Ошибка AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'chat' в pyTelegramBotApi

Делаю Telegram бот на python с помощью библиотеки pyTelegramBotApi. Суть в том, что у меня есть вот такой код

import telebot
from telebot import types
from SQLiter import SQLiter
import link
token = "blablabla" #здесь я вставляю свой реальный токен от бота в телеграмме

bot = telebot.TeleBot(token)
links = []
params = []

@bot.message_handler(commands=['start'])
def startWork(message):
    code = bot.send_message(message.chat.id, 'Введите код', reply_markup = types.ReplyKeyboardRemove())
    bot.register_next_step_handler(code, startWork1)

def startWork1(message):
    code = message.text
    if str(code) == "0987654321":
        bot.send_message(message.chat.id, "Привет")
    else:
        bot.register_next_step_handler(code, botWorkStep1)

def botWorkStep1(message):
    code = message
    status = ['creator', 'administrator', 'member']
    print("Шаг 1")

    db_worker = SQLiter('codes.db')
    for i in range(db_worker.count_rows()):
        answer = db_worker.select_single(i)
        db_worker.connect.commit()
        if code == str(answer[0]):
            follower = False
            for j in status:
                if bot.get_chat_member(chat_id=answer[2], user_id=message.from_user.id).status == j:
                    bot.send_message(message.chat.id, answer[4])
                    follower += 1
            if not follower:
                bot.send_message(message.chat.id, answer[3])

    db_worker.close()
    startWork(message)

А ошибка у меня вот такая:

2020-06-25 16:13:56,056 (util.py:68 WorkerThread1) ERROR - TeleBot: "AttributeError occurred, args=("'str' object has no attribute 'chat'",)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Рэм\PycharmProjects\PythonBot\venv\Include\lib\site-packages\telebot\util.py", line 62, in run
  task(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:/Users/Рэм/PycharmProjects/PythonBot/linkBot.py", line 24, in startWork1
bot.register_next_step_handler(code, botWorkStep1)
  File "C:\Users\Рэм\PycharmProjects\PythonBot\venv\Include\lib\site-packages\telebot\__init__.py", line 1450, in register_next_step_handler
    chat_id = message.chat.id
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'chat'