The Brentwood Beginners Workshop in Los Angeles, CA

And now, let's welcome tonight's speaker, Theresa.

I'm short.

Good evening. My name is Teresa. I'm an alcoholic,

grateful to be here, grateful to be sober because of a loving God.

Pause. Pause.

Oh boy. OK,

see if I could put this here.

All right,

I always have to do this first because this is the things that stand in the way of my usefulness to you. And if I don't do that, it'll be a weird share.

And that is that I'm nervous,

I'm uncomfortable, I always feel extremely vulnerable up here. I'm not one of those people that said I can't wait to get to this podium to talk to a room full of people that is not me. But for whatever reason, God and his infinite wisdom has chosen me to do this. You know, lately I really believe it's because I think you would lose me if I'm not in front of you. And so here I am. I do this because my life depends on it. This is a life and death errand.

Somebody did it for me.

I don't know the people who shared from podiums like this. If they didn't want to do it, if their sponsor made them do it, if they didn't feel like it they had a hard day or had a lot going on in their life, I just know that they showed up. So here I am. And it's always an honor and a privilege to be asked to speak in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. So thank you so much, I always say for doing a 12 step call on me, helping me to stay sober another day. I want to welcome our new friends. Welcome home. We've been praying for you.

I'll continue to share this because I experienced it myself

and I've been to a lot of meetings globally and in every meeting all over the world, there's a moment of silence and prayer

and that's for you. So both for the grace of God, you have been lifted up and brought into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. We ask you to keep coming back and only 5 minutes before the miracle happens.

And as I get to share with you, I ask you to listen to similarities and not the differences. And as you listen, I invite you to consider a couple of questions like that happened to me, and I felt that way too. And more importantly, perhaps this program can work for me

and always say to the newcomer, I wish you the gift of desperation.

And even though you're the most important person, I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for the old timers. So I want to thank all the old timers in the house. Thank you for my life and my sobriety. I still want what you have and I don't ever want to lose that. And I need you. I want to thank you for suiting up and showing up and setting an example and staying sober no matter what without killing yourself or somebody else. And I think that's important. My sobriety date is March 29, 1990.

But for the grace of God, I've had the honor and the privilege of being with you for the last 24 years.

This is my first time in the program. I have yet to go out and I learned that yet means I'm eligible too, so I'm not exempt from the possibility.

And it's getting a little strange for me because I came to you at the age of 24

and now I've been here 24 years. So we talk about living 2 lifestyles in one lifetime. My identity is getting a little weird man.

This program has become a working part of my mind and my body,

and I am not the same person who crawled in these rooms 24 years ago, but yet there's still much about her that I'll never want to forget. You told me not to forget my last drunk and I don't want to forget what it was like because I'm doomed to repeat it if I do.

So much has gone on in my life these days.

Oh, goodness gracious. Great balls of fire.

Thank you, Denny. He told me I could talk about anything. I'm like, oh, we don't want to do that, OK,

Because I'd be like, oh, I can talk about anything. And another thing. OK, wait,

he did say, you know, what I learned was opinions are like assholes. Everybody got one. No,

I try to keep it more to my experience as opposed to my opinion. And let me tell you, I've come a long way. I believe in miracles. You cannot tell me this program works and that there isn't a God.

I am an entirely different person real quick, you know, just so I can qualify and kind of get into what my journey has been in sobriety. You know, I'm born addicted. So let me cut this all short. I don't know anything about crossing an invisible line later in life or feeling like you don't fit in and you're awkward and uncomfortable. You don't fit in with your family. And so you go to some bar or some prom and somebody passes you a drink and you feel warm and fuzzy inside. And then all of a sudden you feel whole and complete and you get taller.

You got courage and you could dance and, and all this kind of stuff jumps off and then you live your life had a blackout or whatever the heck you go through. And then eventually you cross some invisible line. Things get really, really bad and then you end up in alcohol. It's anonymous for various reasons. That's not my experience,

but I learned from you.

I learned here that I'm an alcoholic because I like the effect produced by alcohol

and I'm restless, irritable and discontent unless I find that ease and comfort that comes immediately with the first few drinks. And even though I admit that as injuries, it don't matter.

Alcohol is my lover. It is my companion and is my friend. Alcohol was administered to me. It was given to me not once that I ever make a conscious choice to drink. I drank in my mother's womb. I came out of her womb and she gave it to me 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I don't know another life other than that life.

I got adjectives when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. You told me I grew up in a dysfunctional family. I didn't know those words. That was my family and that was my home. You probably gathered so far that I'm a New Yorker. Please do not tell me I sound like Rosie Perez. I'm so tired of that. I really am. She is not the only Puerto Rican. Geez,

there's so many others. Nobody ever says to me you sound like Jennifer Lopez. You know what I mean? Always speak, Rosie. Oh, Marc Anthony or Ricky Martin or somebody.

So my life before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous was a lifestyle that consisted of dysfunction, abuse, sexual, verbal, physical. This was a way of life I grew up in, shooting galleries, crack houses, bars and clubs, and I never thought there was anything wrong with that life. I hung out with gangsters. There's a difference between gang bangers and gangsters. I hung out with cartel, with Colombians. I seen people shot

Oh deep. There's a lifestyle,

but I didn't live like New Jack City. Sometimes I have to tell people. Rated R Adult content, nudity, Parental guidance suggested

it wasn't that tragic. I thought the best way I can describe my lifestyle was like Scarface before he got stupid and then blow up everybody in the car.

All he needed to do was blow them up and he would have been fine.

I went to Catholic school. I said the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

I did my confession on Saturdays and I took my communion on Sundays. I got emancipated at the age of 14.

It's about having money in my pocket, looking good. I had no idea I was dying on the inside. I didn't know that I suffered from a spiritual malady or an allergy of a body.

I didn't do New Year's resolution. And I say tomorrow's gonna be different. I won't drink tomorrow. No, we drinking every day, all day. I don't share my booze. I don't buy rounds for people at the bar.

I don't know anything about peer pressure. I drank in my house,

I hang out with my friends at 1520 years my senior. I don't play with Bobby Doll. Hopscotch, jump rope.

This is my life and I'm gonna die like everybody else in my family. Cirrhosis of the liver, kidney failure, falling down, cracking your skull, old being and getting shot. And when you die in my family, we put your drink or your drug of choice in the coughing with you and we take pictures and we celebrate that you're no longer here. We like salsa music, rice and beans and pork chops. And we're proud that we own the Bacardi Factory and we take a huge pride in that. And we go to the Bacardi Factory like it's Disneyland.

Not anymore, because they don't give you the free bottles anymore. They just always give you the free bottles. Whatever.

So here's a lifestyle that I come from. I wasn't planning on changing that life. I wasn't looking for it to be different. What love looked like to me is you could beat me on a daily basis. I tell people the good old days for me is I can get sodomized gang raped and pistol wit and I go to the bathroom and I fix my hair, I put on my makeup, I straighten out my clothes, I take a drink and I go back out there and I do it all over again. And I say, who's next? I wasn't planning on changing that life.

I saw nothing wrong with that life. So what happened to me? You say alcohol stops working,

all I can tell you is at the age of 24 alcohol betrayed me and abandoned me and it left me emotionally retarded with no coping skills

and I was now present in a world that I knew nothing about. You see, I understand incomprehensible demoralization and I tell people that was my life and I don't have a problem sleeping with Cousin It when I don't notice. I don't have a problem if you beating me if I don't feel it. Something is different when I begin to notice, and that's what I think is different

when I begin to feel dirty, when I begin to notice this thing that you call remorse,

guilt. And what happened to me was all of a sudden I became present for my experience, and I didn't know what to do about it. And I wanted the days back where I just don't care. I wanted the days back where it just didn't matter and they weren't coming back. And no matter what I did, I couldn't shake off the look of disgust on my grandmother's face or the fact that my father wasn't talking to me when the daddy stopped talking to me. And why do I Care

now? Walking down alleys and I'm paranoid. I don't know how to do paranoid

now I can't show up because I don't like the girl who I'm looking at in the mirror because I don't know her and I can't dress her up no more and I can't fix my outsides no more and enough money is not going to cover this up. And I can no longer say I feel like I lost my hustle

and I wanted the days back and they never came. So what ended up happening to me? It's a cold thing when you invite death into your life and death don't even take you out.

That still trips me out to this day.

I ended up in a church. I wasn't looking for one. I wasn't asking for one. All I know is I did the aimless walk. The walk with no purpose, no agenda, no destination is just a walk. And I ended up in a church. That's all.

And I said a prayer. A prayer that perhaps is different than any other prayer. Was I completely done? Was I totally surrendered? I don't know.

We talk about seconds and inches. You tell me Only an act of Providence

can help a drunk like me where the grace of God, the window opened up that the grace of God in that moment and me being in a state of desperation, isolation, bewilderment, stood at that moment. In that time. I could have missed it, could have missed it. And in that moment, I said a prayer, a prayer that came from the depths of my soul, and I asked God to allow me to feel the peace that I felt in that church inside of me.

I just wanted a moment for my head to shut up, for my stomach to stop turning, and for my skin to stop crawling so I can get a grip. I wanted to shake it off, man.

I had no idea that prayer was going to change my life. I really didn't. It still gets me none

and no idea that Peru is going to change my life. Here I am an alcoholic synonymous. I still feel like I've been abducted by aliens.

This is the part where I always think about this joke that my father used to tell me. And this is for the newcomer because this was my experience. No, there's this man who's sightseeing and he's standing at the edge of a mountain and he falls and he manages to grab onto a branch and he starts seeing screaming. God help me. God help me. And he is a voice. And the voice says let go. And the man says, can you shut up? I'm trying to talk to God. And he says, God help me. And the voice again says, let go. The man says, would you be quiet? I am trying to have A

and the voice replies by saying I am God and I need you to let go. And then the man says, can I talk to somebody else?

I love that joke. I'm gonna be saying that till I'm like 80 years old. My nephews are gonna be sick of it anyway.

They're gonna be like, we heard that already. We heard anyway. That's my experience. It's kind of like, you know, we're new. I'm gonna speak for me. When I was new, when I got here, I was like, I know I asked for help, but like really?

I didn't ask for all this hold up. I was just trying to get a grip, you know what I'm saying? Anyway,

Oh my goodness. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because we have a tradition around here is called attraction rather than promotion. You know, when I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired, I remember the faces of the people, the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. My mother is sober today. She has 28 years. I have a cousin who's sober. She's around 28 as well. And I used to come to California and they used to bring me to these meetings. That's all. And I would drink before, during and after

at no time that I think the seed was being planted. I don't even think I was paying attention to you people.

Maybe you'll ruin my drinking.

I got on a Greyhound bus and that's where I detoxed.

I threw up, I shook, I sweated, I hallucinated. I don't ever want to do that again. I had my last drink in El Paso, TX. There was a man on that bus who carried me from the bus depot. He gave me a drink. I could have died on that bus. I hadn't been without a drink in my body since fetus. I was sick

and I remember he put that drink to my mouth. That was my last drink, and I slapped it up like a dog that had been out of water. Man,

I still think about that, saying that if you take an alcoholic's brain, when they die and you put it in a jar of alcohol, you're gonna hear.

I keep wondering. I'm gonna add that to my will. You know what I mean? Put my brain in a box. Anyway, A bottle outfit.

Let me tell you that it's been a journey since I arrived here on March 29, 1990. My mother picked me up and she dropped me off in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I always say I feel like a baby in a baby basket left at the doorsteps of a A. And she left me here because you told her to. She can't help me.

I came to you like I had 20 bullet holes in me. I'm bleeding all over the place. I'm not interested in your credentials. You got a needle in a thread. I didn't come here to play with you people. I'm not looking for a Country Club. I'm not looking for friends. This is the last house on the block, and if you can't help me, somebody needs to blow my brains out. I can't do another 24 like this. I'm uncomfortable in my own skin and I can't get the days back that are familiar to me,

so the very thing that always worked for me is no longer working.

I need something else

and I'm so grateful for all those who were here when I got here. I've been doing a dance for the last 24 years, man. The first few years I had to deprogram what was normal in my life. I sat in these rooms and found out that that's not normal to lose your virginity at 5:00. That's not normal for men and women to take turns with your body and have sex when they want to.

That's not normal for people to beat you, spit on you, kick you, and punch you. It's not normal to be called stupid, ugly, idiot. You're unimportant, you're insignificant, We don't love you, we don't want you. You are worthless. That was normal language to me. I came here to find out that I'm a child of God, that God don't make no junk. That was fun. Never heard of such a thing. I heard words around here like freedom, serenity, peace, love, tolerance. What is that?

What does that look like?

To learn how to ask for help, to learn how to reach out? You told me that I must find a power greater than myself. Not maybe not. Kind of, sort of. The suggestions they gave me when I got here was the building is on fire. I suggest you leave now. You don't have to, but it's in your best interest if you will go.

God knew exactly where to put me. I got sober in South Central Los Angeles. I'm so proud of the breed I come from.

I got sober 9604 and now it's back to baby Crenshaw. Lana, let me tell you something. I've seen a lot of things in my life, but those people scared me in South Central because they do random shootings. I don't come from that. We don't do random You, you know what I mean? I come from where there's a bully with your name on it and that's it.

I got a beef with you. I cut your legs off because you know, I'm saying, but over here they just you're getting milk or you wear funny color and they shoot you whatever. That scared me. I didn't understand.

They gave me a sponsor. I listened to my sponsor. I didn't fire them, interim change them, tell them what to do. I don't understand any of that. I came to you. Undisciplined self will run riot. I am selfish, self-centered, self seeking, arrogant, self-righteous and judgmental. The 12 traditions I learned long before the steps. It was the traditions that helped me to keep coming back.

I'm a member because I say I am. You don't have to like me. I don't like you either,

but I have a desire. And if I have a desire and you have a desire and you're drunk and I'm a drunk, that's all I need to know. It doesn't matter if you're white, you're black, you're tall, you're short. Money, no money, Famous, not famous. That ain't none of my business

and is none of your business about me. It does help if you Puerto Rican. I'm not gonna lie. I'm very biased. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not even gonna do that. There's no truth to that. You Puerto Rican. That's a whole other level. Different conversation. We're family and that's it.

Nobody governs, Nobody's running nothing, even though there's a lot of people who think they are. They're adorable,

the AA police or whatever you want to call them, they're so cute. You just say keep coming back, it'll be alright.

I've had to do a lot of uncovered discover and discard. You have burned into my consciousness to trust God, clean house, and be of service.

I had to learn how to live and breathe the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. They're not exercises. They're not term papers to hand over to my sponsor.

I put down the drink and I picked up the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had to follow the black on the white. They just say keep it simple, stupid. It ain't that deep.

You told me that I must find a power greater than myself. Where am I to find this power? Inside of me? You said. Deep down inside, every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God.

How do I get there? Do the steps.

So I go on a journey.

I go on a journey to seek

and to learn a little bit about this power and a little bit about Theresa. But you got to change my perception because my perception is distorted and I can't differentiate the truth from the false. And I got a clean house and as a result, all of a sudden I become a witness. All I needed was a mustard seed of willingness. And you told me open mindedness and honesty.

And all of a sudden I begin to watch

and I start watching something happen different to Teresa.

I began to notice that the obsession is removed.

I began to notice that now I am operating and living a life that has integrity and I see myself now as a woman of self respect and self esteem and self worth. And I begin to walk with my head up, just a little bit taller.

I remember things changed for me. I went back to New York to make amends. I had a list

and I got on a plane with a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I knocked on doors and I became a woman and I began to watch God work in my life because I can't make amends unless God removes my character defects. There's no way I could be that honest. And I saw it.

I've had experiences heal. I've been calling God a show off.

I can't pat myself on the back. I don't get to take credit for all of this. There's not a self help program.

There's not cognitive therapy.

I heard it's a spiritual program of action and more action

and I can't get away with I'm not perfect. We're not perfect, no, but we strive for spiritual progress.

I may not be responsible for my disease, but I am responsible for my recovery and I chase it like I chase the drink and I chase the drug.

I don't need these directions from my sponsor. I chased my sponsor like I chased the drink and I tell her what's next

and I follow what thousands of men and women have done. And as a result, things started changing. I've done the uncomfortable until it became comfortable in the 12 and 12. It tells me on step three, now that the drinking problem has been solved, you're in trouble.

You need help more than ever.

Then it also begins to tell me that all 12 steps are contrary to my natural desires.

It's so funny, I'm so used to. I've been saying this lately because I've been talking to my family because a lot has been happening and my family still checks with me. Like how long people treating you in Cali? Anybody bothering you out there?

I gotta be careful who I talk to. You know, I have. A lot of people are so grateful they get their family back. I have to stay away from mine

and I have to tell them no check this out. We get to do a list right?

But I can't talk to you till I get to the 4th column

because I know how to do a hit list.

But you had to teach me something different. Let me tell you, life's been in session. I would say I came here to save my ass, not my face.

This is a life and death errand.

I don't want what I have and I don't want to go back. You're not going to guarantee me that I can go back to a state of oblivion, that I need to keep doing this program. I've learned from many relapses and retreads that you go back out there and there's nothing like having a belly full of booze and a head full of AAI. Call that alcoholic torture.

Every part of me knows that I got another drink in me. But every fiber my being tells me I don't have another recovery, that you will never see me again. I won't have the luxury of coming back here. For me to drink is to die.

So I got to keep doing the work and I got to keep doing what's uncomfortable.

I am no longer the CEO of Teresa Incorporated

and had to fire the accountant, you know, the board of directors who was me.

I now have a new employer. We have business meetings in the morning and sometimes throughout the day. It's not so much a silent partner, but he speaks to me in cryptic. He's kind of figure I got to figure out the memo. Sometimes

I know that life run by me don't work,

so every day I watch

for these things to creep up. My illness, my disease, whatever you want to call it, is doing push ups,

is waiting for me to rest on my laurels, is waiting for me to disconnect spiritually

so I can get me again.

Man I could say this is the hardest time of my sobriety but I've said that before.

I make God in my fifth year of sobriety butt naked alone with a white flag on my ass.

My life hasn't been the same since.

Where am I at today? I'm learning a lot about grief. I'm learning a lot about pain.

I'm getting older. I'm 49 years old. I don't know if there's too much information, but there's my experience. I think I'm going through now. Menopause.

That's very interesting.

I got these Gray hairs coming out.

I see somebody a little bit different in the mirror. No,

when I came to you, I was heterosexual, Then I became bisexual, then I became homosexual, now I'm asexual. Is very confusing.

I haven't worked since 2005.

I've been blessed with the blessings of the people in the rooms. People bring me groceries, People I come here. I came here without no gas in my car

and I'll make it back home because I learned to continue to be of service to God.

I travel the world without a dime in my pocket to carry the message of hope,

to let people know that they can recover one day at a time. I wasn't planning on doing that. I like having money. I don't like asking for help, but God got all the plans for me. My family's been sick. My uncle had three to six months to live at 2005. That was the last time I worked, took care of my uncle, and I learned the gift of forgiveness.

I've had to learn how to forgive my perpetrators and I take care of them and I'm their caregiver.

My brother just died recently. I put him on life support. I had to take him off. That's my only brother. My older brother

and I was present for that experience. People say what a blessing it is that your brother allows you to be available. Let's talk about that later. It's all about perspective. There's something about being present for that experience. And I ask God to remove my selfishness, myself, seeking my dishonesty and my fear. What will you have me do? What will you have me be?

And I get to experience grief and sadness and my nephews look at me that I help my brother raise that are 16 and the other ones turning 12. I helped him raise as a single parent and their mother shows up when my brother dies and says those are my kids and she took them

and as God removed my selfishness myself seeking my dishonesty, my fear. Oh, you have me be. What will you have me do?

And then I turn around and do the same thing for my father,

and I'm daddy's little girl y'all.

And I'll never forget my father looking at me right in my eyes when he took his last breath.

And I'm present for that experience.

I've had a lot of losses in the last year,

and my mother has Alzheimer's. Before I came in here, I was on the phone with her every few minutes. I have to talk to every step of the way. When my brother died, I could no longer afford to take care of her. He would help her. So now I have to take care of her. I can't afford to put her somewhere

and I've OK got What are we doing now?

Hmm? But I'm sober. I don't take a drink no matter what. And I put one hand in God and one hand in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I clean house

and I do what's in front of me, and I watch God do for me what I cannot do for myself.

I've experienced betrayal. I've experienced all kinds of things. My life hasn't been all cute in 24 years.

Sometimes I can't watch Facebook. Everybody's having too much fun.

It's not getting resentments. I got the inventory,

so here I am living life on life's terms. These are the year right now I'm experiencing. I'm not broken. I don't need to be fixed,

it's a great thing to enjoy sobriety when everything is good. But can I know that God is in the in the eye of the storm? Can I know that God is when my body is hurting because I have 5 on myalgia or I have a torn rotator cuff for moving everything by myself, lifting boxes? Can I know God is when everybody's dying or betraying or leaving me, talking bad about me? Can I still know that God is? Can I be uncomfortable and not get loaded?

Can I still find the gratitude in life in the midst of that? Can I say that God is in that too? The Big Book tells me to be careful, to be prey of self pity and depression and anger and resentment and said nothing about experiencing sadness. And so I get to be sad today.

No human power can relieve me in my alcoholism. None.

And The funny thing about it is that whatever I go through, it ain't even about me.

It's all about how this experience is going to benefit somebody else. Ain't that something

so real? Quick, why do I call God a show off? Because you know what he's going to do? He's going to take a girl like me, unwanted, unloved, unnecessary, insignificant and unimportant, and he's going to pick me up,

dust me off, build me up so you can see what he can do.

It's a trip to me.

I don't know how to do anything else with this program.

I don't have another language.

I have no Gray areas. This is all I know. I don't know how not to give this thing away.

I get to be attraction in the rooms and outside the rooms. And as we said to the newcomer, you may not want what I have, but in the quietness of your own space, ask yourself, do you want what you have?

Here I am,

sober but for the grace of God, a loving God.

I don't tell you I don't have another drink of meat. I don't tell you it's not an option or excuses for me to drink. I got tons. The miracle is that despite every option and every excuse, I haven't. And I tell you that if this higher power can do this for a girl like me, could you imagine what he can do for you?

So again, I want to thank you for my life and my sobriety. I'm going to keep coming back. And I know that no matter what, this too shall pass. So thank you for holding on to me. Thank you.

Now what questions? OK. Questions.

Anybody got questions?

Yes, ma'am.

Yes.

What was the process that I did to deal with my perpetrators? It's been a process. Actually, it began with my inventory.

The beginning of that work was in the inventory in particular where the Big Book says do we not squander the hours? And that that resentment actually has the ability to kill. Something about that phrase in the Big Book hit me that every time I do not or I'm not willing to do the work to find compassion and forgiveness for those who are spiritually sick to is the more that I continue to give them permission to continuously perpetrate me. So as I say, I am now responsible

my recovery. And so in this journey with the relationship with a higher power, I need the clean house. And so it's been a process. I will say that the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous also tells me that there are times that we need outside help, that perhaps these religious people are right, that there are perhaps many books and things that I can turn to for meditation and prayer. And so I've had to seek out other avenues. I've done a lot. I mean, I've done stuff like even going back to visit the wound space in a sweat lodge so that I can

go back into the womb and heal. A lot of people tell me, Theresa, I want what you have. Are you willing to do what I've done? Because I'm willing to go to any lengths to be spiritually fit. But it begins with cleaning house. That's what I believe. And that has been the process. I'm continuously cleaning house. I have to because I don't want to be blocked from the sunlight of the spirit. And then I watch things change, even my perception about my perpetrators. Yeah. Is that I hope that answers the question.

Any more questions? Oh gosh, yes, Sir.

How steps 6:00 and 7:00 work in my life. They work. What I look at is the gift of sanity returning and 10. But through life I get an opportunity to take a look at how my character defects no longer serve me. You see, I like how it talks about the big book is always pointing out to me that I need to be convinced. I need to be convinced that life run by Theresa don't work.

And are these things standing in the way of my usefulness to me, to you and my victorious Are they serving me? Because if they're serving me, I'll keep using them. And so I'm grateful for the gift of awareness. I'm grateful for the opportunity to take a look at these character defects, to ask myself, are they working for you?

And then I become humbled. See, seven I appreciate, 7 tells me. I become humbled by that awareness. And then all I can do is I turn to this power and I say, take all of me, good and bad. I love the prey of Saint Francis of Assisi.

And he wasn't living that way. It was like, how can I become that? How can I live that life? And I believe in building good character. And I cannot live a life of good character, of love and tolerance and patience and serenity and peace and compassion if I'm engulfed with resentment, selfishness. So how can I become other centered if I'm full of self? And so those two steps are necessary for me to grow spiritually.

The beauty of the program. It says you can keep doing it if you want to

until it don't work for you no more. And I'm grateful that I get to go that don't work no more. I'm uncomfortable about that. It's all right. God, do what you got to do. Take me, every part of me. Because there are things that I still think are good and they're probably not. And then I watch. But after I do six and seven, I always say the steps go in order. So after I do six and seven, I don't get to stop there.

Now I have to move on and see what harm I've caused. And I always said that I actually experienced

the higher power of God, whatever you want to call it, I experience in removing those things from me when I do nine because I cannot practice 9. If I'm still selfish, self-centered, self seeking, dishonest and afraid, I won't be able to do it. To be that honest with somebody. I watch. I watch the miracle happen. When I knock on the door and make amends to me, that's when I really see it happening.

I hope that answers your question, but I have to live it all the time. And in step 10 it tells me I have to keep watching.

I'm not wiped clean. I have to constantly watch because they keep coming back up and I immediately need to ask them to remove it. Why? Just because it sounds good? No, because it's more than likely if I do that I'm not in collision with something of somebody. I'm not the cause of all the problems. I'm learning today that people do still do things to you without me being the cause of it.

But even the fact that you doing things, I still got to pray for you.

I still got to pray for you. Why? So that I could be spiritually fit.

So I could stay sober. Because insanity returns and then we drink again and I have to straighten out spiritually first, not mentally and physically.

So staying spiritually fit is important to me. I have to. My life depends on it. Hope that answer no

yes

yes fancy died. How do you watch someone get it? I watch it all the time. I watch it in my family. I watch Fontes. I've had sponsors all all DI have one sponsee talk to me on the phone for an hour and a half, hung up the phone and win the garage and hung herself.

How do I watch it with sadness? Because you gave me this thing here called compassion. You gave me your heart and you opened it up to love.

And so I get heartbroken. No, I get angry at the disease of alcoholism, just like I'm angry at cancer. I'm not angry at the person. I'm angry at the illness because the illness kills us just like diabetes, cancer, anything else. And I get to watch that and I get to go there before the grace of God go. I I get to understand the disease of alcoholism and how it's no respecter of any person, place or thing and that each and every one of us have a daily reprieve contingent upon that

maintenance. So sometimes I get upset when people says, oh, that's what happens when you don't work a program. I disagree. I've watched people walk, work a program, and eventually I've watched them slowly slip away and then blow their brains out.

It's a gradual thing, and I watched this thing called alcoholism be as sneaky and as powerful as it could be, and that's what it does. It takes us out. So when I watch that, I become another witness of what happens and what could happen to all of us, and I get to support their family. I get to support them, and I don't get to point the finger and judge them. I think when Alcoholics and Alcoholics Anonymous start judging people who relapse, the alcoholic is in trouble

because it's the only place they should be able to come. That we understand

because that's what we do.

It's abnormal for us to be sober.

It's normal for us to drink. And I understand what it is to be in pain and be uncomfortable and you can't be in your own skin. You don't know what else to do and you want relief

and some people don't make it back seeking that relief. I get it. I've been there. So maybe that's how I watch and I get to cry and be sad and be grateful at the same time. So that's why today when I see people get in the rooms, very rarely will you hear me ask you how you doing? I'm not really interested in that. What I do when I see people is I go, it's good to see you.