The topic of 'What God Can Do!' at the Third annual Fellowship Of The Spirit convention in Cuyahoga Falls, OH

Good afternoon family. Roosevelt making you alcoholic.

I need y'all to help me out. Get this started one more time with the string. Please

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Man, I am very very nervous y'all. But that's OK. God do what he do.

Like I said my name is Roosevelt Magnum. I am alcoholic. I'm a sobriety date is January the 19th of 2001.

My sponsor's name is Manny De Franchi, my grand sponsor's name is Dale Starkey, and my Home group is the Turning Point Friday night 8:00 meeting on the corner of 91 and Albright.

First, I would like to

give all the speakers to spoke. Another hand of applause please.

I would like to also give thoughts a hand of applause for putting on such a beautiful afternoon.

Beautiful food. Got it. Got to clap out the food. The food was good. You know,

like food.

Oh man, oh man, you know I'm a crybaby today. You know, I didn't used to cry the other.

It was a time with no tears coming on on me, you know, but I am so, so thankful for God doing what he do in my life.

I just want to say a few things, Darrell. You know,

I didn't know

I got here. I didn't know I was a barbarian when I got here. I didn't know how to act. I didn't know how to conduct myself. I I didn't know what y'all thought. Y'all had a plan, you know, against me. I thought it was something, you know, there was some kind of ulterior motive y'all had for me getting here and and y'all being so nice. That's where I come from folks. Wasn't trying to be nice.

You know, they was trying to get they can get just like I was trying to get what I could get.

And I'm glad you etiquette, etiquette if without a sponsor following him around like a little baby, you know, and how I got there is this is how I got there. I've been in the revolving door for several, several years.

Round and round and round and round. I'd have been, excuse me. And, and Lynn, like you said, it's two different indices. I went to church, you know, went to ministers training, deacons training, all these different things. You know, what struck me the most was I was married to my first wife and we were sitting in the living room one day and I was drinking a beer. And she jumps up and she says I'm going up to the Bible,

I'll see you later. And when she comes back, she says I'm not drinking no more. I'm not doing none of that no more. And I looked over at her, OK, for 15 years I waited for her to come back, you know, and I noticed she getting happier and happier. And God is, is just in her life and the joy and the freedom and 'cause I remembered it, I come to 3:00 in the morning or I wouldn't come home for days and she would be wide awake. But after she started doing what she

to do for her, I remember I come home and she'd be there snoring, sleeping, like I'll get up. I'm like, oh, you ain't worried about me no more, you know? It's just that she had got the peace of God in her life. So I tried that. I wallowed on the floor in the church. I cried. I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do and I just couldn't grasp.

I couldn't grasp it till I got here.

I wanted to have a personal relationship with God too.

I come around here and I see y'all see like y'all was just floating across the floor. Seemed like y'all was just so happy and joyous and free and I just want. I wanted some of that, but I was unwilling to do

what I needed to do. What y'all suggested that I do or what you told me to do. I don't know about y'all. I come up from out there in them streets and it was uncut, just as raw as it could possibly be, Ross. It could possibly be. So when I got here, I needed that same thing. Take the cut off of it. Tell me to sit down and shut up. I don't know, y'all see? Oh, boy. I don't know what I needed that I didn't like it.

You know, a couple times I wanted to snap some neck,

but I didn't want to drink.

So had to adopt OK instead of yeah, but

and that's what I begin to say, OK, And study. Yeah. But you know, I don't know about y'all, but when that, you know, when I got here and

I asked Dale to be my sponsor and y'all said get somebody that you don't like and somebody that, you know, you just don't care about. And I never did like John Wayne.

Dale looked like John Wayne, walked like John Wayne, talk like John Wayne. But I watched him. I watched him up there, Saint Thomas on that detox ward study, working with another alcoholic day in and day out, through cancer, through surgery. I'm watching him work

with another alcoholic. And I got up enough courage, enough courage to ask him would he be my sponsor? I called him out in the parking lot over there across from emergency. I asked him would he be my sponsor? And he said, are you willing to do a few things? And I said, look here, if you tell me to go stand on this roof at this hospital, I'll stand up there until you tell me to come down.

And I meant it. I meant every word of it. And I still mean it today,

and I'll tell you later on about that.

He started me off with the four absolutes, foreign language, honesty, purity, unsupervised and love

foreign language. To me, I wasn't living like that. I was living like a ball Baron. And he told me this and this is one of the greatest things that he could have told me. He said, Rosie, just work them to the best of your ability. See, because I deal with 100 forms of fear. The book told me, see, I don't know about y'all. Fear still rattles my cage every morning. First thing you know, and then immediately I have to go into prayer. Immediately I have to go into meditation. So

God here and, and, and uh, you know, I had the fear of success and the fear of failure and I'm trying to get somewhere in the middle here see, because when I come around here and. And I thought I had to be perfect, you know, early on I had to do everything right. And just as soon as I make a mistake, I think y'all would laugh at me, talk about me, not accept me. I couldn't be a part of and

run. I would leave,

but I come to find out some things.

You know, I, I sit around his room and that guy say he stand up and they say he got anniversary. I got 30 years, I got 40 years, I got 50 years. And somebody would say, how did you do it? And he say I didn't drink and I didn't die. And you know what I seen, I seen a whole bunch of life in between here. I seen mistakes,

I see failures, I see misunderstanding. I seen all these things, but they did not drink

and I felt I stood a chance.

So that's what I started doing the best I could do. One day at a time, you know

the steps.

I don't know about y'all, but at the beginning I'm just trying to do what y'all tell me to do. I don't understand it. I got a 7th grade education. You know, my reading confidential level is low to none. I forget it as soon as I read it. You know y'all say read it again and read it again and read it again. And I kept showing up to these meetings and y'all kept talking about it. And I came to find out that it was the language of the heart.

All I had to do was keep showing up, keep picking up the big book for myself,

keep asking questions because I don't know that I don't know that I don't know. And it was OK, see, because I spent a lot of years trying to build myself up to say, yeah, I would say I knew when I didn't know. So you wouldn't think bad of me, So you wouldn't think less of me, you know, so that I'd be fitting in so that I could feel a part of. I didn't know it was OK.

There's another guy that come up. He used to say dummy up, dummy up, dummy up, dummy up.

Drop yourself to a zero. You know, you had to become teachable, you have to become open minded, you have to come willing. All this stuff, man, the foreign language to me. But the more I showed up, the more they said it and the more the repetition begin to set in,

Joyce said. Joyce said I would say this right quick. I was sitting over here, Joyce come over and she sat next to me. Now that was different.

She ain't never dated. Sit next to me, You know what I'm saying? She sat down there and I kind of thought she had something on her mind, but she ain't said. She waited, She waited. She waited. Then she eased it up under me. That was a time I wore my feelings on my sleeve.

I can't afford to wear my feelings on my sleeve today.

You know what I'm saying? And I'm open minded and willing. Why? Because God got me.

God got me and I know he got me. And she says, you know that thing you say it just bothers me to no end.

Don't put one in.

Let's see, Here's the thing. I'm in the program Alcoholics Anonymous. I am a proud member of the program Alcoholics Anonymous, and that is what I'm talking about. I simply will not put one in me no matter what, just for the day. I'm not going to put one in me. I'm not going to drink today.

I anyway,

the Al Anon lady on Vicki.

Vicki, you said it, you know, and I can remember they used to say it all the time. Who's the sickest? The one who throws up or the one who cleans it up, you know, and you just brought it back to my remembrance on how I treated my family, how I treated my employers, you know, how I treated my wife, my children. Everybody around me was talking about it

and I didn't understand. None of these things, man. But y'all kept, you know what? There's another thing that it was told to me every time I'd have a problem, you know, 'cause I was a great Winder when I first got here. You know, I had all these problems, all these problems, all these issues, all these things going on, and I caught my sponsor and he said pray about it,

man. That wasn't enough for me. But I did what he said and things would kind of subside. He'd give me a page or two in the book that he said I should go over and reread. I'd read it, not understanding it fully, but I'd reread it and I'd reread it and I didn't drink. And that was the main thing, man. See, because I drink about everything.

Everything was questionable to me. Anything. A good day, a bad day,

a right day, her own day, you know, a celebration. I would drink about it, you know? So in order for me to sustain this thing called sobriety, you know, this walk, this design for living that really works, I had to walk and stick and stay up under you guys. I got a sponsor. Not following around like a little baby.

He's shaking him, he's shaking, he's shaking him. I'm shaking hands. I don't shake your hand, he said. I'm trying to sit all the way up on me.

They're like a little kid. I had to get rid of the false pride and the ego

say it has to be smashed. I had to get rid of all them slick, hip and cool names. I'm just simply Roosevelt McNeil recovered alcohol, that's it. And what a great thing to be. I come to find out, you know, then when he started me off on the steps, you know, I see, I don't know about y'all, you know, the book tells me stuff like, you know, selfish, self-centered, egotistical maniac, inferiority complexes, all these different things.

That's not just for the beginning, that's throughout my life because that's who I am.

I got to have some to combat these things when they show up,

which was the steps

I want to go to this. What that gentleman said his name again,

Tony. Here's the deal,

young man. Here's the deal. Don't let nobody steal your zeal for what God has given you. Nobody and nothing

steal your zeal, see. Because there's two things here. There's the program Alcoholics Anonymous and there's the Fellowship.

I need that 164 pages to sustain my life. I didn't come here to make friends. I come to stop the pain. I come to stop the voices. See. Cause the voices scream in my head. They still talk to me. They just don't talk as loud.

You know, any given moment, any given time, they'll show up. But I know prayer works today

and that is the most thing that I do. I love to pray.

I love to pray. She was talking about a song that she was was listening to on the way here. I gotta I gotta ACD and it says just say yes.

Just say yes,

you know,

you know

this phase of my development.

There's a lot of different things that has transpired since I've been here, y'all? And it, this is based on a new people and I don't know whether not the old people, you know, Mike had said something about it. I was three years sober and I gotten so angry one day, so angry. And I didn't know why I was so angry, but I was just so angry that day.

I'm angry is him and I say, forget it, I'm going to give me a drink. And I walk around the corner to the circle Ki walk in the store to Circle K. And there was another gentleman in there and you could tell you didn't have some, but some change or, you know, just twos and fuse and he asking the lady as he stand in front of the cooler, how much this cost and how much that costs, you know, and I'm I'm angry, you know. So he had kind of stepped over to the side as he was still

communicating with her. And I open up the door and he says to the lady, man, that's a heck of a price for that.

I'll tell you what, God, see, God, see, I don't know about y'all, but see my last drink was in my momma's backroom where she allowed me to stay because I was homeless. And I she let me stay there periodically. But I've stole so much from her and lied so much to her and done so misty things. But she had unconditional love for her son. And she allowed me to sleep back there.

And after I didn't drink what I was going to drink that day, and the guilt and the shame and remorse had set in on me and the pain, you know, and what they could, the book costs about pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization had been set in on me. I knew about the rooms. I knew about the program. I knew about this here thing and I knew that it worked.

And one more time I got the gift of desperation and I said, God, please help me.

This is what happened for me.

I had old Craftsman toolbox set over in the corner when no more tools in it, but I had to box over there and my mama's and I went over there looking for some things in that box.

Here's a piece of paper in your ballot. And I thought I'd gotten lucky and I grabbed a piece of paper and I went over and I sat down and I opened my hand real slow and I'm taking my time real slow. And I'll open up this piece of paper and it's a number to another alcoholic. I don't know about y'all, but that was the first guy shot Roosevelt McNeil received. I didn't identify with it until later. You know, because God has set a chain of events

in order way before I got here. Way before I got here, He had already set these things in order,

you know, and I'm looking at this piece of paper and it was a gentleman that came by to see about me. Like, like Tony was talking about going to see about another alcoholic, you know, seeing, I remember, I remember the brothers come around and say, hey, how long you been sober? And I say 2-3 weeks, a couple months,

3-4 months, and he just kind of look at me and I know what he was waiting for, you know? How long you been sober?

January the 19th of 2001,

a date

that I don't have to never get another one ever again in my life. But see, it became personal to me in that backroom from that point to this point, 'cause when nobody in that backroom with me but me and God showed up for me. The book talks about the gentleman Jim, you know, and he says well.

We asked him

what happened

and at first he said he failed to enhance his spiritual life.

Later on I come to find out me and Mike at a meeting and he says he says well we asked him. He said he still did his thing again and we asked him what happened and Jim said, well, I came to work on Tuesday.

That was me.

That was me. I didn't come on Monday,

then forgot all about Monday. See, that was me. That's how I think. And then I come to work and I'm like, well, you know, shouldn't be a problem. I'm here. I forgot. I didn't didn't not showed up for this man for a whole day, didn't call off, didn't say nothing. And then this is what happens. I said, well, you know, we had a few words. What? Nothing.

I undermined everything that I've done. I got here and I got the man up like them young man was talking about. I got a man up on a daily basis. I got to be accountable for my actions. As time continues to go by, I have to understand that Roosevelt McNeil, the problem. I understand that God got me and God don't miss. All I got to do is hold on tight.

It's going to be a bumpy ride. You know? A man was talking about issues. She's married four times,

I was married twice and was getting ready to do it again.

I was getting ready to do it again y'all.

Not that it was a bad thing, it was a good thing. It didn't happen though. But here's the thing for me, this is what God has given me. God has given me a attitude that I still want to have a relationship with you.

I still want to love you because God is love. Just because we not together don't mean I'm I'm the perfect example is I'm dog sitting from a second wife. You know what I'm saying? She going out of town. She said can you keep the dog? Yeah, I can keep the dog. You know, we talk my first wife, we talk the other day we talk. I got a free ship with them today. And how did I get that? Through God, The 12 steps

in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to say this because this is I think what

I got hung up on at one time and I believe the gentleman had talked about it. The 4th and the 5th step for me, like I told you, selfish self centeredness. I'm looking to see what's in it for me. Early on steel was like that. Well, I do this. What's in it for me?

What was in it for me? What's in it for me?

Get the garbage out

so God could put some good in me.

You know, you can't put good apples on rotten apples. They all go bad. And we're doing that when they said, you know, he says, admit it to God. The book says, admit it to God. Myself and another human being the exact natures of my wrong. Here's the deal for Roosevelt. God already know

I believe he wanted to see would I humble myself, get butt naked honest with another man. And once I did that, I believe God said I can work with you now.

That's what I truly believe in my spirit,

you know,

so God don't miss me. He keep doing what he do, you know, I mean, I, you know, if you knew, I just want you to stay and talk to somebody. I don't care what problem you going through. I don't know who was talking about it. A week and a half ago.

I wanted to kill the contractor at my house. I ain't lying. I'm just telling you all the truth. I wanted to do something really bad to me,

but I did what Charles said do. I got on the phone while the contractor was there and I called my sponsor and I sit here and I told my sponsor I'm in a bad way right now and I'm ready to do him right now.

You know, I'm serious, y'all. I'm, I am very serious. And Manny, with his soft voice,

he just talked about a few things, said a few things.

You know, you're in a bad space right now. Don't do nothing right now. Just sit on where you at? I sit down. You know, he said a prayer and I sit there and I just kept sitting here and I kept saying the same thing over and over to him. And the contractor just left. So when I came back out, the contractor was gone. I said, well, Manny, he gone. He said, OK, that's good, That's good

point. Then

it's sinners. In my mind.

I got a kid of spiritual tools. I can pick them up or I can leave them down. But if I leave them down there, I'm in danger. If I pick them up, then I'm more likely to stay around one more day,

I'm more likely to not drink. I'm more likely to be able to be of service to another alcoholic. And that sustains me more than anything. See, when I went through the 12 steps the first time, it was a beautiful thing. But when I went through the 12 steps the second time with another alcoholic sitting down there, going from that very first page

to that 164 pages is when the effect really started to embed in my spirit.

Sponsor said don't sponsor no more than two people at a time. And that's what I do. And I continue to go from first page to the last page, 164 page and it continues to work. Nothing sustained me, keeps me sober as in working with another alcoholic. It just does,

you know, And that's why I'm here. I've been being fit.

I'm not fit. I'm continuing to be fit

for maximum service to God and those about me. I'm not hiding in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous because when the rubber meets the road,

can I maintain out? There

cannot be of service to God out there, you know, because you know it. 12 steps

is not just for the alcohol not to be utilized. See, I can utilize them with other people, you know, and not even know them. I ain't sitting trying to beat them in the air with this. That ain't what I'm here for, you know. But that kind voice that the steps continues to give me, you know, that open hand that asked that question to ask that question to ask that question

continues to be there for me. And with that, you know, God is good all the time. I got one more thing I want to say. That young, young man said, you know, I understand something to date it. You're only a child once in your life, but you could act childish all your life if you ain't careful.

And the way I continue to grow up, I thought at 18 or 21 I'm a grown man. No, I am still growing up and I will be growing up the rest of my life one day at a time. I just got some real tools today. I don't know about y'all. I couldn't wait to have somebody to tell me what to do.

You know what I'm saying? I couldn't wait to have a program where they say, well, you follow this just a work. I ain't got to come up with my own ideals no more.

If I follow this as simple and it works, bottom line, I ain't got to come up with a new idea. It works. This is it.

I used to stay on the street called Eureka

and I came to the program and I found

cater program, Alcoholics Anonymous in a family

stay,

stay one day at a time stay. It's good to see I got them and say this. It's good to see my niece.

Like you said, I got 13 grandchildren. I got five children. And any given moment in any given day, they can land here. I eat you.

I need you because it's late in the day for me.

I need you

and it's a beautiful thing to say that they that I need you. I need each and every one of y'all 'cause y'all are my wish.

My name? Roosevelt McNeil. I'm an alcoholic and I'm in it no matter what club, no matter what, just for the day I'm not going to put one in me. And you know why he go. I refuse to lose my place in life.