The 9th Fellowship of the Spirit NY in Queens, NY

Is from Houston, TX. From the Carry This Message group, I'll give you Mark. Mark H

Good evening, family. My name is Mark Houston. I'm an alcoholic

and I was separated from alcohol the morning of October 19th of 1982 in Denver, Co.

By God I was asleep too,

didn't believe in who obviously had things for me to do and I'm so grateful for that. My home groups that carry this message group in Austin, TX. Over the years I have been moved around a lot.

Those of you who know Don Pritz,

people say, you know, oh, Don's my sponsor. And I'd say to him, well, I'm sorry to hear that. And they go,

well, why are you saying that? I said, because you're going to get sent out to carry this message and you won't be popular. Have a good day.

That's the truth.

I don't know how many of you. Is this your first time in fellowship of the Spirit? Raise your hands. OK.

I want to tell you a little bit. Yeah. I, I know the guys that you have here this weekend, you know Chris and

you know Peter. And by the way, Doug, I'm really excited about flying tomorrow.

I must have some rights about a UA or something before I get on that plane in terms of the pilot and I got to check that shit out. But,

but many years ago in in Denver,

Don got the idea of he wanted to start a convention. He, he had done a lot of work with a whole bunch of men and women and they got like sent out and different states. And we'd call him whining, you know, because you know, when you, you go to areas

that they have their own ideas about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous,

many times it's not the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's not their fault because everybody in every room that says anything at any meeting, they're doing that as a result of how they've been influenced. And I feel a real blessed to have the sponsorship lineage I had and the message that was delivered to me. But when you start carrying that message into some of these rooms, you're not real popular in the very rooms in which you

should feel comfortable in. You know, I still laugh at our fellowship. You know, if I was an evangelical

Christian and I had a well worn big book or Bible and talked about it, I'd be popular. But in the rooms of a a if I do that with my big book, I monster sized right? Doesn't that seem a little weird to you? But anyhow, I think he got tired of all of us whining and because I used to call him and I talked to him about the persecution I was enduring,

he would tell me to get down off the cross. He needed the wood and,

uh, you know, and then the, you know, guys like him, you know, all the time drive, drive you into the book, you know, and well, one man with this book alone and the power of God in his life and they need to hang up. You know, it's just, yeah. So anyhow, he started the first Fellowship of the Spirit in Colorado and there were probably,

I doubt if they're even 100 people there. The format's a little different than here. And now they're in there like 1213, fourteenth year. They're they're like an Aerosmith concert. They sell out in like 10 days. They,

I went to many of them and they're unlike any other convention you'll ever go to. And then of course, over the years they begin to the people from this area who came back there, carried this idea back and said, why don't we do it here too? And so now they're, I know that

I've been to Big Bear Lake, CA, they have one in California, they have one in Seattle, they have one in Boston. I think they have one of Maine. They started one in Louisiana. You have the one here in New York. So that's where that's where it comes from. You know, one alcoholic carrying this message to another alcoholic. I remember when I went to Don's Memorial, I, I knew intuitively

once he developed cancer that he, he was going to

pass. I just didn't know when in an unintuitive level, I had an idea that I needed to go see him. So I, I flew up and I spent some time with him. And

you know, when you operate in the fellowship of the spirit with an awakened spirit, time ceases when you interact with somebody that you have that kind of connection with. And I just took time to thank him.

And then I went back to Texas and continued on. And then, of course, you know, he gave a talk the night before he left his body, and then he left his body. And so they buried him. But a month later, they had a memorial. So I flew into Denver, Co, and there were 1000 people at that memorial.

You know, this is a guy who got sober his third time in a federal penitentiary. So one person with this book. And you, you you never know how God's going to use you. So always, always remember that. I also want to dedicate this talk to my good pal Joe Hawke, a lot of you. How many of you have heard his voice in the tapes before? Yeah. Joe passed away about two months ago. He's down in Brazil. I've already had to write inventory on him. He he went in to take a nap.

He fell asleep. He had a major heart attack. He didn't even wake up. Now, that's not right,

you know what I'm saying? That's easy. That's

Joe Column one. Column two, he dies easy. You know,

just, it's just not right. There's no drama. There's no, you know,

I can just see him, you know, So

God, you know, the calls I had calls, you know, he died drunk. He died this. And it's like, where are you getting your information from? God's sakes. He'd been in Brazil for about two years. I had been taking him back through the steps again. And he and I did a, a weekend here trying to remember. I think we did that in 2003, as I recall, wasn't too. Yeah, 2003. And then I was fortunate enough to do 1 here with Dave F

in 2001. So it's good to be back with you all.

A lot of my influences, a lot of people who have been so helpful in my, in my sobriety passed away. Another man real important to my sobriety named Big Frank from Denver. He passed away about a year, a year and a half ago. And you know, I, I told a pal of mine recently, I said, Jesus, all these people that were my teachers are dying. And he said, well, Mark, do you ever recall how old you are?

And I, because I don't know about the risk you, but most the time I feel like I'm about 14 or 15. And you know, although in the last two weeks I've had a revolutionary spiritual experience with my lumbar and sciatic, which confirms I'm not that young.

Which, by the way, is one of the reasons I haven't spent more time with you here this weekend.

God, what a harrowing experience. But that's another story.

I want to talk just a not not very long about what it was like. I think mostly what excites me most is talking with you all about my

Kerr experience with God, with the moment,

with a a, with the book, with sponsorship, because that's all that's really relevant to me. The rest of it is a,

you know, when I'm working with somebody and they call me with some drama about the past, I, I like to do this with him. I said, OK, let me make sure I understand this. When did that take place? Well, three years ago. So really what that is is you're sitting in a theater playing an old movie. It has no relevancy except what you give it. Is that what and you and I are talking about this now? Is that what I'm hearing? Here they go, well, I never thought of it like that. Well, well, that's what it's all about. You know what I'm most excited is about right here, right now,

in my present, in my current. Am I alive? Do I have passion? Do I have power?

You know, do I understand how blessed I am to have a body that moves and walks and talks and eyes that see and pals in my life and people love and that I can experience pain, that I can experience joy? Am I awake to all that instead of all the countless drama of you know, all the all the stuff we go through in this progression when we first get sober,

sound asleep dreaming were awake saying things like well, when I came to EE like we woke up wrote down our day planner. Well, I think what I'll do is in August of 2007, I'll go to a a everyone of you in the room are just like me. There's a power out there through great love brought you into the rooms and somewhere along the line introduce you to someone who had a message of depth and weight. Because I I don't know anyone that comes to fellowship of the Spirit that's not interested in a message of depth and weight,

a program of power.

That's all this program is. It's not about getting sober. It's about power doing the work and the steps to become a hollow bone. Let the power transmit through you,

Doug. Doug said it well.

You know, he described to me what happens with the power. Did you hear how he came in? Wouldn't you like him to bend your friend then?

My story is the same. I came to you all on October 19th in 1982 and I had brain damage, a kidney damage and liver damage and everything I own you could fit in a duffel bag. And I weighed about 260 lbs and I bloated like a whale and I was dying. I was very close to death. That's how I came to you, right? That's not the man who's standing up here now. I have a life beyond my wildest dreams. Was it because of anything I did? Not really.

I was given a set of instructions that if I would follow and continue to follow and practice, my book says that God will demonstrate through me what God can do.

I've got an opportunity to travel over the world. I got a chance to write a book. I own my own business, a recovery center, the first of its kind in the United States of America in the year 2007. Fortunate enough to have 100 men come through that program from all over the country. Last year, chronic relapses, 84% of them have come through there and left there. Never took a drink again. That's the kind of shit God does. You see all I got to do, my part's easy. Ladies and gentlemen, I get this big book is about 30 pages of instructions, none of which are too complex,

and I get to take this action and become a hollow bone and let God demonstrate through me what God can do

Credible stuff. Isn't that a little different message than showing up at meaning whining about whether he stayed? She stayed whether you got the job or didn't get the job. God Almighty, what is available to us in the pages of those books? See circle and triangle, all three parts. At any given time over the years, I have been in 1/3 of a three-part program expecting the results of the other two.

You only have to do that a few times. Then, if you wake up about once a month, sit back and get honest with yourself. Where am I with all three parts of the program,

right?

I do that with myself consistently. Why? Because wisdom is the capacity to learn from my experience. I don't need to get off track again, right?

So I also get accountable to people around that experience. You know, I took a drink alcohol, and I was 16 years old and I drank for 20 years. And my stories contained in the pages of the Big Book. You know,

live in Texas, but born and raised in Iowa. Second oldest of four boys, raised in a Norwegian farming community.

Took that drink when I was 16. I wished I'd taken it when I was 10. I needed it.

I don't know why. You know you there's a lot of words to describe the effect produced. I have spent a lot of time over the years looking at the effect produced by alcohol. And I'll tell you why. Because I put alcohol ahead of everything. And there's a reason for that. And it wasn't because it tastes good and smelled good. Because when I take a drink of that's real, magical stuff happens. That doesn't happen to normal people. And I mean magical stuff.

And it gave me a sense of ease and comfort. All the nine step promises, every single one of them came true for me when alcohol worked in my life.

Not the ten step promises, but the 9th step. You've got to understand the power alcohol, and I served alcohol for 20 years and I'll tell you why alcohol was my master because it worked.

If the only thing in your life that's going to give you ease and comfort, lasting ease and comfort, is alcohol, and then someone suggests that you give that up,

you betcha.

I mean, people wonder why we give up her over alcohol. If alcohol did for you what it did for me, that's a number brainer decision.

Have a good day honey.

There's some new vodka out I haven't tried yet. Get you on the flip side,

you may let me down, but vodka never has. See. Do you ever think about that? You know, the most intimate relationship of my life was alcohol until I came to know God. No God,

I was thinking to myself when Doug was talking, I, I am an atheist. If you want to know what you are in the whole God deal, it's real simple. Just take the last week and ask yourself some questions. Every person in here has had experienced a bunch of being an atheist in the last week. Here's what I mean. If you walked around last week and you were going through a lot of fear, it's because you're an atheist.

You understand what I just said. If you want to know what you believe in, look at how you experience yourself. Now, if you also walked around last week with a whole bunch of fear and self pity or whatever, you also had a lot of agnosticism going on. That means that you don't have a personal relationship. But God is probably a duality out there, kind of a God, right?

One of those sometimes where you got to get to a place. If I get to the place, I'll be okay.

Jeez, I'm so glad I'm free of that. You know, it's like

you know, and then there's the believer. See you got, I know there's some believers in here. I can tell your eyes are dilated a little bit, right? Yeah. See. And and let me explain to you about the believers. If you're a believer and you spent much time in fear or self pity or self seeking or anything else in the last week, it's because you think, because you believe, you do.

I'm emerged in the water and the water is God and there's never a moment in time. I do not have conscious contact, ever.

The time he's beat your little eyes open until they close at night. I'm emerged in God. It's not about what I believe in. It's not about what I know. See. I don't understand God. If there's any words in the big book, I would that I that I wouldn't. I, I would change it. Probably God as I understand him. I'd really love to hear from one of you your understanding about God. I think that would be funny.

You know how, you know, it's like the waves are part of the ocean, right? Has all the properties of the ocean, but it's not the ocean. That's kind of like God, you're going to tell me what that you're going to explain that to me, right? It's like Dogner priest, one day he wanted to tell me what's going to happen to me after he died. I died and I said to him, do you have any personal experience with that?

He said no. And I said I'm not interested in your opinion and experience you've never had.

That's just the way I'm wired. I, I, I really am. I'm a man of experience, you know, you want to talk to me about death, talking about having had the experience and what it's like. And if you can't, then it's your damn opinion.

You know, one of the things I can tell you around the whole issue of fear, I guess since we're talking about that or I'm talking about that

and you're listening to me talk about that.

Over the years, I lots of work with the middle steps for a lot of reasons. One is I suffered, I've suffered through the years intensely with depression, which I don't suffer from anymore, by the way, and I have suffered intensely with fear. I still remember Peter when I

when God sent him to me and said, you know, talk to this guy, right? And and how encapsulated Peter wasn't fear and he didn't even know it. And I know that feeling because I've been there. So all this stuff, because I, I tell you the the line in the big book where it says all my troubles are my old making this the kind of alky I am. I am responsible for my life these last two weeks when I've got a chance to experience more pain in my lower back and sciatic than I have in all my years on the planet. I made that happen.

I made that happen. Nobody did anything to me. So when I got some stuff going on, if I want to get free of it, I get into action. I don't bring it into the meetings and whine, bitch and moan about it, right? See, it's a program about power, and I was given a solution. But I do take it to paper because I want to get free of it. See, it's not God's fault. How do I want to get free of it? So I write inventory. In the middle of all that, I really discovered I had only one fear as a fear of death. Death of something

might be the death of a relationship, might be the death of health. It might be physically dying. But at the end of the day, there's only one fear. It's a death of something. And what that translates to is the reason that I'm still afraid is, is because I'm afraid of the unknown and because I don't have a relationship with God. Or I may believe in God, but because I don't have conscious contact with God, I'm afraid of the unknown. So I'm back into self-reliance and I go through life being afraid.

And I hope you have the experience I do in sobriety, in recovery, emerged in your Home group with a great life, still walking around, experience way too much fear. And one day you say to yourself, enough is enough.

I don't think the two are supposed to exist in the same place. So you go back in, you begin to write these inventories

and they begin to my experience is exactly what the big book says is you can outgrow fear. Matter of fact, most of the time now, the only time I experience fear is in a while giving an example when my pal Tony and I drove over here from Newark.

This is just a little different than Austin, TX. OK

thank God for GS system

we made more turns. It remind me old days when I was dealing dope where you do 97 turns because someones following you right

We couldn't talk the whole hour and 15 minutes coming over because the goddamn navigator was talking the whole time Go left go right move boom boom boom boom boom right Jesus and now we get to drive home. Now I had a little fear. I got to tell you, you know,

he's, I love this one toll. There's like 97 of you and you get it. You come down to two lanes and it's a

I just watched NASCAR today. I felt right at home. Buckle up. Go Tony. Go shit. Get him,

he's funny. He picked up her on it way he looked. He looks over and we need a place to pull and he goes oh that guy dropped his head for a minute. Boom,

we assimilate quickly that.

So I had a little fear. Well, who wouldn't have fear if you're from Austin, TX? Driving in the where we drove today, but that's about it. I don't walk around with this at 9:00. Between my 9th and 10th year of sobriety, my identification with my mind. My mind drove me insane. I wound up in a nut house. So in that nut house.

I remember that I in that nut house, I really had my third step experience. And what I mean by that was at that point in time, I still remember that night. I'd probably been there 2-3 weeks and my God I was in pain.

Some of you might relate that it's an interior pain. It was like an every cell of my body

and

I remember basically saying this to God, here's the deal. Because I think at that time I'm like almost 46 years old and I said I've given up my best shot drinking 20 years and I've given it my best shot sober and I'm in a nut house in Houston, TX.

I don't have a job and I don't have anything. And I said I'll tell you what, here's the deal. From this point on, I quit.

I quit. I'm going to do one thing and one thing only. I'm going to do what that book tells me to do. From this day on, I don't care where I live, where I work, who's in my life, who's not, how long I live, my health. None of it. That is your responsibility,

right? Gee, there was a strange sense of peace and ease that went over me, and I've been living my life like that ever since. And of course, my life took off like a rocket when I was able to finally let go. See, it's easy to say the third stepper. You guys I'm sure talked about it today, right? Think about this, ladies and gentlemen. God, Ioffer myself to thee to build with me,

and you do with me as you will.

Now, if you want to find out whether or not you're living that, just go back in the last year and look at the number of times that God's will showed up in your life, and often you resisted that. I'll give you examples. How many you've had a relationship in the last year. Raise your hands.

Did you resist the ending of that relationship?

So you didn't mean your third step, did you?

Remember, build with me, do with me as you will. If you're in a relationship. And he comes home and she comes home and says, by the way, thank you, it's been fun. I'm moving on down the road. Is there any other response other than God bless you, go in peace?

The reason you're laughing, it's like, yes, there is.

It's because you've developed what Bill talked about, an emotional sobriety called a dependency.

See, see

learn this if you can now rather than later. Everything is on loan and you don't know for how long it is just on loan. It is not yours. It does not define you.

See relationship with God first and foremost. Everything gets added to my life. You can only add to my life. There isn't a single person in my life today can take one thing away from me. You can only add to me. And you know why? It's because I don't need anything from you. I'm just here to give to you. I need nothing from you, for I am provided for.

And guess what? Now I can love like God loves free. I can allow you to be yourself. There isn't anybody in my life that has to change anything about themselves in order for me to love them.

My God, take the last week. How many of you spent time

thinking to yourself or saying to people in your life, well, if you're sober very long, you would just think this. You wouldn't say it, because after all, you're spiritual now.

Well, that son of a bitch would just change in this area, right?

That's not love

Man Named mailed to Anthony D'amelo has some great books out. A lot of his books really helped me get free, but

he said what most people think of as as love is really an addictive, needy clinging. Reminds me of a Leech

in addictive, needy, clingy, based on the belief system that I must have this in my life in order to be OK,

Doug said. Something's important. His job to find him. That one almost killed me.

The book talks about the stage characters. It's my experience at this point in time in in my recovery and it may be different a year from now. And in my life is it's all a big one act play in God's mind. The creator is my director and it shifts and moves and changes and all I do is I show up each day. I don't know how long a play is going to run on Broadway, but I'll tell you this, the day the damn thing closes, boom, I'm done. I'm gone.

Prior to what I'm doing right now, I was CEO of a a company up in Dallas and I walked into work and I had a job at 8:00 and I'd resigned from one at 10 and I drove out the door

and drove out the gate. The day I drove out the gate, that position was done. And it did not define who I am. Say I know who I am.

I know who I am. I've touched my true self. I take my beingness into my doing. My doing does not define me. I live in a world of impermanence. Hell, you're you're 15 months ago, I thought I'd be working at Home Depot.

It's a God taught us truth. Tony can tell you that that job was done. This is how God works.

That jobs done. I take about a month.

I love to work. I don't know about the rescue. I I like working.

I do. It's fun. And I didn't know what I was going to do when I grow up. And of course, I'm 60 years old. You'd think one would wake up to that pretty soon, but.

So I did a little consulting work and then I get a call from a guy that

owned a lot of a lot of rehabs in Texas. And I think he wants to do a little consulting work with me. And he does. And he offers me a job to be president of his company. And I keep in mind I'm unemployed. Fortunately, a great thing happened for me is when I was 53 years old, I got to have an experience of what I call getting financially sane. I once again found myself

unemployed and had burned through

what meager savings I had and I said this is enough. Here I am, Groundhog Day again with money. You all seen the movie Groundhog Day, right?

And I did some inventory, and at the end of the day, what rolled off my pin were two major things around me and money. Here's the first I thought I was going to win the Lotto. Who the hell asked to plan for retirement if you're going to win the Lotto? The problem was I'd never won the Lotto,

and the second thing it rolled off my pin is I somehow thought I was a financial planner, although I've had no training in that barrier. Lo and behold, I submitted myself to a financial planner. By then I was financially sane. I didn't have to work for 2-3 years if I didn't want to.

You know what a great thing?

By the way, I'll throw out a little carrot. Those of you that your ego has driven you into financial insanity, you will have no idea

how entrapped you are with fear till you become financially sane. Doug talked about the last amount. I know what it's like to have made all your men's to be a free man. I know that.

I know what it's like to not owe a dime

and to see how much fear dominated my life. But back to my story real quick and back to how God works.

So he makes me this offer. This was not a this was a hell of an offer.

So I do this exactly what the big book says. It says in meditation we ask God about each specific manner. 3 days go by, I'm very clear I'm not supposed to do that.

I find myself calling him up and saying I can't do that. He said you mind me asking why? And I said well there's two reasons. One is I will never work for anybody again,

and two, I'm not supposed to. And he said, what do you think you're supposed to do? And I said, I'm not sure. He said, go for it. So just through a series of events,

next thing I know I'm down in Austin, TX and looking for property to buy. And

this was a very interesting experience about faith and trust in this power I I had. This isn't was an alcoholic's dream slash nightmare. I had a huge suitcase full of cash and I couldn't get anyone to take it.

Four times in a row this happened

and you know, you build up and you go look at property and you offer contracts. You do this and you do that. You do it in the Nope, this one didn't work and this one didn't work and this one didn't work and this one didn't work. But I, I was telling someone earlier, I've learned along the way, recovery in life for me is about being a marathon runner, not a sprinter. And one thing I can tell you about me, I keep getting up and I keep running the race. So we just kept moving forward and lo and behold, we

get sent out to this place right outside of Austin and incredible 54 acres. And

there's this 5500 square foot mansion in this beautiful farmhouse in this lake. And

I've been driven driving by that area for years. Never even knew any of this kind of stuff existed. And so we get there and

the real estate agent apparently thought we were flakes because he had accepted a contract an hour before we got there. He told us later, he said I just didn't think you guys were serious buyers. And so of course then we made him an offer while in the state of Texas you got 48 hours to the difference was we had money in the other people had blue sky and in Texas you got 48 hours to either accept or reject. And 48 hours went by and we got that place and I moved on to that property on June 13th, 2006 and slept in a tent.

My God, here we are 14 months later. It's just incredible,

submitting myself to letting God demonstrate through me what God can do. What a great way to live. I don't have to worry about what it's going to look like.

Now, here's the other side of that coin for me. I never asked myself what God's part in the deal is. I get up and do the 35 things in front of me that I'm supposed to do. That makes sense. You know, it's like the old alcoholic thing of sit at home and pray and meditate for a job. Well, my experience is you better get your ass out of your house and go look, Knock on some doors, right? There's a spiritual law. God will not do for me what I'm supposed to do for myself.

Sometimes I feel like I've had three

distinct periods in my recovery. The first nine and a half, ten years,

you know, Don carried the message to me. Joe was very instrumental in that message in those first nine and a half, ten years and

it seems to me like I superficially or intellectually processed it is what it feels like to me. Then I have, it seems like my second ten years where I once I got out of that nut house, I resubmitted to the first nine steps four times. I had a lot of unwritten inventory and a lot of unfinished amends that I was not aware of and I was down in Kerrville, TX. And then I begin to start workshops and that's when

Chris Raymer, it's funny, 'cause see, I, I, I knew Chris

when he was sitting in meetings whining.

You guys don't have that story experience with him.

And I know Chris, the first time he got up to give a talk and he was sweating bullets and wasn't sure what side the patch should go on or not, you know, and

I can't do this, I can't do this. And great, look at him now. He's an international speaker for God's sakes.

New stage character for his ego to attach to.

I've messed with him all the time. Can I speak to Chris Raymer, the international speaker?

I won't tell you what his response to that is, but

see, have fun with this. See, have fun with it. You know, I took a three-year break from talking. I have never been enthralled with the sound of my own voice.

I just haven't.

And in 2003, Joe and I,

we did a workshop Memphis, TN at about 300 people and some of you might relate to this. I was probably, I guess I had to be about 2122 years sober and

I was sitting there doing that workshop this that weekend. And I don't know how many of them I've done over the years. Many

and inside the way I was experiencing myself and the way you were experiencing me, they were completely different and I had that voice that said things like well if they really knew you they would never ask you ask back again. You all know that voice, right? Things are going good and

and that was another point in time in which I said

there's something wrong with this. I should feel

better inside than what you see me from the outside, and I don't, and it's my responsibility.

So through a series of events, one of the things that came out of that was

stop speaking, go inward.

I did, didn't blink an eye, right? Cancel all. Well, I actually didn't have many things to cancel.

It was an incredible experience for me.

This is what I think what happened in terms of getting free of that. Some of you might relate to this.

I, I, I had done so much work with the steps in in on several other things that

I sought some outside help with this. And so God sends me to this Norwegian woman. She's like 6566 years old, one of the most non judgmental humans I've ever met. And we get to talking and I'm describing to her what happened to me down in Memphis. And she looks me dead in the eye. And she said shame. And I said what? She said shame. You're describing shame. It's an energy,

but you're describing the kind of shame that for whatever reason,

your mind's telling you you don't even deserve to be on the planet.

I said, really, See, I don't know about you, but when truth begins to, it's something to me resonates when I hear a truth For Mark at that time and I knew what she was saying was the truth. We went back and looked at that

and I can tell you that that disappeared. That energy completely left me. And the result of that energy completely leaving me is there came a day

when I woke up at my insides and outsides were a perfect match.

See, what I so love about my life today

is there is a perfect match and what you see is what you get. And if you like that, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine.

It does not diminish who I am. It does nothing to who I am. And you can only add to and you cannot take away.

If that can happen to me, that can happen to you. I know what it's like to be sober, longtime sober, and still operate in fear.

To be able to be sitting over there with my pal Tony and to have Sal introduce me, to come up here to speak to you all. Some of you who I know. Most of you I do not. You know me through my tapes,

and to do that with absolutely No Fear is an incredible thing. I knew that book was right when it told me I could have that. I knew that book was right when it said you can take a fearless life into your relationships and you can be authentic and you can be real

and you can take that into work

and you can take that into every single area of your life.

Wow, what a deal.

Oh, just go to meetings and don't drink.

My God, you know best. Years of my life lie ahead of me.

Share another little current experience with you all. Some you've been listening to my tapes. Know what? I've been having a lot of fun with the smoking issue in my life.

Someone might say, what the hell is that got to do with alcoholism? Well, watch someone die of lung cancer and you'll see what it has to do.

So I would tell you my

current experience with this because it's still about the power.

I'm a real smoker,

not a hard smoker.

I'm not a moderate smoker

and I want a cigarette. I'll hurt you,

you come to my house and I sponsor you. I don't give a shit if you got emphysema. I'm smoking.

I'll smoke on airplanes, in airports, everywhere.

Oh, cheat, lie and steal.

Last time I quit smoking relapsed. I didn't go buy a pack. I bought about 6 cartoons. Baby. If I could have lit up six at one time, I probably would have. I don't I ate any different with that shit. And I was with vodka, right? If I was ever, if I ever on an intuitive level knew I was going to relapse, I'd call Tony. Everyone I knew I'd liquidate everything I had and I'd go out and buy as much vodka as I could. Not hold up and not get after it.

None of this bullshit in between trying to maintain a job right?

So 2 weeks ago Saturday, I'm at the gym working out.

One of my stage characters is the jock

I tell the guys I sponsor. It's about looking God damn it. Yeah, how you feel. Subject to change 1000 times a day, for God's sakes. It's about looking good, right?

I have this problem sometimes I go in the gym my mind forgets that my body is 60 years old

so there's a bunch of new exercises out called core strength training. Shit, they got medicine balls and

I fell a little sleep while I was at the gym. I started looking at this 25 year old hard body chicken. She's doing some core stuff with the medicine ball.

Look like something I should try.

So I did

in my lower back a couple times in the middle of that try and started to say to me you really should quit now.

But because I was asleep and she had a great looking body I completely ignored it. Zoomed right through it.

Finish my workout, went home, everything was fine till I woke up Sunday morning

and I went to roll over and it felt like someone took a baseball bat just caved me in the back. Followed with two branding irons right in my both buttocks

and I said Oh my God.

Monday night 9:00 I was begging a friend of mine to take me to ER and I got there and I said I want the biggest shot of Dilaudid my ass you can find.

Now this is a guy I've been sponsored for years, about eight years sober. He'd never seen me cry. By God he saw me cry. I said give me a piece of wood and he said what fork? I said because if I biting on, I'm going to bite on your goddamn arm.