The regular weekly speaker metting in Bryan, TX

Thank you. I am Ray, and I'm an alcoholic. And thanks to the grace God in this program, I have found it necessary to take his weight all damn day long. That blows my mind. It's been that way for, I don't know, 4,000 some odd days.

Since when? Since January 1, 1996. Which doesn't make any sense to me. I remember the day the night before, I I decided I was gonna do a New Year's resolution. I was gonna try this silver thing for 1 year, and I was gonna look back after a year and see, you know, see how it was.

So I could do that if I wanted to do the drinking thing. And, I was really I decided to do it here, but I really wondered if I'd make it a day. And I heard that the in midnight, you know, the the end of that 24 hours, I was amazed. I had made it 24 hours. And, I'm still amazed today.

I'm I'm gonna go to bed tonight thanking god in in this program if I can make it another day because people like me don't stay shaken. Give you if, some of y'all may have heard me 2 years ago or you might have the CD, of Leslie's better introduction. No. I'm gonna try to give y'all something a little bit different if you've heard if you've heard me before, and focus a little bit more on what it's like today, what it's like now. But I'll give you a brief kind of idea of of where I came from and and how I ended up here.

I was really really fortunate. I got some really really good genetics in a lot of ways. My parents are some pretty amazing people. But then also, my dad was an alcoholic, my uncle was an alcoholic, and my brothers were alcoholic. My grandfather was an alcoholic, so I got the alcoholic team.

Just, like, just quickly kind of to kind of set up where I came from. My dad was literally dirt poor. When he was a kid, he he slept on a dirt floor in this, old army tent. Didn't even have a floor. And, you know, they had their little garden kind of actually on the side of the road.

They didn't even own the land. They they just kinda lived on the side of the highway in a tent. And, he joined the the navy and he worked really hard and he was a smart guy and he did really well in the Navy and got a better judgment of Shell Medal. And they were impressed enough with him. They wanted him to do some covert work, so they set him up as an oil company employee and sent him over to the Middle East to do some looking around and whatever.

And he worked really hard at both jobs there in the oil company and, and the intelligence. And he was a smart guy. He just worked his ass off and he ended up being the vice president of that oil company. And some, you know, 35 years after he was sleeping in the dirt, him and his sons and his wife were jetting around in a private jet. Pretty good genetics.

A pretty good example. I think the best thing he ever did was he met this lady while he was in college, this lady who could do calculation or head, and he was smart enough to marry her. And she was a really good lady and just brainiac, just crazy smart. So I got those genetics along with the alcoholic team. It's like I say every man in my family has been an alcoholic.

And that worked out pretty well for me until I was about 13, 12. 12 or 13th. And that's when I discovered alcohol. Seen my dad drink. I've seen my brother drink and puke and get arrested.

And so I wasn't sure if I wanted, you know, wanted to be part of that. But then I did want it. I wanted it because I want you to be part of his crowd. You see, he had these friends around him. They were laughing and having a good time, and I never had that.

I remember from my earliest memory is kindergarten, that feeling of being separate that we all have. Right? We're all different. I think a lot of us, Cliff, when we was talking the other, you know, couple weeks ago about every speaker comes up here and says, I didn't fit in. I was different.

Now we're all different. But that I I don't know if that's true for everybody, but it's absolutely true for me. And those are my earliest memories of being apart from and separate. And every other kid in the kindergarten had the moon boots, and I had the cheesy generic things and whatever. And for a long time, I thought that being separate and being a geek was one of the main driving forces in my life.

I recently found out that that's not true. The truth is the big driving force is not that I was different or apart from, but that's what I focused on. I had an opportunity to go meet and talk with some people that I knew from kindergarten. And they they explained to me that that my life growing up was totally different than I thought it was. You know, I thought I was totally picked on by everybody and all this and that's just not true.

But that's what I I like to focus on. So anyway, I I my brother and his friends, you know, get together and drank and smoked this and that and listened to heavy metal music and caserocious and the rest is and, you know, if I hung with them and I did those things, you know, I wouldn't be alone. And, at the same time, I had this thing going of of these genetics where I had people, college professors and and who are visiting these schools, kept going, dude, you don't belong here. You belong to see you. Here here's who you need to do.

You need to get the hell out of here. And and that kinda made sense to me because when I knew that I was separate and different and apart from y'all, I had 2 choices. Either I was worse than y'all and y'all were all better than me, or I was better than all of you. And I decided I was better than all of you. I tried to believe that, but couldn't really convince myself.

So about 12 or 13, I start drinking. Start drinking really heavy, really getting into it just because I got into high school. And, it was pretty sad actually. You know, you've got a guy who has these you know, I come from a real good home and all that, and I'm failing out of high school because I just don't do the work because it's too busy changing. You know.

And I don't have the story a lot of people have of, like, stealing cop cars and living in the Oleander bushes. Because, you know, I got to see my older brother do that. He actually stole the the white top of a cop car. And and he would do those things and the cops would beat the shit out of him. And then they're asking him, you know.

So I pretty much stayed home and I drank. And, and I sold some things and, you know, sitting in my garage and and really, I didn't do much. I got there, and the the entertainment for my day was there was a thumbtack on the wall. If you drink the right stuff and you smoke the right stuff, that was a hilarious thumb thumb thumbtack until we all heard about rule 20th thumbtack. I won't go into that too much because that's on the CD.

But, you know, that was my life. And, my the plan was that these, some of of these college people, some of these people from the school, they told me, drop out of high school, go to community college for a year, good grade, good grades. We'll get you into CU. And then I had some other colleges that wanted me and all that kind of stuff. So I'm like, okay.

That sounds good. So I dropped out, started drinking, started smoking real heavy. But I was really excited to start college because my mom had told me, you know, once you get to college, it doesn't feel like so much in the woods and all this, and you'll fit in better. And, I was sitting in this college. I was 16 years old, and I was stunned out of my mind wearing this Metallica T shirt and these big stowrons with spikes sticking out.

And I was the one agent in the past, and I didn't fit in. And my mom lied to me. I didn't fit in anymore in college. And so I said, fuck that. And, you know, I'm just gonna drink.

And and that's just that's what I did for the next several years. And, you know, I guess I was seeing my dad and everybody. You'd think that I would know the path I was going down. You know? My dad, my brothers, my uncles.

But I was able to convince myself I was an alcoholic too by looking at them and going, you know? Say my dad's been divorced a couple of times because he's an alcoholic. He's wrecked some cars. He's done this trip. I haven't done any of that.

I haven't been divorced. Hadn't had a girlfriend either because I've done it wrong. You know? Haven't wrecked any cars. I had one, you know, for about a month at that point.

It was wrecked when I bought it. But, you know, I hadn't had the other deal 5 or 6 times like my brother did because, again, I didn't leave the house. I didn't leave the garage. So I it it became pretty obvious though pretty quick that, you know, there was something wrong with, like, I can't go to sleep without drinking or doing drugs. It became pretty obvious that something was wrong when everything I believe in, everything that I thought was important went right out the drinking window when it came to drinking and driving.

You know, that I should be a good older brother to to my old brother and guide and protect him and teach him out the window. I send him to go get the stuff. He gets beat up in the hospital. And I tell him when no problem, Alcoholics Anonymous, just really not sure, but I figured if I wasn't a real alcoholic, I'd still I'd go and I'd see what the real pros. You guys can steal cop cars.

How do you quit thinking? And if if it works for you, it'll be easy for me. You know? And and so I showed up here and and I listened and I and I tried to kinda do do what y'all did. And it didn't you know, the first couple of weeks, I totally didn't feel like I fit in because y'all are talking like you're in prison, killing people, and, you know, you've been divorced 6 times.

You know? Like we're talking about, I'm, you know, walking today, you know, the worst is I'm like, I couldn't relate to that. I was, you know, I was 20 years old, and I had one girlfriend at that point who liked my weed. And, you know and then they sat around. It was this this old people's meeting, basically, and they sat around and played dominants.

And I was like, shit. I don't fit in here and I don't want to. You know? I don't wanna sit around and talk to these dope owners and play dominoes. But y'all they laughed.

They talked about sick somebody was having a divorce 6 times and people would laugh. And that that was a good time, you know. I hadn't laughed for a long time. That that that sometimes just it wasn't doing it anymore, you know. You know, so I stuck around, I guess.

I don't I don't know why. I guess because I knew I was gonna die. Really, underneath, I knew, you know, this is he's killed my dad. It was well on the way of of killing my brother, my older brother, and I knew he's gonna kill me too. I guess.

But I, you know, I couldn't admit that. And, they talked about, you know, how to tell if you're an alcoholic. If you drink more than you intended to, I didn't get to drink all of it. You don't get a prize, you know. You get drunk when you don't plan on it.

If I'm awake, I plan on getting fucked up. So, you know, that didn't apply, and I just wasn't sure until this old guy explained I I made a mistake of getting honest in a meeting. Y'all told me you're oath honest, open minded, and willing, and I made the mistake of doing the honest thing. I said I wasn't sure if I was an alcoholic. And this old guy explained in real simple way that made sense to me.

So there's normal people who order a margarita with their dinner and they might drink half of it, they might drink all of it. They don't care. And then there's a bunch of alcoholics who call that alcoholics. I know exactly what he was talking about. My mom was one of those she'd take 3 sips off a margarita and leave it on a frigging table.

I don't get that. Maybe some of y'all understand that. I'm not. Right. And you said that you're just alcoholics.

And you're either an alcoholic and you're or you're not and, you know, I'm one of y'all. I knew that that made sense to me, you know. I'm gonna drink whatever there is to drink and I'm gonna get drunk and I'm gonna do something stupid. And that's all I'm gonna do. Unlike my dad, he managed to do both.

That's crazy. So I came, yeah. Looking at my dad, my dad killed himself basically out of this disease. The guilt of the shit that he had done. And so I, you know, I told, you know, my brothers were in all kinds of trouble and all that.

And I knew this shit was here. So somehow, I don't know, maybe it was something that somebody said in the meeting. I'm listening what it was. But there was something that caused me to get curious about this shit. Coming off the porch, get a book, talk about the steps, talk about what was really going on in the meeting, get a sponsor, and actually do this deal.

You know? It talks in here about we've got you, you'd be fearless and thorough. And, for some reason, I did that. And, and I worked the first step, you know, as thoroughly as I could. And and I have a problem a little bit with the idea of my life being unmanageable.

Unmanaged. It could be, you know, it it might be manageable and my clients just said, dude, shut the fuck up. Your life's fucked up. Right? I was trying not to touch this time because I cut more than enough last time I split 2 years ago, but my life was totally screwed up.

Right? Yes. Okay. On this test kit. Woke it up.

Does our life look better than yours? Yes. We all tell you it's because this god guy, this higher power guy. Do you believe us? Us?

Okay. Yeah. I believe that. It works for you. Okay.

Step 3. Your life is screwed up. Our life is better because of this higher power. Are you willing to give the higher power a try? Are you willing to do whatever is his will so that you can have the life that you wanna have?

Kinda like TCS enjoys. Hell, yeah. Okay. I'll do that. And it took about that long for me to work those those step 2 and 3.

Now step 1 was kinda hard. It took about, yeah, 3 weeks. Soon as I had step 1 figured out the number 1 at y'all, my sponsor wasn't wasting time. He was one of those guys that had read not just the first part of the book up to here, but he read all this part of the book where it talks about we went over to doctor Bob's house for a few hours and worked the steps. This part of the back of the book where it says he talks about the guy being 8 days sober going on 12 step calls.

So that's what he had me doing. He said, okay. Go home tonight. Hit your knees. Pray.

Come on. We're gonna get started on the 4th step. And I called him, oh, there's a problem. I know I about the praying thing. I don't I don't know if I believe in god or, you know, Allah or Buddha or what.

And I didn't tell you to figure that out. I said, go hit your freaking needs. Well, I don't know what to say. Well, okay. Say that.

If you don't know what to say, that's all. If you don't believe in you know, if you don't believe, you gotta hit your knees and say that. Okay. You said it'll work. It'll work.

Don't worry about it. And I hit my knees, and that's what I said. If anybody here is in have any problems with the higher power deal like I did, you know, it worked for me just to hit my knees and say, god, throw it up, all up, whatever your name is. I don't know, but I'd like to know. I don't know if you're just or not, but I'd like to know.

I don't know if you care about me, and I don't know if you wanna be in my life because I'd like you to. And I came to him the next day and actually, I told him the next day it didn't work. My life didn't get any better. He told me to keep doing it. He told me to do it in the morning and at at night, and I've heard people say that in the meetings.

And for some reason, I was stupid enough to follow the instructions. Nowadays, I'm smarter. I come in here. I hear you. I say stuff.

I put your shoes under the bed. That whole deal. You know? Praying in morning and night. And I'm smarter than you, and I know better than you, so I don't follow the instructions.

And I ended up going crazy. But back then, I I was stupid enough to actually follow instructions. So, that's what I did. And Josh started a little first step the next day. He said, right, unless you can feel your pitch got at.

I said, okay. And I went home. And a few hours later, I called him back. I said, dude, I'm not well, at first, he had me read the 12 and 12 and and the and, and the big book talking about that. And I read that and stuff, and I sat down for a minute with a pencil.

And I called him. I said, dude, I don't have any resentment. I'm not a resentful person. I don't know if any of y'all are like that with that 4 step. I'm doing that recently.

I'm looking at the paper. Actually, it's right here. This 10 steps, last 4 steps, whatever you wanna call it, going, I don't really feel resentful. He told me to, write down people I could be pissed off at if I wanted to be. Now I have a list.

Okay? It didn't take long to come up with about 15 people if I wanted to. I could really that person's got. And, you know, I did that the the the best I could, and it wasn't very good. I had some stupid stuff on there.

I still have stupid stuff on there today, but I did the best I could because he had had me he's my my sponsor, Ryan, had pointed out to to me the stuff that we read at the beginning of every meeting, stuff like measures available with nothing, we stood at the turning point. Here are the steps we took, which Art suggested there was a program of recovery. He pointed out that there's those people out there smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and half of them aren't going to be back next week or at least not next year. And then there's 2 people in the room working the steps which is the program and recovery. And see, I don't wanna die.

I'm like, what? And I don't wanna suffer. I don't wanna have sick horses. I'm I'm too lucky for that shit. My dad can handle that.

He was a military guy. I can't hang with that shit. So I did that the very, very, very best that I can. And I went and I did my fish step. And, you know, I think it was a week later, He he told me, you know, you're not gonna take a month or a year on your freaking 4th step.

You're gonna do a 5th step in a week. And if you don't have some good shit, well, then you're just gonna look like an idiot. So, you know, get started. And, you know, that was that was embarrassing and humbling because that whole idea that I had of I'm better than all of you got totally destroyed in a couple of different ways. It showed me that I'm self centered.

I'm fearful. Basically, I'm a woodsy. But mainly, it said exactly what it says in the book. You know, selfishness, self centeredness, that's what that's here's what we think is the only trouble. Above all, we all thought you must be really selfish.

I was I was a completely selfish, fast person. I did not know that until I did that first step. And the other thing where it totally humbled me was that, I didn't have any, like, really good shit on them. I didn't kill anybody. Damn it.

This other guy that's never lived, he was a pimp. Right? Uh-huh. So he had to make a mince to all the hoax. And, I want you to do something on there like that, you know.

But no. I was just like I wasn't even a good alcoholic. I was just a really lame alcoholic. And then at the end of the fish that he asked me, he said, okay. What did we lock?

What's the good shit? Damn it. How do you know? Well, okay. He's one of us.

So I even I had to tell him that one thing I didn't wanna ever tell anybody about that night with the down on 11th Street in Austin. They were eating my lunch. I haven't been in there long enough to know that my most embarrassing, horrible stuff is just really late, you know. Here it is. I mean and I've got I've got my Forestep out of in the car.

Now y'all can read it if you want an example of a laying out thermostat. And then I've got the current one here. You know, anybody wants to look at it, come up after the meeting and let your name down Okay. No. Nobody in here whose name is on it is yeah.

I'll add you later. No. You're 2 or 3 of your boyfriends are on there. But, anyway, I got that relief from that guilt and that shame. I didn't have a burning bush, but that's what I had.

And more importantly, what's going to be told me that, you know, all these people that take a month or a year to work 3rd step, to turn their role and their life over to God, he told me I just done that. He said, you know, you didn't wanna come in here and do this, did you? No. Why'd you do this then? Because this that was God's will.

And that's what that's what I have to do today is I gotta quit worrying about me. I gotta get out of that selfishness that the book talks about and do what this program suggests because this is God's will for me. I'm trying to kind of I'm flipping you all see me kind of flipping through the book here. Okay. There's a couple of things I underlined that I want to I wanted to mention because I'm I'm kind of scared.

I'm kind of scared for AA today, because I come in here and yeah. Of course, anything I say up here, I don't I don't speak for AA. I share my experience, strength, and hope. Right? Unless someone is sharing this out of the book.

If I'm telling you what's in the book, this is Autoholix Anonymous. It says that right here, Autoholix Anonymous. I come in here a lot late. I hear people talking about all kinds of shit that I mean, they have their opinions and that's great. And I love to get different people's opinions.

I love to argue with different people's opinions. But I hear people say shit like this is a selfish program. The book says 53 times. We have to be unselfish. It says selfishness will kill us.

And I wanna be real careful that I'll come up here and tell you something that will kill you. I wanna give you all Alcoholics Anonymous, and I don't wanna just vent out all of the shit I was I've been, you know, guilty about or whatever, just being funny, because that's fun to do out by the fire. This is supposed to be all called anonymous, and that's what the book is. It's all called anonymous. Anyway, 5th and 6th step wasn't all that freaking hard for me because life sucks, like I said.

And my sponsor had pointed out to me that even the first several steps were gonna suck. The book says it. The book says, we who who wants to get my car list? Practically, no one. Right?

Who wants to do the this inventory? Nobody likes to do that shit. But then later, it tells us it gives us the 12 promises. And we used to read the 12 promises at the group I showered up in, but it talks about how our fears will go away. Talks about how, fear of economic insecurity will leave us, fear of people will leave us, to understand the word serenity and no peace.

And he told me that these first steps are gonna suck, and the good shit's gonna come at the end. So it wasn't that hard for me. Although I have a couple of characters weedy text that I like. I like my arrogance. I like thinking I'm better than you and smarter than you and beat you in every argument.

And I like being lazy. I just because if I'm not lazy, then I have to put forth effort and I don't like to ever, I guess, because I'm lazy. I don't know. But, you know, I have a hard time letting go of that stuff. But most a lot of the other stuff, you know, it it wasn't that hard.

And I took about 2 days to kinda try to get those things over to God. And I did have if any of y'all have read this, it it gives us an escape clause that I love. It talks in here about asking god to remove from us the defective character what is the phrase? Anyway, the things that are not useful to him. And, I'm getting right back on my 2 years ago speech, but, yeah, screw it.

So that that's kind of my my escape is I can say, God, take away my arrogance, if you want. But if you don't if you want me to stay arrogant, that's okay. Take away my laziness, if you want. But if you want me to stay lazy, I'm all for it. And, you know, I I still have some of that stuff and that's okay.

You know, I get my knees and every morning and I asked I asked god what he wants me to do. And if he wants me to be lazy, I'll be lazy. If he wants me to get up and do the damn dishes like he did this morning, I'd get up and do the dishes. Mainly, what I have to pray for today is, covered on page page 69. Some of y'all who know me know how crazy that I get with women's relationship.

Some of y'all have video, but, no. Not really. No. Not really. And, you know, it's in the the area of relationships people talk about, well, the book doesn't say this.

It doesn't say that. It doesn't really say anything about relationships. There's a whole chapter on them. Then there's a real specific test I have to apply today, on page 69. It says we subjected each relationship to this test whether selfish or not.

See, going back to earlier in the book, selfishness kills me and selfishness kills others. And I've done some really selfish stuff in relationships in this program and really, really hurt some people. And I've hurt myself repeatedly with the same selfish actions with some of the same selfish some of the same people. And some of y'all have gotten to witness that insanity. But that's what I'm trying to do today, and I'm in a much, much better relationship today, asking my higher power to help me not to be selfish.

And And and I have a little card that I get, every night when I remember it. I have to ask certain questions, about, you know, what what I did that day. Did I, where where was I selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate? Whom did I hurt? Did I unjustify the liberty of justice, suspicion, bitterness?

I have to do that because, well, that's all I call is anonymous. It's right there in that book. I've lived. And life's getting a lot better today. The I'm a little bit lost here.

I don't know quite where I'm going. I should get back to the prayer thing and whole higher power deal. You know, I mentioned that I didn't believe in god. I didn't know maybe, and I prayed just the way that my sponsor told me to, and I did exactly what my sponsor told me to do. And he told me to answer the phone.

No. And it was about 6 weeks later, I was doing some 12 step work at this treatment center, where my little brother had gone to treatment for a little while. And, I was going down there. I was riding my bike down there every Monday coming around, walk down to, West Lake and, because I was going to get any length. If you y'all know round walk in the West Lake, it's like, I don't know, 40 miles on a bike.

But it says here I have to be willing to go to New Lakes even though I'm lazy. So, anyway, I was going down there, and I was trying to do some trail step work for some of the kids down there. And, one of the parents walked up to me, you know, about 6 weeks after I really started the steps, he said, great. How do I find God? I tell you have a God in your life.

You walk in here and God is, I mean, obvious in your life. How do I do that? And that's that was the first, like, God thing that I hit my knees and I said, god, I don't know if I believe in you. And then she's asking me this and I had to look at my life. In 6 weeks of working with that, my life had turned around so much.

My attitude, my outlook, I couldn't go to sleep without getting screwed up before. Now now I was going to sleep every night just ecstatic to be alive and to be able to do 12 step work and try to save lives, you know. And I don't know how that works. There's I cannot explain these steps after 12 years. I can't explain how get on my knees and get a friend in the car, how that's different.

But that was my experience was that absolutely after 6 weeks of that, there was no doubt that God was right here guiding me every day. You know, if if you're struggling with that, try it. Hit your knees. It sucks. It's humbling.

Some of it's in your area. Don't wanna hit our knees. We don't wanna be humble even before the creator of the whole universe because we wanna be eye to eye with the creator of the universe. Right? Am I alone in that?

I don't know. But, see, I wanted to be eye to eye with the creator of the universe, and I'm not. Okay? These 10,000,000,000,000 quadrillion times more powerful and smarter and older and everything else than I am so I can hit my knees and I can humble myself, with the creator of the universe. And, I still don't know if the Catholics are right or the Buddhists are right or whatever, but, you know, I know that the god works in my life.

Well, actually, I I know they're all wrong, but anyway, that's the topic for something else. No. They're all right. They're all wrong. They're just different different perspectives.

So I had god going in my life. I was doing the steps the way my sponsor told me, riding my bike as far as necessary, whatever. Told me to do the night step and, you know, told me to to read it out of the book, read it in the 12 to 12, and just follow the instructions, and not do it my way. I like to do things my way, but I tried to follow those instructions. And, you know, some of those are kinda hard.

It's really easy. I I see I I don't know if anybody else gets this, but there's a lot of them where I like I like to say, I can't make a mention to that person. I can't make that up. Right? Now I guess there was so many money I can pay.

I'm doing that right now. Okay. $320 a month and I only have, like, $14,000 left to pay, but, you know, it's clear how you do that. But, hell, it is. It's like, you know, I said some rude things to this person.

I made them feel worthless. And a sponsor along the way pointed out to me a real good way to do that, to work with this this lady, Andrea, because it also says that we made amends wherever possible. Direct amends. Because I wanna do a lot of the excuses. I wanna do a lot of these things like, well, donate some money to charity.

It says direct commit. See, if I go if I screw you over and I go donate to the United Way, I'm pushing out. Unless I have absolutely no other choice. It takes direct image. So, along the way, as Carter pointed out to me that one way that I can figure out how to do those image is I can work their 4 steps.

See, I screwed you over. So I sit down and I look at it like I'm mute. And I go, Ray did this to me and here's what it affected, my security, sex relations, personal, you know, right out of the book. The list is in the book. And if I if I do that and I figure out that I took away your security, then I gotta give you back some security, you know.

And I did that with with my ex wife after we divorced. When she left me for the second time, you know, I I had to make, make kind of do a do a 10 step, 4 step, whatever the heck you wanna call it. Look at my part. Look at resentment. Look at what I've done wrong.

You know, be willing to, you know, have this character defect removed. Be willing to make a defects removed, be willing to make them into a make a man's killer. And the one biggest things that I did was I was financially totally re irresponsible, and she didn't know if the rent was gonna be paid. She didn't know when the gas was gonna get cut off. The electric was gonna get cut off.

And she was trying to raise her 2 daughters and they come home from school and she'd go to cook lunch for them and they're the stove didn't work. We got a victim from our house. Of course, she definitely played a part in the eviction, because she, like, took her money and spent it like garbage. But, I was financially responsible do my little 4 steps and I said, ah, I took away her security. I need to give her back some security.

She left me once before and she took off my shit, So I only have half as much shit as I used to because she got rid of the shit. But when she left, I was like, I gotta I gotta I took away financial security. I gotta give it back. So I pay the bills for 6 months, you know. And I bought this little trailer a little bit.

But whatever it was, you know, I could look at that. I could go, how would it affect them? What did I take from the security, sex relations, personal relations, whatever it was? My 10th step, a lot of people I don't know. I I I try to do that right out of the book.

There there's a list in the book, like I say. I've got it written on a piece of paper, and, I hate that because I don't like looking at where I'm selfish, inconsiderate, where I cause resentment. But my girlfriends love it because like, my last girlfriend before this one, she just loved the gel pill. You know? I don't have to worry about her lying to me.

I know he will every new one again because he also goes to bed at night, and he'll look at the list and it says, where was I dishonest? You know, I he'd get a phone call about once a week, you know, bedtime. Hey. You're like incept. I was dishonest about my motives, but I said it was true.

But really, I was just trying to get in your pants, you know, whatever. You know? But I'm I'm I say I hate it, but but actually it's really, really, really, really good for me. Because rarely do I get myself in a situation that I see other people getting into and the situations that I used to get into. You know, you hear it here a lot because we're college.

We're insane. It says that on the wall. Step 2, we're insane. And so you hear about people, you know, cheating on their girlfriend with their twin sister and, you know, Springer's principle. Stop.

If y'all aren't familiar with the Springer principle, it's important to me. It's not on the wall like these principles like patience, perseverance, love. I think it should be. I might make a really bigfoot Springer or something. If y'all aren't familiar with that, what it is, it works really well for me.

If I'm thinking about doing something, especially around sex and women, and I say to my could I see this being discussed on Jerry Springer? If it's something that might get discussed at Jerry Springer, I don't wanna do that. I just I don't wanna go there. I know this is a small town y'all like to do that, but anyway. So I tried to do my 10 step every night and, you know, my little piece of paper got buried under a lot of scale and I didn't do my 10 step for a long time and y'all witnessed the results.

And y'all saw me crying up here, and I left messages on some of your answering machines talking about killing myself not that long ago, you know, 11 years sober. But I'm trying to get back in it today because I I don't wanna go there. I don't wanna have a shotgun in my mouth. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna be in prison.

I'm actually I know me. I don't think I would die because I do have a little bit of smart zone how to stay alive. But I I ended up in prison, and that's where I would die. It's just crony. You know?

I wouldn't make it. So I don't wanna do that. So I'm trying to get back into that 10 step today. I'm trying to get into the 11th step, because I know there's something to do in the book, is to enlarge my spiritual life. It says that there's the world's library of full spiritual books.

So I've been ordering some of those, reading some different books. I don't like to talk too much about non AA approved literature in the meeting, but, love to talk to people after after the meeting. Have you read anything recently? Something spiritually uplifting? You know, my my staunch who told me I I was asking how do I do this in other stuff.

He said, well, do you think the Catholics are wrong about everything. Right? No. Not everything. 95%.

So, okay. Go get it both by a Catholic and read it. And, you know, I did that. Now I really get one. Yeah.

Now they're not really wrong about 95%. It's only 90. You know, I'm reading I'm reading some other books here. Some some classic books about different religions and things. I just started you on the church a couple of weeks ago, trying trying to enlarge that spirit to life because I've been told that, what's the phrase?

It's about seeking God. It's not about finding God. Because I don't think I'm ever gonna find him. But what's the crazy thing to have it work? Somebody help me out here.

A, b, and c? What the heck? Here we go. Oh, yes. Last thing I have worked that God could and would if he were sought.

I still don't know if the Buddhist are right or the Afroian Muslims are right or the Catholics are right, but I know that if I keep seeking, it's gonna keep working and life is really good today. Like I say, I'm lazy. So it just happened that I I accidentally stumbled upon a job where I worked 3 and a half hours a day. And working 3 and a half and I'm I'm lost, so I confused with 3 and a half hours there you are. You know, and and 3 and a half hours a day, you know, make pays enough money that I have 12 toys like Steve who we do 3 players and motorcycles and get Steve.

And I bought a house a little over a year ago. I'm arrogant, and so I love being in the arts. And, you know, I have a job where I'm the boss and people call me up for advice and say, Ray, what did we do? I love, you know, every year in my life, my relationships, I have some really good close friends today. You know, people I I I told you I'd never trade in.

Even in AA, no way nobody speaks to this guy. I never fit in till I got to AA. I didn't fit in in AA either, you know. I'm I'm more than Western y'all. I couldn't take it to the point of y'all yet.

But that first month in my line said we had to fit into AA, and it's by making the coffee and then seeing the ashtray. You know? If you make the coffee or if you sweep the floor or if you print the schedule, someone, I bet she feels like she fits in. I did when I was turning the schedules, you know. But I'm doing the work of the fellowship I feel like I'm part of.