The topic "Taking the 11th step to the street" at the Serenity at the Beach conference in Destin, FL

Well, Mike, Alcoholic

dried 8 September 7th, 1985. So I'm in the class of little further on down the class of 85 with Charlie and I got a sponsor in my home groups, the dignitary sympathy group in Indianapolis. Now that's usually just referred to as the digs. And that's a typical alcoholic bait and switch because we have no dignitaries and we offer no sympathy, but

we occasionally

catch somebody, snag somebody that's thumbing through the directory and said, well, that looks like that could work for me.

And and we get another prospect. I'm glad that glad to see they were able to get the extra seating in here to accommodate all of us to this morning.

I

I wouldn't presume to try and instruct you all on the 11th step here, but what I can do is I can share a bit of my what my experience has been along the way and I'm

I need to keep track my time here. I,

I need to,

I'm not a guy who's ever it's never worked for me to be what I what I would call a modular step work step worker. I've never figured out, well, well, that's a seven step problem and that's a nine step problem and that's a third step problem. Whatever. I I pretty much

come from a tradition where we we imply the entire solution to whatever it is that's going on in our lives. And before I understand that I'm powerless and what I'm doing to try and manage whatever is going on isn't working,

I'm not going anywhere. And I'm pretty much no matter how much I pray or meditate and so forth. So it all always comes back to that piece of beginning for me. Now I have

AI, have a God of. So I'm going to just kind of share what my experience along the way with this stuff has been.

I

I have a God of

what I referred to as informed consent in my life.

And because one of the one of the great fears I had when I before I was even deciding whether I wanted a form, a relationship with this power greater than myself was,

was I going to be changed against my will into something I didn't want to be?

And my dear friend Don, that helped me so much, said, Oh no, Mike.

He said God, God will always seek your consent before he makes that change for you. And because I didn't know if I was going to be on a street corner handing out pamphlets or all the usual stuff, or I'd get sent to Africa or whatever. And of course, Don pointed out that that would be better than what I was doing with my life currently,

that the only real problem there was a problem with my ego.

So in order to have informed consent, I've got to, I've got to be willing to engage in self examination or there's no really, if I'm, if I'm not really willing to on a fairly continuous basis examine who I am, what I am, what I'm doing, and is it working or not working?

I'm, I'm not really capable of giving informed consent.

And that's why I didn't understand for there was the longest period of time where I'd, I'd hit my knees and I'd sincerely pray for this and that to happen or to not happen or this one to be healed or this one to be, you know, cast into perdition or something like that. And there didn't seem to be a great deal of results from that, except, as I noted, I managed to stay sober.

But it, it wasn't until

I started

engaging in this process of self examination that things that things really changed. And I was, I'll talk more about it tomorrow. But you know, briefly, I was somebody who came here. I was, I was the one nobody expected to ever get sober. I, I failed for years and Alcoholics Anonymous

and people, people were kind to me, but they put, they kind of put me into what I now call is like the a, a Hospice or a

palliative care. They'll treat me nice, but they're not really expecting recovery.

They'll try to make me comfortable while while I'm

dying here.

And you better take note if if people are treating you that way that that maybe should be a wake up call. I, I told told the guy a guy that called me that the other day. I said, you know,

Mike, that

he allowed that people who were kind to him, but they didn't seem to be kind of pursuing him with the same enthusiasm they had in years past. And I said, well, there's a reason for that. They, they love you and they certainly want the best for you and everything else. But

the age their little triage has put you at the end of the line is not likely to recover. And so some of the, some of the people that are showing more interest in and taking some of these actions are, are getting more of their attention and focus right now. They'll be kind to you,

but there are a lot of people that have just started to form the opinion based on their experience that you're probably not willing to recover from alcoholism

and you might want to pay attention to that.

The miracle happened and I, and I did get sober and I went, I, I dove into Alcoholics Anonymous with a patient I'd, I'd never imagined that I'd be able to, to muster. And I went through what I called my junior guru phase now, Holics Anonymous,

11 meetings a week. And of course I had to found my own meeting. So there was at least one meeting in the city where they did it exactly right. And

you can't be a guru without your own meeting. And it's kind of a signature thing and,

and I'm doing all this, I get a new career and I get a new wife and a new family and I, I get, I get the whole package and was handled handed to me. And very much like others had mentioned, I found myself five years away from a drink, not having any desire to have a drink, but seriously considering suicide. Like I'd never considered it when I was drinking because I found, I found a hopelessness and sobriety that I'd never found in the bottle as long as I was drinking. I I

always cling to that thread of hope that someday, somehow, I'd get sober and then it seemed like things would be OK.

But here I am. I'm five years away from a drink and I got the smile plastered on the face and I'm sitting there at the front of my little junior guru meeting and I'm doing all this stuff and I'm pretending to sponsor people and all this kind of stuff. But inside I'm dying.

And it turned out the reason I'm dying is because I did hear an alcoholic snot on this approximately what I did when I went to the University of Iowa years ago. I went over to the field house, registered for classes, went down to the bookstore and I bought all my books. I joined a fraternity through the books in the Closet and I started partying. And if you came up to me on campus and asked me what I was doing, I said, well, Sir, I'm a pre law student here at the University of Iowa. And that's technically true, except I wasn't going to class much.

And that's what I was doing in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't miss a meeting, I didn't miss a dance. I didn't didn't miss a convention or a roundup or any of that stuff. I was right there front and center,

but I was almost completely unscathed by the step work in Alcoholics Anonymous. To the extent I had a program, it was a collection of slogans. And when I call this bumper stickers, you know, I just sling one of those bumper stickers on you. You know somebody, there's a gal who had celebrated 30 years this month who likes to remind me that, you know,

I'm attempting to sponsor her abusive husband. And this guy comes by and terrifies her and the children and one thing and another. And I can't believe it, but I it's true.

I had the absolute nerve to look at her and tell her, well, she just needed to turn that over.

Holy army, can you? Can you imagine?

I'm lucky they let me live,

but I didn't know any better. See, I, I had, I've lived a life of good intentions. I'm not a sociopath. I'm not a psychopath. What happened to me in the end was that the way I was living, I could break your rules and I could break your heart, but I finally broke my own.

And when I broke my own, I couldn't continue anymore.

I could as long as I was breaking your rules. I could just say, well, learn to live with it. That's a way cleaned up version by the way.

So I

further from a drink than I ever expected to be. I was lucky I fell in with these step workers here in Alcoholics Anonymous and I can't through that. A guy who ended up in Indianapolis out of Denver. Young people's group who I cordially hated for many years

probably because I sensed he had something I didn't have.

I came into contact with a man in Colorado by the name of Don that some of you may know and and that man changed my life in in all of them really out of that whole whole family and I've had a lovely time connecting with Charlie and Katie and others this weekend that have that have come out of that. We're kind of all part of a big family. Don used to say, you know, we're all one big family, but within that family there are a lot of kissing cousins. And then we got immediate family and,

and Katie, for example, our immediate family here.

And Don didn't tell me what to do. As a matter of fact, he would do things with me. He talked about keeping his sword sharp so he could puncture that ego of mine and and deal with those old ideas. And, and so it wasn't so much Don what Don usually told me. It was the questions he asked me. He says he would tell me, Mike, if we can get to the right question, you'll know the answer because you've got a good heart.

And so I get it's, it's been a process still to this day of getting me to the right question.

And I'll tell you how that works. Not not that long ago I was a couple years ago, I was left my office. I wanted to go over to our local little upscale mall and do some power shopping at noon And I

was running a bit behind. So as I approached the intersection to enter that place, the light was kind of turning a little bit. And so I just floored it and went through the intersection. It was maybe a little pink when I, I, I went, I went through and I, I go through the intersection and I, I mean, look in my rearview mirror and I'll be damned. There's this guy in a green minivan behind me and he's on my bumper. And so I I'm looking around and find a parking place and I look back and I'll be darned that the green

then still behind me and I know what to do. I find a parking place. And I'm an Old Street fighter, so I know you never let them catch you sit in the car. I parked that car. I'm out of the car and he had to park a few spaces away because of the way the lot was laid out.

And he came around the back end of that mini van and I'm there. I'm ready for whatever is coming. And that man looked at me and he says, well, Mr. would you mind stepping over here and telling my little girl why risking her life and safety was worth you getting that parking place a couple minutes earlier than you would have otherwise?

He asked me the right question.

It never even occurred to me. See, I'm not a sociopath. I'm not a psychopath. If you ask me the question, would you risk a child's life in order to get a parking place? Of course not. But I, I'm spiritually blind, so I never even see that. I just see my agenda. I'm in a hurry. I need to get there and I don't need anybody any harm

and see that's the way I'm living my life.

And so thanks to our 10th step, I can promptly clean that up with him.

And we have so much discussion, at least around meetings that I go to. There's this somehow this tense step business is supposed to be our end of the night review. That's what I do before I go bedtime. And I'm sorry, I don't. It's that it's not that way where where we are in our Home group. I love it the way we practice this in my my Home group because we actually managed to take this and turn it into a 12 step tool.

And here's how that works is we have 1210 step circles there in our Home group and we make sure that we have old timers paired with the newest people.

And so when I did that bonehead thing there in the parking lot, guess what? I got a call, the newest guy I'm working with and say, guess what your sponsor did this morning, You know,

and what that is. It's not us. We can talk in the meetings about what we need to do,

but when we make a demonstration of that this is the way we actually take this out on the street and live our lives, it becomes an entirely different proposition.

And it was that way for me, That old timer that I had started out hating. I remembered I just tried. I'm the newest guy at that group and he came up to me

after a bunch of us had had lunch one day. Say, Mike, can I talk to you for a minute? I was at work this morning and I,

he was working in a sales job at that time and he said some people came in to buy a high end audio

visual system and I wrote it up on my ticket and everything else. And they'd been working for a period of time with another salesman that was off today. And I took the sale for myself. And here's what I'm going to do about it. I got to go back and I got to talk to the boss and, and set that right and everything else. And this is bad for the morale, the other people here. And then he gave me the golden piece of this, the often forgotten piece. It's not just about confession.

It's he said, before we go to the meeting tonight, would you want to meet me down at detox and maybe we can find a couple of drunks to talk to? We turn our thoughts to others that we can help. And as we look through that 10 step, all the adjectives they use to describe it at once, it immediately right now, the whole thing. There's nothing about later, you know, and the way they put that to me, they said, Mike, if I I was out walking my dog and I came by your yard and my dog did his business,

you want me to walk up to you and say, well, Mike, he'll be happy to know we got a spiritual step that I'm going to think about this. And later tonight, if I decide this is troubling me, I may come up and pick that mess up out of your yard.

In fact, if I don't do that properly, I've probably increased the harm I've done. You haven't I?

And so the spiritual life is the life I've learned is the life of the president. It's the life of the here and now, not the here and next.

And so at once, immediately, right now and then, you know, we can use this as a as a way to take those people that feel like outsiders when they come to our meeting and they don't feel like they quite belong yet. And that there's this bunch of old timers that sit over here and know everything and all that kind of stuff. We can bring them right into the fold and they're participating members right from right from the get go.

And it should beautiful thing to see my experience.

I

Kerry touched on it last night. What a wonderful set of promises. I think those ten step promises are every bit as bright as those nine step promises. And then we get to move, move on in with that and we we get a way of life that we're going to start practicing for our lifetime.

And part of the beginning when I would go to Don and talk to him and

I remember, I'll give you a couple snapshots out of that.

I I'd asked

done about something I'd done or whatever, and he'd say, well, I remember the day he says, well Mike, as near as I can tell, he says in the beginning God created you in his image and you've been trying to return the favor ever since.

And that really ends up being the problem, doesn't it? See, I keep imagining and thinking, God, God in my image. If I'd be angry, I'm sure God's angry. If I'd be this, I'm sure you know. And what have What have I done? You know

I.

I began one of the beautiful things that he told me is I I'd always press him. Tell me about your God. Tell me about how this works for you. Tell me and he would Don would tell me in in a kind of a very general way, but he would never get terribly specific about it.

And I finally kind of I'm getting to know each other. We're getting to know each other. Come on, give it up. Tell me you know. And he says, well, Mike, no, he says, I'm not going to do that. He says because

you're a spiritual thief.

And if I if I if I tell you exactly how it is for me,

all you'll do is try and duplicate my experience and you'll never have your own experience and you'll have robbed yourself.

That at once and immediately and everything else had a

never took on a more direct meaning than it did in 2007. I've was fortunate beyond my dreams

to have a have a woman that I couldn't imagine ever wanting to have anything to do with me, fall in love with me,

and I didn't have anything to do with it, Don said. That's why it was extra good.

Much like Charlie and Katie, we were friends for a long time and I, I knew her husband well and

they were both good friends and we knew each other for 14 years. And Richard all of a sudden got pancreatic cancer in 2000 and died within a couple of months time. I was a horrible disease that just ate him alive. And we all continue to do a a together and everything else in in a long and and several years later, as Linda and I'd done a workshop for a group on on a Saturday afternoon and we're leaving and it's kind of everybody else

pretty much gone. And she and I are standing in the parking lot and that beautiful woman looked at me. She said, Mike, you need to know I love you. And I said, well, that's nice. She says, no, She says, you need to know I really love you. And she said, and now you can give me a real hug, not one of those agape, you know. And

so

a wonderful period of my life began. You know, I'm doing AA with a woman that I admire, I love, and who for some reason seems to admire and love me, you know, and is really beautiful. And

we're, we're both doing things different too. She, she was a lot smarter than I was. She showed up shortly after we started being romantic together and she showed up, she says, Mike, I've written out my primary purpose for our relationship. I'd like to see yours soon.

And

she was very fond when she'd stand at these podiums and tell you, she says. She would say that my primary purpose was so definite and detailed that it specified the color, clarity and weight of the diamond that he was supposed to produce. And Mike's was so vague in general that it could have described his relationship with his cat.

But see, this is getting those two things, getting, having that group conscience, getting that together was where a great deal of the sweetness of the relationship happened. And I, my Home group has a retreat the second weekend in June every year. And after that retreat was over, I was going out to Santa Fe to do a little a A and see some friends out there.

And I had a very early flight. And oh, the other thing that was different about this is

I'm not going to be your shack em up, honey. We are not living together until we're married. And and we both agreed that was a good idea. So I had my place in the north side and she lived on the West, had a little house on the West side near the airport. And so frequently when I travel, I'd, I'd bring my car over, I'd put it in the garage and she'd drive me the airport and because we'd save parking that way and all that stuff. And we got to say hello and goodbye to each other. And

so, but this was, you know, like a 630 flight and she'd have to get up early and lose some sleep. And I tried to convince her not to, not to do that. And she says no, no, she says, I don't mind getting up. I really want to take it. If you don't mind if I, I drive you in my PJS. And I said, hell no, honey. I So we did and I went out and I, I went, I'm doing my thing out in Santa Fe and

whoa, we had a problem.

I went up with our friend Tom up to Angel Fire. And as I'm going up through these mountain passes, I lose my cell signal. So I turn my phone off so it doesn't eat the battery up. Looking for a signal up there.

And she thought I turned the phone off because I was playing with my friends and didn't want to have anything to do with her.

And she was not a happy gal.

And so when I got back and turned my phone on, I had a couple of voicemails and I called up and we had a kind of an unsatisfactory conversation. And then we, we both, because we live life based on spiritual principles,

quickly considered our own behavior and made amends with each other and set things right. Now this becomes important because I, I flew home the next day and when I, I got back to the airport there, Linda wasn't there to pick me up. And I called and I called in Dallas where I changed planes and I called when I landed in Indianapolis and everything else. And so I thought, well,

first thought was God, I didn't think she'd. I thought we'd clean that up. I thought, didn't you know,

think she was that man? So eventually I understand she's not coming. So I take a cab and go over to her house and I've got a key to the house. And I take my key and I go in and I find she's collapsed on the bathroom floor. And she'd, it's 9:30 at night now, but she'd collapsed on the bathroom floor that morning when she was getting ready for work. Her coffee was on

the sitting there by the sink and

she'd had a stroke.

She was 47 years old, much younger woman than me. And I thought I'm, I'm the cancer survivor. We, I always thought that, you know, it was going to be the other way around. And so we I called the paramedics and we got her to the hospital and we began 5 days in neuro intensive care. And finally,

we were told there was no hope, that they weren't able to control the swelling in her brain and it crushed her brain stem and that we needed to go to Hospice.

And

because of these principles, because of this,

I'm able to be a sane man for her. Her sister, her nephews, her family,

her two brothers are

still to this day drinking and living very chaotic lives.

But I was able to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. And part of that reason is because of what Don told me many years ago. And, and again, it was one of those things I just kind of at the time filed away and thought, well, that's nice, Don. But Don told me, he says, Mike, he says as near as I can tell, there will be always at least two of you show up in every situation.

There's the guy who sincerely wants to be helpful and do the right thing and everything else.

And he says, and then there's, they're part of you that it's all about you and what about me and where's mine and all this?

And he said, you're not going to be able to do anything about that. He says, he says, as a matter of fact, he think, he says, think of it. It's like you've got a wet drunk in the meeting. The more you try and shut him up, you know, the louder he gets. And the more I try to pretend that there's not that other side of my personality and that other, other spirit that lives in me from time to time, the more problems I cause for others. So, so I, I, I got the crazy voice.

I'm standing there holding her head in her hand, the last night of her life, and

part of me is going, this is a mess. This is not supposed to be happening. She's supposed to be helping me through to the other side. This, you know, on and on and on. This is messing up my life and everything else,

and thank God I didn't have to be eaten alive with guilt and pretend that that wasn't going on because of what you'd taught me. I could be present with her and I could go. Thank you for sharing.

And I could be present with her

as she stepped out of this life and into the next.

And I can't tell you how glad I was because when I after I got a break and I went back to her house, she wasn't mad at me. There was a card sitting there on the table, and right next to it she baked my favorite cake the night before and had it ready there to give it to me, to take home with me

and see if I'd live this way on my own. I would have missed all of that. I would have come home with a grudge

and on and who knows fact I could have very easily. There was that his voice saying don't even bother to go over there tonight. Just go home. She'll call you when she's damn good and ready, you know?

Can you imagine how I'd feel if I'd left her a moment later, laying in that bathroom?

Goddess, incredibly kind to me. One of the things

I think the disservices I think we do

is

we make

often we make meditation seem like it's inaccessible to a lot of people.

And at least that was my experience. I got here

because I'm a child of the 60s and 70s and by God, I knew what meditation was, you know,

you folks, and they weren't, didn't have a thing to teach me about meditation, you know,

And wow, was I wrong.

You know what a what a beautiful open

field of experience for us to roam in. But always

this didn't start to work for me until somebody took me back to the principles that their as they're laid out in our book for us. I,

one of the great things they did is Don asked me what I thought meditation was and I, I described some, some version of a magic carpet ride, you know, and

zoned out, tuned out and just kind of, I've got a little spiritual altitude and attitude and all this kind of stuff. And

he says, well, cowboy, that might be true, but

he he

he said, for our purposes here, let's go look back what that meant to Bill and Bob in their time. And he took me into a dictionary from the 1920s. And it turns out that it is Bill and Bob were understanding meditation. They're talking essentially about

effective thought. One of the one of the first definitions there that they they lay on us in in in Webster at that time is the example is

the general meditated that day's battle.

In other words, he planned the battle. He thought about it, you know, and what does our book say? We consider our plans for the day. It doesn't say we zone out, doesn't say we get a blank mind. There's there's nothing. In fact, Don took me through that line by line. He's just show me where it says blank mind in here.

There's nothing at all about blank one. And the reason I say that is because I watch so many people and I was one of them believe that we're failing at meditation because we don't have a blank mind. Now, from time to time, I, I do have a clear mind, you know,

but I am not failing meditation

when I especially in the beginning, I've got the monkey mind, you know, it's all over. And you know, it's notorious in my Home group, you know, every, they just tell the new guy, look, expect that the naked lady's going to come running through the room and you know, don't even be surprised. God's not going to smite you and you're going to be, you're going to be just fine. You know, that's that's part of the deal

I

I got God was very generous with me, although I didn't know it at the time. I got a free sample I

when I was about 60 days sober and I was still not working any steps and all that, but I was going to a meeting. There was a man in this meeting who is very attracted to me, to me. He he had his own airplane and ran a company and you know,

I spiritually decided that he must have it together and

had a great looking wife.

So he had what I wanted.

I

and Jim, every time he'd introduced himself Jim and say, my name is Jim and I'm a devout 11th stepper

and so, well now Jim thinks he's a devout 11th stepper. Maybe I better check this out. So I, I went home and

I knew better than to get ahold of the big book. That's too, you know, that's so I cracked the 12 and 12 open and and I I sat in my chair and I read the Saint Francis prayer and relaxed and I did have a piece come over me

and then it kind of went away. And so I got up and went about my business. Three days later I'm sitting in a meeting. You could still smoke in them then and I realized I'm a I'm a guy that smoked so much. He used to annoys other smokers. I

and

I'm sitting this meeting and I look at the guy across the table for me lights a cigarette and I realized I haven't had a cigarette in three days

and I've never tried to quit. They're right there in my pocket. But for some reason I got I got a sample. Wow, there's something powerful that happened here because I am. You know, I immediately lit a cigarette out of just horror that I hadn't been smoking.

I wasn't at all interested in not smoking. But you know, it's what in the world happened that I wouldn't even think or want a cigarette for three days.

And so I went ahead and

got back in that chair that night, and I got out the 12:00 and 12:00, and I read the street San Francis prayer again, and nothing happened. To see God's too kind to me to let me believe that I can manipulate and manage this process. But I did have the message. I didn't know from personal experience that there was real power available through this step if I'd pursue it.

And of course, being who I was, I got distracted at at that time, I was, I was, I was busy with another spiritual endeavor. Actually, that was the one that got me fired by my second sponsor. I was dating a married woman in the program

sponsoring or 16 year old son and I was playing cards on the weekend with her husband and he was a gun toting federal agent and my

my sponsor at the time grabbed me in the parking lot of the club one day and he said, Mike, he says I love you. But he says every time I try and confront you about your behavior, you start to explain it to me in such a way as that it starts to sound like it might be God's will. I know that's insane,

so I can't have anything to do with you.

So I, The meditation had gone on the back burner for a period of time there,

but it's only deferred. I,

it was through this whole process of seeking that's laid out in the book. My, my successful meditation this morning was really set up by the way I wound up my day last night, you know, I sat down and without guilt or remorse, I just kind of took stock. What did the day look like? You know,

if somebody was following Mike around, what would it, what would have looked like? What it, what went, you know, this is this is again, it tells me not, not worry, guilt, remorse and all that kind of stuff. It's just kind of OK, give me the facts.

You know, what did it look like?

Where were you rude? Where were you? Where you did you take time? You know the guy who wanted to talk to you about his child? Did you did you cut him off because you were in a hurry to go get your coffee? What you know what, what things would you like to have look different tomorrow and all those kind of things. See, because if I don't care if, if I don't have a carer concern to examine what my behavior was today,

how is God supposed to take it seriously when I get on my knees tomorrow morning

and ask Him to make me wonderful? You know, he said. What's that, you know,

And that's not God punishing me, that's me just getting the consequences of my behavior.

And so just take a quick look at that. And one of the, one of the things my friend Clint suggested to me that 'cause I, I was having trouble getting that done before bedtime. And he said, well, look, Mike, he says I'm busy too. I've got this law practice out in LA and everything else and, and frequently my way and, and I'm active in Alcoholics Anonymous and frequently, you know, before my head hits the pillow isn't a good time. So what I do is, is I I review my day at the

to my business day before I leave the office, before I close the desk down. Everything else, I just kind of take stock of the day from that point.

And that seems to work for those times if I'm, if I'm failing to do it because at the end of the day, the end of the end of the day, I'm, I'm way too tired to do it. So I did that and Kent, Clint gave me another exercise that really was very helpful to me.

He said, Mike, I'd like you to start your morning after your meditation and he says I'd like you to. I think I may have one here.

I'd like you to

just make take a post it note and make a list of the four or five things that you're not going to be willing to do today to have a better relationship with God.

And I said, well, Clint, what about all the things I'm willing to do? He says, well now those won't be causing you any trouble, will they?

I so

post it. Note all it takes spiritual tool, you know,

and at the time I wrote this particular one,

I absolutely was unwilling to give up the idea that I can read your mind. I can stand up here right now and look out and I can I can look into your faces and I can tell what everyone of you is thinking. And you know, that's rarely a good thing for me. I mean, you know,

somebody's back there just with a terrible expression on their face. And, you know, I don't know, maybe it was something you ate this morning. It was the eggs, you know. But I'm I'm sure

you know, that's, that's that's the dagger of self centeredness. I'm sure it's all about me, you know,

and I never get the answer that I want there

and so on. I'm

unwilling to give up my mind. I believe I can predict the future. Well,

I can try sponsoring this guy, but I know how it's going to turn out. You know,

I got to tell you, I had the pleasure

of attending a wedding

in June

for a guy that almost everybody had given up on. And if I hadn't loved him so much, I might have too. But I mean, I spent Christmas Eve's in the emergency room with him and his wife and I all his ex-wife rather and all this, all this stuff and and Bob ended his his run

living behind a 711 in Las Vegas. And it was in July and

he was. He'd lost his shoes and was wrapping T-shirts around his feet so he could stand to walk on the pavement, to go and try and hustle a drink.

And

he

I went to his wedding in June

and his ex-wife had blessed the wedding.

His son was his best man

and his daughter was there and his new stepdaughter was there. And they danced and they played and they had a wonderful time. And see, I get reminded what we're really about. One of the lessons, Don, that always told me, he said, Mike, this isn't so much about sobriety. Yes, sobriety is the beginning. It's the foundation. But this is the real work here is to put damaged families back together again

and hopefully heal them where possible and to create new ones

where those that damage won't happen again, or if it does, we can heal again. And so the miracle is I, I love, I love it when I see things like that and Alcoholics Anonymous. And my mind told me that, you know,

when I, when I gave Bob his five year coin, I said, you know, I, I was absolutely knew what I was going to say at your memorial service. I don't have any idea what to say today.

And we're clear that God did that.

I'm unwilling to be just average. I either want to be the best you've ever seen or the worst you've ever seen. But the toughest thing for me is just to ask me to be a team player, to be one of the guys

and I live A

at this time I was living a life full of distraction and distraction to me, a distraction. The destructive one was, you know, dating the married woman with the gun toting husband. That's, you know, that's level 1. So I, I'm, I'm spiritually elevated. So I tone this down. Now I, now I'm at this time, I'm spending more money than I have. I'm, I've got my car, you know, Speedway and the Beltway is 55 miles an hour. I think God gave me the right to drive 80 when I'm in a hurry,

heavy traffic there so I can always be have my eyes glued to the rear view mirror to see if there's a cop on the off ramp and so forth. And the result is

may not get a ticket, but I arrive at my destination and I don't even know where I've been because all my attention's been in the rearview mirror and here and there and everything else