Good morning guys. I'm Todd and I'm an alcoholic. I'll be talking about step six, but before I start, I'd like to do the serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I want to start off first of all by I appreciate the committee asking me to speak. You know, a year ago I was here and I was involuntarily displaced from my housing by my own actions. But because of this program and because of the men in this room, my life today is better than it's ever been. So it's it truly is an honor to be up here speaking to you guys. So step six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Sounds great. What does that mean? The 12 and 12 says this is the step that separates the men from the boys. 12 and 12 also says it is often disputed, a disputed question of whether God can and will remove defects of character. To me, it comes down to am I willing to allow God to remove defects of character. And on the topic of defects of character, instead of calling them defects of character, I like to think I have hundreds of character traits. How I use those traits determine whether they're good or bad. If I'm using my trait for something bad, it's probably probably a character defect. But when I make my list of character traits, for almost all of them, I can think of something positive I can use that trait for, or something negative. So it's how do I want to apply that to my life? Working step six begins with reviewing your list from your step four inventory. Some traits that came from my step four, probably similar to a lot of yours. Fear, anger, selfishness, dishonesty, pride, resentment, and self-pity. This step talks about am I entirely ready? Means do I have acceptance? Am I accepting these things in my life and my character? And can I make can I own my actions and stop making excuses? Am I open to asking God or my higher power to help me make positive changes in my life while recognizing I'll never be perfect? We hear it all the time: this is progress, not perfection. I sit up here today far from perfect, but I can tell you I am a million times better than I was a year ago. Am I truly ready to let go of my old way of thinking? And to me, these steps are awesome while sitting in the comfort of an AA room. It's safe, it's where you're surrounded by other alcoholics. What matters to me is do I have the ability to apply these steps in the real world? That's what I'm looking for when I'm working these steps. So to me, I truly think the point of step six is I'm gonna have throughout the day, I'm gonna have feelings or emotions that come to my brain. But what I need to do is pause, analyze, and check my motives before I respond or take action. And I need to focus on doing the next right thing. What's the next right thing? I don't always know exactly, but what I do know is the right thing never needs to be rationalized or justified. That is my barometer is if I'm doing the next right thing. I want to give two characters of two examples of quote character defects where I believe I did the next right thing. The first one is gonna deal with dishonesty. Um for those of you that know me best, my mother-in-law is very near and dear to my heart. So she came to our house a couple weeks ago, and my first dishonesty was I said, It's really good to see you. The next thing she did was try to fit in our chair in our living room, which was a tight squeeze. And she started telling me about her uh Weight Watchers coach, and then verbatim read me verbatim her 10 new Weight Watchers recipes. Two cups of this, I'm like, oh my god. So what I wanted to tell her was you need to fire your Weight Watchers coach. But I said you're doing a great job. So to me, dishonesty is a character defect, but I I don't feel like I used it for the wrong reason. I don't need to be say something mean to somebody or something that's I don't know, but the next the next example I want to give is uh true anger I had. Um right after Fatima last year, I I had to take a trip to Los Angeles for work. Um, and my flight was from Indy to Houston out to LAX. So there's a co-worker of mine that I I spend more time with than anybody else in my life. Like we've been we've been really good friends and co-workers for the past 12 years. Um she's somebody that I would say is in my top best friends, and when it comes to work, I spend I probably spend an average of 30 plus hours a week with her. I talk to her on the phone no less than 20 times a day. But um bit, so I I I land in Houston, talk to her, everything's good, get on my flight to LA, and of course my plane's on airplane mode, or my cell phone's in airplane mode. When I land in LA, I turn it on, and I have like 20 messages from her. And it is like personal attack after personal attack after personal attack, and I'm thinking, I haven't even talked, like everything was fine an hour ago in Houston, and now all of a sudden I land in LA and now I'm the worst person on the planet. So I got angry, and my initial reaction was stuff I can't say in here. I wanted to call her and say stuff that I should not be saying in here. But what I did is I paused and I thought about, I said, you know, I I truly analyzed my actions. I said, okay, we always say we've done nothing wrong, but in this case, I've done nothing wrong. The messages continue to come the following day. I just ignored them, but with every message I got matter and matter and matter. Instead of responding, I just put the program to work. I said, you know what, Todd? This girl just had a kidney transplant, she's on all kinds of medication, she's stressed out, her actions truly have nothing to do with you. So I didn't, again, I just paused. And to me, that was the next right thing. Even though I was overly angry, character defect, I didn't do anything. Um, didn't address it. I just said, my side of the street is clean. I did not do anything. Um, about two weeks later, she called me and just said, acted like nothing ever happened. I'm like, okay, I said, I can I can I can work with this, whatever. I I've I've moved past this. Um and then right before Christmas last year, she said, Can I talk to you? I said, Yeah. She said, This has been eating me up. She said, The way I treated you when you were in California was completely ridiculous. And I she said, I'm truly sorry. And I'm so grateful for this program because this is a relationship that's been, again, one of the most important relationships in my life for the past 12 years. Had I responded with my initial reaction, had I not known how to think past that, had I not had a higher power to help me make the next right decision, I would have blown that relationship up. So I'm grateful. How do I use step six in my life? So Ryan talked about it. Um I've just changed the last year, I I didn't plan on talking about this, but guys, like uh when I relapsed, it completely crushed my ego. I I've never been I've never been more I I don't I don't have the adjectives to describe it. I was destroyed. I I just thought I was stronger than this. I could, I don't know what I thought, but relapsing just totally changed my life. Um so today, for the past year, I truly live one day at a time. That's it. My self-talk in the morning, I woke up at six today, I said, okay, I I know you guys hear me say this, but this is truly what goes through my head in the morning. Six o'clock, I'll probably go to bed at 10 tonight. That's uh 14 hours. Okay, for the next 14 hours, I just gotta be the best version of myself. I don't think about tomorrow, I don't think about next week, just today. Because today in my brain is a manageable thing. I can be a good person for one day. I start every day with a serenity prayer, followed by asking God to help me carry out his will, not my will. I fall short sometimes, but that's okay. Again, I'm not perfect, but I know tomorrow's a new day, and I can try to make it better. The most amazing thing for me about using this step six to be the best version of myself has nothing to do with alcohol. I already know that drinking magnifies my character defects by 10 million. Put alcohol in my body, I'm a completely different person and it's not good. So in the past, I I felt like I focused on counting my days of sobriety. I was looking at my app every day, oh yeah, great, I have 242 days. I don't care about that anymore. I care about what I'm doing today. I focus on making instead of counting my days, I focus on making my days count. I don't know what's gonna happen. Today could be my last day on earth, and I want it to be something positive. AA has given me a new design for living, and if I am dialed in on my emotional sobriety, physical sobriety is guaranteed in my book. Um, if I am again focused on the best person I can be, I am not gonna drink today. I feel like I did it backwards the first time. I was so worried about not putting alcohol in my body, I wasn't truly focused on the emotional sobriety. I want to truly thank you guys for the opportunity to speak today. Um, my my life is great today, and it's because the men in this room taught me how to live it. Um I don't deserve any of this. I I'm just so grateful to be here. Um and I'm so grateful for you guys for saving my life. Um that's all I got. Thanks.