Pat R. Step 9: Step Series at the 12 Step House - 12/9/2025

Pat Rogan Step 9, Step Series at the Tuesday night Step Group at the 12 Step House, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 12/9/2025.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Recovered alcoholic. My name is Pat Rogan. Pat Rogan, and
thanks for the twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous outlined in
this Big Book, which is the program of AA. I
recovered from a seemingly hope the state of mind and body,
and for that, I'll be forever grateful. I can't even
express my gratitude. We were talking before the meeting. You know,

(00:24):
this is my life, you know, And and the reason
is because I didn't have a life when I got here.
I had no life. I hated the life that I
lost even I just everybody did love me and everything
I loved was gone, you know, And I had to
buy into this. Without this, I have nothing. Everything in

(00:44):
my life that I have is because of AA, you know,
because of my participation in AA. And I just can't
get enough of it. I just I just love being here,
and I thank you guys for letting me be here.
I actually am doing the ninth step on the ninth week.
That's freaking non believe, you know. I mean that's for me,
uh and that maybe I might lose that trend, yeah,

(01:06):
it's And I always feel kind of awkward doing the
nine step when there's you know, there's people in the
room that have thirty days and you know, sixty days
and ninety days, and it's it's don't start here, don't
start here. You know this is there's a lot of work.
There's eight steps that come before this ninth step, and
there's a reason for that. There's a reason for that.
It's a there's a a lot of work to do

(01:28):
before you get here. You know, a lot of a
lot of knowledge to Aqui before I got here. And
you know the uh, you know, we live in these
these these three dimensions. We live in this spiritual, mental,
and physical dimensions in life. And and the first thing
we do is we get right in the spiritual dimension,
at least make a decision to get right in this
spiritual dimension and accept the idea that the only solution

(01:51):
to my problem is a spiritual solution. And that's a requirement.
We we just read it. There there's two requirements for
AA steps one, Steps two. Two requirements for recovery. Not
for membership, but for recovery. The ABC's are the first
two steps without an admission of powerless None of this
makes sense. There is no step two problem. There is

(02:12):
no step three problem. There is no step four, Step
five step eight. There's no step problem. It's a first
step problem. You know, if you're convinced that you're powerless
over alcohol in any form, then you have no option
but to accept the spiritual solutions. And that means I

(02:33):
can't stay stopped. That there's no human power on this
planet that can keep me stopped. Now, for me, that
wasn't a hard thing to come to terms with because
I had given up my child. I had given up
costody of my son for a drink. Right see, a

(03:00):
pirate had Pittsburgh. From Pittsburgh, I just found it. It
was imperative, you know, I come to terms with that.
There's nobody. There's nobody I loved more than my son,
and I could not stay stopped for him. I could

(03:22):
not stay stopped for my mother. I could not stay
stopped for my wife twice. So it was obvious that
I was powerless. So what do I So? What are
my options? Go on to the bitter end, or accept
spiritual help, die an alcoholic death, die a attic death,
or accept spiritual help? And only we would have to

(03:43):
ponder that, Only we would have to say, well, I'll
get back to you. You know, what kind of death
is it? Going to be because if it's going to
be a quick, painless death, I mean right, But if
it's going to be slow and painful and I might
not I might survive the suicide attempt, then I'll ponder

(04:03):
the options. I put a gun to my head and
pull a trigger before I came here, and it's only
God must have grabbed my hand and moved that gun
to shoot my water bit, which didn't go. Well, that's

(04:34):
how much I hated my life. There's nothing I hated
more than my life. I think that's true. What most
of us are coming here? Why would we unless were
court ordered? But we're trying to make a family happier,
parents happy, Why else would we be here? You know,
nothing I hated more than my Well, there was one

(04:54):
thing I hated more and that's change. Yeah, they hate change.
I hate my life, but I don't want to change.
This is all about change. This is all about change.
But I had to accept the fact that I was powerless.
I had to accept the fact that there was no
human power that was going to solve my problem, and
only a power greater than human power was going to

(05:16):
solve that. And how whatever you think that is spirit
of the universe, creative intelligence, energy, whatever you think that is.
Go from no. If you're an atheist and you're sitting
in this room, just go from no to maybe maybe
this will work for me. That's because what else should
you have? What other choice do you have? You have
another choice? Our book says, our hats are off to you. Now.

(05:40):
I'm not a guy that will sit here and go
go try your addiction again, because you may not make
it back. I'm not a guy that says we'll go
have another drink of you know. I'm not that guy
because I see people go do that and they don't
make it back. I would never suggest that you go
on another run to convince yourself that you need to
stay stock there. You ask us to these questions if

(06:03):
when you honestly want to stay stop page forty four.
Two questions When you honestly want to stay stopped, you
find you cannot given sufficient reason. In their book says
going to jail, losing a loved one, losing your marriage,
ill health, I'm gonna die. Given sufficient reason, you find
you can't say stopping. Once you start, you can't control them.

(06:25):
Ount you take, have a seat, you're in, you qualify,
and that being the case, and you suffer from an
illness that only a spiritual experience, only a spiritual awakening,
only a personality change, only a change in your ideas, emotions,
and attitudes will solve. Only change will solve. I hate

(06:47):
my life and I hate change. Only change is going
to solve your problem. What do I have to change?
We told me what they tell you when you got here. Everything.
There's only one thing you got to tell you about everything.
Everything you think is well. My sponsor when he went
on vacation one time, he said, hey, pat if you

(07:08):
think it's a good idea, test what the opposite of
that would be, and then ponder that before you take
any action. And most of the time he was right.
Most of the time, when I thought about the opposite
of what I'm going to do, it was a better option.
Those are requirements that to make a decision in step

(07:30):
three to get right spiritually in that one first dimension,
to get right spiritually, and then we go into the
mental dimension my thinking. Where is my thinking flawed? Are
they right? Am I really selfish and self centered and
driven by fear and self delusion and self pity? Am

(07:51):
I really stepping on the toes of my fellows and
they're retaliating. Is it really my fault and not theirs?
Said no? And Jim Besai will put it on paper
and see if you're right. Got a lovely meetings, man,

(08:12):
You gotta see this is this is the discipline that
we're talking about. You know this this program, this program
is about following simple directions, you know, and then tests
us to see if we are capable of that. You

(08:32):
know what I mean, Like like just simple stuff like
I shared with you guys about wearing a collar when
you're at the podium, you know, like they thought, why
it wasn't about the caller, it was about pack. Can
you follow one simple fing direction?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Why can you be at the meeting fifteen minutes early?
Why we're just asking you if you could be here
fifteen minutes early, help us set up?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Well? Why can you shut your phone off? Can you
stay off your phone for one hour? Can you put
the crack down? Isn't it is? It's like that, right,
Like asking somebody to stay off their phone for an hour.
It's like asking them not to smoke crack. It's an addiction.

(09:24):
It's all about the dopamine, man, It's all about the attention.
Did she respond? Did she like my post? I see
the green lights on for God? No, she's there. It's

(09:44):
it's all about the dopamine. Man, It's all about the dopamine.
I digressed to night. Let me tell you something. As
soon as I put pen to paper, as soon as
I put pen to paper, the transformation, transformation starting right now.

(10:07):
I'm talking about this because all of this is necessary
to get to step nine. All of this is necessary
to make the amends in step nine, to see the
truth about myself. Yes, this is my fault. Ninety percent
of this is my fault. For me, it was maybe
ninety five percent of this is my fault. Five percent

(10:28):
of it isn't. Well, what are you gonna do about that? Pat?
Or you're gonna pray for them? What? Yeah? A simple direction,
just a simple direction. I just want you to follow directions.
Why would I pray for this asshole? You know, because
it's good for you, Because it's good for you. Don't
worry about them, but it might help you. Ah, all right, God,

(10:53):
give her what she deserves, you know. That was my
first prayer for my ex wife. Give her exactly what
she deserves. But you know what, and I share with
you guys early in that simple give her what she deserves,
and I'm praying for on a daily basis, saying that

(11:13):
you know what comes to me, Pat, Why would you
want your son to be with a miserable mom? Wow?
Are you really gonna kick your son out of his house?
Out of his bedroom? Because it's your house? And God
enters my starts to enter my heart. It starts to
make me see some love and some patience and some

(11:37):
tolerance for the people around me. For the first time
in my life. I start to see it from a
different angle. That's what the fourth step says, right, we
start looking at life from a different angle. Instead of
playing victimies, let me see what's going on in their
life and maybe I can help. Maybe I could do
something positive. Why because we're asking you to do that, Pat,

(12:03):
because we're asking you to follow another simple direction, do
something nice for somebody. See what happens. My life started
to transform in the fourth step. But the real spiritual
experience for me came in five. And I shared that
with you before I found the God of my misunderstanding

(12:23):
and step five, I had no idea. I did not
define it. I just know that a power entered my
heart in my fifth step. That solved my problem, that
removed the obsession to drink. It was the first time
in my life I shared with you that I was
at peace without a substance in my body, and I
wanted more of that, and that's what pushed me to

(12:45):
go through the rest of the steps. That's where the
transformation took place for me, and that was necessary for
me to do nine. Without that transformation, I'm not going
into nine with the right attitude. And there's no coincidence
that Bill stuck six and seven. The tools have changed

(13:07):
in between five and eight nine, because somehow I gotta
start changing to demonstrate that I'm different. I gotta stop lying.
I gotta stop cheating. I gotta stop being inconsiderate. I
gotta stop being selfish. I gotta stop making decisions based
on fear. Fear I'm not gonna get what I want,

(13:28):
Fear you're gonna find out what I did. Fear the
past is gonna repeat itself, Fear in the future, and
just sacrificing the now right, just sacrificing the moment over
and over and over again, because I'm worried about the
past and the future and crazy, crazy life. My forehead

(13:54):
unwrinkled in step five. It did. I always I always
see I always look at people to see if their
foreheads wrinkled, you know, hanging in there, you know what
I mean? How you doing? I'm hanging in there? I
mean I really kind of remember, like in my I
left that my forehead was flat. I was like, that's
and I'm gonna tell you something. When my foreheads wrinkled,

(14:16):
I notice it. I notice it on a daily basis.
I noticed because it happens during the day. I mean,
life is stressful. Yeah, so I start to change. I
love what what? What? Oh? Sorry, sorry guys, I love

(14:39):
I I uh. Paul says successful living comes from daily dying,
you know. And each day I'm killing off that old
self and creating this new stuff, becoming reborn. You know,
I'm becoming this new person. This new person is starting
to show some restraint and starting to show some love
and patience and tolerance and starting to overcome fear with courage.

(15:03):
And so I believe that that courage is not the
absence of fear for me, it's the ability to walk
through it. I'm no longer frozen in it. I have
this power that can guide me through it. That's my
demon still to this day. But I can get through
it with God's help, with this power greater than myself.

(15:27):
So I'm starting to transform. God has entered my heart
because the resentments are starting to leave and they're being
replaced with the love of patience and tolerance and understanding.
The fear is starting to leave, and that's starting to
be replaced with courage. But I got some unfinished business right.
Bill talks about the three forms of spiritual sickness in
the fourth step, the resentments, the fear, and the guilt,

(15:51):
remorse and shame from hurting other people. That's that cloud
is still there. That's the unfinished business. And here's the thing.
By the time I got here, I couldn't wait to
do it. You know what I'm saying. And I know
if you're new here and you're looking at those steps,
if you're cheating like I did, you know you're looking

(16:11):
at may the men's the people. I know. I was.
We were reading the doctor's opinion and I was saying
to Brighten, am I gonna have to call the I
R S. He said, pat where it's step one. There's
we got eight more, you know, if we go a
little bit further and say, credit card do I have
to pay? I have to call a credit card companies

(16:34):
pat where it's step one, stop looking ahead, you know.
And then and he convinced me to stop one step
at a time, because one step builds on the next,
and then that one builds on the next, and then
that one builds on the next. And by the time
I get to nine, I can't wait to make you.
I want more. I want more God, whatever that is

(16:56):
at that point, whatever that is, Like, you're new here,
you know. When I defined the God of my understanding
fifteen years sober, fifteen years sober, I put a name
to it, and I'll tell you and I'll tell the
story later. I'm not gonna tell it now. I'll tell
the story later. It was paying relating. I can tell

(17:18):
you that all my spiritual growth has been paying related.
I am forced to grow. I don't get up in
the more, he said, Damn, I'm gonna go spiritually today,
you know, just not me. It's just not my nature.
So I want more. The book talks about an attitude.

(17:40):
By the way, Step nine is kind of like one
of the few that like describes exactly what we're gonna do,
doesn't it know? It tells us what kind of amends
we're gonna make. We're gonna make direct direct eyeball to eyeball, right,
face to face. Well, when are we gonna do that
wherever possible? Not whenever, because that would be never for us,
you know, wherever possible? And when are we not going

(18:03):
to do it? Well when it would hurt that other person? Right,
very clear cut right. And by the way, I don't
whatever your sponsor says, go along with it, but I'm
going to tell you what I believe. We are not another.
We are not another. I'm not on my nightstep. You know.
My freedom comes from making making it right with you.

(18:29):
The book says we should be hard on ourselves, easy
on it. We should be willing to go to jail.
The book says we should be willing to pay any
price to make that amends so that we can clear
that wreckage away and not have to suffer from that
cloud following us around anymore. And I'll give you some
examples of that later, but I want to talk about

(18:54):
I lost my place here. Here's the attitude. We go
to them in a helpful and forgiving spirit. So these
people that we're going to may have harmed us. Also,
we may have retaliated, or we may have done something
and they retaliated, but we put that out of our minds.

(19:14):
This is about our side of the street, not their
side of the street. It has nothing to do with
what they did. So we're going to them and a
helpful and forgiving spirit. Remember I said last week, forgiveness
freeze the forgiver. Right, That's how I get freedom. By
forgiving you, I get free. That's that healing circuit that

(19:39):
Ben Te used, that Ben Trompsy used to talk about, right,
the healing circuit. I forgive you, God forgives me. I
forgive you, God forgives me. You know that's how that works.
So I'm going to them and a helpful forgiveness giving spirit.
Rule number one, under no condition do we criticize such
a person or argument. The book later will say, we're

(20:01):
not servile or scraping, right, we don't beg for forgiveness,
and we don't argue about it. We're not going to
fight for it. Right, We're there and to helpful, forgiving spirit,
and we do not criticize such a person. Rule number two,
we never try to tell them what they should do
or what they should have done. This is about us.

(20:22):
It's not about that rule number three. Their faults are
not discussed. What they did is not discussed. They want
to bring it up. Fine, we're not. We're not. They
want to. We're making amends. They want to make it. Okay,
I'll accept it, but I'm not going there. I'm just
there to clean off my side of the street. And

(20:44):
it's really important, really important. This is why we do
the eighth step the way I told you last week,
where we put you know, who did I hurt, what
did I do? What was the harm? And then what's
the plan for the amends? We write it out. This
is where my sponsees need to talk to me before
before they go into the amends and say with me
when I make an amends, I need to talk to
my sponsor before I go into to make the amends

(21:05):
and rehearse that amends because I don't want to go
into an amends and leave their own an amends right.
I want to make sure I'm not going in there
and I'm not going to create more harm. And what
do I do, Like the book says, what do I
do if they throw me out? Of the office. I'm
sorry you feel that way. I'm leaving right and maybe

(21:28):
someday down the road will have another opportunity to make
that amends. Maybe their attitude will change some down and
down the road. I don't know, but I make the effort,
and if it's not accepted, it's not accepted. I'm sorry
you feel that way. I sincerely regret my actions. I
gotta go, and that's it done. And then Bill talks

(21:51):
about the different types of amends that we're gonna take.
The first one is financial. Funny, that would be first, right,
most alcoholics all money. That's an understand I had. I
think I shared with you guys earlier. I had this

(22:13):
when I came to Florida in nineteen eighty. I got
caught in a snowstorm and I found a way to
drink around the clock and still make it to work,
you know. And I spended three hundred dollars a day
going to work to make eighty And when you do that,
you use your credit cards to survive. And I racked

(22:34):
up one hundred grand in credit card debt and I
got I was part of a company. I won't mention
to day, but it's no longer in business. They had
twenty five stores, and I was a co owner. Actually
my uncle owned it and I was one of the officers.
And they went out of business and they owned some

(22:55):
rent to own companies and NET got sold. So I
got fifty thousand dollars and I was going through a divorce,
so not to give her any of it. I put
the fifty thousands towards the credit cards, and I owed
fifty When I got here, I owned fifty thousand dollars.
I remember, tell him, Bryan, I said, I said, look,
thinking about it, I said, you know how long it's

(23:15):
going to take to pay that off? And he said, yeah,
same amount of time as if you never send them
a dime, you know, he says. I said it might
take twenty years. He said, yeah, you got twenty years.
And I love Bill Wilson. Thank you. Bill arranged the
best deal you can and that's what I did. I
called these credit card companies, said the one that I

(23:36):
could get them to close it and freeze the interest,
I made deals making payments to them. There were other
ones that wouldn't accept any kind of terms. So I
took that money and put it on no interest cards
for six months or whatever it was. And then when
that ran out, I moved it again to another card.
And it took me ten years to pay off the
credit cards and I paid them up. I paid them

(23:57):
all off. You know, no need to have pause, because
that's what you're supposed to do, you know. You know
you're supposed to pay them. That's how that works, you know.
And by the way, I learned a lesson I have.
I don't keep any balances on my cards. If I
can't afford it, I don't buy it. What a concept,
What a concept to live within your means. That's amazing.

(24:17):
That's not the American way. Yeah, financial ass out, you know.
But I don't pay very rare, very rare. Do I
have a balance on any of my credit cards? And
I don't have a bunch of them anymore if you
have a couple. But I learned a lesson. I Uh,

(24:40):
when I used to ask him, Brian, if I had
to call the I R S, I didn't they called me.
And I think it's because you know, I filed my
I filed the first tax return I remember, Uh, I
got sober in March aprils taxes. I filed my first
tax return that I I remember signing right, and that

(25:03):
may have thrown up a flag, you know, because it
probably looked different than all the other ones that I filed,
you know. And uh, and I got called in and
I got audited, and I and I did, like Bill said,
you know, he'll he suggested, you'll take an attorney with you,
take take a CPA with you. Don't go by yourself. See.
And here's the thing. Taxes is a funny. Taxes is

(25:26):
a hard thing for me. I'm just not capable of
being honest. I don't know what it is. I hate.
I hate to admit it. I hate. I mean, thirty
some years sober, and I'm telling you I can't do
my own taxes. There's spiritual warfare that goes on when
I'm trying to do my giff. You know. It's like
was that dinner business? What could have been? What do
they know? You know? And I got to stop right there.

(25:49):
But so I don't do my tax I have a
CPA do Texas. I don't go near there. But I
brought mister C with me, my accountant, UH, to the
I R S. And I introduced him and I said,
this is mister C. He'll be taking care of this
from here moving forward. And I looked at it and I said,
I just now got into recovery. I was about nine

(26:11):
months sober at the time. I said, I'm nine months sober.
I said, honestly, that's the only tax return I remember signing.
I said, you guys, figure out what I owe, let
me know, and I will do it. And I left
and they went back that year. They okayed that one.
They went back another year. I owed them eight hundred

(26:32):
dollars plus penalties, and they stopped and they said, stay
the course, you know, and that was it clean. Now
I don't have to you know that. Does anybody know
that feeling when you owe the irs money, when you've
been cheating on your taxes and there's a letter in
the mailbox that says I r rests on it. You
know that feeling like your heart just drops to the

(26:54):
ground and then you pretend you didn't get it, you know,
like you just throw that right into the guard. We
don't even open it. You just try to, I mean,
really burn it so there's no fingerprints on it. That
clouds removed. You know, I opened them now, I see,
Oh I let her from the RS. Wonder what this
is you know, I'm not afraid of that. The fear

(27:17):
is gone. You see what I'm saying. We're starting to
remove the things that are blocking us from the sunlight.
I've got some sunlight from the from the fourth step,
but now I'm starting to get more sunlight from nine.
Right now, I want more? Now what you know? Now?
So I'm doing this. Uh, I'll tell you what. I

(27:39):
left the Derby Lounge one night in side swiped the
whole city block. Yeah, I mean boo boom boom, boom, boom,
bom boom, boom boom, and parked in my house. You know,
I got up the next morning there was ship laying
all over the streets, mirrors, and I'm out there with Bondo.
You know, Bond mixed. Remember Bondo, right? They still yeah

(28:06):
duct Tate Bondo. Sure, How do you make amends for that?
I mean, that's you know, I guess I get I
leave Pittsburgh in eighty That probably happened in the mid seventies,
I guess, sober in ninety one. There's no way I'm
going to find those people. How do I make amends
for that? Well, the book talks about indirectments later on

(28:29):
in the chapter. Yeah, how do I get right with
the universe? Well, there's ways to do that, you know,
shoplifting publics, you know, not you he was a U
er one, CBS, Walgreens, Yeah, Walmart. Yeah, that's a classic. Yeah,

(28:52):
that's an easy one. That's an easy one. You see,
all this stuff starts to coming. These are financial amends.
How do I make amend? You know what? Walmart's not
going to take the money, and they're not going to
know how to take the money. You can go in
there and admit you've been robbing them for years, you know.
And like I tell my guys, when you put this
on your eighth step list, put a number on it.

(29:12):
You know, how much do you think you stole? Estimate?
What do you think you talk? Four hundred, five hundred
two thousand, five thousand, What do you think you stall? Seriously,
now find out what charity that Walmart's involved in. They
start making some donations in their charity, in their in

(29:33):
your in their name, anonymously, anonymously, whether it's five dollars,
ten dollars, whatever it is. A month, get right with
the universe, get right with the God of your understanding
or you're misunderstanding that God. Whatever, you think that is.
I need to clear away the wreckage. I need to
clear away. I need to clear my conscience somehow, you

(29:58):
guys contemplating how much you shoplifted. I got backed into
a church one Sunday. I looked at it, I looked
at her. I goes, there's one amends. I let it go,
you know, right, somebody hits a couple of times. Just
let people go out. Don't worry about it. I got it,

(30:21):
you know. And there's my amends. I'm going to try
to make amends for those cars somewhere down somewhere somehow
when the opportunity arises. So one of the ones that
I that I truly regret, truly regret. This is where
this is who I was, right, This is who I was.

(30:43):
There was this cop. See, we were entrepreneurs, you know,
and we hung out on this particular corner which was
our which was our corner, you know, And and there
was this cop who used to just harass us for
no reason, you know. And he would come by and

(31:04):
try to pick us up, and we you know, just
just disrupting business, you know. And so we decided one night,
drunk his help and probably some other substances involved and
to destroy his brand new money Carlo. Right, So we
busted all the windows out of his car, and I
threw a gallon of paint all over the car and

(31:26):
inside the car. Right, that's who I was. That's that's
where alcohol and drugs took me. I'll teach him to
mess with us. Well, obviously they investigate, and somebody drops
my name, you know, and uh, and they put a

(31:47):
warn out, you know. And and here's what he puts
out there. This guy was Nick, Nick m was his name.
Won't use his last name. And Nick put out there
there's a true story. And this I don't I would
have never believed it if somebody had told me this,
he said, if he just turns himself. There was two

(32:07):
other people involved it. They just turned themselves in. I
will not press charges. I just need to talk to them.
I'nt believe, right, So we don't believe them. But so
three weeks later, while we're hiding in bushes and shit
in the car. You know, that gets old, by the way,

(32:29):
when you can't walk the streets anymore, you know, we
decided to get high and go turn ourselves in. And
Nick lectured us for about a half an hour and
he said, look, the damage is to my car, and
I think it was over two thousand dollars or whatever
it was. He said, I just want each of you

(32:50):
to pay me a third of that, and I won't
press charges, but I need you to make that compensate
me for the repair and to that. And I never
paid him. Yeah, And I would run into him. He
would see me on the streets once in a while
and he'd pull over and come on, I can't give
my money to somebody and say, you know, I'm broke,

(33:10):
you know. So I'm doing a step series up in
both up in pomp and Up, and I'm talking about
the ninth step in the eighth step, and it comes
on my heart. It wasn't even on my list of harms, right,
it comes on my heart. Oh my god. I never

(33:31):
made amends for that. And so I tried to contact Nick.
He was a wilk. It's for a cop, and they
call it stocking when you're looking for a cop. You know,
they will not tell you where he lives or give
you any information, you know. And and so I'm phone

(33:56):
book make calls and stuff like that, couldn't get ahold
of him. So I decided I and for I decided
to make an anonymous not anonymous in his knee, make
donations to the Pittsburgh's Homeless Children Fund as much as
I could afford each month, you know, twenty five, fifty,
one hundred, whatever I could have. The truth is I

(34:17):
love the charity, and I still do it, you know,
and knowing that I would never get a hold of him. Right,
fifteen years later, I'm fifteen years sober when this comes
on my heart. Fifteen years seventeen years later. Right, I'm
with my sponsor. We're driving to my home group on
Monday nights, and my buddy Dave calls, one of my

(34:41):
old running buddies. Dave calls me out of nowhere, and
we start reminiscing about the good old days, you know,
when we got to remember when we got arrested stealing gas.
You know, remember when we shoplifted that door and the
cops got Yeah. Yeah, we were having those you know,
those tragically funny stories, you know, and when we rolled
that car over. We all walked out of that lab

(35:02):
as I said, yeah, I remember when we destroyed that
CoP's car, and he goes, no, he said, I wasn't there,
And I said, you weren't there. He goes, yeah, what
cop I said, Nick, nick Em and he goes nick Em.
I said yeah. He says, that's my uncle. This is
God's honest truth, right. I said, you're kidding me. I've

(35:23):
been trying to get a hold of Nick for thirty years, yeah,
fifteen years. And he says, yes, my uncle. And I
go really, he says, yeah, he's dead. I said, you're
kidding me. He said, yeah. Is there any way I
can get a hold of the family, because I know
I owe His wife and children are mess And he said, yeah,

(35:46):
his daughter's on Facebook, you know. And he gives me
his daughter's name, and I throw a message to his
daughter and I I'm not going to read the whole thing.
It's like letters that went back and forth. So I
write a letter saying I did something I truly regret
back in the seventies. I said, and I caused some

(36:06):
damage to some property of Nicks and your famili's and
I know that I owed like eight hundred dollars thousand dollars.
I don't know what it was, and I would like
to make amends for that, whatever it would take. And
she writes me back and she said, fortunately my father died,
which I knew. He said, well, my mother is still alive.

(36:27):
And she says to me, you mind telling me what
it was that you did. And so I write another
letter back telling them exactly what we did. And she said, yeah,
I was telling my husband. I think I thought it
had something to do with paint, you know, And she
tells me I was five at the time, and we

(36:50):
were afraid to leave the house. My mother and I
were afraid to leave the house. So, you know, we
talk about what I did versus the harm. Right, what
I did was I tore up his car, but you
know what the harm was his family was afraid to
leave the house. Right now, how do you make amends
for that? Right? And I told her the story, and

(37:13):
she called back, I thought I had something to do
with paint, and she said, I said, well, I would
like to make amends to your mother and to you,
whatever it takes. And she said, well, I'm going to
give you my address. She said, you could write my
mother a letter and I'll forward it to it. And
so I did that and the letter I got back

(37:34):
was incredible from her, and she said, and I explained
to him, I realized today what Nick was trying to do,
was teach us a valuable lesson that we could have
learned that would have changed our lives, right, instead of
putting us in jail. What she could have done. He
was trying to teach us something. And I told her

(37:54):
I realized at this time it took me fifteen years
to realize what he was really trying to do. Let's
teach us a life's lesson. And she said, yeah, here,
story after story after story how Nick tried to change
young people's lives, she said. And she said, I'm sure
he's looking down at your sobriety right now, and he's
proud as hell of what you've become, you know. And

(38:16):
then I wrote her back. I said what can I
do to make this right? And she said, you can
continue to contribute to at Pittsburgh Home with Children from me,
And I said, I don't think that's enough. I said,
I know I owe you two thousand, but I could
be ten. How do you how much do you need?
Do you need anything? To know? Just continue to make
that contribution. Right. So you know, I say that because

(38:40):
these amends go on for the rest of our lives. Right,
It's like we're willing to make them. We're willing to
make them all, all of them. I'm willing to do
them all. And I take the effort and then I
let God do the rest, right And when I was
ready and when they were ready to hear it, God
put them in my life. And I've had stuff like
that happen over and over again. You know, I don't

(39:01):
want to get into relationships real quick. But you know,
just recently, my very first girlfriend, my very first everything right,
showed up on Facebook. I had never been able to
make amends for her. She showed up on Facebook. This
is talk we're talking about. I graduated in seventy three,
you know, we dated from seventy four to seventy seven,

(39:23):
somewhere in there. And I introduced her to six or
seven jails, you know, a lot of different substances, you know.
I told her her father's car, you know. I mean,
these are the kind of things I helped her experience,
you know, And I really really wanted to make some
kind of an amends to her, but I never could.

(39:44):
I never knew where she was. And she shows up
on Facebook. This is just recently, this is just not
even a month ago. And I asked my wife, do
you mind if I contact her, you know, which is
what we do. You know, we don't want to do
any harm at home, because if she says no, I'm
not doing it right. So I asked her if she
was okay with me contacting her and making a formal moment,

(40:07):
and she says no, not at all. And I contacted
her and we wrote back and forth on a messenger
and I told her I really truly regret what I
put you through as a teenager, you know, the jails
and the car accidents and the drugs and the drinking.
And she says, we were just kids being kids, and

(40:30):
I said, well that went on another twenty years for me. Funny,
perception is different, right the h The next one that
Bill addresses in the book is the criminal stuff, which

(40:51):
doesn't apply to probably anybody here, but you know, it's
another thing. It's about facing the consequences, right, getting three,
getting free, removing that cloud, not having your heart fall
to your feet when a car, a cop car is
behind you, you know, or a road check go sobriety
check or whatever's up above, you know, knowing that that

(41:12):
warrant is out there. You know, I had one. I
had one. I didn't even know it was out there.
So I went to buy a weapon, you know, and
then there was allegedly I was allegedly arrested for a
mescaline trafficking charge back in nineteen seventy four, and the
charges were there, but there was no disposition, and so

(41:36):
they refused to sell me the weapon because of that.
So what I had to go back and make it right,
you know, make it go away. But I've got story
after story of guys I sponsored, my buddy Rick, you know.
I mean, look, most of us, not a lot of
us are down here just for the weather, right. A
lot of us came down from the north for the warrant,
you know, to get away from the consequences up there. Right.

(41:58):
But we got to face that the book is telling
us if we want to remain sober, or let's say this,
if we don't want to live a life of quiet desperation, right,
because I'm sure there's people in here that just refuse
to make that right, and they're willing to live with
the wrinkled forehead. Okay, Okay, if that's all you want
from this, that's fine. That's what I wanted more. I

(42:19):
wanted more than that. I wanted freedom. I didn't want
to worry about the costs pulling me over. I didn't
want to worry about all that stuff. The Rick had
a warrant up in Boston, so we made a plan.
We got a hold of an attorney. Right. He showed up.
He was willing to face the consequences. He talked about

(42:41):
his sobriety. We had letters showing what he was doing
in sobriety. Can you believe this? The prosecuting attorney was
in Na. Right, he pleads his case, He shows his
papers to the judge. Everything. Judges look like you're doing
pretty good prosecuting attorneys in Na. He leaves, there has

(43:02):
to pay restitution, probation, and he calls me and he said,
you're not gonna believe what happened. I said, you're kidding me.
I've seen miracle after miracle after miracle takes place. Now
some people have seen go to jail and be willing
to go to jail. My friend Sarah did two years right.

(43:24):
Rick left, no just probation and financial restitution. You're not
gonna believe it. I said, I believe it. And I
said to him and said, do you remember Fred in
the Big Book? He said, why, I said, it was
the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on
the horizon. Right, What did Fred do? So Fred got high?

(43:46):
What you gonna do, Rick, I'm gonna go to a
meeting and share this miracle. There you go, there you go.
This is where sponsorship and sponsor, this is where it
comes together. Right. Sarah in my wife's program, you know,
facing two years faces, it turns herself in. I'm willing

(44:07):
to do that to get free, That's what she said.
And you know what she did. She started a big
book meeting in the jail. People are coming to my
meeting on money. And I said, Sarah sent me. I
pasked Sarah, I'm allowed to use her name. She knows
you know those are you that know her? You know,

(44:29):
Sarah sent me to this group. She's We were in
her big book meeting in the facility of yeah, and
she come out and she's still sober to this day.
You know, we're willing to face any consequences and no
matter what the price that we have to pay. You know,
I've had I mean, I have so many stories. Man.

(44:51):
I was I was at my home group. I'll end
with us. I was at my home group and I
I had four hundre hours in my pocket. I don't
know why I was carry around four hundred dollars. Nobody
uses cash anymore anyway, you know. And I and I
get I go home, and I get up the next morning,
and I can't find the four hundred dollars, right, And

(45:14):
I remember some guy buying a big book and me
giving him change. And I'm thinking, maybe I dropped the money.
He stole it, you know. This is where my head goes,
you know, because he bought a big book after the
big book reading. Why would anybody be that, you know,
I'm a detective, you know. And I can't believe I

(45:34):
can't find this money's cane. I think somebody stole it.
And so I go back to my home. The women's
club is where my home group is. I go back
to I search the women's club, can't find it. Come home.
Next day, I go to work, I come home again,
I get on my motorcycle. I decided I'm going to
go look for the money again. It's got to be there.
So I'm going crazy over this four hundred dollars. It's

(45:56):
it's eating meal. This is not that long ago, right,
So I decide you know what. I take my bike,
I go out to the Everglades. I go out to
the end Oflocks Road. I'm sitting there praying, I need help,
I need to let this go. And I'm looking at
this gorgeous sunset, and here's what comes on my heart. Pat.
Do you remember the guy that walked out of the

(46:17):
electrical supply house and he dropped his money on the ground.
It was about four hundred dollars and you and your
buddy picked it up and split it. You stole his paycheck.
He had just cashed his check. Now you know how
he felt. And all of a sudden, I was just free,

(46:40):
and I said, man, how do I make a mess
for that? How do I make a me as well?
You know how I do that? You know that homeless
guys that stand on the corner, I don't judge them anymore.
I don't say, hey, you look like you could get
a job. Hey, hey, you're healthy enough. No, I don't
judge him anymore. What are you gonna You're gonna buy
beer with it, You're gonna buy crack, You're gonna buy

(47:02):
drugs with it. I don't judge them anymore. I just
give them something. I just give them something. I ask
them their name, make them a human being. You know
how you doing, buddy, Get some food, you know, and
I just get to know them just for that moment,
you know. And I'm gonna keep doing that. And I
don't care when the four hundred dollars is paid off.

(47:23):
I'm just gonna keep doing it, you know. I owe
that much. Like I said, sometimes it's getting right with
the universe, not necessarily directly, and when I can, wherever
I can, I'm gonna do a direct amends. But sometimes
I gotta do an indirect amands just to get right
with my God, just to get right with the universe.
So we'll talk more about that next week. Thanks for
letting be here.