The Spiritual Lines group in Dallas, TX

Hey guys, I'm Art and I'm a recover that

I'm really glad to be here.

Remember speaking here a few years ago and it was a little different. I had a mic and speakers and it was a band or something going on back there. I'm going to take off my jacket because you guys don't look like you're dressed for this and I do.

So I'm really glad to be here

because I just got back from a

California convention in Denver.

First of all,

I'm a real deal crack addict. I started smoking crack when we were freebasing it back in 1985

and I smoked freebase for a few years till they came out with something shitty called crack cocaine and started making me paranoid and I kept smoking it. And it's important that you all know that I smoked crack for a long long long long time because I couldn't stop smoking crack because I absolutely fell in love with it. I fell in love with it at the expense of my family, my life, my mind, every job I ever had and everything I ever owned.

I gave it all away. It didn't take any of it. I gave it away

and I will do it again

unless I have a power

between me and that rock. So before I go on, I'm going to take a moment because the last thing you want to do is hear anything coming from me. You want to hear something coming through me because if it's coming from me, it's going to be dopeatic garbage.

And that was my whole life. Just a whole lot of me talking about nothing,

you know? So give me a moment and we're gonna kick this thing off.

That's about

so. I'm in Denver last week.

And a part of a community of recovery

that absolutely blew my mind. I've been to a few conventions in California and I had the fortune to speak at one last year. But this time I got to go as a non voting delegate and as a non speaker. But I willingly paid my way, drove to Denver, Co, spent a week there, sat in a convention with a bunch of dope friends about 300 of us, and had one of the most amazing

multi day experiences of my life. Multi day,

a community of spiritual fellowship surrounded by people who willingly wanted to be there

went out of their way to get there. There was people from Hong Kong, South Africa,

eight of the surrounding states, some further, some from California.

And I'm saying that because it saddened me to know that this place might close.

And we posted on the

the Conventions Facebook page after we left how much we loved the community or how much we loved the spiritual vibe, how much we love the this, that energy that was there. And some of the people posted back, they said, hey, guys, we were where you were.

Don't bail on them because that was like, we want to come to Colorado and be with you, with you, with your family, with your energy. This is amazing. And they've said, no,

we were where you were. And I remember I've been going to meetings in Denver, California meetings for a few years. I'd go up on business and I'd stop in and see me. So I know some folks up there. And it wasn't where we where we are today. It was smaller. I went to meetings and there was no one there anymore. I'm calling CAS Colorado page. I'm going to get a hold of it. I'm like, I'm standing in Boulder outside this meeting. It's not here. They go, oh, they close that three years ago while I'm at this other one. They go, no, you need to go to Dark Side of the Spoon.

OK, you and so I'm going to these meanings and and I'm wondering how are they? How are they holding it together? Because it looked like it was a trap house. The meeting seriously, people were coming. It was in the bottom of a church. They were coming in and out, all meeting long, and they looked like they were going out to get high and coming back in.

But they built something,

they went through some changes. It was hard on them

and I hope spiritual lines because I spoke here about five years ago and I hope we don't see this place go and I don't think it's going to go. I think we're committed to keeping it here. It didn't seem that way 8 minutes ago when that front gate was closed. I got worried, Y'all I said. I said, are we really going to have a meeting here tonight?

So I want to talk about a couple things. First of all, I love cocaine. Honest. Did I say that yet? Thank you. I do. I love it because it didn't save my life. It saved my family's life,

saved anyone who dealt with in his life.

I hurt people because I needed to feel better.

And I'm going to talk about surrender

and I'm going to talk about two kinds of surrender because what happened to me last week was every speaker that brought,

every speaker that was brought there and a message was spoken through them. They said the one critical thing I listened for, I listened clearly. When did that moment hit?

When did that moment hit? It never hits while I'm out there, by the way. Never hits while I'm out there, and it rarely hits while I'm in here.

There comes a point where it's before my recovery, then there's my after my recovery. And then there's that moment, that cathartic moment

that something changes.

And I heard people say and every speaker I heard had that moment. There was a crip, an ex crip speaking about recovery. He talked like a preacher now.

It was amazing.

There was a woman in there who does Indian sweat lodges talking about her moment of surrender.

The guy on the last night didn't use until he was 40 something, lost seven. Oh no, he used it 18 but he lost. He didn't get sober but he was 52, lost everything.

Another guy from Hong Kong didn't get sober till he was 457. First time using 52 years old, lost everything. A mansion in every business he owned. None of that makes him a dolphin.

Me losing and giving up and getting thrown in jail does not make me a dolphin.

There's a specific way I react when I put something in me

that the normal drinker doesn't have.

When I take that hit,

I don't feel it after that first one.

And I was taking

20 to 50 Cent pieces, and these are dollars, by the way,

at a time, and I wasn't getting that first hit I got in 1985 when I was rocking it up.

I wasn't getting that hit. I wasn't getting that feeling. I never got it again.

So I came from a very wealthy family from upstate New York. Wait, no, that's another guy.

I came from a very poor family. Single mom on welfare in five different states. Dad was in prison.

I needed a drink at a very young age. I needed at 5:00 and I got it at 12. So I was an insanely dry drunk

for seven years as a child

in need of a drink.

I needed a drink because I stuffed my feelings, because I hated my life and the reality I was put in. And I fought it and I resisted it and I was angry and I was scared and I was alone. But I called it. I just don't want to talk about it.

I just, I'm not going to talk about it. Nothing's the matter.

Everything was the matter.

Everything was wrong.

I find myself at five years old in an orphanage with parents. Think about that.

That shouldn't be happening.

I leave an orphanage and go to two foster cares. One day I'm really hungry and I find myself getting my hands burned on the stove because I snuck down and ate food in the middle of night at 7 1/2 years old.

That does not make me an alcoholic

or an addict. That just gives me warm fingers.

I got out of there. My mom was gracious enough to come back and

pretend to be my mom

and hold us off out of Cleveland, OH to New York City. And

that's where the fun started. It started young.

I started getting high. 12 years old. My mother was raped in front of our house on Christmas night,

this time against her will.

I don't know if you all know what that's about.

I used to protect her a lot and speak highly ever. Now I just don't understand why she was here other than the fact that I was the benefit of it.

I forgave her before she passed. Made a madness,

but I can't forget how it felt.

You know how I know I can't forget how it felt because I had to smoke a lot of rock to not feel it.

So

I'm really twisted up as a kid, and I get that,

that court of Miller High life and that joint with some friends outside of junior high. And

I felt, OK,

we're going around the circle. They're saying, hey, do you feel how you feel? High said. No, I feel good.

And that was the last day. I went to school

that day,

never went again. Why when to sell drugs? But I went out the back door immediately after I everyone went into class. There was no more people to sell to. I waited, came back at 3:30, sold again, and that's how my life went. I end up in juvenile detention because I'm a fool for 18 months. My mother does not come and get me for a truancy pick up at a mall. So I spent 18 months in New York State juvenile detention.

I'm in there with people. Well, I was also robbing houses and boats and shit like that, but I got caught. I always get called for the thing I didn't do, you know, like, oh, it's true, but that's what I was actually in for. So everyone was looking down at me like I was soft or weak. So guess what I have to do almost every single day? Fight

every day. That was my life. So that process, I get out of there

19 months on an 18 month sentence.

I come home, we're living in the project and Astoria, Queens,

because we were poor and

I was working in the city, and I come back from work on the subway and I walk upstairs and everything's gone again.

This time there's a note saying I can't handle this anymore. Here's the money for the rent

and there was nothing in the apartment.

My brother and I spent that money that night. I had nowhere to live. Couple months later I found out my mom's in Dallas,

flew here on the one way ticket, rode my bicycle to La Guardia report, left it there and flew here.

She left two months later moves to Biloxi, Ms. And I'm telling this almost like I'm not feeling it because I've processed this already. Guys, I've done this work on this issue, I've done the work on my problems, but none of them problems again make me a crack head.

This stuff has happened to people who aren't like me, who aren't addicted to crap.

So I get here. She goes to bloxy Mississippi. I joined the Army. I get thrown out of the Army in two months for drugs,

so I've got a good track record. I'm heading to prison soon because that's I'm institutionalized, literally. I'm seeing the progress.

It doesn't turn out that way. I meet a woman who decides to take care of me

and love me.

We have three kids together

and I ripped her life apart

every single day

with all my might

on purpose.

And I can't blame getting high on that.

Can't blame it.

So I'm going to Fast forward. My using turned on me in the summer of 1988.

Three years of freebasing,

getting into some crack in 1988. It turned on me. It was never fun again. I never used with a person. I sat in my closet or I drove around all night long.

Give an example. Most nights I could put about 400 miles on my car and I would go through like car washes. Pop ahead, go to a drive through, pop ahead,

drive under the overpasses, pop ahead, go into the next exits overpass. Papa hit

and I was getting so savvy because we I come in this way through Northwest High. When I passed the Northeast substation, I knew where they all were. I know where Central's is. I know where the one off of McCallum and Hillcrest is, so I know the one in West Houses. So I would avoid a police car Ever seen me twice ever. And I put a couple 100 miles on a car

one night. I am rocking it up off a Dolphin Rd. in Samuel at this motel. Scary out of there like a little scared rat. I end up on Harry Hines. I'm hitting at the Circle Inn and and the Luxury Inn and the Deluxe Inn and all the nice little comfortable resort hotels along Harry Hines.

And

so I'm heading out of there because now I'm freaking out and paranoid schizophrenic. I'm driving forward by looking in my rearview mirror.

I end up

going out I-80 past Terrell

because it was dark highway and I could keep hitting

and I have a crack pipe about this big now glass on both sides cutting my fingers open.

The shore had been smushed so badly that it would suck through when I hit.

I put a blast on. I do the head. I'm saying this because it's important that I see and know how sick I was getting and I blast that head. It went in. It was so bad in my foot, my head starts ringing. The chore was burning hot, went right down my throat. I threw up right through the pipe all over my lap. I had a 40 oz beer, went all in there,

take the chores, stick it back in and put another hit on and turn it the other way ahead again.

That was how I was getting high at the end.

That was a good time.

Fortunate enough that my

two stents of sobriety,

this was the surrender of the first one.

I end up rocking out for a while longer

than a while longer. Holy shit.

Six more years of that.

Six more grueling years of that.

So please kick in my door. My work is there. They thought I'd died.

Department looks like it's basically a hostage taking hideout. But I was the hostage and I had my own gun to my head. It was pitch black blanket, staple gun down the windows and I'm sitting in the closet smoking out.

I indignantly stepped over that door and I moved to Dallas.

Come up here and I hit a bottom. I end up

in the woods on Super Bowl Sunday in January 30th, 2000 and I fall on my knees and I don't have any words and I just say come on, man, I'm crying. I just say, come on, I've got poison oak and bronchitis and a disease of addiction

because I would walk around in the woods smoking crack and I was touching cheese and I'm from New York City. I don't understand trees.

It's all over me. I'm dying,

I'm itching on I have lice because I was staying on my friend's toler part with his dogs and sleeping on their couch. I had lice

and now I can't catch this.

I go back in his house. He goes, you can't sleep here at Super Bowl Sunday. We have people coming over. I'm freaking out. I

got three kids that I owe child support on. I got a vehicle that they're about to take. They've been looking for it and I got a newborn with another woman and I am unable to show up in my life or there's and I'm scared.

You have a phone book and that didn't come out of me easily. But what happened was when I fell to my knees, one sentence came out of says call a A.

He hands me the phone book. There's two meetings. Lake area

and seven points, meaning

I call him and they said come on down man. This is Steve. And I walked in there that day

and I went every day

and they cared for me. They were brutal.

They used to say to me, I don't, I please don't say this feel. They say, what's a piece of shit like you doing here

every day? Every day I walked in,

you ain't gonna make it.

You're going to be punching the dumpster by the end of tonight. Smoking crack.

And every day I'd wound up back there and every noon I wound up back there,

they would laugh at me and make fun of me.

And I remember one day about 60 something days in,

they said, this one guy specifically

reminds me of Yosemite Sam, Jimmy P, And he said what's a piece of shit like you doing here? Said I'm not a piece of shit. Goes up finally.

Thank you. No, you're not.

And I felt something rise up in me,

something real.

I was a human again, and no one was going to talk to me like that. I wasn't a junkie.

I wasn't going to rob you. I can be trusted. I was reliable

to the point of 60 days of recovery. Let's not forget that

that was a surrender point on that ice,

but it didn't last,

lasted 11 years. What happened at that period of time is there was a specific way I worked the program of this of Alcoholics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous.

See, I felt like that power stopped me. Sliver of time.

Before recovery life, I couldn't hear him because I was locked up in my own insanity, delusion, chaos. And after recovery, I couldn't hear him because I wouldn't listen. What happened was this. In that sliver of time, moment of grace, moment of willingness, the moment of clarity, I seized on it and I actually

cooperated. I said yes,

and guess what? I said yes to anything. At that moment, anything you wanted was better than me. Guess what happened the next day?

I know what I need to do to get sober.

I'm gonna do all this. I'm gonna do more. I'm gonna do it harder.

What I began to do was forget

and believed something that was very dangerous to me and it eventually put me back out there after 11 year sobriety.

Let me give you my next bottom. After 11 years sober, I have a surgery

for hernia. They put about a 7 inch slice up my side, put in a mesh. I'm good to go. I'm not a downer. I like to go fast and I like to go up. I like to go there quickly, as fast as possible. Faster than that even. They gave me 24

5325. If anyone knows what hydrocodones are you can get them in 10325 or five 325.

They're nothing To me. This is like man nothing. Don't feel it because I'm in a lot of pain.

They run out

and I remember covered, my sponsor knew I was taken. I had time at that 10 years

and

they gave me

another prescription for another 24

and that ran out and everything's fine.

And then all of a sudden I wanted one and I didn't have any.

Ever had that happen? Ever been there,

wanted one and didn't have any?

That's when Dopin art comes alive, and something in me changed right then.

I never considered what it was going to look like going forward. I never considered all the progress I've made behind. I never even thought about the insanity I was in at that moment that was going to guarantee that. Guess what? I'm going to smoke crack again behind a little white pill that I didn't even care about. Didn't care about that kind of high.

Needless to say, I relapsed like a rock star, like a champ.

This one was bad.

They all are. I don't minimize it or maximize. It's just what it is. I go back out because I didn't have a power between me and that hit

wouldn't listen. See, I've been running my program. I've been working my program

and that kept the power out of the equation because I was working my program.

I use crack for 43 days. Lost 30 lbs spent $25,000.

My wife was about to leave and I was walking around my house

cage Jaguar that was injected with crack cocaine.

I remember holding that pistol creeping back and forth

looking at my windows like this about 8 feet away from them, thinking they're coming Every. Anyone ever hear them coming?

They were coming, right?

It got to the point that I would lay on the ground and put my arms behind my back in the handcuff position so they didn't shoot me when they kicked my door in. They never kicked my door. They never showed my psychosis had taken over.

I'm doing pure hydrocodone from a compound pharmacist now making my own capsules.

I'm rocking 50 piece $50 pieces at a time blasting them. I didn't give a fuck.

My wife is crying. She had never seen me high.

I've got a mound of powder that I'm also cooking on a spoon because the crack wasn't strong enough.

And I'm taking Ambien simultaneously for the last month

every day. So I got a good cocktail.

I did. I had a good cocktail.

I did not want to stop. I literally spoke out of my mouth that night. She's looking. She was shaking.

She walked in. I stopped hiding it. I couldn't hide after 36 days or 43 days, couldn't hide anymore.

So I just put it out.

I'm crushing rocks with the back of a credit card. I'm not even gonna putting into a line. I'm just going to this falling out of my face and I go like Ric Flair that loud. I've never felt this good in my life, is what I spoke.

And I grabbed a handgun once I did that, and I did a hit.

It's falling out of my nose all over the floor,

and I'm gripping it to the point that my knuckles are white, my hands red.

And she walks the backs out of that room, closes that door

and doesn't sleep with me. For the first time we've ever been together.

I stayed up all night, but all night I was having fun. So I'm going between my office

and my bedroom and my living room

about every 14 seconds

and then in the closet back out and I'm messing with my

messing with my

home theater system that my friend Glenn put in five years earlier. He's in the program.

I start Facebook chat and Glenn on Ambien, crap powder and massive amounts of hydrocodone.

I've deepened the addiction. I'm deep in the insanity. I'm deep in the pain because I was covering a lot of pain.

The pain of failure, pain of the unknown, the pain of staying controlled by being out of it.

I wasn't enjoying my using anymore.

I wasn't using anymore. I was being used. I had been taken over by something I was being driven to use.

Something was getting off on my destruction

that morning. She wakes up, knocks on that door. I answer it and I had not closed my eyes once except I probably blink

and I had

sunken face, Gray toned skin of the impeccable Gray of the well to do,

she says. I don't think I'm going to be able to stay here, I said. I don't think you should.

She was. I'm scared for you, I said. So am I.

She left

all night on Facebook chat wasted.

Come to find out, I planned for Glenn to come over at 1:00 that day to fix my home theater system.

Well, it's 9:45 and I pushed that straight about 40-50 times. I'm out of dope. I'm scared I was high enough to kill three small children. Like if they had that content in their blood, they would probably die

the moment that hit was gone. That last one, I was terrified.

Nothing scared me more than being without

medicine.

I'm creeping to my house now because no more. I wasn't walking anymore. I was like on 1/2, bent, scared, fearful. When they come in, I don't know where to go look

and I see Glenn's car pulled up and I panicked

and I was like, I need to tell him one thing, come back at one. That's all I need to say,

that's all. But remember, I haven't really spoken much, but I was talking to myself in my mind all night

and he's coming up my stairs and I have glass doors. I can't really hide. Don't want to hide because Glenn's cool, you know?

And he opens. I come out this, I come out to meet him. I wasn't let him in. No one's coming in.

Come out

like that, They're like scared.

And I wanted to say come back at one and say this. I said, hey, I can't stop smoking crack. Any help? That's what came out of my life.

He just held me. My arms fell to the side

and I cried

and I've not smoked since that moment

because again I seized on a moment of grace, moment of clarity, and it did not last long, that moment.

So I got in there, timing and willingness

and I can feel how I gave up. My arms didn't go to hug him, they gave in. My shoulders dropped all the way to me, leaned on to him, my heads on his chest and I'm just crying and the game is over. And I knew the game was over right then.

It was over. I knew because I admitted it and I knew it.

I accepted it. I conceded. I was convinced simultaneously all of those things that once occurred and I was done and I felt free. And he goes, we'll go to a meeting. I said OK

at 7:00 tonight. I got scared.

It's 10-15 maybe. I go. I'm not gonna make it till seven. I made it.

That was a surrender point. I was listening to those surrender moments all last week at California. I listened to people when they talk about a surrender moment because if my surrender moment wasn't sufficient enough and powerful enough to propel me, see my crash site is my launchpad.

That crash site that morning was where I was going to take off from, not some other place down the road. After I got better, that was the place I had to be brought to.

Here's the difference.

Told you about the one where I fell on the ice on my knees. Same moment of grace,

same timing, same willingness. Here's the difference. This time I had no plan, no idea, and I wasn't going to do anything.

I Nope, I'm not coming up with anything. Nothing. Nothing showed up. I had no ideas.

Are you done? I don't know. You want to work the session? Maybe that was the kind of stuff that was coming on me. That's not how I am. I'm a type A personality.

I'm a go getter. Like if you ask me to figure it out, I'm going to tell you how it worked before you told me to figure it out because that's how I worked right last time. I got in the way of the power.

I was working the program to get access to the power. This time the power accessed me through that moment of suffering and worked something magically in my life by me not doing anything. However, more was being done than was ever previously done. Isn't that interesting?

Last time I was doing it all hoping the power was going to join up with my game, my charade.

This time I wouldn't take a movement unless the power, and I don't know how this happens. I was talking to my wife before coming out. I said I'm going to talk about trust and surrender

because I don't know what else to talk about anymore.

I don't want to make bullshit up. I don't want to tell you there's another way.

There wasn't another way for me. I couldn't figure it out. I gave in. I gave up,

and when I give in, I give up. I submit myself to what I'm giving in and giving up to and I allow something to happen through my life and I trust that it's got my best interest in store.

You know how much So that's the case because nine months over this time in, I had the

clear understanding that God did not get me sober to get me sober.

He got me sober to stand here tonight.

He got me sober for every guy that walks in my house and spends hours upon hours just reading one paragraph

because sometimes it takes hours to read one paragraph correctly.

He got me sober so my wife never has to fear

me

That's she should take a life insurance policy out on my ass.

I would

I

I know that that might be hard to understand, but let me sum it up in this If it's grace that gets me here,

how come the day after I get here God says now it's all on you,

now it's up to you.

Good luck.

When you get the free will talk,

you might have to say a short prayer you won't mean because someone said it 1000 times to you and you've echoed it and voiced it with your mouth 1000 times. Why don't you say some real prayer like I don't know

what to do this time or anytime

this time in.

I don't feel that the power of God, which is what we're going to be talking about, by the way, that's what I'm I hope that we have that understanding because it's all I really have. It's all that the guy who took me through the steps said that he had to offer me. He says I have nothing else for you. I said finally,

finally, no tricks up his sleeve,

Knew he wasn't bullshitting. He would not let me rely on him. I couldn't use him. Yeah, she said, don't you ever call me and 10 step about trivial bullshit and tell me how selfish you are. Well, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to do that? He goes, you're not supposed to do that with me. I said, OK, you win. What does that make me do? It made me rely on the first part of step 10's requirement.

I ask God to remove it.

Guess what I was doing? Fuck that,

I'll ask you to remove it. A matter of fact, I'll make it your responsibility to fix me because I feel like shit. Because I keep doing things that make me feel like shit,

and he said. I'm not going to be that way. I'm not in that role. I won't perform that way for you.

Thank you for doing that.

That's what I would that person. Thanks for that because it taught me something. It taught me that to rely on the grace and the power that brought me in here who didn't say I have a thing, a list of things for you to do now or else the OR else is I'm going to smoke crack again. See, I'm going to smoke crack again if I leave here without the power.

If I stay close, performers work well.

See, I didn't want to stay close. I wanted performance work well,

think that would get me close.

It always moved me further because guess what I was able to say look at the work I'm performing. Well, I wasn't saying look at the work he's performing. So much so that I'm talking to a guy the other day and even Jesus Christ said this statement. Hope Jesus doesn't defend anyone,

he said. It is not I who do the works, it's the Father who doesn't through me. If he has to say that,

what makes me think I'm not going to have to probably say that? If he can't pull it off, how am I going to pull it off?

So that's where it turned into. Now, paradoxically, it looks like, well, shit. You do a lot of stuff, art, you go to conventions willingly

sponsored guy. He all might know David Cases. We're sitting outside firing line one night, like our usual conversations and meeting ends at 8:30. We stay until 12, talking in a parking lot. I love those nights. I love all those moments like that.

And David goes, how many meetings you go to? I said I don't go to any, I'm brought to all of them. And he laughed

because he knew it was true, because I said it in such a way that it couldn't be anything but true.

See, I hear people's a man. I just don't want to make a meeting tonight, though. That's because you're making the meeting.

See, I want to be

in the flow

and I know when I'm blocking it.

So guys, I had some really cool first step understanding that I couldn't stop even though I would have wanted to. I didn't want to use or not use. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Something said I know what needs to happen here and put the brakes on my shit. Seriously, put the brakes then didn't make the requirement. All on my way. Said no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to guide you through an understanding and a trusting reliant relationship. See, it says our real reliance should be

real. Not on my sponsor, not on the steps. There's a great speaker who I I hollow his message is Joe Hawk and he says don't, do not let the work of a A get in the way or the work of a A

and I did that for 11 straight years and I died.

See, this time coming in, I had everything

and I had nothing.

I was so broken inside. I hit a place, a bottom that was emotional in nature.

It had emptied me. I was a hollow bone.

I was a broken

to useless, empty

and I needed something.

I needed something to solve a problem.

Problem is centers in my mind and that problem has one key

thing. It seems to say

over and over and over says you can get out of your problem

but it centers in my mind. So any movement to get out of my problem keeps me in my problem.

Finally I just turned. I said, I'm not listening to you anymore.

And I stopped me giving attention and interest to myself

and I turned, I said, and I don't know what I was turning to because at what what ended up happening was around my second step time, my sponsors, why don't you try meditating? I remember him meditating with him and Ben Levinson. And we're sitting there. I'm going these guys are crazy

and I did it and he said do it every day.

I did it and I liked it and I found myself doing my nightlies on my carpet in my closet where I have smoking crack one day and it blew my mind and I started to cry.

I'm sitting in the exact spot where I was killing myself and now we're shredding and molting that dead skin

and I'm coming alive.

I'm getting freer,

I'm connecting.

And I made conscious contact.

First thing that had to go were my doubts and my beliefs

and the first place I had to go was the last place I need that I ever thought I had to go in the last place I wanted to go, and that is inside.

How do I know that?

Don't mind if I read out of this.

You never know.

Been in meetings where they don't open it.

55 they say something profound.

Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but he was there.

He was as much a fact as we were. We found the great reality deep down within us.

Last analysis. It was only there that he may be found. It was so with us. So they had this experience. They they looked everywhere else too. I want to place that everyone else in here look,

see, I was looking at women. I was looking in fancy cars,

I was looking at moving high end places. I was never going to live like I did as a poor kid.

I started changing everything, but I still wasn't looking within.

What are some of the requirements here? We can only clear the ground a bit if my testimony right now helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourage you to search diligently within yourself,

Then and only then, if you wish, you can join us on the broad highway. See, I was joined joining the long broad highway long before I was doing any of this shit. And this is long before they talked about steps or turning your life over, the fear of God as I understand them. But why was I putting this off? Why wouldn't I go inside and look inside for this great reality? Because I'm afraid to. It's scary inside.

I'll look anywhere out here in the 10 trillion things of the pleasure Dome and everyone knows what kind of pleasure we get out here.

Any kind you want is available I prob

promise you because I've tried a lot of them and none of them fulfill me.

I made a decision to turn towards that power. I took a new position. I stopped playing God by not stopping playing God by stopping giving attention to what wanted me to play God by not playing God. Think about that one. If that don't twist you up,