Paramount Group in Paramount, CA

Produce our main speaker Steve from Redondo Beach.

Steve Lamb, Alcoholic

Well, any beach will do, right, Michael? That's OK.

It's good to be here. It's good to be sober. If you're new, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous or a bunch of new people that identified and a whole bunch of people that took chips for their time periods within their first year. So that's that's good. I see, Stephanie, you're still here even after being at Woodstock W. That's that's impressive.

And if you heard me at Woodstock West,

it's too late, man. You're already here. You know, I don't know what to tell you. I don't want to tell you that's the way it is. I want to say I'm grateful for being invited. It's always an honor and a privilege to share. An alcoholic synonymous. And I particularly like coming here

because this is such an active group. And if you're new, I want you to really take advantage, if you will, are the people that are here, because there's a lot of people here that have done the work that are available to sponsor that can help guide you through the low spots. I mean, and, and my experience is that that's really necessary. I, I know the book is designed to be allowed to have someone just read it and, and work the steps, but I, I have yet to meet anybody that's done that. I've talked to some people that are involved in Loners International, but even they correspond

fund, you know, and talk to somebody. So it's important we don't do this alone. And like I said, it's good to be here. It's it's, it's really good to be anywhere. And I say that because a little over two years ago, on May 21st of 2016, I got shot.

Yeah, it'll get your attention.

And it's Memorial Day weekend. And I was in the Army for 13 1/2 years and I've been shot before, but I haven't been shot like this. I was shot in the chest. What happened

was I was up in Badger, California, which is right next to Sequoia National Park and we'd had breakfast and I was sitting on my bed and I swear to God I was minding my own business. I really was. I wasn't doing anything wrong. And, and the gentleman upstairs for me decided to clear his Glock 9mm weapon and he missed a very critical step. So he discharged around which went through the bed that he was on and through the floor that he was standing on, which was the ceiling above me. And it passed through the ceiling and entered my chest right above my heart and traveled down and lodged underneath

sternum underneath my chest plate.

Not as bad as a kidney stone though.

The birthday boy here, he, he had a kidney stone.

I've had them both. I'd rather, I'd rather be shot, but but I knew, I knew I'd been shot. And like I said, I was in, I was in the army. So I went to check for an exit wound. There was no exit wound. And then I, I put my finger in the entry wound. And then that sounds weird, but you, you do.

Your mom will take you to counseling. It'll be OK, Don't worry about it. And and

because I'm, I'm checking for the round, I'm trying to find the round and I can't find it because it's lodged in there.

And I knew I, I wasn't bleeding out. I didn't have a sucking chest wound. It didn't hit obviously an artery or my heart or I wouldn't be talking here tonight. And the gentleman from upstairs comes running downstairs, and he goes, man, what happened?

You shot me. That's what happened. You know, he's like, And he was very, very disturbed, OK? He was very upset about this. And I got to tell you, one of the things that we try to attain in Alcoholics Anonymous is some sense of serenity or calmness,

right? And I will admit that before he came downstairs, I yelped. I didn't even yell. I Yelp something that's a curse word. I won't say it here, but I, it wasn't very nice. And he came downstairs. But as soon as I saw him, I didn't have a resentment against him, you know, because I knew he was so concerned and, and forgiveness occurred. And it's not, it's not of me. It's something because of, you know, my sobriety is July 27th, 1996. So I've been sober 21 years and changed. At that time, it was a little before 20 years.

And

you know, we talk about resentments in a lot and we talk about amends a lot. And a lot of times we talk about acceptance. And there's a great story in the book that acceptance is the answer. It's Doctor Paul's story, used to be alcoholic addict, and now it's acceptance is the answer. And acceptance is good as far as it goes. But I can accept your behavior and still resent you. The only true antidote for resentment is forgiveness. And if it's a small transgression, that's not a problem. You cut me off in traffic, whatever, I'll forget about it. I'll forgive that.

But a big thing, I have to have divine intervention. I have to have God's assistant. I cannot of myself do that. And I, and I felt forgiveness right away. And he was freaking out and I went in the bathroom. I got a towel. I, I put it over the wound and, you know, stopped the bleeding. And I tell him he's got to take me down to the hospital, which is in Visalia, CA, which is usually about an hour from where we were. We made it there in 35 minutes. OK, This guy's like doing a whole Speed Racer thing. And I'm looking over and I'm going, hey,

I don't want to survive the gunshot wound and die in a car wreck. So if you could just

amp and down a little bit, I would appreciate it. So we get we get to the Kaweah Medical Center in Visalia and I walk in to the emergency room and they always ask you to say, can we help? You said, yes, you can help me. And you know, I've got a towel. It's got blood all over it, right over my chest. What's what's wrong? I said, well, I've been shot. Now when you tell them you've been shot, you go right to the head of the line. There's a lot of people in in ER and they're waiting. They've got some sniffles, maybe even a couple broken bones. But when you've been shot, they bring out the Gurney. They put you on the Gurney. There's 14,

15 people working on me. They take me in, they get an X-ray. They figure out that the round is lodged underneath my sternum. It's still there, by the way. They had to leave it there and I'm not going to bleed out. So now I'm kind of like the freak show. Now everybody's looking at me going, wow, this is what happened to you. I got shot, you know, and, and I had to see a cardiologist. They did an EKG on me and the cardiologist told me at Kaweah Medical Center says, look,

you know, we're going to observe you for a few days and we're going to let you go back down South where you live. But you've got to check in with a cardiologist down there because you've got this thing called an atrial flutter,

which is kind of like an atrial fibrillation. It's just your heart is quivering, which is not that surprising after you've been shot, right? And, and he submits. It's not good. You could have a stroke. You know, it's, it's, it's a, it's not a good thing, but, but go talk to him down there and they'll, they'll address it. So I come back down to the, to the South Bay, to Redondo Beach. I don't go all to Newport, just Redondo and I and I and I, I see the cardiologist, Dr. Carlson, who's at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. And Doctor Carlson hooks me up. He does the EKG and he says, yeah,

this atrial flutter like, OK, this is a

but we have a procedure that that sometimes is useful to correct that. And you've seen in the movies how,

you know, when they take the paddles and they shock a guy, Well, we're not going to do that. That's, that's, you know, that's kind of bizarre And,

and we don't do that, but we're going to do, we're going to tape these two pads to your chest that are going to be attached to electrodes. And then we're going to hit you with a jolt of electricity and that will stop your heart. And after your heart has been stopped for five to seven or 10 seconds, depending, then we're going to hit you with another Schulte of electricity and that'll restart your heart and hopefully you'll be In Sync. Hopefully we'll be in rhythm.

So I'm not that quick on the uptake, but I'm like, you know, doc, you're going to kill me, he said. No, no, no, we don't. We don't like to look at it that way.

We don't like that. Wait. And it's a control procedure. We do it all the time. And I'm going to be there, I'll be with you and you're going to be in the hospital. And, and by the way, there's going to be an anesthesiologist there. And before the procedure, he's going to give you something that will make you comfortable.

So I'm an alcoholic. I go from you're going to kill me. So I'm going to get comfortable

now. I've been sober almost 20 years at the time and it's I've been comfortable in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I've been that kind of comfortable in a long time.

And I know this is a free pass. I know my sponsor will be OK with it. So I'm like, OK, doc, let's hook it up, man. Let's schedule this. Let's go ahead and do it, man. I'm ready to go. So he schedules it out a few weeks. I show up at the hospital, got the little gown on, they put the little pads on me and I got an IV in my arm. I'm laying on the bed and the Doctor Carlsons talking to me,

and the anesthesiologist comes walking in and he's got a syringe full of comfortable. Yeah. And I'm watching him all the way across the room.

And he gets in front of me and he, you know, he says, hi, how you doing? How you feeling? I'm saying good, you know. And then he takes the syringe and he puts it in the IV and he injects it. And the next thing I know, I'm talking to Doctor Carlson and Doctor Carlson. So how you feeling? I'm like, I'm good, I'm ready. Let's get comfortable. He goes, no, no, no, no. We've already done the procedure.

I'm like, no, that ain't right. You, you, you promised me I was going to get comfortable. OK,

now if you're laughing, you might be alcoholic,

OK, Because only an alcoholic will argue with a doctor after a successful procedure, Okay. And I found out later that what the doctor gave me was propofol, which is what they gave Michael Jackson. Yeah, but they gave me the correct dose, you know, And,

and the the weird thing about this story, though, is when I got shot, I was actually on an, A, a retreat.

Yeah, I think. Wow, Yeah, think about that. I was leading the retreat. I had given a talk on Unity the night before I was shot and I thought I had them all, but maybe one just didn't quite get the message. I don't know. And and that evening that I was shot, I didn't do this, but I was, I was scheduled to give a talk on acceptance and forgiveness.

But the best part is the gentleman that shot me.

I sponsor him.

Now, if you're new, that's not only not required, it's not suggested, OK. And the reality is before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, and we'll talk about some of that and for some time afterwards and even today, I've made mistakes. And we talk a lot in the big book about patience, tolerance, love and understanding. And we talk about forgiveness. And you know, if you've been here a while, you have to learn to practice that, you know, because I'm, no, he just made a mistake. I love the guy. I loved him then, I love him now. You know, he just made a mistake.

And again, I'm glad to be here. I, like I said, my sobriety is July 27th, 1996. And if you're new and you're not glad to be here, when I got here, I was not glad to be here. I mean, I came here on a court card. I got, I got tagged for a DU I, I used to drive drunk all the time. I thought I was very good at it. The Orange County Sheriff's Department disagreed with me one particular evening and I, I got popped for DUI and I went into the the court and the the judge sentenced me to go to six a a meetings in six months.

Yeah, I too thought it was excessive. You know, it's just

and so I held off for a while and I didn't go. I had about 5 weeks left to do 6A a meetings and I finally went and

I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. OK, But one of the things looking back on it, I realize is you were telling my story.

The details were different where you were, what you did was different, but you were telling my story. You were talking about this inability to control and enjoy your drinking. You know, I got that. I'm, I'm, I'm the kind of guy, my wife sends me out to get milk

and I come back, you know, three days later, you know, I, I like to drink beer and I like to shoot tequila. Beer is a, like a food group. Tequila is an accelerant. You know, I, you know, I, I, I, I meet somebody like like Mickey and we start drinking beer and shoot tequila. I do a little time travel, right? And I show up three days later and, and, and I'm like, Hey, baby, I got the milk.

She's not impressed. She's not impressed. And I don't like to spend a lot of time on my drinking. But there's, there's some new people here. And I want to, I want to just kind of give you an understanding of what it was like before I got sober.

OK? I'm a trial lawyer by trade. So I have to prepare for trial. And the way I prepare for trials, I drink beer and chew tequila and,

well, you have to try it. I mean, it's a, it's just not everybody has a skill set, you know, you have to work into it. And what I do is I, I get the case files out and I put them either on the conference room table or the kitchen table, depending on where I am. I don't open the case files. I don't need to open them. I just get the beer and tequila. I start drinking beer, shooting tequila, drinking beer, shoot tequila. And what happens is in my mind's eye, the courtroom unfolds.

You know, I, I walk in, I pick a jury. It's the jury that I want. I can tell we're bonding, right? I, I make, I make an opening statement, which is really, you had to be there. It was brilliant. I'm telling you. And then I'm examining and cross examining witnesses. All the evidence I want in gets in the evidence I need excluded is excluded. I then make a closing argument, which is just

off the chart brilliant. I mean, it's just really, it's incredible. And then the jury retires and they deliberate for a brief period of time and they come back out and they render a verdict or a judgement in my favor.

Drinking beer and shoot tequila. It's just, it's magic right Now the the problem with this process though, because I've done it many times, is somewhere usually around the time that I'm making the closing argument or the jury is retired and deliberating, I go down, I pass out because I drink until I pass out. That's what I do. And I know this is going to happen. So what I do is before I start this process, I set four or five alarm clocks at three to five minute intervals and I set them around the room in different locations because one or two won't wake me up.

But the 3rd, 4th or 5th, I'll get up. And the next morning I get up, I'm staggering around and you know, I shower, I shave, I put on a suit and tie and I'm going to court that morning. I'm, I'm ready to go. I'm not as drunk as I was the night before, but I'm still inebriated. I go to court. This particular morning that I'm thinking about, I'm in Los Angeles Superior Court. My client is a guy named Brian and Brian is a high finance guy out of New York. This is a case about other people's money and we've been trying to resolve this case for a while. We've had settlement discussions and mediation and we haven't resolved

and we're showing up for trial. We're going to pick a jury. And the judge gets us up before the bench and he tells the two clients, Brian and the other client, the opposing side, he says, look, you've been trying to resolve this for months and you're going to tie my courtroom up for three, 4-5, maybe six or seven weeks even. And I really would appreciate it if you would continue to try and talk about settlement while the lawyers are picking a jury because this is just money and you should be able to resolve this. I know the factual situation here that you should be able to resolve this. So I'm picking a jury and Brian is talking to the other

and around 11:30 he's all excited because they've resolved it. He has a settlement at several $1,000,000 in his favor. He's excited, the judge is excited. The judge puts it on the record and he releases us. Brian looks at me and goes, man, this is great.

I know it's early. It's before noon. It's about 11:30. But it seems like we should celebrate. Would you like to have a drink? I'm thinking what a country. I totally want to have a drink. Yeah, this is great. Let's go. Let's do it, let's do it. And so we go to the Grand Avenue Bar, which is right next to the Biltmore Hotel. It's on Grand Avenue and 5th and it's kind of a high end bar. Now, I, I drink a lot alone and I will drink at a bar, but the type of bars I I normally go to

are, you know, they have sawdust on the floor and usually a faint O'Day urine smell that just

motivates me. I don't know what it is, but this, this bar is really classy. It's like a mahogany bar. The bartender is there, he's got a suit and tie on and Brian goes up to him and has him take a dusty bottle of cognac off the battle of Back of the Barney. He puts it on the counter and he takes out 2 Brandy snifters and he plops him down there and he pours one fluid oz in each one of the Brandy sifters,

You know, You know, I'm looking at this, right? And, and when you put a fluid oz, when you put a shot in a shot glass of tequila, you can see it, it's clear, it's a parrot. If you're a good bartender, you'll fill it up so full that I got to lean over, you know, 'cause you don't want to spill any of the nectar of the gods, OK? But when you put a fluid oz in one of these large Brandy snifters, I mean, you see it go in, it's kind of amber and shimmery, but I'm like, I know you're in there, you know? And it's, it's kind of sad and lonely and desperate.

And Brian looks at me and he says,

you've never had cognac before? I'm like, no, I've never had cognac. I mean, he's buying. I'm not stupid. I'm drinking. So don't. He said, look, look, there's a whole process. There's a protocol to this. It's really important. What you want to do is you want to take that Brandy snifter and you want to cup it in the base of the palm of your hand so that the heat from the palm of your hand goes through that Brandy snifter and it will warm up the cognac. And you twirl the cognac around, you know, And then what happens is that releases the bouquet,

and then you want to bring it up to your nose. You don't want to snort it. You don't want to sniff it. You just want to allow the bouquet to waft into your nostrils.

I'm thinking this is totally unnecessary with tequila. I, you know, but again, he's buying. I'm trying to pay attention. He says, OK, now then what you want to do is you want to back it off and you want to bring it up to your lips. You don't want to drink it. You don't want to sip it. You just want to allow

the cognac to drape across your palate.

And I'm thinking like, we're going to drink this stuff, right? You know, and, and, and by now I'm, I'm kind of rocking back and forth and my eyes twitching

and my teeth are really itchy. Like when you when you haven't had a drink for a while and you can smell it and it just kind of invades your teeth and people envision

want to drink, you know, and,

and Brian does it and he's just like sophisticated. He's right out of GQ. It's beautiful, It's beautiful. And he says, OK, lamb, it's your turn. It's my turn, It's my turn. Might I like my turn? It's my turn. So I get it up and I twirl it around. I'm thinking, you know, how warm does this stuff need to be? Right? So I bring it up to my nose because I'm just maybe going to take a little nose hit or, you know, I'm not big. Bam, I shoot it like tequila. It's gone.

So Brian looks at me. I look at Brian. I don't know who is more surprising.

Francis, man, what are you doing? That's like over $100 a shot. I mean, I just, I just, I reverted to the alcoholic anthem. I just looked down and said, man, I'm sorry,

can I have a beer? And he's a gracious guy. So. So he's buying me beer and I'm drinking beer. I have two 3-4 beers and and then he says, OK, pay attention, we're going to do it again because he's very generous, he's gracious. He shows me the whole process. I got my own Bam and it's gone again right

now. He gives me that look like, hey man, that ain't right. You know, that's He has never read the big book Alcoholics Anonymous, but he knows without a doubt that I am bodily and mentally different than he is.

So, you know, he looks at me, He's got that kind of look at disgust. He goes, look, I'm going to

as little before one, it's almost 4:00 back in New York. I'm going to go to bathroom and come back, finish my cognac. Then we go to the hotel and call them, tell the good news. Right, fine. So I'm drinking my beer, minding my business. He goes to the bathroom, I look over and I see his cognac.

BAM. I drink that, I go to the bathroom. I come back out and now Brian is arguing with the bartender because someone has stolen his cognac.

So I remind him that I am a very good trial attorney and I'm very skilled at cross examination. So I'm, I'm starting to cross examine people, you know, did you take the cognac? I mean look about you know.

But Brian is not stupid. He is what we call in the trade, an ex client.

He's he's leaving, he's leaving. He's just disgusted. He walks out. Now

a normal person would be concerned. I'm working for a large international law firm at the time, and I have to go home. I'm not go back. There's some explaining that's going to be necessary. This is a big client. That's not what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, great, now I'll drink the way I want to drink because this cognac stuff is way too complicated, right? So I sit down, I get a table, I start drinking beer and shooting tequila, drinking beer, shooting tequila, drinking beer, shoot tequila. Now a lot of people, when they drink, they forget to do certain major significant things like eat.

It's not really my problem. OK, I I like to have a light snack, maybe a pizza or a couple cheeseburgers, nothing too heavy.

And then, and then

the reality is this is the truth. It's, it's not an impressive skill set. But what I like to do, what I do a lot is I just fart. I fart. Yeah. And I know you think

like, really, is that all you? Is that all you got? You know, but yeah, it is. And I'll tell you when you're totally wasted. It's like I got this whole purple haze thing going on. I'm making music. I'm, I'm impressing the hell out of myself. There's there's there's a couple women there on the side of the bar and they're looking at me and I'm looking at them. And because I have this Kreskin like, ability to read your mind, I'm thinking, oh, yeah, they want me. I mean, who wouldn't, right? You know, I learned later in Alcoholics synonymous, that's what we call a delusion.

OK, but then I'm drinking because

shoot tequila and I'm barking them off. And I raised my leg to be particularly melodious

and I miscalculate.

You didn't hear that?

Now the bad thing is I've done this so many times. This has happened before and the first thing I'll tell you, it'll almost snap you back to sober, OK.

And then it's really important. You just got to act cool. You got to act like, hey, I knew this was coming. No big deal. Don't worry about it, right? And you want to keep that one. You want to keep that one cheap caught. You don't want to make contact with a seat, right? And then you just kind of you finish your beer and you slide out on one cheek. Just slide out on one cheek like you're really cool. And then you go to the bathroom. I go to the bathroom. I take off my jacket. I take off my pants,

I take off my drawers. I clean myself up. I put my pants back on and my jacket back on. I'm out at the sink, you know, rinsing my doors out, like, you know?

Yeah. Guy looked at me just like that, Sir. Right. You know, I'm like, hey, man, what's your problem? Don't you practice hygiene? I mean, come on. Right? I get him rung out. I go back in the stall. I take my jacket off. I take my pants off. I put these soggy drawers on, Right. Hey, I got some class, right? I put my pants back on. I put my jacket back on. I'm walking out

and I'm thinking a couple things. First of all, I'm thinking, well, that didn't go too badly. And then I'm thinking, well, these are kind of damp. I'm feeling kind of sexy. Who knows what's going to happen, right? You know, again, delusion. I, I finally, you know, they, they kicked me out of the bar. I drive home, I park her in the driveway, my driveway, your driveway. I'm an equal opportunity driveway kind of guy. I don't care what driveway is. And then I go through the front door and the front door is not, there's no way to get a key through the door. So the front door is a double, double door, garage door opener. I can't

park there. I just need to open it because I can walk through that. And then when I get into the base of the garage,

there's three steps that go up to the living, 3 steps.

And right next to those steps there's a refrigerator. And in it there's beer. And I don't care if I've been out for three hours or three days. I drink a beer. I drink no matter what. I drink that beer on the way upstairs. I, I put it on the floor on the night stand. I get into bed next to my lovely wife on a good night, two, 3-4 hours later, I get up, I stagger around, maybe I go to the bathroom. I pee in the closet or in her boots or something like that. And, and on a bad night, I wet the bed. I wet the bed.

Oh, yeah, I got here. It was a vision for you. It was a vision for you. There's no question about it.

And, and one of the things I will tell you if you're new, a lot of people talk about throwing up in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I never threw up when I drank. So I would argue with my sponsor at first. Like, you know, I really, I don't know if these people who had a drink, you know, because I never, I never threw up. I mean, these, I don't know. Oh, oh, oh, yes, you're right. Let me, let me get this straight. So you crap your pants with reckless, abandoned and alarming regularity.

That's your trick. Yeah, You know, I'm sure. You know, New York has been waiting for you. You should call them, you know,

And I found out later, there's a doctor in our group, Doctor Tim. And he explained to me that when you consume so much alcohol that your body starts to reject it, it'll expel it from one of three orifices. And the body doesn't really care which it is. And mine just happened to be the one that I'm talking about. And sometimes, if you're really lucky, it's all three at the same time. And I got to tell you, you got to make split second decisions when that happens because it's critical.

So if you're new, that's my chapter three story.

When you get into the book and you start reading the book, you'll get into Chapter 3, and it's an inability to control and enjoy your drinking,

you know, and an inability to stop once you start. It's that simple, OK. And it's that complicated. And I got to tell you, everybody that I've taken through that book finds himself somewhere within those first three chapters, usually several times. I remember in the doctor's opinion, I originally thought, Oh yeah, I'm normal in every respect except for the effect on alcohol.

After a few years, I learned that that's not quite true. There's a couple other categories that I fall under, but

you know, it's, it's one of these things that's a gradual progression. And eventually I, I got a sponsor, but I went about 100 days Stark Raven sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm going to meetings and there's some women in the meeting that are telling me, look, just don't drink and go to meetings. And, you know, just don't leave before the miracle. Like, OK, I'm ready. Give me the miracle. I'm not doing anything,

but I'm ready and I confused activity for action.

OK, Action is what we're talking about in the 12 steps in the program. Activity is this is an activity. This is not action. Sometimes people will say, oh, thanks for making a 12 step call on me. Now, this isn't a 12 step call. This is a meeting. This is one alcoholic who's just talking about his experience. I'm not an authority and Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't appointed. I wasn't anointed. I'm just the guy that was asked to come and share his experience tonight

in alcohol. Synonymous. You're here to have your experience, not mine, not your sponsors, not anybody else

yours, you know. So I finally I got a sponsor and what my sponsor, Michael R had me do was he had me get the big book and the 12 and 12 and he had me read them. And you know, he would tell me like, Yo, I want you to read the, the forward and the prefaces and, you know, go through and, and go through the doctor's opinion and then read the first step in the 12 and 12 and meet with me. So I'm like, OK, we're going to get together. We're going to talk about him. No, he has me read the book to him.

He doesn't trust me. I have to read the book to him. He he'll read a couple paragraphs, I'll read a couple paragraphs.

He would ask me questions like, what does that word mean? Well, I'm a lawyer,

you know, I know most words. And if I don't, I'll make it up. It doesn't bother me, right? You know, So. So that wasn't good enough for me. You know, he had me look this stuff up in a dictionary because there's a lot of archaic language in the book, OK? And it's not how we talk today. And I thought I knew what things meant, and I didn't. I didn't. And we went through this process. And when we got to a step, we work the step. And when we got to a prayer, we said the prayer

and I got to tell you it works.

I was absolutely convinced it would not work, and I was wrong.

You know, So if you're coming in here and you're thinking that, you know, because your complex set of social issues, the 12 steps can't possibly address your personal concerns,

we don't care what you think, OK? And I'm not trying to say that to be mean. I'm just saying it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You know, attitude is optional. If you do the work, the work will do you. You know, we talk about a spiritual experience, a spiritual awakening, a psychic change, a different way of looking at things

that happens by going through these steps. And I've never had anybody come in and look up on the wall. Do you have them up on the wall? Oh, up there. Oh, you've got plaques. That's like the 10 commandments. Nice. And I've never heard, seen anybody come in and go, oh, thank God.

I've been waiting my whole life for this. You know what I mean? You know, George, will you please take me through the steps? No, we don't do that. We're like, seriously, that's all you got? That's it.

That's the best you got? Yeah, it is. And the reality is, for most of us, none of that makes sense until you're on the other side of it. And then it's very clear and very pure. And it's very simple. And the book says it's simple but not easy. The simple part is the black part. It's the instructions. The not easy part is me and my ego, which tries to separate me from you and from God. You know, the latter is impossible, but I can't realize that at the time. The former is possible but very painful because we're not designed, frankly to do this

or not. So we're going through this process and

I'm going to talk about a couple of the steps because I want to, I want to make sure that the new people understand how simple this is. Really, you know, when we got to the 4th step, Michael took me to page 65 and he, he pointed out that there's three columns on that, on that page. And he said, do you notice anything about those columns? Like, no, not really, because we'll take another look

like, well, Mr. Brown's kind of a jackhole. Somebody needs to tighten him up. No, no, no.

You'll notice that those aren't even complete sentences. They're just bullet points. And in your case, and because I'm a wordsmith, I'm an arguer, I'm a pain in the butt, I'm a lawyer, he says I don't want your life story. I want like two or three words for each column. You know, I want the resentment, the person, the institution or the principal. Second column, I want the cause, two or three words. Third column, I want the condition or how it affects you. And in a few words is enough. Is it self esteem? Is it pocketbook? Is IT security? Is it ambition? Is it personal relations? Is it sex relations?

It's pretty simple, he says. I'd like you to do a fourth column that's not in the book. But if you look on page 67, it talks about turning back to our list. We're going to look at mistake, fault and blame. We're going to look at things like selfishness, self centeredness, self seeking. We're going to look at dishonesty. We're going to look at the seven deadly sins that they talk about in the 12 and 12, pride, greed, lust, anger, envy, sloth. We're going to talk about fear because as you'll notice on page 65, it's nearly in every column. And then finally, we're going to talk about, are you unwilling to accept this person as a child of God who could be

sick? Are you unwilling to forgive this person? Are you unwilling to give this person the benefit of what we call a prayer to the sick man, which is on the bottom of 6766 and goes into 67? And then he gave me the instructions on the on the fair inventory and the sexual misconduct inventory turns me loose. And he told me he should take me a couple weeks. It took me 5 weeks, two or three weeks to think about it and two weeks to do it.

That's that's the truth. And I get this done and I go to present it to Michael and I'm going to tell you the first person on my inventory

because I want you to understand how simple and basic it is. Now, 1 caveat about this. Whatever your sponsors having you do,

that's what you need to do. OK,

Really, it's so important that you follow direction from somebody. I just want to point out what my experience was and how basic it is. So the first person on my inventory, I'm resentful at 2 words, my father, second column, the cause 2 words deserted me. Now, like the book says, Michael's prepared for a long talk. He asked me what happened. I told him I was four or five years old. My father was in the Air Force. He left. He went to Vietnam.

He didn't die there, but he didn't come back for, I don't know, 8-10, maybe 12 years. He did a couple tours in the Air Force. He wound up joining an outfit called Air America. He stayed there for, I don't know, somewhere between 8:00 to 12:00 years. He, he was there till the fall of Saigon. He left sometime in the 60s and was there till the fall of Saigon and he married. He met a Thai woman, Leanne Thong. My stepmother married her, apparently before he divorced. My mom and I have 1/2 sister Peck, and I've never met either of them. And I've heard from my father occasionally a card or a letter, a phone call. One time he came through

Las Vegas, where I grew up, and he took my brother and I out to have pizza in an afternoon, but he pretty much deserted me. What does it affect? Self esteem, pocketbook security, ambition, personal relations, sex relations. I mean, other than that, things are going pretty good. But yeah, it's

a, it's a big one, it's a big one. What's my mistake? Falter blame? Well, I don't really have any in relation to the cause, but what about the condition?

You know, I get here, I'm 37 years old. By the time I'm writing this inventory, I'm 38 years old,

and I

what defected character? If God were to remove it, would I no longer have this resentment because it's the number one offender? It's blocking me off from the sunlight of the Spirit. You know, my father's not thinking about it, but I'm thinking about it.

You know, was I selfish, self-centered, self seeking? I don't think so. Dishonest. No. How about pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, and we slot the right down. Anger. I was really angry for a long time and

fear. I have a lot of fear and what am I afraid of? I love my father and, and, and in my mind, when I, when I love my father, I gave him a certain amount of power and he abused that and he took advantage of that and

I can never let that happen again. There has to be a wall of insulation between you and me and me and you because it's not safe for me. And that doesn't make for good relations with friends or family or spousal relations or anything, but it's all I got. It's my self-defense mechanism. And then finally, I'm unwilling to accept that my father's a child of God like me who could be spiritually sick. I'm unwilling to forgive him.

And I read this to him and I'm getting ready to go on and talk about my mother when Michael stops me and points out to me that when I'd actually come to see him the first night, I had told him that the morning that I asked him to sponsor me, I was getting ready to execute a newcomer plan. And the newcomer plan involved taking some passports and leaving the country and going to Costa Rica.

And it wasn't going to involve my wife or my daughter. And he pointed out to me that, you know, isn't what you were planning on doing with your wife

and daughter staying here. You didn't say you were going to desert them, but isn't that essentially the equivalent of what your dad did?

My first thought was this is not going the way I thought it was going to go at all.

And I hung my head and I muttered, well, I mean, if you look at it that way.

And, and that's the point of the 5th step. We admit to God, to ourselves that to another human being because I can't see me for who I am. I need this person, my sponsor, to reflect me back in a mirror. And this is not a happy day. This is not a moment of joy. I didn't have a spiritual experience with this. I got through the rest of the inventory. I did the fear inventory to the sexual misconduct inventory. I went home and I got quiet. I reviewed. When I done, I thought I was complete. I wasn't. When I started sponsoring guys, they started telling me stuff they did that I remembered that I had done too,