itch and somehow that doesn't sit right with me, but I love you.

And I know we identify on different levels. When I came to Narcotics Anonymous, there were perhaps onetenth of you. NA was like 200 people and maybe 20 meetings in the world. Part of my great joy is watching NA grow. You want me to put this up?

I can put it up. Anything else? I've been given the gift of seeing your lights light up and seeing life come back in your eyes. That's one of the most exciting things to me to see the death go out of someone's eyes, because I know it was in mine. I cherish you.

I'll tell you a little bit, I guess, about what I how I got here. I started using when I was 6, 7, 8 years old by prescription. And I used for about 15 years. And I was never arrested, I was never hospitalized and I never got in a whole lot of trouble. But there's nothing worse in the world than hating yourself.

That's the price we all pay, I believe. Self loathing, self hate. And I don't have to be that way anymore. I don't have to hate myself today. And that's a miracle.

That's a miracle. I was 23 years old and I was all used up. I've done everything twice like any good addict, just to make sure, or 3 times or 4 times, just in case it might work. And I was all used up. I was ready to die.

I've been praying for death or at least, god, please don't let me wake up for a while. A lot of things happened in the year or 2 before I got here. That I think drove me to seek help. One of them was giving up a child for adoption. My girlfriend and I had a baby.

And it was just about 18 years ago. And we talked because I really wanted that child. But I couldn't promise to be there to help raise that child. I couldn't promise to be there in 6 months, because the way I was living said I wouldn't be, or the way I was dying said I wouldn't be. And my grandmother died.

She was an addict, too. She took too many reds 1 night, slipped and fell and swallowed the debt in the shower. Death by addiction. It's listed in a lot of ways, isn't it? It's listed by asphyxiation, choking on your own puke.

It's listed by burning, scalding the death in the shower. It's listed by traffic accident. It's listed so many ways, but never death by addiction. And maybe someday we'll start recognizing death by addiction. Because we know what it's like.

I tried getting married. By the way, that woman who I had a baby with is we got married shortly thereafter and we're still married. We have 2 more children who've never seen me loaded. We have a life, a life beyond what either of us could dream about. On the day we got married, my best friend hung himself.

He'd been stiffing too much glue, and he couldn't think anymore, and left a note saying, I just can't think anymore. And I didn't go to his funeral. And that's the sort of thing that got me here, those last 2 years. What I remember most is the feeling, the hopelessness, because I've been looking for help. And one thing that I know is that in 1970, there was no place for an attic to go.

There was no help. I was left down to about 3 choices. I was seriously considering suicide. I was seriously considering going out and hitting a cop, so they would stop me. And I was calling the helplines.

I came off the helpline, somebody else's helpline. I don't know, it's suicide line or something like that. So those of you who work on the helplines, God bless you, that's how I got here, Those of you who take those phone calls, that's how I got here. I finally reached someone and said, Are you eligible for Narcotics Anonymous? I said, I don't know.

What do you have to be? And said, Well, we don't know either, but here's his phone number, so call it. You can get that today a lot of places, but a lot of places you'll get a real live addict. And that makes a difference. That counts.

And I'm into making a difference. Now look out and there's some people that I love dearly here. Some people I've met briefly here and some people I don't know formally. But I know we share the same feelings. I know we share the same experience.

I hope we share the same commitment. And I called that and the first question the person asked me, do you have a car? There were not a lot of cars in Narcotics Anonymous. And I said, yes, and they said, we have someone we'd like you to pick up. And no one came to get me.

They just the guy just said, of course, I wasn't really honest with him, you mind you. I thought, I might have a little problem. I'd like some help stopping using. I didn't come to Narcotics Anonymous because I had a desire to stop using. I doubt that very many of you did, to tell you the honest damn truth.

I came here because the drugs didn't work anymore. And I figured if I cleaned up for a while, they'd work again. And I came here because of the pain. I had an honest desire to stop hurting all the time. I had an honest desire to stop hating myself and hating life all the time.

I've come from life sucks, Life doesn't suck. I suck periodically. My attitude sucks. My insanity kills me. Life's just fine.

It doesn't give a shit one way or the other. It doesn't have the capacity to suck. I learned that here, isn't that wild? I was always being picked on by God and by society and by everybody else. They don't give a shit about me.

They don't care for me to hurt. My god cares about me. But reality isn't there for Greg. I'm not so special that I should be singled out for pain and misery. I'm just an empty headed guy.

I don't want to hurt anymore. This sucks. It's amazing how easy it is when we first come around. Most of us find it easy to do what we're told when we first come around, when we've got a whole lot to lose. It isn't until a while down the road where we've gotten a little healthy and gotten accumulated some stuff and got some prestige, maybe have a job again that we start worrying about having something to do and it's difficult to surrender.

It was much easier for me to surrender my 1st week than it was in 2 years. 2 years kicked my ass. Much easier when I crawled in the door. So I remembered the pain a lot clearer. It's funny how we forget the pain.

Anyway, this guy said, well, why don't you come to our meetings? And he said, asked me if I had a car and the whole bit. He really didn't ask me that first. That was not true. But it was in that first conversation that he asked me whether or not I had a car and was willing to transport people.

And I promised him that I would come to a meeting. This was a Tuesday night in the beginning of October of 1970. And there was a meeting that night, but it was too far to drive. I had my last fix the day before and I was ill. I was not doing well.

And that was about 50 miles to a meeting. And I was going to make it. I said, no, I can't do it. So there is a meeting Thursday night close to where you live, why don't you come to that? And I counted up Thursday, I think Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday.

So that's the liability I counted up. And I figured I might be able to make Thursday, because I knew that the first 3, 4, 5 days were the worst. And I used enough dope and pretended to withdraw enough times That I knew that I might make it in 4 days. And I promised, which is really interesting, because I'm a promiser. I don't know about you guys, but I will promise you anything.

I'm a wonderful promiser, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Promise, my best game was, oh, I know I was wrong, I'm sorry. It's just terrible. I promise I'll never do that again. I really take responsibility.

I'll do what I damn please. My son does it to me today. It drives me crazy. How can you come down on him when he admits he is wrong? It's a good stick.

He comes by it honestly. As a parent, I see it a little differently, but it's a great manipulation. I was a great promiser. I promised myself many, many, many times in that last 2 years that I wasn't going to do this anymore. Those times You all have it.

It's different for each of us maybe. But remember that time when you recognized and maybe came a little aware and saying, God, this is not the way it's supposed to be. This is not how I had it planned. What am I doing here? This is not the way it was supposed to be.

See, because I was a crusader, I thought I found my answer in drugs. The lesson in my childhood was that you take something, you either are, feel or act better and it was a lie. I lived on misinformation most of my life till I got here. That lesson that the doctors taught me and my parents taught me was a lie, came from misinformed people. When I take something, I'm not better, I don't feel better, I don't act better.

I die. I hate myself. See, but I didn't know that. I look back at my life and I've done some shitty things. You got to be an asshole to get here.

I was talking to Kathleen Friday. And no, we weren't talking about assholes. And we're talking about getting up and I just say, the worst thing that can happen is I come out here and make a complete fool among myself. And by identifying as an A member, you already know that. That's the prerequisite.

When I call you and say, My name is Greg and I'm an addict, you know I'm a fuck up. It's like getting a sponsor. All of us are so worried about finding the right sponsor. You pick a complete fool, he can't hardly screw up your life any worse than you already have. At least he is not prejudiced.

I'm prejudiced about my life. Everything I say filters through this insanity. If it's about you, I'll get 2 plus 2 equals 4. If it's about me, I'll get 2 plus 2 equals 6,283 every time. They told me when I came around that 90% of what goes through my head is bullshit.

I figured you get a percent a year. Here's 17 years down the road, 73% of what goes through my head is bullshit. That's good. And I'm worried about picking the right sponsor. Oh, God.

Where do we come from? We worry about the 3rd step, making a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God. I mean, how good did you do? If there ain't nothing there and it's just chance, it can't be no worse. Those are some of the things I thought about And yet I worried about this.

I have to find just the right. Since when was such a perfectionist? All I ever wanted that was perfect was I wanted the dope that would kill me. Please sell me an overdose. I wanted the best dope out there, didn't you?

I mean, I didn't want the bunk. I wanted the good stuff. I wanted the one who put me under. And then I would get as close as I could. I went to that first meeting and I got all dressed up.

I bathed, that was amazing. I hurt too. I didn't bathe much my last few years. In the 60s, in the mid-60s, I did a lot of acid. And ever since that water hurt me.

It just kind of felt bad on your skin. I don't know. I guess that's identification, but it hurt. But I bathed for that first meeting and I spent most of the afternoon getting ready, slowly. I was sick.

I was coming off of a 2.5 year run, my only run. And I've been using quarter to half an ounce a day and I was sick. Of course, I didn't have a problem. I wasn't a dope fan. I wasn't an addict.

I'd read about addicts. Didn't you read about addicts? I read about it. I wouldn't like them. I was a nice boy.

I really was. My grandmother's house caught on fire, I put it out with a garden house. She patted me on the back. I was a nice boy. I went to the grocery store and found a $100 bill and the candy and turned it in.

I was a nice boy. I did that. See? You know where that $100 bill? No one claimed that $100 bill?

I got it. 10 years old. Alright. I had to use it to replace the stamps I'd ripped off from my cousin. But isn't that what it's like?

That's where I come from. Now I look back, and you know what? All I ever wanted was to be okay. I used to make this thing about I wanna feel good. I don't wanna feel good.

I wanna feel okay. Just wanted to be okay. Just wanted to be a real person. Just wanted not to hurt all the time. And you gave it to me.

Free. Here, don't hurt anymore. You told me if I was hurting all the time, I was doing something wrong. And I believed you and I honestly believe that recovery is not painful. I like to say this whenever I talk.

I hear people talk about how painful recovery is bullshit. Lack of recovery is painful. Recovery is relief from the pain. I only heard from my insanity when my head is up my ass and my program is out the window. When I'm in touch with the God I believe in, when I can reach out and be a real person with you, when I care, when I'm oriented towards spiritual principles, I'm not in pain.

I'm not in pain when I live this way. It's the times I don't live this way that life kicks my ass. It's the times when I set it all aside in favor of some brilliant idea. I know it's good. I learned the first thing I have to do when the light bulb goes on to my head is unscrew it.

I swear, if it's a brilliant idea, forget it. Forget it. Don't even consider it. I mean, is this one of those? No.

That's disease. I've had some great ideas like that in my recovery such that it is. Oh, by the way, the only thing that I found that's really good about time is the lessons that it takes time to learn. And if you've read the basic text, you had more than I do it I did it 10 years. And that's wonderful.

I want you guys to do so good with this program. I want you to become the most spiritual perfect beings you can And learn this way of life because my ass depends on it. Because I come to you when I'm hurt. I'll come to you when I can't people say, well, you don't like the way you talk, man. I said, if I can just remember that shit, everything will be okay.

There are times when I can't remember this shit and I need to come I want you to know it. So you can tell me, my life depends on it. I'm here today for the same reason that I walked in the door. I can't make it on my own. Left to my own devices, I will destroy myself.

I'll not only destroy myself, but I'll destroy everything around me and everything I love. I don't want to do that anymore. I lived that way too long. Today, I choose not to live that way and the choice is important to me. There's magic in the choice we make.

We talk a lot about choice, don't we? And it gives us a choice. We don't believe that most of us. We assume that everyone will choose recovery. And I've buried a lot of you over the last 17 years.

I've buried a lot of friends and I've buried a lot of loved ones who died of this disease. And it hurt. It hurt so bad, I swore I'd never care like that again. In recovery. Fortunately, I can't control that either.

I don't have a whole lot of choice. I feel what I feel. The love I feel is 10 times as important than the love I get. The love I feel for you is the payoff. It isn't you coming up here and saying, I love you, Greg.

Because I can't feel that. I can't a little bit. But I can feel the love I feel for you. I can worship the light I see in your eyes. I can respect the God in you and know that we're brothers and sisters.

That's very that's real for me. Those feelings fill me at times to the point where I leak out all over the place. If you haven't experienced those feelings, look for the god in each other. Listen to the newcomer. God works through us, works through every single one of us.

You've all said things that are so far behind your beyond your comprehension. It has to be God. I know I've said things to God. Damn, did I say that? The answer is no, you didn't.

You were just a tool. You ever found yourself in a meeting I know you found yourself in a meeting after you shared saying, oh, I'm so full of shit. But have you ever sat in a meeting and said, God damn, did I say that? That's God working through you. And look what we do to each other.

If I judge you and put you down and separate myself from you by violating your anonymity, Who am I separating myself from? I believe I'm separating myself from God. If I push you away, I believe I'm pushing god away. If I'm too busy for you, I believe I'm too busy for god. And it makes us all a part of each other.

Now that's great to say, in practice it ain't so swift. I get there occasionally. I feel we are all one occasionally. And that's good shit. That's better than dope.

That's even better than the greatest rush in the world. You know what the greatest rush in the world is? It's a pee when you really got to go. Better than sex. Better than any of that stuff.

But you know what's better than that? And touching souls and hearts and spirits. Please stop hiding it from it. You can find it all over this room and in rooms like this all over the country. You can find it in many, many people.

Love and respect each other. Stop running away. If you don't want your life to be the way it was, stop living the way you lived. If you want your life to be about recovery, live a life that's about recovery. If you don't want to feel like you're in hell all the time, stop raising it.

If you want to feel good and have positive things in your life, do positive things. I honestly believe one of our primary principles is reciprocity. I don't hear it talked about much. The law of retribution, karma, cause and effect, What you sow, you reap. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That's all the principle of reciprocity. Be the person you want to be. And if you don't want to be who you think you are, stop acting the way you do. My job as a human being, I believe, is very, very simple. I'm supposed to be the best player I can be.

I'm supposed to follow a spiritual path, given myself along the way. That's it. That's all I got to do. And yet I worry about this and I worry about that. Part of my disease is this addictive personality.

I have this thing that this part of me that will take anything and make it self destructive. Where I focus huge tunnel vision. Most of everyone in this room has been the best at something even if it's at being the worst. But most of you, most of those have been the best something, been the best dancer among your group, been the best skateboard rider, had the best baseball card collection. That's our obsessiveness coming out.

I mean, we'll get fixed. Attic report card. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And A, the A is in Greek mythology or something weird. Or some close to that, it might have been D, D, D, D, D, A.

It might have been C, C, C, D, D, D, A. It's close. I'll take things and I will I'll get involved with them and I will focus them on so hard that everything else goes away. It's like walking through a room with a blindfold on, I kick over a lot of shit and it breaks. You know why I do that?

So I found out very, very early that it hurt to look at Greg. I mean, I'm real self obsessed. It's kind of like that toothache. Everybody's had a toothache. And you lay down at night and the tooth goes.

And it becomes the whole world and it's going. That's all that is. That's the way my head works. I latch on to something and it goes and it becomes my load and everything else goes shit. I'm real self sis.

And I found out, and I also hate myself, right? Low sales, whatever that issue is. You know how I cope with that, how I learned how to cope with that? I found something outside of me that I can do the same thing with. If I focus hard enough on that shit out there, I don't feel this.

And then I found the drugs and they were good. They were real good. Unfortunately, I got stuck in the drugs in a vicious cycle. I got stuck in that cycle of using and having a reaction to the used and craving and using to fix the craving and then having a reaction and then having craving and you then drown, drown and drown. I got stuck there because I have this disease.

Other people don't get stuck there. I got stuck there. That's because I'm an addict. And it kept going around and around and around and around a long time after I got here. But I got here.

I'd really like to spend the rest of the time talking about NA. Focuses around NA. When I first got up here, I said I'm Narcotics Anonymous, And I am. And one of the miracles is that spiritual principles aren't vulnerable. NA lives in here.

And as long as I believe it, as long as I keep the faith, NA is going to be okay. And I know as long as you keep the faith, NA is going to be okay and live. Spiritual principles are not vulnerable. I get lost in the turmoil periodically. I get lost in the personalities periodically.

I get lost in the shit periodically. But it helps me when I remember that NA is safe, because it really lives in us. NA is not an external. NA is not something I go to. It ain't a place.

It ain't a person. It ain't a thing. It's inside. Just like recovery isn't out there. There's no recovery out there.

Recovery is in here and it's in each of you. We've been looking in our own places all our lives. We're looking for that magic. I don't I look for that magic, that person, place or thing that make everything okay. Fix me.

But it's in here. And I was looking out there. I've honestly come to believe that there is absolutely nothing external about the first step. That powerlessness and unmanageability live in here. They all live out there.

That live in here. And they kick my ass from within, not from without. Maybe the symptoms are from without. But the price I pay is within. It's kind of like, when something comes down, let's say someone I'm driving along the freeway and someone cuts me off.

The problem is not that asshole cut me off. The problem is that I want to kill him for an hour. And I get so caught up in that wanting to kill him for an hour that I miss my off ramp and I'm late to work and my life goes to shit. It's not the external thing. It's my reaction to those external things.

It's one of the things I disagree with in our basic text. I think we misplaced the emphasis when we said we're powerless over people, places and things. It's true, we are. But it's my reaction to those people, places and things that destroys me, that really creates pain for me. It's not them.

It's not the drugs. It's not the situation. It's not the lousy place. It's not being having a flat tire. It's me hating me.

It's me hating me. It's me hating me. It's me destroying me. It's not those outside things that kick my ass. It's me.

I am the problem. And I love that saying, if I am not the problem, there is no solution. I believe it. Those outside things are real. But my attitude depends a lot on how I respond to them.

And sometimes my attitude is really mixed. I had this thing that I heard about when I first came around. This is one of the things that really helped me identify with Narcotics Anonymous. See, because some of you got up to meetings and said some things that I've never told anybody. And one of the things I heard early on, I heard someone say, I felt both inferior and superior at the same time.

And I didn't know you could have contradicting feelings. I didn't know it was okay. My grandmother died when she scolded her death. Part of me was real sad and part of me was glad that she was gone. And I hated myself because I wasn't supposed to feel that way.

I remember 5 years. I was going crazy. And I'm, you're not supposed to feel that way with 5 years clean, Greg. Who the hell gave me the right to decide how it's supposed to feel? It's what I do with those feelings that I have some choice about.

I can feel not all right and destroy myself because of it. I can feel not all right and I can reach out to you and things turn out just fine. This isn't a program about me getting well. It's a program about us, Because I can't do it alone. My recovery depends on you.

My life depends on you. Without you, I will destroy myself one more time. A lot of things happened and I went through a very difficult time in my recovery. There were some events, I just described one of them. Ray, you're not supposed to feel this way, right?

Another thing that happened, coincidence. I was moving. I have a reputation for moving a lot. I lived in 3 towns in 17 years, okay? And I was packing up the bathroom.

And off the top shelf of the medicine cabinet out fell this electric razor case to put open and there was a set of works and the whole bit. And it felt just like someone hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat. It terrified me because I had no idea it was there. I put it there, But in the zest of recovery, you know, in that All right. That we get when we first come around.

I forgot. And I hadn't been reminded of it down the road when we go through a lot of stuff. And I talk about some of the thresholds of recovery sometimes. And I go through the 6 months. I don't want to do that today.

But at 5 years, I found myself utterly destroyed. Because the program quit working, it didn't work anymore to read the steps. It didn't work anymore to smile and I felt like shit. Didn't work anymore to talk good stuff in meetings, go in there and impress people. And I found myself saying this god shit that everybody's talking about, it better be for real or unfucked.

Because I could no longer continue to control my recovery, because I found out that that control was just as dangerous as trying to control my using. I found out that my life had become unmanageable. And it was devastating. But it was the beginning of dependence on a power greater than myself. I've toyed with the idea before and I've done some really neat things.

At 2 months clean to the day, I was sitting there crying in someone's arms saying, I don't believe in anything. And it was destroying me. And I did have a program and I did have faith and I did have hope. And I did have a higher power before then, but it was theoretical higher power. And I don't know if I can tell you what's happened since then, but I know that ever since then, there's been a small part in me that shined, that I was aware of.

It was a safe place. It was a warm place. It was a place that I could go to and touch God. I believe that every recovery is based on divine intervention. I don't believe that any of us get clean because of circumstance or because of our will.

I believe that every recovery is based on divine intervention. And you're all here and I'm here because some power greater than ourselves had the grace to let us live. And if you're wallowing in self pity, how dare you fuck up god's time? I can remember getting real pissed off at me. And when I swallow in self pity, some jerk tells me how dare you.

And I say thank you. But I need to be reminded of that. When I get caught in my self obsession, I need to be reminded that it ain't my life anyway. It ain't my life. I gave up the right to decide how my life was supposed to be.

I gave up the right to write script and plan reality. Isn't that the greatest insanity of all? I can manipulate and control reality. To me, that's restoration insanity, the second step has a lot to do with the realization that I can't manipulate and control reality. That I ain't God.

It took me a lot of pain to learn that lesson. And it took me a lot of joy to learn that lesson too. Recovery has not been that tough for me. I found out that staying clean ain't no big deal. It is first.

And then the hardest thing we ever have to do is 30 days. But one day, the toughest year is the 1st year. I don't care what I hear. I hear a lot of people say my hardest year was no. My hardest year was the 1st year.

It was touch and go most of the time. And I'd walk into rooms and say, I don't belong here. And I had to get over that and say, I belong here and that's my chair and I will fight you for it. I had to get over being different. I had to get over being separate.

And I've had to get over it many times. Every time I come to a convention, I have to get over being separate. I don't know about you, but it takes me a while to adjust to being with this many people. I go through that every time. My life is a daily surrender.

Or 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60. And sometimes none because I'm in control and watch out because it's coming. The God I believe in hits me upside in the head real good, saying, you're in control, Chubb. Okay. But I don't learn real good.

I keep trying. And he keeps hitting me upside the head. I spent New Year's hour with some friends in meditation. And about, I'm not, I have weird things about being the Sunday morning spiritual speaker, because I don't consider myself all that spiritual. I know about that much more than the bare minimum for me to stay clean, for god to keep me clean.

My spirituality is shaky most of the time. Some mornings the most spiritual thing I do is shit. There are other times though where I feel real in touch with it, with the God I believe is running my life. I felt that last night, a group of us, a few of us got together in a room and shared. And I've sat over a lot of conventions.

My first convention was the First World Convention in 1971. And I've been to a number since. And I get it in the halls. And I get it in the rooms. And I ain't here to fuck around.

And I'm not here to see what I can get from you. I take this shit real seriously. I really do. I also give you a right to be here for what you're here for, whatever that is, because you'll get what you're here for One way or another, yes, you will. If you're hanging around this program to have friends, you'll have friends.

They won't last long. If you're hanging around this program to get laid, you'll get laid. Then what? If you're hanging around this program to get attention, you don't have all the attention you can stand. Then what?

I don't believe you have to work the steps to stay clean. I honestly don't believe you have to work the steps to stay clean. But who would want to be that miserable? There's only one thing worse than a clean attic without a program, and that's a dirty attic without a program. My early years were substitution.

That didn't work. I tried food, sex, reading, collections, cards, jobs, prestige, money, property. I tried it. Don't work. You don't have to try it.

I know you will. And I love you because you will, because you're just like me. And the times I slip off into those things, you can remind me, don't work, Greg. Okay. This program has gotten real simple.

Boy, it hurt like hell getting simple, I'll tell you that. I earned it. At times when it's simple. People sometimes ask me, how did you make that so simple? I struggled for 10 years.

How did you create? Like everybody else. How did you learn that, Greg? Shit, you only knew. It'd be so much easier if we accepted things on face value.

As far as relationships go, you don't know how to have them. Now you'll try, but it will hurt like hell. My suggestion is to learn how to have them before you go for it. Get a sponsor, work with staff, get a God, learn how to be honest. Do that first.

I know most of you won't, but you're entitled to your misery. That's how I learned. Liz Misery has been a great teacher, folks. Ted teach me that I ain't nothing special. Had to teach me that I'm not in charge.

Had to teach me that there's a God I can trust. And it's scary. This program goes against everything I was taught. It goes against the idea, if you want something, you've got to go out and get it and fight for it. You got to do it.

Take control. Take charge of your life. Didn't work. Had to give up. Surrender is the hardest thing in the world for us.

Surrender is the hardest thing in the world for us. I said that twice because you might not have heard it the first time. John, I didn't hear it for years. To me, this program is all about surrender. And it's all about love.

And it's all about God. We are the most wonderful people in the world. We can't believe it. We can't accept it because of our self hate. We are the most wonderful people in the world because we're together.

Addicts. And I look out there and I see some little lights. And I love your light. There weren't a whole lot of lights when I came around, and some of those went out. And now they're a bunch of lights and they're going to be a bunch more lights if you care enough, if I care enough.

If I care enough to be honest, if I care enough to be open, if I care enough to risk your rejection or your acceptance, if I care enough to risk your love. If I could just find enough courage to just be Greg And let you be you. If I can find enough courage to meet you as an equal in anonymity, and really be with you. If we can do that, there's gonna be a whole lot more lights light up and a few less go out. You are my higher power, and I love you.