The topic of "It keeps getting better" at the Space To Recover conference in Sedalia, CO

The topics that I have, I only have three jobs, so if you schedule another one, just I don't need to really know ahead, but I need to set time aside. The topics that I chose on the schedule are it keeps getting better and I'll talk about that for the next what till 10? Are we 5 of 10? We'll try to end. Yeah. OK.

And then the traditions, I did ask for that I will dress a little funny for the traditions and and then the steps and service work and sort of where that is played into my recovery story. And I've been my sobriety date is August 2nd, 1988, for which I'm never sufficiently grateful. And

so I've been coming to SA meetings and

working. The program is best unable for 16 years

and I always have to do the math three months and 11 days, but it was counting

and as a consequence, there's an awful lot of you know what it was like what happened, what it's like now to share, although of course the what it was like hasn't changed one iota since I camp came in. And for that I've never sufficiently grateful either. And it's really in the what happened that the

keeps getting better comes in. So that's I'm going to start sort of in the middle and then go backwards and then forward. I On August 9th of August 1st, 1988, my wife had a nervous breakdown somewhere between 10:00 and midnight. I don't remember the exact time. I do remember that she had seen me at noon that day

going out to lunch with a woman. She assumed I was having an affair with that woman.

Actually Wrong

about that particular woman and and she couldn't take it anymore and she was screaming at me and just falling apart. I was sitting in a blue velvet high back chair that's still in our living room and

was just, I've always, I know the kids were home and I don't know why that wasn't a factor, but I don't know where the kids were, but I know where she and I were, where Jane and I were.

And,

and she was getting louder and louder and I was getting quieter and quieter. And, and two weeks before we had started seeing a therapist. And, and that as I've said last night, as a consequence of my wife telling a woman in the church whose husband had had multiple fairs that they have been seeing this counselor. So we went to steer

and and whatever kind of work my wife has been done to control what she knew and what she did with what she knew had ended right there in front of me. I didn't understand that at the time. All I understood is she was freaking out. But more importantly for me, it turned out, and I didn't know this for a while, Of course,

as I sat there and got quieter and quieter, I was realizing

that I had nothing to say. I was not acting out of that one woman, but the woman that I've been having an affair with the previous year. And then we had broken it off in December because I was suicidal and I went to a therapist because I didn't really want to die. And I ended the affair and, and then about 3 months right after that, my wife and I went on a 4 1/2 month trip together. And I really had gone off with this wondering, you know, could she and I

together that long and be OK? We have one of our kids with us, actually. It was wonderful. It was a wonderful time. There was only one minor break in the wonderfulness of that trip. She found the list of women to whom I was sending postcards as we were on this trip. All of them I had affairs with. And she freaked out. And she was really upset and put it mildly. And my wife's a redhead,

and every stereotype about redheads is pretty accurate with her.

And

and she had made me write goodbye letters to all of them. One of them, I even had to call back to my office and get the address because I didn't have it. And this woman had been one of them. And then she penned, I'm sure, a very ugly postscript. Each letter. She didn't let me see it. And off they went. Well, I was just so relieved. This was in April and. And. Or maybe, yeah, April. And I was, you know, finally I was going to stop the affairs. I wasn't going to do that anymore.

I was masturbating regularly on the trip, but that didn't you know, that wasn't a problem. And, and all the women now that I had any ongoing connections with she knew about and we've done the latter bit. And, and so we finished up the trip after we she got through the raw pain really delightfully and we had a wonderful time and it was clear we were compatible couple. And I was finished with the affairs and and

then got back to work and had been back at work about a month and a half. And things have really gone fine.

And the woman that I had the last affair with over whom I was suicidal, contacted me and wanted to have lunch while I couldn't say no because she could blackmail me, right. And so we had lunch and she said she wanted to resume the event. And I was absolutely petrified.

And in fact, that's what had happened within a week of when we saw that therapist for the first time in July.

And

I mean, I didn't, I didn't know what to do because I knew that I would resume the affair and I knew that it would end my marriage, it would end my career. And I just was desperate. And yet

it was desperate, like desperate in the middle of a river going over a big waterfall. And so that was all what was leading up immediately to

August 1st, 1988. And as I sat there in that chair I had, I didn't have any answers. I had no clever ideas. I had no witty comebacks.

I I was just out

about six years ago. I was working with a wonderful therapist and

was not raised with the capacity to handle strong emotions. And so I would sometimes stuff them, but more often for me, I would dump them.

And, and, and I would dump them by going into Las Vegas and going into sexual acting out. And, and as he and I worked on all this stuff, of course, the obvious question is, well, OK, David, are you any better at handling emotions? And one day we were, he was really pushing on about my feelings and, and, and I I couldn't talk.

I, I was just speechless and I started laughing after about 3 minutes

and I said, Steve, that's it. When I am having emotions, I can't talk. I talk for a living. I talk at SA, I talk all the time when I'm having feelings. I am literally speechless. And that has been such a gift for me to realize that that when I'm speechless, it means that I am in touch with

my whole self in a way that is very difficult for me to be. Well, that night, August 1st, I was in touch with myself and a whole way

of the eye was speechless. I didn't know any of that thing about feelings then, but it was, it was sort of, it turned out to be my bottom. And the next day we saw this therapist and, and she met with each of us. And while I was meeting with her, she said, I said, I just guess I just had to be involved with more than one woman sexually at a time. And, and she just said casually, as I shared last night, that well, you're a sex addict

and there's a book some of you may have read Call. I heard the owl Call My Name and it just

lays out the idea that when we are called by our true names, we will know it. And

that's exactly

what happened to me that afternoon is I was called by my true name for the first time and, and I I knew it.

I look back now and realize what a miracle it was that I knew it, had accepted it, but

at the time it was it was just a relief and I knew a little bit about sexual addiction.

I guess I may have known more than I let on. In our White Book, in Roy's story, he talks about the issue of Time magazine that

came out in July of 1974 and about the new addictions and about that maybe sex is an addiction. And he read that article and that was part of what set him on the way to a A When I got the White Book at that time, it was eight and half by 11. And

when I got the white book and read that, the line I, I sort of just started laughing and my heart stopped. At the same time, I still have that issue of Time magazine in my files. I had saved it the week it came out and I always knew where it was. I know where it is today,

and I guess there's a part of me that knew 14 years at that point before that I was going to need that article

and what came from that article, which is sexaholic synonymous,

but I didn't know any of that back then. What I did know was that when she said I was a psychotic, I knew she was right. I went to my first meeting that night and as I shared last night I heard people talking about masturbation as being their core problem and

and I knew instantly that was it because I had started masturbating when I was 10 years old,

tried to stop when I was 13. I was now 42. I have not tried to stop since then. I had

masturbated throughout my marriages and

more or less kept it a big secret. I remember my first wife, I kept telling her I had this big secret. And then after we were married two or three years, for some reason, I told her what it was and she didn't care. You know, it didn't impress her at all. Of course, by that time we had both started having other affairs, so that might have been part of it. But you know, it wasn't a secret that affected anybody else. It was my secret, my secret lovers. Then with my current life, I used to say to her,

it's not the other women that are the real problem. And that was true because what I knew was I was mostly attached to the fantasy women in my head

and and they were far more serious. I was I was taunting her as what I was doing. But, and I'm not proud of any, but,

but I was saying, you know, the real women you have to worry about aren't the ones that walk around in flashing blood, that kind of inconvenient when you get right down to it, because they have reactions and call you and things like that.

But anyway, I I went to that meeting and heard about masturbation and I knew that that was the truth for me,

that I had not been able to stop for 20 years at that point and that I knew enough about a A. I'm not an alcoholic yet, and professional reasons get around a A for many years. And I knew,

you know, what Drunk's report about the effect of their first drink. And when I heard that masturbating and the sexual acting out was like getting drunk, I identified immediately

because iron can remember to this second exactly what happened, what it was like when I first, you know, discovered masturbation

and what was going on in my head, what was going on in my body. And it was, and I have no doubt I can trace the sexual addiction a lot earlier than that. But in terms of the masturbation, I I was totally smashed and hooked on the 1st drink and and was never free to stop after that didn't mean I did it every day and almost every day, but not quite. But even on the days I wasn't actually masturbating, I was planning it or remembering. It

was never out of my mind and I've always identified any stories because of that.

The meeting also put me with a group of guys who it was working and I and the guy I called the phone line. I didn't learn for a long time what an amazing thing this was. I called the phone line and left my number and got home. We left the therapist office and went home and the phone rang and it was a guy calling me. Tell me about meetings

after that. I learned that sometimes takes days, weeks maybe never to get a call back from the phone line.

But I actually got mine for an hour and went to my first meeting that

I my first sponsor was the guy who called me back and who met me at the meeting. I was terrified at the first meeting and but you know, God works in funny ways.

Why maybe many people's worst fear, I don't know if it would have been my worst fear. It would have been one of them is that you go to the meeting of someone knows you. And my first meeting there was a guy who knew me and I knew him. I knew him because he'd been on the front page of the paper when he was arrested, and

I knew he gone off the Golden Valley, and so I had. I wasn't too surprised to see him there. We knew each other professionally. Years later, he told me he wasn't surprised to see me either, and that pissed me off.

But you know, the illusions, the delusions die hard.

And John went on to start SAA in Nashville, which is going very well and,

and he's done a lot of good work. And for many years we come back annually and get his trip.

And it's always been a special person for me.

My sponsor and I work the steps and got through step five, took about nine months. Somebody said something, I don't know if there's a meeting or last night, can't remember. It doesn't matter about working the steps. You know, there are different sort of way. I was going to say schools of thought that's not true, but there are different ways of doing it and

and I'm grateful. Well, first of all, I'm grateful that I got sober in Nashville, which as I said last night, we had six meetings a week. That was just the Max number of meetings in the world that pine in one area. We added a 7th later on, but so on the 7th I would go to SA initially,

but are the people who had started SA in Nashville were a a big book fanatics a a fanatics. So we were very, very close to a A and to this day I can

be in an A meeting or an essay meeting or equally comfortably because that's that's how I came in. But another thing was in in for many people in AA, the deal is work the steps like don't, why wait? Do it, you know, and and don't mess around and don't put it off. And, and we do, of course, do a written first step. And that's different from a a, but, but

the sentiment there was, if you're serious about this program, do your first, do you. And I'll tell you about my second, third step in a minute.

So

I did. I started writing my first step on powerlessness and manageability. My sponsor said just whatever is in your head about the powerlessness over lust and sex and unmanageability of your life caused by that, put it down. And

and then I shared it at a

meeting. It's over about 3 weeks and took two meetings as it turned out to do that. I remember looking around, we were in a conference room at a big table in which there was barely space between the table and the wall for the chairs and we were all around. It was about a third women and 2/3 men. And I just remember when I first started

being so ashamed that I was going to share all this stuff

in, in public and a reasonably public person. Anyway. So, so it was kind of a problem in my mind. And I looked around and I thought, you know, but wait a minute there. At an SA meeting, you know, they don't want people to know they're at an SA meeting any more than I want to know. And so I kind of got over it and I, and I think, you know, if I waited any longer, that would have become a bigger deal to me. I know people in my kind of occupation who won't go to regular meetings because someone will know me. As I said, I got taken care of

or that I people can't know this about me. And, and I think one of the advantages for me of doing my first step so quickly was that none of that had gelled yet. I was still in raw pain. I wanted to get out of the pain. This was the way out work one through 12. That's the way out. So I did it And, and that was the other thing I was, I knew I had enough exposure to ADA. No, I had to do what I was told that my brain had gotten there. So it wasn't my brain that was going to get me, you know, anything differently And,

and I really believe that. And so I just, I was told to do my first steps. I did it and I laid out a lot of stuff. I, I thought of some things later that I hadn't shared, but it wasn't a lot many.

It was during one of those, the second session, I was just sitting at the table and I guess I was talking and I suddenly saw one of the women in the room lying nude on the table in front of me because she was really there. It was rather unsettling. And, and I realized that had an hallucination. And that was my first sign of conscious hallucination. But I had lived my life in hallucinations at that point for over 25 years, so it wasn't exactly a big surprise.

But I added to my contract the next morning. I surrendered my right to listen.

Another thing that happened in addition to doing my first step

was and as I shared last night, I offered share with my wife and mercifully she said the hell you will. Later on, my sponsor convinced me good for my second sponsor. My first sponsor left. The program convinced me that one of the most powerful teaching tools God uses is humiliation, and one of God's favorite forms of humiliation hardening any of you knowing, Harvey said.

Was you have to sit in your own ship. Let's think of your own ship. He always had a flair for graphic language. And,

and that's what essentially my wife, she didn't know what she was doing, but that's what she allowed me to do was to sit in the sink of my own ship. And when I have pushed the boundaries of this sobriety and this program over the years, that comes back to me. You know, I can't dump it. I can't make myself feel better at someone else's expense. The book, actually both the Big Book and 12:00 and 12:00.

What I have to do is sit in the sink of my own crap

and

just, you know, learn from that. And and over the years, there is a pattern of God using humiliation.

That's his primary teaching tool over and over and over again

to the point where when it happens now more often than not, I'm just grateful for it because I know something important is going to happen. Last week I had a situation where someone shared something a couple actually shared something really powerful with me and and I found myself a little bit later sharing it with my wife and

and I was I was humiliated afterwards. There was number need to she didn't really want to know it and I broken confidentiality of course, and I just felt crappy. I literally, and, and I realized that it was humiliation that I had violated a professional cannons, but more importantly

violated who I needed to be. And, and I thought, why am I doing that? And I thought, oh, because what they told me was so awful and I was feeling all these emotions and I dealt with them the way I've always dealt with emotions. You know, I, I, I just didn't go off on some explosive stream. In this case, didn't have to be acting out of sexually.

And then what my sponsor taught me was not only did I have to sit in the sink of my own ship, I have to say, God, I made a mistake. Help me not make that mistake again and then let no of it. And you know, it's much easier to hold on to it to beat myself up to say how terrible I am. Anything's easier than saying God, I made a mistake. Help me not make that mistake again and to accept that I not only make mistakes and I have to live with the consequences of

that, the person is going to help me not make that mistake again. It's my higher power. It's not me,

but I do it and it works fine

by the way.

So I did my first step. I went to do my second step and my sponsor said what I'm going to do with you, what I was done with me. And I said OK. And he said, do you believe that a power grading yourself can restore your insanity? I said yes. And I didn't know about God's stuff. I'll come to that in a minute. And he said you are you willing to work steps 4 through 12? And I said yes. And he said good, so start your 4th step.

And I was devastated

because I had this whole mental routine built up on how I was going to challenge steps two and three. And that little Turkey took me right through. And I had what could I do? I was supposed to do my first step and and it was and, and the background for that is I was raised an atheist

and

that was fine. That was my parents and that's what I was. And but when I came in the 12 step program, I knew this God stuff is going to be a real problem. And yet I realized also that God didn't appear in the steps till Step 3. So I thought, well, I've got a break here.

So it's so much pain and so much fear and so much at stake. I didn't want to lose another marriage, another set of kids. As I said, I would have lost my occupation

and I just didn't want to go through that again.

So I just did the first step and oh by the way, the first month, the 1st 30 days, I was so glad for the invention of Advil. I just had normal amounts of pelvic congestion and I knew that's what women did for their pelvic congestion. So I tried it for mine and it worked just fine. I

and then I also ended up taking a natural pathic kind of antidepressant, which in my case turned out to be very helpful. It was also removed from the market about six months later. It's never been put back on. So I guess I came through lucky on that one too, but it's given me a respect.

Not only is there was there physical pain when I got sober, but I had been, I worked with enough people doing with alcoholism and I knew when they got sober they always were massively depressed.

So I thought incorrectly, as it turned out, when I got sober, I was going to be massively depressed, which I was. And, and understandably, when you start thinking about what you've done and consequences and all that kind of stuff, it's reasonable to be depressed about it. And so I was glad to took the edge off and,

and I've always been one of those people that supports people, you know, using antidepressants in that time for that reason, because it was so helpful to me.

So I was suddenly on step four and, and began working on that. That took about eight or nine months to finish. I would work on it for a while and then put it aside. And I started off using a Hazelton workbook, which was okay. And it was actually, I've been grateful for that. But when I finished the workbook, I realized that I had to use the page 65 format from the AB book if I was really going to do the four step. That worked.

I sync. My sponsor may have said something along that line too, but in any case, I did that

and I've been eternally grateful for that because they're very different and,

and the AA 4th step has the side advantage of being far easier than any other fourth step you'll run into, at least based on my survey of what's available. And I am kind of lazy. So that was good. And so it had the four step format, it turned out for me and, and people that used it with sense has these two features, it's more effective and it's less difficult. And that seems to me that's kind of a winning combination,

so, but I know a lot of people don't do that. So I just lay out what works for me and when I passed on to others.

I've been sober a year on my sponsor right after my fifth step left the program. I never took it personally

but I did kind of missing. But in that point, I had started calling him less and less often

and got down probably once a month. And he finally in one phone call said he was not going to be coming to meetings anymore.

And that was July. It was coming up on my year. It was pretty panicky. We had good sobriety and we now had seven meetings a week. By then we were planning

an international conference that was coming up in January the next year, and that would be my first international. So there was stuff I was doing that was fine and helping and I was reasonably sober,

but it was still I didn't have a sponsor and when it came up to my one year, my person who was how my sponsor gave me a one year birthday card and I don't do it every time I

and yet it was so important to me. I just, I like,

I like to do it whenever I do do it because it made such a difference,

because he wrote in the card, congratulations on your one year. And then he said, the one thing I promise you, David, is that

no motion. The one thing I promise is that it will keep getting better.

He had 3 1/2 years at that point. He was one of the grand old sages in A at that point. The 3 1/2 years or four years maybe he was right in there

and and I needed to know that. Then I didn't know how much I needed to know it,

but it turned out that I think a part of me probably was losing hope after all my sponsor had left and I was up on character defects in 8th and 9th step. And you know, the program in a way I was, I wasn't going to daily meetings, but I was probably going five to six times a week, right? Then my sponsor went to two meetings a day, except on good days. Then he went to three meetings a day. So that was the model being set for me,

not the sponsor who left the program, became my sponsor.

But but I think that it keeps getting better really was exactly the right message for me at that time and in many ways has become my theme. That's why I titled the talk this way,

because that has been true. It was already true. My marriage had not fallen apart.

I was, in fact, still sober. That first year was long. 90 day, 30 days was bad. 90 days was really, really bad. Six months is fine.

Nine months is when I did my fifth step, so it may have been bad, but since I was doing my fifth step right in there, it kind of just went through one year. I've always heard that right leading up to one year is pretty hard. It was also, of course, the anniversary of realizing I was going to act out again with that woman. It was the anniversary of my wife in front of me, and it was tough. It was just really pretty raw and didn't really want to act out sexually at all that I remember. But I just remember it was pretty crazy.

I found out we have their phases in sobriety and we don't talk about a lot, although it's actually in the AB book and it's in our white book too.

And, and that is when we first get sober, there's just the physical reality of it and the awareness of how much we're lusting. You know, how how much it consumed me in my case and getting through. That's one reason I want to act out again. I don't want to go through that first 30 days again. It was all, it was awful. And then there's this depression and just so you know, gloom and doom and gloom and all that kind of stuff.

And also this total fear of losing my sobriety. I mean, just mind consuming fear. I've always been grateful to SA from any reasons. They were my Sunday night meeting for one thing. And secondly, one Sunday I was getting ready to go out to the meeting and I leaned against the sink and felt the sink against my penis and, and it just terrified me. And I was a raw sort of quivering piece. And I went out to the meeting and, and I said in the meeting, I got to talk. I, I

just leaned against the sink and it really stimulated me and it was just awful. And this old guy who loved long time A, a guy had a cigarette voice and he said,

you'll get over it. And of course I had to laugh. And you know, I did. I got over it. I've been leaving it to say a lot since then. Not deliberately. I mean, just that's the thing. You know, I was, I've never forgotten that. Then I'll get over it. And and that's been true with almost everything. Not only does it get better, anything is disturbing me. I'll get over it if I don't act out. And that's the big caveat, of course.

But that had changed

at 90 days, I gave up fighting God. I was, as I said, I came in an atheist. It was a tremendous advantage for me. I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was a liability that was going to be a problem. I was really, as I said, dreading that third step. How was I going to turn my well in my life or the care of God as we understanding my sponsor, as I said, just got me right past that so fast. I didn't know what happened and I did my 4th step but

at little over 90 days

I was taking a shower one day and showers are pretty dangerous places for me. So I was praying continuously in the shower and and all of a sudden it hit me that I didn't have to know what God was or wasn't. The only thing I had to know was was I praying or not? And I was quite willing to pray and I had funny names for God, Master, teacher, spirit,

whatever. But but I realized I didn't. I could just resign from the debating society. And I did that day

and, and I didn't pick it up again

and been so grateful for that. And that's, that's, I guess I was just ready to get that gut level feeling. Then the nice thing about this program and then this has not changed. What I owed it in 16 years is that it doesn't matter whether I believe it or not. It's convenient if I believe it, but it doesn't matter if I do it, it'll work. And if I don't do it, it won't work. I tell people the most important words I hear in any essay meeting are the last words we say.

It works if you work it. That's it. That's the entire program. But it's not the program. That's how to do it. And it whether I believe in it, whether I think it's going to work, whether I trust it, whether I can see the changes in myself, none of that matters.

What does matter that I do it and or don't do it? If I don't do it, it's very predictable too. But that happened in 90 days

when I have been sober. I guess it was eight or nine months. So I said nine months wasn't a problem. I think I probably won't. What did happen, It wasn't a struggle with the program per SE or sobriety. What did happen right in there was I had a two or three-week period, 2 1/2 weeks, something in there. It was in March

of 1989 in which I totally lost contact with God

and I couldn't make it happen. And I was

absolutely petrified,

talked about it with my sponsor. But that time I changed, got my new sponsor and I'll go back to another second. No, I hadn't. I saw an old sponsor. I talked about my sponsor, but that's right. I wasn't talking very often. That didn't help any. I was talking about at meetings, I was writing gratitude list every day. It was on all my gratitude list. But I had no, I, I didn't have the contact. I I lost that sense that that I could turn my will in my life over to God. As I understood,

it was just, it was, it was excruciatingly lonely,

painful. It was the first time I felt alone since I've been in the program and

I was just in panic.

And I suppose it was the meetings and, and, and my to be sponsor was in all the meetings, of course. But I, I realized that if I didn't lose my sobriety, whatever this was going on would change. And after about 2 1/2 weeks it did change and

connected and, and probably not incidentally, I had stopped working on my port step for about a month, a month and a half and I started working on my 4th step here. Funny thing about that taking action stuff and and I was reconnected and that and actually I never lost that connection since

That's another thing I don't want to go back through again because that was awful. But at the same time, it ended. And somewhere, a number of years ago, I realized that one of the things I have to hold on to

is it the way it is today is not the way it's always going to be. And I can repeat that in my head as often as I want because it's the truth. And it's often the only thing it will get me through a given situation because I always want to catastrophize. Whatever. The way it is now is the way the awfulness now is the awfulness forever. And I do the opposite, actually. The goodness now is the goodness for. And neither one's true. The way it is today is not the way it's always going to do

and, and I didn't consciously know that during that experience, but I started living it and that was probably more important.

Well, in August I did get a new after the one year I did get a new sponsor, He said you will call me every day. We set a time 7:30,

and I called him every day for seven years at 7:30. Sometimes I was in Europe, Canada, all over the United States, Mexico.

I called him at 7:30 every day and he was always available 7:30 because I had the 730 slot and, and that's how we worked it. I probably would miss sometimes, you know, we literally are on the road and I just couldn't get to the phone until later in the afternoon or something. I,

it cost a fair amount of money at times,

but you know, compared to what I spent

on my disease and compared to the amount of money I would would and, you know, lost in terms of my occupation and other things, divorces, it was nothing.

And I've always, when it's money or time, just like anybody else in the program, I can get on my high horse about it. Oh, that's too expensive. I remember one retreat about a year and a half ago we had what's the cost of this retreat? What do you guys pay? 100 and 4000 and 40. We were charging 100 and 5000 and 60

and, and a guy I sponsored was just, and his wife were just desperate, you know, they couldn't afford that much money and I knew their financial situation was pretty tough. And so we arranged for them to get a scholarship and then we arranged for get a scholarship and another stuff. And they end up both coming basically for free. And

in about three or four days after the conference, they bought $1000 riding lawnmower to replace the one they had that they didn't like anymore.

And that was a wonderful reminder to me that coming to SA retreats, coming to us, doing things in the program is the calling sponsor from where I am is never about money. We may say it is, you know, bullshit. You know when you can spend $1000 three days later on something that you know the economy didn't even need?

You know, and

that's that's happened over and over. That just happened fairly recent. So it's still in my mind

and, and I had that willingness. I, I knew I needed to do it. I, I did my 8th step with him, party 6th and 7th. He had me write a list of my character defects. My next sponsor Jess had me do the same and

I still carry them in my date book. I look at them periodically. I don't really need to look at them because I realized after a period of time. There is a very nice thing about my character defects and that is they change as much as my eye color changes. And I was born with blue eyes and to this day I still have blue eyes as best I know. And I was born with the king character defects, you know, 59 years ago that I had today or maybe I acquired a few along the way. Doesn't matter. The fact is their mind and I.

Either act like I don't have them or just say they're part of me. And that's sort of what six and seven became for me and still are. Doesn't mean I don't don't have to be entirely ready to let them go. And it doesn't, you know, to humbly ask God to do it. It just means that, you know, they're just me. And it's asking God to take care of this parts of me that are holes in my soul, people sometimes say, or weak spots or you know, I have AI, have a known blind.

When I'm looking straight ahead, right over here, there's a blind spot. And I have nearly had car wrecks quite a few times

because of that. And so when I come to a stop sign, I've learned that I have to do the bobblehead thing, like those little dolls with the swinging necks. You know, if I do this, I'll be fine because it compensates for the blind spot. Yesterday in the airport, when I came up, I didn't have very long because Steve found me right away. But but, you know, even being with Steve, it didn't affect the fact that my scanner was on and I was scanning body parts. And airports are wonderful supplies of body parts. And so my equivalent of the bobbling

in the airport, I can't bottle safely. So either study the floor, which I'm really good at. But I have this wonderful gift, you know, you all just vanished. You know, you're no problem for me anymore. And so I took my glasses off and you know, I take them off in on the plane when I started looking across the aisle and, and I took them off from the Portland airport. I took them off. You know, I take them off a lot actually.

And and that's the thing about my character defects is I can't do anything about them.

God can. I can. And he has this. I decided I have a really,

what's the word when you're needing for attention? Neuro,

come on, My God is really weak willed. He needs constant attention. And So what my God likes to do is mess me up so that I pay attention to him. Well, I cooperate and, and so I get constant reminders that that I, you need to, you know, surrender and let go and let God. And that's what my character effects are. So he leaves them around because they're useful to him, because he likes the attention. So, so he doesn't take them away really. He just kind of makes them so they don't run my life anymore