The topic of spirituality at the Third annual Fellowship Of The Spirit convention in Cuyahoga Falls, OH

Everybody. I'm Mike, alcoholic,

man. What a great day. What a great, great, great day, man.

You know, like the Home group. I somebody said Mike should probably do talk. I was like, man, this is my Home group. Why don't you let me get off one of these years or something. So I really felt that way. I really like man, maybe I shouldn't do it. Maybe we should let some males go. So it's conflicting for me on the inside. But then, you know, somebody said who you, who are you to say that God wants you to do

so I could just do what God wants me to do. So I, you know, spirit spiritual speaker,

the best way I can tell you about anything spiritual is to tell you my story and share my experience with you. Everything that's spiritual for me is counterintuitive to anything I think. Everything I think is of me inevitably. So I'm going to just tell you just real quick, I got sober in the Bay in the basement. I have. I've been in five adult institutions,

penitentiaries. I've been in Oriental House 15 times. I was in CDCF twice. I was an IVH three times. I was replicated to the Department of Youth Services three times. I was in foster care.

What's that mean? They don't mean much. It just means that's my life. And I don't want to separate myself from nobody, especially no new person my telling that. But I just want to share the power of God with you. And that's that's the best way I can do that. So I get out of the penitentiary. I got nowhere to go

November 8th, 2008, and this is what I said when I went to the penitentiary. I'm never doing it again. I'm never drinking ever again. This time I'm serious

because the last 100 times I said I was serious, I must not have meant it. That's why my mind, my disease tricked me to think. You, you know, this time you mean business like I didn't mean in all them other times. So I got all the penitentiary close time to go home, come. And I started thinking about the drink more and more. Now about a couple days getting out, I can't sleep 'cause I'm thinking about the drink. So they called me to the quartermaster. It's time to go. And all I can think about is the drink. I got no other thought on my mind. I'm obsessed. I've been

for a while. I've been doing some things in Century, let me be honest, I've been doing some stuff,

but my intention was that I was never going to do this again. So all I can think about is getting drunk. That's all I can think of. So I get out of the penitentiary and I don't want to waste my gate pay on a bus to get home. I want to take my little $75.00 that they give me and I want to go get drunk and that's all I care about. I don't care about tomorrow. I don't care. Alcohol is my solution. It's going to make all this go away,

all this pain, all this fear, all this stuff, shame and guilt and all this stuff. So I get out and that's exactly what I do. I got arrested on the same day. I got all the penitentiary for the fifth time for it's not important, but I got arrested on the same day in my state clothes, the clothes they give me to wear home. I got out. It was a minor misdemeanor. I got out of jail, had nowhere to go and no one to call. So I just went to do what I knew how to do. The best way I knew how to do is I just hit the streets. I end up moving

drug house on West Side over on Rhodes Ave. The house ain't no longer there, but I lived there and every time I didn't live there, I just didn't leave there. How about that? I didn't. I just didn't leave. So

one, one time out, one night, I was on the bench. I was on a bench for a couple days now see if somebody shared. Do you drink alone? Depends on who's buying, right?

And I got I didn't found a way to get some more and I didn't want to share with nobody. So I went out of my own and I was all by myself and now I washed out. It's been a couple days went by, I ain't showered and I went back to the home which was which was the dope house over in West Akron and the house has been boarded up.

So I just stayed away for another day or so and I had nowhere to go so I just broke into the back door. So my last few months

where I lived in abandoned basement over there in Rose Ave. So I'm living out there and I'm drinking the lit, I'm living the drinking, I'm drinking the lid. I got no other purpose or no other hope. My mind is completely consumed with the drink. I can't even think about anything else. I got two kids and I say they're better with any man but me because I can't stop. I didn't promise you and myself 1000 times. I'm never going to drink again

over and over. How do I get here again I'm never going to do it. How do I get here again I'm never going to do it again. Let me go to rehab let me do this let me do that Let me go to what do I commit to A A 1000 times with the ones he told me don't drink and go to meetings. I can't not drink and go to meetings. As soon as I leave the meeting I'm drinking and I'm not coming back to the meeting while I'm drinking. I can't do that. So guess what, I thought A don't work. Not for me.

It must be. It must be a place where somehow people who really don't have it that bad, they just rally around each other and somehow make it so. I believe for myself, there was no hope. I hadn't been Waller. And like you said at the altar, begging, please save me. Please. I got baptized six or seven times because I thought it didn't take. I did. I did. I got saved 100 Times

Now. I ain't nothing wrong with that. Ain't nothing wrong with that. See, I got something else going on. I got alcoholism. See identification.

So here's what happened for me. I was out on the bench 2-3 in the morning, got no more washed out, can't get another drink, can't still know the drink because the gas station is locked up. You got to go through the window. So I did what I knew to do. When you're out in the middle of night and you're living like I'm living, I started to steal. So I broke in the van and police drove by and they just kept on going. So I thought they were after someone else. So I kept on stealing all the car I was in. And then they came back. But it was a whole bunch of them.

And I had bags of change I found in that van, but I couldn't carry it because they were too heavy. And I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran and I couldn't get away. I mean, I ran and ran and ran and couldn't get away

and I just didn't want to go back to jail. I just didn't want to go back to jail. So I made it last gasp. And my last gasp was the one run through these bushes. And I hope that the cops aren't going to see me. They're not they're not going to get me if I just bail through these bushes. So I run as hard as I can. My run is literally just a walking looking like a rock because I've been running so long. The cops too. I mean, they've been running after me for hours. So I bailed through these bushes and the bushes that I, it was night time. It actually was the top of the tree and I hit the top of the tree and I fell down

branches and landed on some railroad tracks and my only thought was, oh, I don't think they're going to chase me down here. I think I got away. That's it. I walked, I didn't know where I was. I was in East Akron. I walked the railroad tracks. So I found something. I knew I came out on Arlington Street and I lived in West Akron and and I was washed up. Now I just don't care no more. I just want to just want to get back to I just want to go get some rest. So I

I went back, I walked back down Market Street. That's the fastest way back to the West side,

straight down East Market, through downtown, up West Market Hill and back to Rhodes Ave. where I live. So there's there's the beginning of spirituality for me. Here's the beginning. God has reached out to not, I know today, now this is just my story, but I can look back today and see God in the very worst pit of my life.

So I'm walking down Market Street and I get to the Route 8 bridge right there by City Hospital and I weigh about 175 hundred £70 a day. At this time. I'll probably wait about 100 and 15120. Maybe I only own one. Maybe if I'm lucky to change clothes. There's no water in that basement, there's no heat in that basement, there's nothing. There's nothing. That's how I'm listening. I steal food from the Circle K

and I, when I miss a food, I mean like some TV dinners and I steal them TV dinners and I cook them outside on twig fire in the backyard

over there. Rose Ave. That's what I was doing. So I'm walking down roads, I'm walking down Market Street. I get to the City Hospital Bridge or the Route 8 bridge, and I see my arm because I'm walking. I've been walking. I'm so tired. I looked at my arm. It was this big and I'm nothing but skin and bones. And it reminded me of how my arm, being that skinny, reminded me of how much I hated myself. Pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization. There's nothing I wouldn't do for another drink.

It don't matter who you are, that don't matter who I am, 'cause King alcohol root for me and that had to be served.

And that meant at the expense of everything of me, morals, values, pride, ought. It didn't matter no more

so I've seen. I just hated myself. I wished I was dead. I begged God to kill him through power, to kill myself. I tried a couple times. It didn't work. So I see my arm and I hated everything about me. I looked up to the sky and without no effort nor thought or anything, I played a prayer. And I didn't mean to pray. I promised I didn't mean to pray. I said I'm hungry. That's exactly what I said, man, I'm hungry. And I meant it like this,

you scandalous God who lets me live this miserable life. I'm hungry. That's pretty much it. And I'm telling you what from about me to Daryl. Soon as I look down, there's a slice of pizza on the sidewalk.

Now,

maybe someone threw out the window.

I don't know, but I know I prayed. I was hungry. There's a slice of pizza on the sidewalk. I picked the pizza up.

I picked the pizza up and examined it. It was cold out, so there's no bugs. I weren't even looking for bugs, but you never know. It was on the sidewalk, right? So I it was perfect. It was a perfect piece of pizza. With

it was like commercial Pizza Hut.

So I picked pizza and I held it like I bought it and I walked down Market Street eight months slice of pizza. Do you think I thought to say thank you? I didn't even think it was God, I didn't even know. I just thought, oh, I just come across a slice of pizza on the side of my bone,

right,

That's it. So I get back to my band basement and I got to go in the back door because, you know, I don't want nobody. So one thing I noticed is that

the back door is hanging on two hinges so I was a little strange. So I looked in and I found out that something broke in my abandoned basement and stole my abandoned stuff.

And I thought to myself, breaks in the band and guy's house and steals abandoned guy's stuff. They must be just terrible, you know,

So I was a little scared. So I, you know, examined the house. I did a little search and nobody was in there. So I shimmying up the door and I went over to my stash. It was a medicine cabinet in the basement. It wasn't in the bathroom. It just hanging it just leaning on the wall and in that medicine cabinet kept the stash of Wintergreen rubbing alcohol. And I took me a couple shots of that rubbing alcohol and I'm going to tell you why I drink rubbing alcohol. Maybe you never drinking rubbing alcohol, nothing like that. And that's not, I don't want, I don't say to separate myself from you. But let me tell you what happened for me.

It quit working. I couldn't get drunk and I couldn't even get high no more nothing. I did work. I would get all excited when I cop. I get all excited when I get a bottle and I drink it till it poured out the side of my mouth and I get no buzz at all. And I'd be like, there's something wrong. And in my mind, I was losing my mind. I thought these people at the Circle K must know how bad I am. And every time I come in to buy something, they switch it with some fake stuff.

So I go to the other side of town to try to cop and it did. I just couldn't get drunk no more. It would just eluding me. And here's what happened. See, that's a miracle. I know that today. Here's the miracle net. Had it kept working, I'd still do it

because alcohol is my solution now. The emptiness and the pain inside of Maine grew bigger and bigger and bigger and it damn near drove me crazy. So I started drinking and rubbing alcohol because it did something. I don't know exactly what it did, but it did something. I'll tell you, it made me. It took me out of me just a little bit. It burnt. It was killing me. It was literally killing me. So I took a couple shots of rubbing alcohol and here's the miracle for me, man, there's so many miracles.

There's just so many. I took a couple shots of rubbing alcohol and I pulled my bed mattress off the wall

and I get some blankets and I get what I could because it's cold outside and I just want to go to sleep. And every thought that the my mind just started racing with these thoughts. Remember all the times you said you was never going to drink again? Remember when you promised them you wasn't going to do it? Remember when you got baptized and you got saved? Remember you promised your kids you was going to be there for them. And all these times kept coming and ringing to my mind. Oh, and here's what I come up with. Even when I meant to do good, I can't because

here's where I used to believe that I when I said I wasn't going to do it anymore and when I said I was going to take care of my family and get a job and do these things in that thing, here's what I thought. Here's what I thought happened. I didn't really mean it. I must not have really meant it. But see, here's what happened in that basement. I found out I really didn't mean it, but I couldn't do it. I was powerless

so I filled my knees and see. Please help me. Please God help me.

Nothing happened right in and there I went to sleep and I woke up and I don't know what time it was. There was no clock. All I know is still daytime. That's it. I went outside. I went to the front of the roads Ave. And here's the first. Here's where I started seeing just my whole life started changing. See the little girl riding bicycle with training wheels on across the street. She was happy as can be. Not a care in the world. She must have been 2.

I looked across the street and I seen her and I said, man,

God loves that little girl. I knew it in my place where you know stuff.

I'm serious.

God loves that little girl no matter what she does. She's 100% pure and innocent and there's nothing she can do to stop God from loving her. And it made me weep. I cried

then the next next thought or intuition that I had was this Michael, God loves you the same way and it was unbelievable, but I knew it and I cried. So I walked down the circle Ki Panhandle $0.50 off of somebody to use the pay phone and I called someone. I begged him for a ride. Please come get me. Please. I just need a ride. Where are you going? I'm going to a meet. I didn't set up my I didn't have no planner that I'm going to meeting on this day. That's certainly what happened. I was led here.

I was led here,

so I finally convinced him to come pick me up

and they dropped me off here. This church is a different meeting, this place. And here's what happened. She had to run from police. And I've been living that basement. There's no washing machine down there, no soap, no toothbrush, nothing.

And I was deathly afraid what you thought of me because I had fricker bushes in me from running from the woods and stuff like that. I weighed 120 lbs. I've been eating TV dinners off the twig fire in the backyard. I didn't got over on anybody and anything. I hated everything about me. And if I hated everything about me, you got hated and about me too. So I was scared when I come in here that you guys was going to judge me. I don't even know. It would just be common sense to stay away from me, right? So I thought when I come in and everybody's going to go to this side of the room and I'll be by myself.

You see, that's what I really believed and I was scared to death. But somehow, in some way or in some form or fashion, me knowing that God loves me as much as you love that little girl gave me. See, I didn't I didn't have my own willingness. I can't like the power is my real dilemma. I ain't got no determination. It comes from God. I can't live this any spiritual principle in my own strength

if it'd be selfish for me to think so. I gotta have God's help. God, give me just a little bit of help.

He said, go on in here, give me a little bit of willingness. And the willingness was this. Everything you do fails once you try doing something you don't want to do. So I come on in the meeting, nobody laughed at me, nobody made fun of me, nobody did anything like that. Matter of fact, they showed me where the coffee was. I don't remember who the speaker was. All I remember is that they had coffee and there was cake, 'cause I was hungry. That's it. So I got some literature. I went and I went outside to bump the cigarette off somebody and I said

can anybody take me back home?

And they took me back to my bandit basement W Akron. And this is what I did for my first few days sobriety. I read my big book and I found a Bible and I lit a candle and I prayed God please help me. God please help me. God please help me in my biggest dream I could dream and muster up was if I could just be sober and homeless. If I could, if I'm going to be homeless, just let me be sober. Please. I just don't want to drink and I can't not drink. Please. I just read this stuff like it was air or water or food.

Oh, man,

please help me, God, please help me. Because the prayer worked. It was desperate. It wasn't me trying to manipulate God and doing what I think is right to do. You see, my way don't work. I got to have God's helping. It ain't. It can't be orchestrated by Mike.

So I got it. I went up to the King school meeting to the fired my sponsor when I was in rehab when I'm times because I don't know why, because I was in rehab. I didn't know no better. And so I remembered he was at that meeting. So I went up there to get a sponsor and I found him and I said, will you please sponsor me and I'll do anything you tell me to do. And he gave me some suggestions to do and I did them and my life started to radically change. I ran into Roosevelt and probably the next. That same day was on a Wednesday

was done at the Brown baggage meeting.

Take me up to to the detox because I need to be in treatment. And why I need to be in treatment was because I need to get off the street. It wasn't because I thought I needed to be in treatment. See, I was still shucking and jiving a bit. So again, his number, he told me to call and he said, this is what I do. I just call people and I say, hey, it's Roseville, I'm just calling touching base. So I said, OK, well, if it worked for him, I'm going to do it too. So I started doing that. Start calling people and say, hey, it's Michael, I'm just calling touching base. But the problem with me calling people in touching base is I didn't have a phone.

So what I would I was able to get my hands on a little cell phone and I go down to the library and I go do a little survey to put one minute on my phone and I was about to take 5 surveys a day. So I get 5 minutes. I use them on 5 minutes and I call one of you guys say, hey, it's Michael, I'm just calling touching face. What do I do? How do I do it? Where do I go? Where's me what do I do? Can you pick me up whatever. And you guys knew where to take it from there. So I so I'm doing this all the while they quit. They're doing that survey thing and let me just tell you about how powerful

God has showed up for me. Just that phone thing saved me because it got me out of myself and did something I didn't want to do, which was call you. I didn't want to do it because I need to do this on my own because I'm a man, right? Or I'm a woman. I don't need nobody, right? So I my phone was dead. No longer forget, no minutes. I don't know how to call nobody no more. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm down at the library doing some step work and I passed the pay phone

at the 2nd floor right by the restroom and it said out of order and I said yeah that seems about right. So I said, what the hell,

grease. My pocket had a nickel. I put my nickel in the phone, got my list of phone numbers. So they told me to get at least two every meeting. I called one and it rang and then he picked up and said it's Michael. I'm just calling, touching base, and now they're talking to me. I'm not paying attention because I'm surprised the phone worked off a nickel and it was out of order. Maybe that's why I was out of order.

I got off the phone. I was so amazed I hung up and getting my Nickelback.

So I kept calling. God made a way for me. So see here's here's my experience. Maybe it's not your experience. Here's my experience. Just like Nick said, God don't miss. If I just do what I can, whatever to the best of my ability, God does the rest every single time. God has never failed me since I've been sober ever once. And matter of fact, he never failed me when I wasn't sober.

He just never did. He has to hate going to jail. I used to hate it. Nobody likes going jail. Had it not been to jail,

I might not be here to save my life, you see, So I bought four months over. It's why you know my story. I didn't did the sponsorship thing where I was supposed to go around and ask people what step one was. Go around and ask people what step two was, ask people. So what step three was fine, Whatever, It worked a little bit for me. I will stay. I stayed sober and I was starting to lose my mind and I was invited to the workshop where Jack was and I went up there and like you guys heard my story of too much a a so six months old about to lose my mind. I asked Jack to sponsor me and he took me to the big book

that you heard talked about here today, page for page, line for line and revolutionarily changed my life. One of the very first miracles that happened for me was I got a phone call in the middle of the night and phone calls that my little girl's been molested. That was just a phone call. But how do you deal with that? And I've been in jail all these places in my whole life and I didn't know what to do. So I put my boots on and I went to her. That's the best I need to do and I did. I knew enough to do this. Pray God, please, I don't know what to do, please, you know? So I prayed and

out there it turned out that what you think of when you hear that is what I thought of when I heard that it wasn't actually true. What happened was another girl who was probably 13 or 14 years old. My little girl was five or six at the time. She was just wanting to know about some stuff and use my little girl to figure it out.

Semala little girl didn't know me. I've been in our jail. I'm on the streets and drinking my whole life. So I got hurt. You know, I even had I got hurt. My daughter's mother's name is Rachel. I purposely got Rachel pregnant because I thought if I had a little girl I was going to be able to stay sober.

My little girl was born. I stayed silver for about three or four days and it didn't work. I was back out drinking again

immediately. So abandoned my children. I got a boy and a girl. So I I went to work the next day. I didn't have no skills. Some man in the program gave me some skills. Just like you heard that men talking about today. I teach them. Somebody taught me. Somebody gave me a chance. How can I, how can I never say no to someone who wants a chance?

So I'm at work in a mad at God. I'm like, God, you're blessing me, you're showing me I'm crying when I get on the bus because the old lady did something nice for the other old lady. I see God everywhere I go. How's my little girl suffering and I'm getting blessed and I'm a scumbag. That's my truth. That's my true prayer. And I'm on the ladder in my and the guy said, did you ever think about calling children's services? You know what I said? We don't call children's services where I come from.

That's what I said to him.

I didn't know. That's what I believed. That's how work my mind was. And I'm telling you that. And if you're new, what's up against you is everything inside your mind. Every the disease centers in our mind, it will tell me to do things that seem good but are bad for me. And just like Roosevelt said, I have to listen to somebody else tell me what to do or I'm doomed because my way don't work. And even when I got good intentions, I inevitably fail.

And when I do right, I end up doing wrong because the disease centers in my mind, it's cunning, baffling and powerful and it has always won. And I need some power and I need it quick and I better get it in my ways. Not going to work. So I went home that day. I prayed about, I called children services, turned on to the 40th phone call in regards to well-being in regards to my daughter. So they went and interviewed my little girl at school. And when my little girl got off the bus at that day at school, the police were there, took her mother to jail.

There's a lot more than just what I said. And it took my daughter to to a foster home.

Now they called me and told me to come get her, but they wouldn't let me come get her because I got a record. I got a bad record. It's pretty extensive. It was really, I mean, it's, it's extensive as it is then. But it was fresh there. So they said, you know, you must just you must just stay away. So at this time, I'm going through this workshop with Jack and I'm learning a whole bunch of stuff. I'm learning what alcoholism is. I got an illness, I got a physical allergy, All these things I had no idea. See, I'm not powerless for no reason. I'm powerless because I have an illness

that makes me powerless. You see now I got some power today. It ain't mine. I got some power today.

Step 2 come along. And I don't want to go through all that because we ain't got no time for that. But if something changed my life and you heard a little bit about it today from Lynn, it says when I lay aside prejudices and express a willingness to believe that I will commence to get results. And we do that just like Lynn talked about what do I believe about God? What do I not believe about God? What am I prejudices? You see, now I've I've been telling you I believe in this. And you know, Jack told me no matter what your grandma believes, it don't matter what the preacher on TV believes.

This matters. If you were all by yourself, what do you believe? See, gotta get down to brass tacks,

you see. And I was told to go somewhere to read that to God. And I was scared to read that to God. And I did. I said, God, I believe this and I believe that and I don't believe this. And This is why this and my experience was this. Nothing audible, but it was sure intuitive. Who do you think you are? And I shrieked and the voice in my heart said this. It don't matter to me what you believe, what you don't believe.

It never changes me, it only changes you. And I love you.

So then we went to do that third step.

Selfishness and self sentence was root. All my troubles and I could look back through my life and see how I always thought if I could just get a car, if I could just get a license, if she just did that, if they would just treat me this way if I got a break here, if this would happen for me, if I had a better job. Me, me, me. MMM.

And I had to be rid of this selfishness or was gonna kill me. And I couldn't get rid of the selfishness of my own strength. I had to have God's

health. So we got down on our knees for the third step for it together and every fiber of my being. I gave myself to God as best I could there, and I wrote it. It wasn't no checklist inventory. Same with the fellows. We got down to causes and conditions. We got down to brass tacks. This changed my life. So I went to see my little girl, but they told me that my record was too bad. So I was reading my fifth step jacket, the first floor of Mayflower, to my sober house. Time was up but I had nowhere to go out and live at the Mayflower

down the 1st floor. Reading this step, I told Jackie he gave me a school and on the way to the CSB

as fast as can be here, show you present yourself, here's what you do, here's how you talk to him, here's when you don't talk, blah, blah, blah. And I heard it all, 'cause he was doing it here in the meetings. So I went up to that place and all these people were trying to get custody. My little girl, I didn't know him and I was able to disagree like a father. And I said, Sage, your honor, please, I think my daughter would be best with me. You see, I disagree and I was able to to disagree with with people without ripping them a new one and it interrupting them. I was able to do it respectfully.

They didn't give me my little girl. They put her with something. They let her stay in the foster care, but they didn't give her to nobody else. So I started doing the visitation thing. I go see her and she's allowed to come with me for the weekends. I got my first place right up the street here, little little one bedroom apartment

above a garage. Boys. I proud as could be for that little place. God was just I just knew. I just knew. So I'm going these things, everything that children services wanted me to do, I was doing knockoffs, anonymous. All they could have me to do is go do urine tests. So they give me a voucher so I don't have to pay for them. So I have to go down there whenever I had a chance. I sometimes go down to three times a day and say, hey, you know, when the judge, here's the here's the here's the reason.

When the judge sees this, he's going to, I mean business. I'm fighting for my little girl, my little. I'm her father.

So I'm working steps. I got that fifth step done. I go to Saint Thomas

and I do a seven step, My creator. It was easy. It was it was not easy in the way that I wanted to do it so bad. I did it over and over again because I was scared it wasn't going to take. I've seen myself for who I was in the 4th and 5th step. I didn't like it, you see. Please remove from me every single defective gift you see.

And I left all that Saint Thomas Hall light as feather

changed my life. So I'm doing this whole deal. I start making amends. I'm not can't go into all this stuff, but I could talk about it for a long time. But I go to children services and they really just weren't on my side. But a few months went by and me visited and with my daughter and me doing what I was supposed to do. And following that went to Court One day and the unbelievable happened. The prosecutor, the children's services, the Guardian line said. Your Honor, we recommend that Amaya Blower be put in full custody of her father, Michael Blauer.

I won't even a year sober yet.

So I got this little girl. And guess what comes now? Practicing the principles in all my affairs. How do I do that? I need more God than I ever did. And when I got my little girl, I was scared to let her go to school. I was deathly afraid to let her go to school. I wanted to watch over every single second, every single day. She'd been through the ringer and God's been loving me with an unfathomable love. I got to share it with her

and I just need to, I got to do, I got to keep it right here.

I can't let her go. So I did a hard thing. I said, God, Ioffer a Maya to thee to build with and do with as you will relieve me from the bondage itself. And I cried the whole while. You see, my little girl's been, she's an athlete. You see, she did good in school. She always gets good grades. Now let me tell you the difference. Now,

you know, school gets out a little early. I could, I mean, I don't mind it to go another hour no more. You see, it could go longer,

so I get some more stuff done. I'm just saying. But it works and I trusted, see that was difficult for me to let go of my daughter to God. It was so hard. I got opportunity to do some amazing things in the community. I got an opportunity to work in the juvenile prison down in Mansfield for a couple years with the youth. They gave me the keys to the prison. I got 5 numbers. It's crazy.

It don't make no sense. You see, it's just my I've got, I signed up to coach softball, my little girl plays softball. I signed up to coach. They let me do it.

I couldn't believe it. This is my 7th year coach and this year we were in first place and we're doing fall ball soon as I leave here tonight. Got practice at six. My little girls. I get to be a mentor, a coach,

a a a role model to little girls. My daughter's 14. You see, I got some of the most amazing friends that I could ever dream or imagine as a direct result of trying to do something away other than my own.

See, alcoholism is killing people rapidly. You see, if you look at your own experience, snap you for one second of sanity, and you can look back to your life and say, did it ever work before? Did your way ever work before?

Tried before and failed. I got to try something new. Let me get a sponsor. Do whatever they tell me do 'cause I'm going to tell you what my mind is going to tell me not to do it.

God can. God couldn't, would if he was salt Man. I'm 4:00. I'm going too long. But listen, I love like you heard Tony say. I love you even though I don't know some of you. I genuinely in my heart, in that place I was talking about, love you sincerely. I do. I've been given a gift and it's not just for me, it's for you too. It's free,

simple. You see, I love it. Thank you.