Harm and Making Amends – Workshop – Part 6 of 9 – Earl H.

Yes, ma'am. I was startled. All right, here we go again. We have many things to discuss here. I've got new questions. Ah, also, for Annie. Annie, you're not here, but I wanted to say hello and extend my very best wishes to you personally and I hope we meet soon. none of you know what just happened and that's just fine so question when a sponsor says what happens if I quit and find out later that I didn't have to may I suggest that a normal man would not ask this question because a normal man would recognize that if that were the case, all you'd missed was a few drinks. In this individual's case, I would suggest if you found that out that you would have missed an awful lot of drinks. So, I would just simply say I wouldn't worry about that. Keep moving. More will get revealed. If you're not an alcoholic and you've missed a few drinks, big deal. If you are an alcoholic and have missed a Few Drinks, big Deal. Ah! An alternative opinion to what I stated about resentments regarding your sponsor. What if you do your inventory and when you're finished, you realize you still have resentments against your sponsor? An alternative opinion was voiced, which I think is very good. That what you do is that you take these resentments and this aspect of your inventory to a third party, an alternate third party possibly with a significant amount of time and that you can read this stuff and when it gets to your part you can then go back and make amends to your sponsor. Love that. Thank you, Ava. It came directly from a member of the Bagels and Big Book group. Our sponsor. I love that. Earl H., sponsored by the Big Book. And let's see what this is. So what's with the eyeball-to-eyeball thing on the ninth step? Like, I can't get to South Dakota to make this amends. Want to let her do? Help. Okay. Okay. Send them a letter. Make them a videotape and send them the videotaip. Asking them to burn it immediately after watching it. Kind of a, what was that show? Kind of a Mission Impossible thing. This all is anyway, isn't it? South Dakota, make this some, yeah, yeah. If you can go to South Dakota go to South Dakota. If you can't, give them a phone call. Read them the letter. Make the amends. Write them the letters. Do what you've got to do. We're willing to go to any lengths to do this stuff. So if you tell me you can�t go to South Dakota, I say, okay, you can�t go. But you can get significant communication regarding this matter to that individual, can�t you? And be available for their response. So if they have some need on the other end to say something to you about this, that they have the opportunity to do so. Right? Okay. Here's a good one. In the eighth step, how serious does the harm have to be? Whoever wrote this, I love you. That's kind of like, you know, I was shooting to kill, but it was only wounded. No amends necessary. You know, I love that. Harm is harm. If you have harmed someone, we don't have degrees of harm. Right? Harm is charm. If you've harmed someone make amends. You don't know that the impact this has had on that particular individual it's not we don't decide for someone else how much harm we've caused them we don' t know the extenuating circumstances of their lives we don''t know I mean, I can be goofing around at a party and push someone into a pool right and all I've done is embarrass that person publicly and that requires an amends I apologize for embarrassing you publicly. I had no right to treat you that way, and I apologize if there's anything I can do to set this right. Please tell me what it is, and I'll be more than happy to engage in that activity to see that this is made right by you. However, I might be at the same party and push another person into the pool. It's the same action, right? That person almost drowned as a child and is deathly afraid of water. And this is a terrifying experience for this individual. Brings up a lot of their past. I mean, it's really, really a remarkably unsettling experience to them that throws them into a semi-catatonic state as they sink to the bottom of the pool and someone has to dive in and save them. Did I harm them the same? I did the same thing to them I did to the other person. Is that what it's about? What I did? I make amends, right? I make Amends. You make Amens. You don't sit there and go, well, you know, they got wet, big deal. I got to make Aments to the person. I traumatized with the otherperson. Eh, minor. No. Make amends. Harm's harm. Set it straight. Set it straight. It's like, well, you know, I make amends for all, you know, I pay back money in excess of ten grand. Or I have limited liability in all theft and I only pay up to ten grand No! Set it straight. Alright? What was the other thing? Somebody else mentioned to me something that I say that was pertinent to the ninth step. Speak up, where are you? You came up and you shared with me something that you said was pert... There you are. Naturally right in front of me and I couldn't see you. Yes. Right. It's like what's the point and the value of all this stuff, right? When I came to AA, You see, conceptually these things all tie together. We may have to go back to the tape and review, but I'm certain that they do. I came into AA and believed that there was, you know, because there was in it for me the self-centered nature of being new. I believed if I came in and I was honest with you, then you would be honest with me, that this would be the result of my action. Because for me it was all about the expectation I had on the back end of the action. Do you get what I mean? I'm not being honest with you because that's a good thing to be. I'm being honest to you so you'll be honest with me. That's what I'm after. I'm still, do you notice here, I'm doing the right thing, but I'm also being honest but I am still attempting to control and manipulate my environment. You see how I'm dealing with that? I'm honest with You only so that You'll be honest with Me. I'm trying to get You to give Me what I think it is I need from You. That if I love You, then You will love Me. What am I doing this for? I'mdoing this so that You'll love Me because I need to be loved. It's about Me. I'm attempting to manipulate the situation. Right? If I show you respect, then you will be respectful of me. And I was completely wrong. You're selling it short. Way short. If I'm honest with you, the reward is that I become an honest man. If I love you, then I become a loving man. If I am respectful of you, then I becomes a respectful man. These are the rewards. It changes me here. What you do with my... Because I was honest with him and you lied through your teeth to me. I showed you respect and you embarrassed me publicly for no reason other than to dampen my light so yours would look a little brighter. Not you personally, but you get what I'm saying. Though I did find this one question a bit challenging. Kidding. Everybody that put a question up here is going, little shit's talking about me. Girl. You get what I'm saying? This side of the street. I do this to be this, to become this, not to get from you. What you do is your business. I am powerless over that. One of the great gifts of sobriety, serenity prayer. Remember, everybody talks about God grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change. Serenity, to accept things I can't change. The courage to change things I cant. The willingness to know there isn't no difference. Willingness wasn't... This is an example of sleep deprivation. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the willingness to know the difference. Everybody gets caught up in a lot of that. Remember what the first three words of that prayer are? God grant may where I seek this. This will all make sense in a minute. Where I seek dis. I have to pay attention to that. What can I change? Me. What can't I change ? Norman. God, I have trouble. To no avail. Norman remains delightfully Norman. I've got to focus my attention on what I can do something about. I can't help it if you lie or you don't lie. I can be an example for the newcomer that comes in. I can become a part of the human chain that's Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can being a guy who's doing better and better and better and I can an example to that guy. So when that guy comes in and says, all I hear is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you know what I'm talking about? He can say, oh yeah. It's all I heard. But I can feel something here. I can see it. I can tell something here there's something that I can feel. It's palpable. I can feeling it here. You people are doing something different. What's the key to that? Doing. Doing something different, you people are living a different way. The action of your day is fundamentally different than mine and I want that. How did you get that? This. What keeps me... I've worked one through nine. What keeps me going? What keeps me in the game? 10, 11, and 12. I think of them all as action steps. People say, well, you know, there are the action steps and then they're... I think they're all action steps. Ten, me, eleven, God, twelve, you. Nobody else to play with, right? Four and five was me. Ten is me. Six and seven was God. Eleven is God. Eight and nine was you. Twelve was you." Nice! That's kind of tight, isn't it? That kind of covers it, doesn't it? Ten? What am I doing with ten? What amI doing? It's a pop quiz. Come on. I thought you were going to get to sit there after lunch and just listen to me go on and on and on, didn't you? Come on, what are we doing in ten? Continuing to take personal inventory. Personal inventory. My inventory. Not yours. and when wrong, promptly admitting it. Why promptly? Because I'll develop a resentment towards you and we'll get around to it, June. Right? I will wrong you and think, oh God, I've got to clean that up. You know, eventually. I'll make a note of some kind. Get to that. Wrong. I've Got to Get It Done Now. Resentment's the number one killer of people like me. I will fester and I will die. I've got to get it out of my head. I've Got to get rid of it. So, I review my day. The book, again, very specific. Start the day. Review the day Great stuff. Great stuff! And you know what? It doesn't even have to be a day. That was a very, very interesting experience for me. I remember being new. About two years sober. I'd been going to Ohio Street Monday night, no, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night. Four nights a week I'd been going to Ohio Street for two years. Right behind the podium at Ohio Street is about a three foot by four foot painting of the Serenity Prayer. Two years after having begun to go to Ohio State, I spotted that painting. and I read it and I thought you know that's snappy loving that poem it's a poem to me I call up Donald and go Donald this is a poem and he goes you mean a prayer yeah yeah yeah yeah prayer yeah prayer there's this prayer I read at Ohio Street incredible shortest prayer I found love it I'm going to say it now and he said no no you're not He said, what are you talking about? It's the shortest I can find. He goes, no, way too much going on there. You're going to screw that all up. I said, fine, then if I'm not allowed yet to say this prayer, this serenity prayer, what do I got to say? He goes here's what I want you to do. Here's your prayers. Are you listening? Yeah, I'm listening. All right, when you wake up every morning before your feet touch the floor, you pull the covers down from your insane little head and you look up and you put your palms up like this And you say, whatever. I said, I like that. That's good. I said now when you get in bed at night and you get into bed and you pull the covers up to your crazy little head I want you to put your hands up like this and I want to you to say, enough. And you go to bed. And I said got it. About three weeks later, 9 a.m. rolls around and I'm done. I've had it. I called him up and he always answered the phone. Donald Madden. Donald Searle. How are you, kid? Donald, I'm doomed. He said, how did you spot that, kid ? He said I'm gone. I can't take it. It's 9 a.m., I'm not going to make it to tonight, man. I'm done, it's over, I've had it. Nice effort, thanks for your help, I'm a dead man. He says, hold it, I can help. Well, thank God, because you're the one and only call I'm making here. He says alright, I want you to take a deep breath. That was a deep breathe for me. A little constricted. Take a deep breather. All right, now. He goes, say enough. I said, enough. He goes okay, wait a second. All right take a deep breath. I said okay, now say whatever. You can do that? It's 9am. He goes so what? He goes that day wasn't going well was it? I said no. He goes then end it. And begin another one. This was like a spiritual experience for me. I'm looking at the clock going, nope, not going to make it. I didn't have to. I just had to let that go and start my day over again. I can do these things along the way. Right? They are tremendously valuable to me. These little ways of getting on through. Just getting from meeting to meeting. Getting from sponsor call to sponsor call. Getting from opportunity to sit and read the book. Let it go, take it back. Let it go. Take it back. Let it Go. Take it Back. I mean, I turn my will and my life... Do you know how many times I turned my will in my life over the care of God between Los Angeles and New York? I'm surprised over the loudspeaker we didn't hear, okay, Earl, this is God. Why don't you just keep it till you land and we'll get back to it then, okay? Because this back and forth is driving me crazy. This is, here God, bump. It's mine. Oh, Jesus, here I got a bump. There's mine! Right? Just a nightmare across the country. Got me, got me, caught me. All that matters is that, like Donald used to say, your life is like a tapestry, right? That's being sewn. I guess that's what you do with a tapestry, right, is you sew it. Have I got that right? No tapestry people? Woven. I'm writing that down. Woven, nice. as the tapestry of your life is being woven. My job when the needle comes through is to just push the needle back. Right? That's all I do is just pushthe needle back There's another way to put it. The door opens, walk through it. What's in here? I don't know. Why are you walking through it? Because the door opened. Is that reason enough? Apparently. I've had a remarkable life happen as a result of just doing that. Another thing. Oh, I'm losing it. Another thing! Anyway, even though I've gone quite mad while standing up here. Oh, it went away. Never mind. Yeah, it did. It went away, alright. No, it's not going to help, I am sorry. That fell into the black hole. I'm gone. Yes, Bobby A., step 10. I'm sitting in my first step study meeting with Donald Madden. We're all being very well behaved, right? Bobby's sponsored by Donald. Bobby has the most time in the room under Donald, right. He sort of sits at the right hand of Donald, right. Very impressive fellow about that tall, right, Mighty fellow. We're all very impressed with Bobby. We're very serious about the steps. Very serious. Working the steps! Quiet over there, I'm working the steps? Laughing? There is no laughing in steps. No laughing. Life and death. Steps. We're talking about the tenth step. Oh, it's very serious. Very serious. Nobody's screwing around in here. Get to Bobby. Bobby says, Well, I recall the first time I heard the tenth step. Thought it was fascinating. Continued to take personal inventory and when wrong promptly admit it. So I immediately wrote a long letter to a friend of mine pointing out all of his defects of character and I apologize for not telling him sooner. All these serious faces. Eyes twitching, you know what I mean? What the hell did he just say? Donald's like, ah! Donald thinks that's the greatest thing he's ever heard, right? Now we're all completely shook up. Bobby's looking at us like, lighten up. Just lighten it up. Lighten up? He says, that's not how I feel about it now. This is a process. This isn't fine, got it, good, go. It's a process. More is revealed as we go. He says, I don't feel that way about the step now. I preface this by saying when I first heard it, I saw it as simply an opening to give this guy a hard time. Got it. Have you noticed we've been laughing a lot in here? We've laughed a lot today, haven't we? It's the healing for us. We've got to have a good time. We've got to play a little bit. We've Got to look at the stuff. If we can't laugh at us, we're screwed. Okay? Because let's face it, ripe for some good jokes around here, huh? All you've got do is go, hey, let's listen to another one of Earl's good ideas when he was drinking. Right? It's hysterical. We've GOT to be able to laugh at this stuff. Don't get so... I can't get such... What did he say? What did He say? Slow down! I haven't got every word here. Because when I'm done, I'm tearing this crap apart. Writing you a long letter, pal. May call central office about you. Get a little AA cease and desist order out on you, pal! Oh, Christ Almighty. Right? Put me in your inventory. Who cares? Ten, continue to take personal inventory wrong. Why? Because I didn't get it perfect the first time around. I'm screwing up all the time. You know why I'm screwed up? Because I'm pushing the envelope. I'm not leading a safe little careful life. I'm out there mixing it up with the normies. You know what I mean? Occasionally, a little bit more of me pops out than they're comfortable with. with. And you can see it in their eyes, you know, I'll be a little too tired, you know? When I get tired, it's like truth serum for me. You know what I mean? All the filters just seem to melt and I just start telling the truth. Or I'll get a little animated or I'll give a little caffeine in me when I'm exhausted and I'll just start going. And every once in a while I'll talking to somebody and I forget they're not in AA, just somebody I know. And all of a sudden you see that look in their face, just that... You know when you go, you usually think, whoops. Right? Went a little too far that time. That sentence is usually ended with, but I'm just kidding. Or sometimes it even happens with new people. You've got to be careful around certain new people There's been a lot of education in the community over the last 25 years. Okay? A lot of people are getting to AA with higher bottoms. Now, a lot of the old-timers, you know, seem to take exception to that. I think it's remarkable. I think its wonderful. Why should somebody have to suffer as much as I did to have a right to be here? That's crap! If you made it here, congratulations! I don't care if you dropped the champagne glass by the pool and went, that's it, and in you came. none of my business it's not my business i mean all the way to the normie coming in and saying you know what this is cool i want to learn from this book says anybody could get a lot out of this oh we got open meetings why the hell shouldn't we let them come encourage them to stay Encourage them to grow. Work with them. Share our experience, strength and hope with them but remember some of the new ones that happened the other day. It happened Thursday night. I was sitting in the meeting in the house, step study, little workshop thing we got going on, right? There's a newcomer girl sitting over there. She got about 23 days and I was making a point and mentioned something I'd done, right, while I was drinking and using. It was, to my way of thinking, a rather moderate tail. I just briefly looked to my right and realized she wasn't seeing it that way. She was looking at me with absolute horror on her face. And she looked at my wife and my wife went... I don't know if she's going to come back. I don' t know. Got to be easy with the new ones. Kind of get a sense of what... You know what I mean? We don't want to jump them too hard and too furious. I believe that this isn't a cookie cutter program. We bring them in, we stamp them this way, we guide them through this, we put them through these stuff and on. I know a group somewhere in the Midwest, they're so serious about this thing, and I mean serious, that you come into their group, you get interviewed as to whether or not you're going to be in their group. If you come in to their group... There's an interview process to become a member of their group If you join their group you're advised to take the next 30 days off from work. Now I don't know about you but to think that if a newcomer's got a job and then to actually ask them to not go to it is... That kind of goes against the grain for me. But, I mean, I actually did damn near an exorcism on a member of that group, getting them back out into AA. All right? I mean the pressure that was being put on this woman was horrible, the manipulation and control that was occurring. But that seems to work for some people. There's other much more moderate groups that have additional aspects to them outside what one would consider the mainstream of AA, right? There's people in AA that are incredibly loose. There's a guy I sponsor named Britton. He came to me and asked me to sponsor him. I said, well, what's up with your first sponsor? And he said, well, he told me to work the steps unless it was a hassle. I'm thinking that's not going to work for me. I'm going to come to you. And I said cool, right. That guy is staying sober. That guy still sober. He works the steps unless it's a hassle. God bless him. You know? I figured that that could easily turn into I stay sober, unless it is a hassle but that is me. That is not him. Find your way. Ten. Continue to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it. That allows me to not find myself going into a deeper and deeper and deeper state of resentment, dis-ease, disharmony. Because I'm only going to do an inventory every five years, that builds over a period of five years until I get some relief. No, I want the daily experience of the relief being there, of this working, of being free. I don't want to slowly over time in sobriety gradually become tethered once again to the disease of alcoholism. I don't want to end up with the obsession of the mind returning. Now, there's another guy I know in the program that says, I think I could stay sober and comfortable that way doing half of the things I do. The only problem is they don't know which half that is. So I just keep doing all the stuff that I do." I'm with that guy. I'm With That Guy. I have a great life as a result of what I do If it works, don't fix it. keep going. That's what I do. I've always gone to lots of meetings. I've been sponsored for every moment of my sobriety except for three hours. That's how long after Donald died I had another sponsor. I'm of service. I sponsor a lot of guys. I sponsor some remarkable people. Absolutely remarkable people and I also sponsor knotheads. I sponsor a guy who, he's been around 12 years now. I think he's still with three weeks again. And I sponsored him for 12 years. Question. If you have someone who continuously relapses, Earl, shouldn't you encourage them to seek another sponsor? Yeah. And if he doesn't go, fine. It's not my decision. It's no longer my responsibility. It's up to me. It's not, believe me, I'm not the weak link in his game plan. He has been exposed to everything that is necessary to become comfortably sober and stay that way. He just doesn't choose to do it on a regular basis. So he regularly gets loaded. And then he gets to the place where he wants to put a gun in his mouth and he calls me and he comes back. And when he wants to tell me how much pain he's in, I don't listen to him. I say, I don' t want to hear about the problem. Let's talk about the solution. I'm familiar with the pain and the madness. Let's take a look at it. Let's not talk about how we stay sober. Then we'll do that for a while and he'll get relief. And the minute he gets relief, he stops doing it because he's got the relief. And then it goes away because he stopped doing it. That's the part he seems to miss. You get it because of what you're doing. Then keep doing what you'RE doing and you'll keep getting it. If you stop doing what you're doing, it's going to go away. You with me? That's amazing. So, 11. We're getting close, aren't we? Getting close. 11. I seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. I think it's a self-explanatory step. What do I pray for? What should I be praying for? How about I pray for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. Period. The end, thank you. Why don't I pray for knowledge of His world for me and the prayer to carry it out. Now I can pray for world peace. I can pay for a new bike on Christmas. I can play for her. I can pray for all of you. Anything wrong with any of these prayers so far? No. What could I pray for to take all that into account? Keep me out of the solution. Keep me Out of Expectation as a result. Keep me OUT of everything except my part in this. Align me in a position to be of maximum service to God and my fellows. What could I do to take all that into consideration? How about I pray for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out? Just right back, boom. Nice and simple. Nice and simply. Pray for that. Can I add stuff? Sure. Can I do stuff instead of that? Absolutely. Donald had a horrible prayer. He'd get mad at somebody. He'd pray for them to get what they deserve. that was as gracious as he could be I used to get a kick out of it somebody would say something to him in a meeting or something that he didn't like we'd all go oh, he's going to be praying for that guy knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out that's what I pray for that's why that's not what the step tells me to do I seek God it's on me I don't stand waiting for God to present himself to me I seek god It's an action step. I seek God through prayer and meditation. Now, when I went to Al S., after Donald, we sat down and we reviewed my program and he said, Earl, you're firing on all cylinders. You're doing great. You're catching the buzz. You're spreading the word. You're dealing the deal, man. You'redoing the deal. Love it. He goes, now about this meditation thing. Do you meditate much? I said, well, what do you mean by much? I'm coming up on 14 years and actually not yet, no. He says, well, I think you should explore meditation. I said, okay. Being a good little AA sponsee, I was deferring to the thinking of my sponsor. I called up a friend of mine, said about this meditation thing, I think we need to explore it. He said, great. We found a place that was a school for meditation. We took a six-week course on meditation and we began to practice meditation on a daily basis. Why on earth would I, a Westerner, a linear thinker, not so much anymore, but at least my culture raises me to be that kind of way. Think in a very linear fashion. Not to approach this spherically at all. Don't let me get started on that. Okay. Right? I'm here. Right? I meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come, I can hear them. Okay? I don't get letters in the mail from God. God doesn't talk to me through the radio anymore. But I do get a sense of what the right thing is for me to do when I pray and meditate. The answers come to me in the form of a thought, an idea, an intuition. The book tells me that I'll come to rely upon these things. This sixth sense. It comes to me through meditation. Meditation is one of the most powerful tools available to an individual like me. It is not the nature of the body to be still. It is nicht die Natur der Geist, it is not for the mind to be quiet. When I meditate, I sit still and attempt to quiet the mind. and people are always coming up to me and saying well how do you do it I mean give me and I say well you want a real real simple easy way to meditate fine sit down on the floor sit cross-legged and if you're you know you got a bad back or you got this and you can't do the lotus thing don't worry about it sit in a chair just sit down sit down get comfortable spine straight relaxed palms up in your lap get loose get easy you know head upright get comfortable close your eyes if you want to If you don't, fine. Mouth slightly open. Breathe in through your nose in a slow and easy motion where there isn't the sense of breathing. So you're not getting that... But just... And then very slowly out to the mouth. Just very slowly. It's working already. Two guys just want this. Alright, and you breathe in slowly And you breathe out slowly Very simple meditation Count from one to four One Two Out with two In with three Out with four And then start again In with one Out with three Out with five In with two Out with six I will guarantee you that the majority of the people in this room when I just counted from one to four twice didn't stay with me. You thought about something else. You found some way to object to that. You were in conflict on some level with it or you simply just started to think about him or her or it or when or how or under what circumstances. You just went into something else because that's what we do. This isn't about getting good at staying on 1, 2, 3, 4, 1,2,3,4 for the next 20 minutes. This is about recognizing when you've wandered off, accepting and acknowledging that and coming back to 1,1,2 ,3, 4. It's not about staying at 1, 1,3 ,4. It's about being willing to come back to it because you're never going to stay there. We wander. The body's being still. The body doesn't like to be still. The brain subconsciously, well, you're counting to four, will say, tighten up his left butt cheek. And you'll go, one, two... God, my ass hurts. Never mind that. Back to one, deux, trois, quatre. Back you go. One, two. Girl in the fourth row is very attractive. Oh, sorry. One, deux. The guy over there to the left laughs a lot. I like him. He seems to be pleased with me. That's all that's required for me to like you. Shit! All right, wait. One, two. You just... Right? It's the nature of the mind to scurry about. The body doesn't want to sit still. Right? When the glute tension didn't do it, right? It'll say, make his left foot cold. What? Why the hell is my left foot called? Because your brain is trying to get your ass up out of the chair to go do something. That's sit still, be quiet. But if you keep coming back to this and just experience your resistance to it, which is fascinating when you think about it, that you can't sit still and be quiet for five minutes. That's alarming. That's absolutely alarming. You start to see the urgent need for the meditation. So you sit and you begin. And this will happen to you. If you do this every morning, it's going to come. You're going to sit down and you're going to count the four once. You're gonna open your eyes and it's been 20 minutes. And you're gonna feel a lot. You woke up exhausted and you sat there for 20 minutes and you got up and you feel balanced. You feel peaceful. You feel calm, but you feel a great sense of energy. Not the caffeine kick, right? This steady, smooth, easy energy is there for you. And you are going to go, wow! And you will be very, very comfortable with decisions that have to be made that you were really stressing about. Because it's just clear that this is the right thing to do for you and you can make the decision and then let it go. And not sit there second-guessing yourself for the next two days. You can make a decision and move on with your life. Next. Bring it. Next. And it's okay. It's a remarkably powerful tool. Prayer and meditation. I seek God through these things. Why do I do that? Because without God, I'm in charge. Need I say more? Bad situation. Earl's in charge, oh God. We've seen his handiwork. Back to prayer. Turn it over to God. Give it to God, give it to god. Whatever. That's a great prayer by the way. Whatever. What does it say? Whatever. I surrender. Screw it. Take it. It's up to you. I'm your humble servant. Thy will, not mine, be done. I'm just going to go out here and attempt to maximize my service to you and to my fellows. I'm going to do this. I'm not going to take from them, but to see what I can bring to them so that when the newcomer walks in and goes, anybody in here got what I need? Yep. And it has nothing to do with my best thinking. Good news for us all. that's cool right so that's what I do I seek God through prayer and meditation to improve to continually to constantly to hopefully without ceasing improve my conscious contact contact at awake conscious here now conscious of a contact with a power greater than myself you bet you bet I have relationships with a few of the people in this room. I can assure you that the nature of those relationships is remarkable to me. Some of the stories I can tell you about things that we've done. A buddy of mine that I haven't seen in a while, I saw him last Friday the 13th when I came here. And he said he walked in today after the break and I got to see him. And whenever I see this guy, it just lights me up. He's not in the room right now. He's in the back so I can talk about him. When he comes in, shh. His name's Steve. Right? I love this guy. We never talk. We don't have to. He's on the planet. It's a better place for me. I love him. I just love him more. We were sitting on a beach in the Bahamas one day. Right? First of all, need I say more than that? Right? This maniac and I are sitting on a beach in the Bahamas. Beautiful sands, water, birds, rocks. I mean, we're paradise. Two pagans in the middle of paradise, right? And we're sitting there. This is back when we smoked and I said, he said, so you've been smoking these Cuban cigars? And I said yeah, tasty, huh? Yeah, I love them. It's great. We're on a little island in the Bahamas and I think it's called Eleuthera, right. That sounds like an illness, you Not an island, but there we were. Beautiful place. And I said, do you think we could get some? Now, this is a couple of old dope themes, right? In an hour, we found Cuban cigars. We got up off the beach, got a ride into town, immediately went to the liquor store. Found a couple guys. Do you know a guy that would know a guide that could get us, right, We need to tap into the Bahamian underground, right? We're tapped in in eight minutes. We go through a store to the back of the store to meet Mama So-and-so who knows the guy who says the word to the bartender over at the club So-an-so owned by the underworld kingpin of this particular island. We go to the bar, you know, code blue. Great, box of Cubans comes out. Right. They open it up. You know, we take six or seven of them, pay the guy back in the cab. We're back on the beach within an hour smoking Cuban cigars. You've got to love this guy. That's history between us. We're sitting there just laughing at each other, right? Old habits die hard, bro. You know? He'd just tap right in and do that. And we had a blast. And that same guy and I will sit over dinner and what we talk about is his daughter and how much he loves his daughter and how he's being a good father to his daughter. And then you meet his daughter and you see how she talks to him and you know, God, this child's in good hands. Right? How can I not love this man? Do I need to talk to him every day? No. We're on the same path together. I know what he's doing. He knows what I'm doing. We see each other. The other day he emailed me for the first time and it was a picture of him with a very prominent politician. It's hysterical. Standing there with his arm around this politician. Talk about worlds colliding. And I've got this picture and I just sat there and laughed and I had tears in my eyes though about how the world is our oyster, man. Jump in and can have this thing. If I continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong promptly admit it, I stay clean and I can go out there and do anything. If I see God through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out, if I'm doing that, I'm cool. I can get out there ? jump in the game. Now, I got one thing left. But when you look at that triangle with a circle around it, mind, body and spirit brought together as a whole human being, therein lies the balance that I seek but can't find, drunk or sober. And that AA adopted that symbol and unity is the body, I bring it here. I must be with my fellows. Recoveries of the mind that work these steps. That twelfth step, having had a spiritual awakening is the result of working these steps, having been restored to sanity, soundness of mind, having been relieved of the obsession to drink and use. free, third side of the triangle, spiritual service. I can practice these principles in all my affairs, right? Which is what we're going to talk about when we come back, step 12. Thank you for listening.