Steps 8 and 9 – 12 Steps 12 Traditions Weekend Workshop – Part 5 of 5 – Billy N.

Thank you, Joel. Thanks very much for recognizing those home groups. My name is Pete. I'm an alcoholic and I welcome everyone back. We'll begin now with Chris for the next 40 minutes on steps eight and nine. Chris? my name is chris r i'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic and uh i absolutely love this uh fascinating stuff i mean i'm just digging the heck out of spending some time with billy like i said i've known him forever i've sat in yankee stadium watching the yankees with billie he got the good expensive set i'm juste saying you know he yeah we got the cheap seats out of he's just such a good guy, and we just, our paths don't cross very often, and learning stuff all day long. I'm taking notes, so I sure appreciate all the effort, and all the little worker bees, and if you want to talk about steps eight and nine, I'm watching that clock closer than y'all are, so just, I know y'ALL are, some of y'All look like, you know, it's a little shell shock. just hang on there guys it's pretty pretty we're getting close the uh uh i want y'all to do me a favor talking about amends okay and so before i get going in here i want you all to do мне a big old favor always do this when i do workshops and y'All can do it i'm gonna i won't embarrass you if you don't want to everybody raise your hand hold it up like you're gonna make a note say i promise you say i promise you repeat after me yeah okay y'ALL can read your lips you do better to do it. I promise not to make any amends until I talk to somebody about it first. High five. Good job. Oh my God. Yeah, there's a lot of information about making the amends, guys. Eight and a half pages Bill Wilson talks about in the big book from page 76 to 84. He gets pretty specific about the amends process. There's some printed stuff out there, again, that really covers what Bill's talking about in the literature there, that covers just about every kind of amend that you can do. Now we could go through that each individual, but I want to cherry pick it the time I've got with you about just share some experience of mine of doing this. So I'm going to make some pretty good tracks. One of the things I wantto mention, uh you can look at your truth based on your experience on this too any any area of my life that i'm having troubles in i can usually connect the dots between that and an amends i haven't made you if i'm ever trouble relationship there's some relationships i haven'T made amends on if i'M having trouble financially there'S probably some financial amends I haven'T made. There's a spiritual principle out there, guys. And this old adage, you don't have to believe it for it to be true. What kind of goes around comes around. Put in a different way. You put good stuff out there. You're going to get good stuff back. And about half this, about 450 of us in here and about half of you rolling your eyes. I'm just saying, you look at it and see if It's not true in your life. Some of the stuff that Billy was talking about, that stuff with contributing to your group. Folks, I'm going to tell you, Christians had this figured out a long time ago. It's called tithing. It's just like, you know, everybody's got charities they want to donate to, blah, blah, bla. But I'm gonna tell you. I watch it in the AA meetings. It just freaks me out. Even the guys I sponsor, how many people won't drop a dollar in the basket? Or if they do, you Know, i know a guy that's out there he's driving a hundred and twenty thousand dollar pickup guys and that's a pickup truck even in texas terms that'sa pickup truck 120 000 and he gets out there drops some you know a little dollar in the basket there's something wrong with this picture folks i just we give what we can give but i think the more we put out there good the more we're going to get back and it's the principle about basically what we're talking about here. I got the eight step list. Remember we were talking about in the fifth step, but I'm sitting there doing a fifth step. I've got this little list and usually the next day, I usually don't do it because after a fifth stop, everybody's tired. We do six and seven and then, but the next day guys, I never put this off very long. I'm going to get that eight step lists that I made and I'm gonna sit down with this guy and we're going to talk about the possibilities of making some of these amends. My job as a sponsor, I believe, is to help them organize their eight step list. One of the cool little articles, there's a great little grapevine article out there that Don P., we keep bringing his name up all through the deal, but he wrote a bunch of good articles for the grapevine over the years. And one of the things he talked about, there was a little piece that he did about eight step willingness. It's a really good little article. I've got it if you want it, but you can track it down with a great mind. But he talks about just the willingness alone. You become willing to make an amend, you're going to. He was able in prison to get some freedom from some of these amends he owed simply by the willingness to do it. You know, the open-mindedness about this. And so, you know, sitting down and talking to someone about their amends and helping them organize this. There are some amends. If I've got a little new guy that I'm sponsoring, there's some amends that we absolutely have to get and we have to get quick. There's some things that we may be able to put off. Guys, it took me years to make all my financial amends. I owed a lot of people, including the IRS. I owned a lot of credit card companies. But there were some things that I had to take care of immediately. There was some outstanding legal stuff that I had to clean up, you know, past phone bills that I had to take care of just in order to get through life today guys what we got to do, you know, and I'm going to help these guys figure this out. If I've got to make a decision if I've got $60 a week that I can discretionally go make amends on or $50 a week. I'm going to divide it up with the ones that I can make the most important stuff. So I mean, I'll ask you the question. What's more important paying a phone bill or a cable company. In today's world society, guys, you can't do without a phone. That's one way that we get to stay together and connect with our folks in the program. As much as I love TV, I can do without it. If I have to do that, that's it. But I got to start this somewhere. Alcoholics are the world's worst at wanting to go, I'm going to wait till I get all this money. When I win the lottery, I am going to pay everybody off all at once. Yeah, me too. But those odds are pretty slim that that's going to happen but it could happen and i hope it's one of y'all tonight god dang it i just i do but we got to get in there and start doing i use these little index cards again if y' all notice you can see because the glare i use the little ruled index cards and now so i'm going to take every amend that i've got to make i'm gonna take one of these little cards and i'm to put the name of this person and i'll put how much i owe them or what I owe them amends for, and then I'm going to move on down the, down, I'm just, I want to go to the next one. I'm gonna organize this stuff so I can put them in order of importance. My experience is if I keep these, I can throw them in my glove compartment, I could stick them in my briefcase, and if I've got these things handy, then the chances are I'm gonna continue to keep moving on these amends. I don't want to put them in a notebook and put them in the closet. You might as well, you're not gonna do them, folks. They're just, they're gonna sit there. So, you know, the lineage that I come from, we always did this, and when they get done, I get to tear it up, and we get to move on. It was so cool when I got down to the bottom of my, I had a big old wedge of these cards, guys, when I first got sober, and again, it took me some time to do it, but I got this stuff knocked out, and so some of the stuff I want to talk about. There's one of my favorite quotes. A lot of growing up takes place between it fell and I dropped it. Y'all get it? I mean, it's so good. You know, I mean it's just and it's real simple but that's the truth. I need to start owning my stuff. My job making these amends is to try to clean off my side of the street. Sometimes these other people they clean off their side of street too which is kind of a nice thing. Sometimes they don't. It's not the problem but again guys I'm trying to set the little universe straight and as I get my stuff cleaned up it's amazing to me how much simpler everything else gets gets straightened up i was i was never so shocked when i started making financial amends griping the whole time because i didn't have money to do it and then all of a sudden found a lot more money coming in you think they're connected they are they absolutely are it's not my money anyway it's god's money i've taken that money from other people so one way or another it's okay there's nothing I heard somebody one time say, you know, no, I'm not going to say that. Let me just say that there's nothing spiritual about indebtedness. You got to clean it up. If you owe too much money, you can't pay it back. You declare bankruptcy. What you don't do is leave people just in the lurch. My experience with most of the credit card companies, people that I owed money to guys, they didn't want to hurt you. I know some of you may have had different experiences with this. My experience is they just want their money. They'd rather have some of their money than none of their money. Bill Wilson talks about it in the book. He says, we make our first approach and I'm going to get my guys pronto pronto within the first weeks that we're doing this. We're going to make first approaches to everybody. Set up an appointment with the people you owe amends to. Let's pick up that big old heavy iPhone and start making these calls and try to get this stuff taken care of. It's, yeah, it's scary. That's the hardest part of this, guys, is opening the door because you think the world's worst is going to happen. That'S just not my experience. Out of all the credit card companies that I owed money to back in the day, there was only one that wouldn't work a deal with me, and I don't have that credit card today. I'm rich. They'll follow. They wish I did have their credit card, but I won't because they didn't. They wouldn't cut me some slack 30 years ago. They're tech with you. You know, the rest of them did, even the IRS. They cut me all kinds of slack guys they bent over backwards to help me once i told them what the story was they they just buddy come on with it and they worked a payment plan until i got it paid off and now never forget the last uh letter i got back from the irs and said that i was paid that i Was Current and it was buddy a call from Pamela Anderson couldn't have meant more to me maybe never mind all these little young guys you don't even know who Pamela Anderson is, do you? Never mind. All the old guys are smiling though, let me just say. On page 77, there's a great line in the book. It says, our real purpose is to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. This is what we're trying to do. There's a place in there where it talks about we're willing to go to any length for a spiritual experience. But Bill Wilson, the whole person of this is to try to help us get to a place so that we can go help other people. You can't help people if you're looking over your shoulder for the cops every time the phone rings or every time a car gets behind you, you're not going to be helpful to anybody. And we want to go take a trip and go to a conference someplace. You can't go because there's extenuating circumstances which won't allow you to travel. I know people in AA that have been in AA for years, they can't get a passport because they've simply not cleaned up the wreckage of their past that's not okay but you know let's go if you don't get a chance to go to iceland there's a bunch of great little recovery guys over in iceland if you ever get a change to go go i gotta tell you but you got you yeah but you gotta pay your advance before you can get there y'all they won't give you a passport in that country unless you do so one of the examples i'll show you about it because i just think it's when when i when i got sober i was never going to come back to the hill country i've got sober up in north texas and i was and as you know god moves us around anyway i ended up getting married to a high school sweetheart and ended up moving back to the Hill Country now in Ingram Texas Curvo down this little area sooner or later you're going to run into these people y'all follow you you might avoid somebody in a big city but but in a small town you're not going to avoid them sooner or latter your baskets are going to touch in Walmart. It's just the nature of the beast, and so when I got back to town, one of the first things I did, I went to an old employer, a guy I worked for for a long time, and we had a catering company together, and I tried, wanted to make amends to him because I left him in the middle of the night. I got loaded, and i just decided it was time to move back to Houston, andI left him holding the bag, and anyway, I ambushed him is what I did which you shouldn't do. Instead of making an appointment, I just went to his office and asked the receptionist if I could see him, He could see me back in the office, and he was not a happy camper. And he just shook his head like that. Anyway, he finally let me in, and I went in there and stuck my hand out. And I said, hey, how you doing? You know, and she wouldn't shake my hand. He didn't stand up. He just looked at me and says, what do you want? And I just told him. I says, guys, I finally got sober, and I need to clean up that mess with a business deal. And I'm not sure how much money it is involved, andI don't care. I says, I know I owe you and I'll pay it back. And I can't pay it all at once, but I'll do the very best I can do. And he looked at me for a second and he said, Chris, I don't want your money. We took care of it. What I want you to do is get the heck out of this office and don't ever come back. And if you see me in town, walk on the other side of the street. Well, I walked back out to the car and had my little card and tore that out. I was, boy, I'm feeling AA's love now. boy that went really well you know he's like he just threw it back in my face about two months later I get a call from that guy I recognized his voice on the phone and he asked me he says are you still taking them AA classes yes sir and I said that means you're still sober I says yes sir I am and they says do you remember my son. I said, yes, sir. Which one? You had three. He said, yeah, the one you used to drink with. This kid had had a car wreck in town and they put him in jail. And he said, man, do you think maybe it would be any way you could go talk to him? Yeah, you bet. I know every cop in town. Absolutely. I can go see him. And I did took him to some meetings. He got sober guys. I don't know where he is today. I've lost track of him. Do you think for a second that he would have ever called me had I not cleaned up that mess? It's just a classic little example of what, you clean up the little mess over here and watch and see what happens over here. We're all connected. God was all over that. Be persistent. It took me about 13 years to finally make amends to my first wife and I tried when I first got sober and she was having nothing of it about 13 years in I tried one more time tracking her down through her brother and I was doing a talk at Houston, Texas staying at the Motel 6 nothing but the best for Christmas and we're out there in AA land and doing it anyway I tried to call her and left her a message and she didn't call me back and she said if you could stay an extra day I'll see you and I don't know why you called now because I wouldn't have seen you last week turned out she'd been in Al-Anon all these years and bless her heart and I was able to go sit in a restaurant with her and we were able to clean up the stuff that we I made the amends to her what I thought I owed amends for and I'll never forget her she sat down for a second she just just she took her little finger and set her glasses to sit down and she slid her plate aside and she said you know Chris I appreciate what you just did but you don't have a clue what you did to me and then she told me and part of making this amends folks is sometimes we got to allow them to share with us I think I had it figured out where I harmed her and the truth of the matter is it was in a different yes I had harmed her that way I owed her amends for that but there were other things that I was completely oblivious to that I wasn't able to do and I was able to clean up guys we're not great friends today if I needed something I'm sure I could call her But I stopped thinking about her in the middle of the night. Stopped worrying about her. Again, the freedom around that. Be persistent, guys. There's a difference between being persistent and stalking. If somebody tells you, I just throw that out there. If somebody tell you that they don't want anything to do with you, pay attention. Sometimes, I'm going to give you this next little story. There's more than one way to skin a cat, the old expression. um i probably shouldn't use that there's too many cat lovers in here but i y'all know what i'm saying i you know god there was this guy that myers and i was working with my twin brother i got to know and he was a nice little little guy and uh trying to make amends and he wanted to make amendments to his wife and so he called her on the phone he actually showed up at her house and she said what part of a restraining order don't you understand i don't want you anywhere near me, okay? And so he left, and he's all heartbroken. He said, because he can't make this amend, and so Myers worked a deal. I'll never forget it. Myers worked to do a new lady in Dallas that owned a women's shelter. Now, this guy had a restraining order because he got drunk, and he pushed this woman around. He abused this woman physically, and, uh, and they said, maybe, maybe this lady at this, at this women's Shelter could use some help over there. Maybe you could do some volunteer work to clean this up, see, he can't make direct amends, all right, by law, he can't, so Myers called this lady and turned out, Myers tells the story, he's just, this lady was, yeah, she says, I can't believe you called, the little guy, our little friend was in the AC business and she says you're not going to believe this, it says but our air conditioner's been out for two weeks, we don't have the money to fix it, this is Texas folks, y'all follow, you don't do without AC, and he's just like, okay, well, maybe this guy could go do some service work over there and try to pay back some of this, and He did. He went back over on His own time and His own money and repaired that AC unit, and then He went Back every six months and did service on it. For all I know, He's still doing it. Couldn't make direct amends to His ex, but He could still put it back out in the universe don't you you don't think for a second that god didn't didn't take that to heart i mean if there wasn't some real power behind that sometimes i can't make that direct demand sometimes i've got to do it off to the side but i gotta do it if you can't make a financial because you can'T find the people give the money to somebody it's not your money give give it to a charity give it today god just you're still going to get free you're still you're still going to dislodge your spirit like that it's just be careful of emails folks my experience is it's too easy they'll see it's from you they don't like you anyway they're just going to delete it they're not going to read it send a letter if you must try to do face-to-face again don't ambush don't don't the guys i sponsor they all seem to go want to go make amends to their ex-girlfriends y'all about so you just show up unannounced at dinner time when she's in there with her husband and her two kids yeah and now all of a sudden that you want to sit out on the front porch and make amends to don't that's you're causing more harm when you do that don't don't do that caller facebooker there used to be a day you couldn't track these people down that was a great excuse for us young alcoholics i can't find this person buddy yeah i wish people couldn't find me they're everywhere for heaven's sake yeah just yeah Track them down, see what you can do, make the best approach you can, and then try to make an amend. Guys, if you promise that you're going to make somebody a $20 a week amend until you get it paid off, go hungry before you miss that amend. The only thing worse than making an amend once is having to make it twice. If you say you're gonna do something, then do it. Show up with some money in your pocket, and then go do it. I've been with a gazillion people when they had to go make amends to Walmart. I don't know what it is about alcoholics, and drug addicts, and anybody else out there in Walmarts and big screen TVs. I Don't Know What That's About. They all seem to need to go Make Amends for that nonsense, and been with them a dozen times, guys, in Lowe's in any of the bigger places. One of the things that you have to do in those scenarios is you have to let them know kind of what you're doing. I'm in recovery now, I'm trying to stay sober, I need to clean this mess up. I really screwed up 10 years ago, I stole a TV from your store. And guys are going to look at you like you've got three heads and go, Oh my gosh, really? Okay, well, why don't you do this? Why don't You not do this anymore? And we'll see you later. Because nine times out of 10, they're not going to charge you for it because it's already been written off. It's just a paperwork headache for them. But you've done what you said you would do. You cleaned it up and you offered to pay it back. Make sense? Y'all get that example, what I just said? If you're going outside and people don't understand what this is about, then you need to tell them what you're doing. Yes? Okay. That doesn't mean that you do that with your family. Got it. Guys, you just Googled eighth and ninth step on the internet tonight when you're all wired from all the coffee we've been drinking all day, Google it. And I guarantee you there'll be, you'll find about 10,000 sites out there that give you scripts at night. They call them ninth step scripts so that you can read this to the deal. They do it in treatment forever guys. I've seen it. I'm stopped at every place I've ever been associated with because it's just, it just, it's about as fake as you can get. There's those little scripts and you read it and you fill in the dots, you know, like this, and it's still real simple, but what it is guys is disingenuous i mean literally guys i've watched this stuff a thousand times there's a little guy and he's just out of treatment right and he're going to go make amends to his to his mom right yeah he sits down with her and sets up sunday afternoon he's going to try to clean up all the records he's stole some stuff he's done some stuff and then he gets in front of his mother like this hi my name is chris hard and i'm an alcoholic and i'M trying to stay oh my god you know can you imagine what this mother's thinking i mean it's like don't read a script i take these little cards and i sit in my pickup trunk and i look out there like it's okay i need to make this a man and it's about uh three hundred dollars and i need okay this is what i gotta do and i go in and I do it. Don't read from a script. It's just fake. They're looking at you. Yeah, right. So you really don't want to clean this up. You just want to save your butt. What's wrong with just saying I was wrong? You didn't have to say that you're trying to stay sober one day at a time. That's what the scripts say. Don'T do that. Just say I was WRONG. I made a mistake. I'd like to clean this up, man, there's so much weight to that. It's not even funny. I just, one of the things, be persistent on this stuff, guys. I've just got a couple more quick ones. My brother-in-law was a wonderful guy. He lent me a bow one time. I'm not a hunter, but I was a target archery guy. He lentme this left-hand bow. I right-handed, but i shoot left-handed. Can any of y'all figure out why? You're seeing if you're paying attention. God dang it. Yeah, there you go, baby. Okay. But I took this bow and I ended up selling it because I just did and needed the money and sold it like this. And when I got sober, I told him that I had sold that bow and kept the money. And he said, what could I do to make this right? And he he said nothing. He said, what you need to do is just stay sober, Chris. We, you know, just keep doing what you're doing and everything's okay. And it's no big deal. I don't need the money. Okay. Which was fine. And I was great. I thought, well, that was easy. And he tore that little thing up and everything was good. Okay, but here's what happened. Every time I'd get around this guy, he would act like I was on, I'd go out and smoke a cigar with him. Like I'd walk outside and he'd put his cigarette out and walk inside. Oh, Chris, I got to get back in and help clean up the dishes, and he'd walk out. It was obvious he didn't want anything to do with me, and I'm talking to Patty about it, you know, and it's like, this is driving me crazy, and when Patty and I got married, they came to the wedding, and after the wedding I'd gone before, and I'd got him a gift certificate to Bass Pro Shop. He's a big hunter, fisher, and I got this money, guys, it was the amount of money of that bow, and, and i went out, and sure enough after the deal, he says, boy, Chris, that was a beautiful wedding. Thank you for inviting me. He put his cigarette out and started to walk inside, and I got him. I said, buddy, can you sit for just 10 seconds with me? And I took that little gift certificate out. I had it the whole time I was getting married. It was in my front pocket, and i took it out, and then I handed it to him. I said get something that you don't need, just something that you want, and I told him. I said this is still about that bow, and it's been weighing on me, and I need to clean this up. And he looked at that, and he took that gift certificate, and He put it in his pocket, and he took his cigarettes back out and lit up a cigarette again. We sat there and had a look. Guys, you want to know if your amend has been successful? Their attitude towards you changes, and it may take some time. I'll just – it just may take Some time. Last one I'm going to do, guys, because I get to talk to so many people. I actually had a guy in an AA meeting making fun of this at one time. There's some people you just can't make amends to. You know, I think that you can make amends for any damage that you've ever done. Again, sometimes indirectly. But I mean, there's a lot of people out there, dead people, for instance, that you could write letters to. And, you know, it was an old guy in Alcoholics Anonymous that taught me that ages ago and therapeutically in treatment. I know we talk about it a lot, and they do it, but I mean, I did it with my dad. When my father passed away, folks, we were as thick as thieves, and I was three years sober when he died, and I had every chance to make every amend to him I ever could, and we were just, we Were tight as could be. I loved my father, and years later, I Did a bunch of therapy and just went through some stuff, and there were just some things that I never got the chance to tell him. He got real sick at the end, and i was never able to talk to him about some stuff. Basically, it was thanking him for doing some stuff. My dad was the kind of guy that would wake you up at three o'clock in the morning, drag you up on the roof to watch a big thunderstorm coming in. You know, he was just look, look, he'd be out there taking pictures. It was just, you know, my love of arrowheads, my loveof rocks, my level weather was all this was my father, you don't take it time with us as kids. And I just,you know, I never once thanked him for any of that makes me want to cry still this day just he was a sweetheart and i went and and wrote him a letter and thanked him for all of that there was a place we used to go fishing my dad wouldn't fit we live on the guadalupe river out here guys he we could have walked down to the river but he didn't like to fish on the river because that's where everybody fished he liked to sneak on this guy's property next to us you know sneak through these barbed wire fence and go over to these stock ponds where he's fishing and i'm sitting there thinking god damn christian you're years sober what are you really going to break it you know sneak onto this guy's property but that's it just felt right you know and i did i snuck onto his property went out of that stock pond where we were raised and we're used to fish countless hours and um and i read that letter to him and i cried like a little kid and i and i burnt that little letter and i crawled back across that fence and i was free there's nothing in me that doesn't believe that my dad heard that letter. Little kids that didn't make it. Grandparents you never got to talk to. Loved ones that you just, we don't have to carry this around guys, this remorse, this sadness. We're able to go talk, we're ableto go deal with this and it's part of the process of making an amends. You start this little process folks you'd be surprised how fast this stuff gets taken care of. Be careful of this one thing, and I'll stop with this. If you mention, you can mention anything in Alcoholics Anonymous and you'll have somebody validate your BS. If you ask enough people, they will tell you, I had a guy that was, when I was trying to make my men, you don't need to pay them credit card companies back. They got all the money they need. You see, this is not about the credit card countries. This is about me. This is about me laying down at bed at night, all of this stuff. You see because what happened is when I put that alcohol down and I started doing this work and I decided to become the person God wanted me to be, my conscience wouldn't allow me to do some of that crazy stuff. i wasn't that person that i became when i was out there drinking it was a different person completely and i needed to clean that stuff up there'll be people out there that'll tell you you don't need to do this you don'T NEED TO DO THAT WHAT I WANT TO DO IS DO WHAT I CAN DO WITHOUT HARMING ANYBODY ELSE TRY TO TRY THE LEAST AMOUNT OF YOU KNOW PAIN I CAN CAUSE I DO NOT WANT To GO MAKE AMENDS UM I WATCH PEOPLE TRY To DO IT THEY SIT DOWN WITH THEIR 85 year old grandmother and make amends and do a little mini fifth step listen my mama didn't need to hear that i was eating out of dumpsters in houston texas that would have just crushed her that would have made it harder on her this is not a fifth step yeah she needed to know that from the day that on until she passed away i was going to be there every time she picked up the phone because i wasn't and i was at the end i was able to do it the last years of my life, 33 years. I mean, I was able to, oh my gosh. Make sense guys? You don't need to go to your six-year-old kid and make amends. The amend, if you're a dad, might be this. I'm sorry I wasn't as good a father as I possibly could have been. When you needed me, sometimes I wasn't there and I'm going to try to do better. They don't need to hear about all the crazy stuff you did out there drinking. They Don't Need to Hear a Bunch of Excuses. They Need to hear your heart that you want to try to do things different. And boy, we can do it. That's why I'm asking you guys to please don't make amends until you talk to somebody about it. Your head is all full of it. You get wrapped around the axle. You think you're heading in the right direction, but you may inadvertently cause more harm. And we don't want to do that. I had a friend made amends for a burglary he did one time, but he implicated the other people that were, that were had been with them. You can't do that. You, you can clean up your side of the streets. You can'T clean up their side of streets. Just pay attention to what you're doing. Talk to some of the old timers, some ofthe people that have actually made amends and get some advice from them. Just, just, yeah. The freedom that you're going to get. I've said it a thousand times, said it dozen times here. How free do you want to be? I don't want to just be not drinking today. I want tobe free so I can go out there and live life to the absolute fullest. thank y'all for letting me share guys appreciate it thank you very much chris thank you on tradition eight and nine for the next 40 minutes once again i give you billy thank you billie alcoholic let me just set my timer for 40 minutes i don't know if i'll need all of it uh but i want to start off by before i read the long form a chapter of tradition eight um i want to uh just say a couple of things about the traditions in general the traditions make things harder they are not the easier way to get things done it's something that you just have to embrace and accept it's part of the sacrifice we make as aa members is there are a lot easier ways to do things than to be guided by the traditions and that we are different and it's okay for us to be different we are different than most other organizations um i'll give you an example i was getting on a plane coming back from a long business trip far away and uh i didn't know the guy next to me but it was a long trip and uh we started talking and it wound out in his private life because you know a lot of times we think we're the only good people in the world you know you know we we buy into that thing there's us and the earth people um the truth is there's a lot OF good people out there and people who are naturally wired to be good chris is talking about the ninth step one of the people who drove me the most crazy crazy in my life was an old boss i had who had a horrible temper and uh every once in a while the same scene would play out it'd be early in morning i'd be having a cup of coffee he'd come into my office he'd sit down he'd say nothing for like two minutes and then he'd look at me and say i was a real jerk in that meeting yesterday wasn't i and i would just kind of laugh like yeah you might say that and he would say i probably owe a couple of people an apology, right? And I would say, yep, you could say that. And he would kind of get up and go on his day. You know what's infuriating about that? He didn't call his network the night before. He didn'T write before he retired at night. He didn' t need to talk to anybody. He'S naturally wired that he realizes when he might have hurt somebody and naturally wired to say he's sorry but we're as different as an organization as we are as people this guy that was sitting next to me on the plane while he had a professional job in his at-a-work life he was the chairman of the board of a very very large non-profit charity that you would recognize if i said the name. And one of those organizations that like no one argues with, that their mission is critical and important. And somewhere in this conversation, I shared with him that I was on the board of the AA World Services Board. In fact, at the time, I was the chair of the a world services board and he told me that he spent 80 percent of his time fundraising fundraising and when I told him that we didn't take other people's money he was in shock it affected him so much that two weeks after that trip he emailed me and wanted a copy of our service manual And I just say that because we're different. Our 36 spiritual principles are different. Our traditions are definitely different than how most organizations operate. Chris talked about Google. If you were to Google best practices for nonprofit organizations, a whole bunch of stuff would come up. The smartest consultants in the world telling you how to run your nonprofit. You know what the problem with that is? Everything they suggest as a good practice is against our traditions. We're different. It's just who we are. So I want to read the long form of Tradition 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional. we define professionalism as the occupation of counseling alcoholics for fees or higher but we may employ alcoholics where they are going to perform those services for which we might otherwise have to engage non-alcoholics such services may be well recompensed but our usual aa 12 step work is never to be paid for if you read aa comes of age and you read the section on Tradition 8, you will be introduced to Tom the fireman. Tom the Fireman, not a well-known person in AA's history, but he made it to AA Comes of Age. The first treatment meeting in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous was in the Rockland State Hospital Asylum in Rockland County outside of New York City. tom the fireman was retired but he had wound up there for his drinking and um he wound up at the 24th street clubhouse and um bill asked him to do a couple of things he could have a room and whatever else and uh tom said wait a minute it sounds like what you're asking for is a janitor not an aa member like you're gonna have to pay me to be the janitor and that's an important part in aa history where we separate our special workers from our servants because there's a big difference there is a huge difference inside um intergroups of central offices a man that told me an important lesson a long time ago was bob r he's now deceased he was the executive secretary of new york intergroup but he used to say all the time between nine and five when he's on the clock he doesn't answer the hotline like it's important when an alcoholic is reaching out for help that the person on the other end of the line is doing it for fun and for free not for fee and for hire that the volunteers who came into the office to answer the phones they're the ones who answered the hotline his job as a special worker was to facilitate 12 step work, not do 12 step work. There is a huge difference between facilitating 12 stepwork and actual 12 stepwerk. If you call the general service office and I just saw a horrible example of this I've said all day I'm not going to talk about it but it might be hard for me to not mention it um i might get a few extra emails tomorrow by the time the aa grapevine uh circulates what i said but um you know there's someone in this meeting tonight who called me a few months ago maybe a year ago i'm forget and said that they had just called the general service office They had a problem. They wanted some advice. And the woman who was Mary C helped this person. And when this person was ending their phone call, they said to Mary C, thanks for your service. At which point Mary quickly said, well, hold on there a second. this isn't my service position let me thank you for your service I work here this is my job I do my service at my home group I do my service in my off hours here I'm a special worker facilitating 12 step work and I say that because i kind of laughed to myself the general manager at gso recently left last week was his last week of work and i saw a social media post inside a restricted friends list of only people in aa where he said that you know this was his last day and starting a new chapter in his life. Do you know how many past delegates I saw comment, thank you for your service? I'm not talking somebody who's brand new. I'm talking people who voted at the general service conference. Language is important in Alcoholics Anonymous, in all three legacies. It's important in recovery, it's important in unity, and it's an important in service. The language we choose to use in both our recovery groups, meetings, and in service is super important. Now that man has been a trustee in years past, but the post was specifically about him leaving as general manager. Where, as per the tradition, he was well recompensed. And I want to focus on that for a second. Boy, if you think sometimes AA members are cheap putting money in the basket, you should be involved in conversations about paying them a salary because it seems that people don't read well-recompensed in Tradition 8. But there's a reason for that, and it's genius. It's absolutely genius. I'm just going to use $20 an hour. Just a number I pulled out of my head. But let's say there was an AA office, and let's say the job in any other typical nonprofit was worth $20 an hour. But let'S say we hired someone for $10 an hour, we don't well recompense them. Here's what happens. Number one, we're not really being self-supporting. But number two, and I've seen it happen over and over and over again in a group in central office all over the place, is that person starts to feel that they're owed something else since they're not paid properly. And usually what they feel they're owed is something else, is that they should have more say in what's going on. And maybe they should be the end-all, be-all of decisions regarding the intergroup when we know all special workers and Alcoholics Anonymous at every level report to some committee or board of volunteer trusted servants but when we don't well recompense we cause problems like this so I have the greatest admiration for all the employees that all AA service entities have and I think they should be treated fairly and well as employees and they should be well recompensed. We should not try to think, like I've heard people say this, oh, they should be lucky. They're lucky they work for AA. No, they're not. Take it from someone who's been there. No,they're not You know what it's like having 2 million people as your boss? It does not feel lucky. Even if it's an inner group, You are under constant, heavy criticism. So I have the greatest respect for our special workers. But I also want to make sure that we're doing the right thing in paying them fairly. I want to talk about the recovery world outside of AA, particularly the paid recovery world. But first, I want to talk about what we all do for a living. As far as if those of us that, you know, go to work. In that it doesn't matter what your job is. It has nothing to do with AA. Zero. I happen to work in the insurance industry for construction and real estate. That has nothing to do with AA. Working in a treatment center has nothing to do with AA working in a detox has nothing to do with AA working in a church has nothing to do with AA the point being that none of our jobs have anything to do with our service and membership at Alcoholics Anonymous I would agree that people who work in the recovery and treatment world probably have a tougher road. And I've talked to many who do and, you know, it's so important that an AA quoting David A from Dallas who's passed away, but if you're looking for traditions tapes, get some of his. David A, Dallas, Texas. Because he talked about in AA, we can only wear one hat at a time. we don't have the ability to wear two hats at a time. I either have my AM member hat on or my insurance hat, but not both. If you work in treatment, if you work at a recovery house, wherever, You either have that hat on or you have your AA hat on, but it's impossible to wear both. Now, I know many people who I had no idea they worked in recovery. But I also want to say this, maybe Chris can correct me later on, But I also want to make sure that we're watching out for those AA members who maybe do work in recovery. Because if your job is spending eight hours a day with people like me, then I got to believe the burnout rate is high. I got to believe after spending eight or ten hours with a person like me or people like me, especially when I was new. When you get off of work, do you really feel like going to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous? So don't be judgmental and don't, if anything, we should embrace AA members that work in that field. not because they're more important, but maybe because they might be confused because someone else told them that their work is their service. They don't need to have a service position because they do this eight hours a day and 40 hours a week. They don'T need to sponsor people anymore. We all need to remember regardless what anybody's job is in the recovery world or any other profession, they do need everything else that the rest of us need. We all do. But it's so important to wear one hat at a time for the newcomer. The newcomer needs to know the difference between an AA member and somebody who works at a facility. And if the AA member is one of those people who work at the facility It needs to be clear when they're an AA member and when they are not. And there are many who do an excellent job of this. But it is a tough road for sure. I'm going to read the long form of Tradition 9, which to me has so many hidden gems in it. I always get excited about Tradition nine. each group needs the least possible organization rotating leadership is the best the small group may elect its secretary the large group its rotating committee and the groups of the large metropolitan area their central or intergroup committee which often employs a full-time secretary the trustees of the general service board are in effect our general service committee They are the custodians of our AA tradition and the receivers of voluntary AA contributions by which we maintain our AA General Service Office in New York City. They are authorized by the groups to handle our overall public relations, and they guarantee the integrity of our principal newspaper, the AA Grapevine. All such representatives are to be guided in the spirit of service. For true leaders in AA are but trusted and experienced servants of the whole. They derive no real authority from their titles. they do not govern universal respect is the key to their usefulness i want to refer to the short form of tradition nine a second because it's the one that everybody sees um it says aa as such ought never be organized but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible for those they serve. The most important thing in that short form is the comma, the very first comma. AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, comma, as such ought never be organized. What we're talking about there is AA the spiritual entity. AA overall, you know, on the front lines of Alcoholics Anonymous is not really that organized. Because I can tell you on the service side I rotated out as being a trustee in 2017 the last year i served as a trustee i was chair of the aa world services board i was on the aa World Services Board Publishing Committee and the AA World Services Board Finance Committee and the AA WSB Retirement Committee I was on the General Service Board Nominating Committee the General Services Board Audit Committee, the General Servic Board Compensation Committee and the General Serivce Board Committee on the general service conference that sounds very organized to me that does not sound unorganized and that's why that comma is so so important and rotating leadership is best because of the alcoholic ego because no one needs to be king or queen of AA for a day longer than they should be. We don't have lifetime appointments or positions. We just don't know how to do it. We just can't have them. Rotating leadership is like anonymity. Certain things are not good for the DNA that's wired inside the real alcoholic. permanent lifetime positions for sure are not good for the real alcoholic and we have to do a better job of not putting people in those positions where maybe they don't rotate there's a common kind of urban myth than alcoholics anonymous it goes like this oh you're the gsr of that group oh yeah i've been gsrr for six years oh wow i thought you were only gsrs for two years oh yeah but no one else will take the job so until someone else takes it i'm doing it that is not rotating leadership there is a spiritual principle it might not be in our books but it goes like this you can't fill a filled position the best example i can use is coffee maker you let no coffee go for two or three weeks i assure you someone's stepping up if the coffee maker just wants to keep on making coffee other people are going to let them do that No, that's why we have rotation. That's why we step down. As a trustee, I participated in the vote to remove myself. I raised my hand and I voted for someone else to take my position after four years. That's the way it's supposed to be. At the board meeting that afternoon when I legally raised my hand to when we did the legal vote as soon as that vote was over i stepped up and i walked away from the table and i sat down in the visitors section rotation is so critically important to alcoholics anonymous i want to refer to a couple of the lines here because um just want to make sure how much time i have left um how many times are you in a meeting where someone says how much we send in the gso this quarter or the treasurer reports we sent this much money to gso last year well i understand what they're saying but for the purpose of the tradition You should know that GSO does not accept money from groups. They're not allowed. They don't accept money from AA members. They're nicht erlaubt. We have nowhere in AA where money goes from groups or members to paid employees. It always goes to trusted servants first. that's why it says in the long form they are the receivers of the voluntary a contributions by which we maintain our general service office the money that groups and members send in goes to the general service board they use that money to maintain the general surface office and to pay the bills if you look on any official seventh tradition like paperwork in any of our service material it'll tell you if you if your buy literature from gso you make the check payable to aa world services but not if you make a contribution if you make a contribution you write your check out to the general service board of alcoholics anonymous now tons of people write gso but they're put in the bank account of the general surface board and then the general services board transfers that money to aa world services to carry out as this tradition says by which we maintain our aa general service office in new york city now another thing that's often passed over is the line before that they are the custodians of our AA tradition. I have a service manual. Maybe some of you don't have one, but that's fine. Inside my service manual is the bylaws of the General Service Board. In the current service manual, it's on page S-114. those are the bylaws that guide the Board of Trustees of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous I want to read to you what it says there where it legally makes clear what Tradition 9 says It says The General Service board of Alcoholic Anonymous here and after referred to Israel as the General service board or board claims no proprietary right in the recovery program for these 12 steps as all spiritual truths may now be regarded as available to all mankind however because these 12 step have proven to constitute an effective spiritual basis for which it followed arrest the disease of alcoholism the general service board asserts the negative right of preventing so far as within its power to do so any modification alteration or extension of these 12 steps, except that the instance of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in keeping with the charter of the General Service Conference of Alcoholic Anonymous as the same may time to time may be amended. So the trustees don't have the power to change the steps. The trustees are the guardian of AA tradition. They also don't Have the power to change the 12 traditions and neither does the general service conference so important that only the aa groups have that power but if you're going to accept becoming a trustee you have to embrace the bylaws of the general service board which until the the groups decide to change the traditions of the steps so when i hear somebody say well a trustee said it's okay if my group changed the steps well no that trustee doesn't have that authority nobody has that authority only the groups have that authority. The next line I want to talk about, I'm like, I love the AA grapevine. I don't always like what they print in there. I don'T always like some of the stories they choose because if you print a story that promotes breaking the traditions you're affecting aa as a whole you're encouraging other people to do the same when the grapevine prints a story telling people that non-alcoholics should be able to hold service positions in an AA group and be AA members, we're not helping ourselves. And a lot of times when I've said something about the grapevine, all I get told is, well, the grapevine editors and the grape vine board have complete editorial freedom. That's not true. That is not what the ninth tradition says. The ninth tradition says they are authorized by the groups to handle our overall public relations, and they – they being the trustees, 21 people – and they guarantee the integrity of our principal newspaper, the AA Grapevine. so i do hold the trustees responsible and i love the grapevine and there's been great articles in there but when it goes off the rails at times sometimes i think the trustees have shirked their responsibility that is laid out in the ninth tradition um otherwise it wouldn't be there um the last thing i want to say is i just want to go to aa comes of age for a second give me one second so i can find the line unfortunately where i am right now i have my unhighlighted i don't have the aa comes of age that you know the one that makes you like a big book when you have like eight different highlighter colors and all your spiritual notes and it makes you look like you're an expert i don't have that language a comes of age with me i have one my non-highlighted one um so just give me one second here there's a great description here on page 120 i found it about what our service entities really do. What is our services do? And it says this, just as the aim of each AA member is personal sobriety, so the aim for us is to be a service entity. The aim of our services is to bring sobrietry within reach of all who want it. If nobody did the group's chores, if the area's telephone rang unanswered, and if we did not reply to our mail, then AA as we know it would stop. Our communication lines with those who need our help would be broken. Because I made that reference earlier about the traditions allowing all of us to remain here. and work with each other because we don't get along with other people well per step eight. But we have a more important responsibility. There are currently 451 people in this workshop. There may be somebody who's not an AA, but for the most part, we're all here already. we're here. We got the miracle. Our lives were saved and changed, transformed. And even though the traditions help us work well together, they have a more important responsibility. And that is that we don't louse it up for the alcoholic not here yet. that we make sure that we know that whatever your sobriety date is that I have a sacred commitment I've made a handshake with God the same way AA was here when I got here it needs to be here today and tomorrow for the person who's looking for sobriete and that's why when we talk about things like rotation and leadership and integrity and guardian of the traditions it's all a way to make sure we don't blow it up that a hundred years from now people are not talking about AA the way we talk about the Washingtonians I am sure at the height of the Washingtonian's movement they did not think they would be gone they did not think they would go away and hence we can't have the same arrogance that we're so good we're never going to go away the only reason we haven't gone away is the 12 traditions have created a way for us to not mess it up so that's it thank you thank you very much billy we'll now take a short break and we'll resume again in about 20 minutes and when we get started we'll be working on steps and traditions 10 and 11 thanks everyone welcome back everyone in case we have any new people with us this weekend i've asked michael to read what is aa thank you pete we have alcoholics anonymous are many thousands of men and women who have recovered from alcoholism we have solved the drink problem we believe that strenuous work one alcoholic with another is vital to permanent recovery the purpose of an AA meeting is that of carrying the AA message to the alcoholic who still suffers. We share our experience, strength, and hope to stay sober and help others to recover from alcoholism. Experience with alcohol is one thing all AA members have in common. Therefore, we have to confine our membership to alcoholics. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholismo. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity, regardless of age, gender, race, or religion. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation, meaning we are not allied with any religious or political organization. We do not affiliate with other 12-step fellowships, the treatment industry, or any other institution. We do not wish to engage in any controversy and we have no opinion on outside issues. We neither endorse nor oppose any causes. There are no dues for fee or fees for AA membership. Each member squares his debt only by helping others to recover. In the words of Bill W., sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps is the sole purpose of an AA group. Thank you, Michael. Presenting first for 55 minutes, I give you Chris on steps 10 and 11. Chris? Hey, thank you guys. My name is Chris R., very grateful recovered alcoholic, and I love that reading that Michael just gave. I mean, it sums it up in that last little piece. We got our marching orders, folks. We just got to get everybody heading in that direction, and y'all have been so good. We're heading to the barn, folks. Some of y'All are ready for bedtime, and, and Y'All done so good all day long. Bless your hearts, and I've dang sure enjoyed sitting here with you. I got to tell you, my emails are just stupid, and come, just, it's just nice to bond. I say it again. I'll probably say it tomorrow. There's people out there that want to take all these shots, you know, at the Zooms, and you can't bond with people, and yes, you can, you know, I've made some new friends today. I got to tell you in my texting and emails and there's some good ones. And I don't know, I'm blessed those of you that I get to meet guys that are actually doing the work and I'm convinced of it that you're, you go in my little, my little good AA contacts. You know, I've got, I got a gazillion of them, you don't little folks. And just cause you're a member of AA doesn't mean you're in my contacts. If you're In The Trench with us, you know carrying them carrying the message i just i love you can't have enough so i uh it's so cool that i get to do this um because it happens to be a couple of my favorite steps that i get to talk about 10 and 11 step 10 continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it step 11 sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with god as we understood him praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out, you know. My old sponsor used to talk about the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12, used to hear about it, and that's true. It's discipline. I think the sad part is, I think just anecdotally from talking to lots of people in Alcoholics Anonymous, a lot of people don't do this stuff. They're meeting maker fools, and they go in there, and you know, they're doing four steps, but you know this stuff is so important that we're fixing to talk about and uh i don't know i think it's uh it's pretty uh pretty special i don'T remember i'm trying to think i DON'T remember one time in 33 years of sobriety that i got up in the morning and said i'm gonna go make this guy's life miserable you know i don' t i don''t remember ever just getting up and said I'M JUST GONNA GO BE A POOT TODAY BUT I DO IT ALL THE TIME Much more than I care to admit, guys. I'm just being as transparent and as open with you as I can be. I wish I could say that – I guarantee you I can say I'm better now than I used to be, but that's not good enough. You know, I'm going to set my sights a little higher. I don't remember ever doing it, but that's what the 10 Steps is about. And I think some people get confused. The 10 Step and 11 Step. you know there's again there's websites out there all the time you know and they show I got one somebody sent me the other day it's a 10th step a 10-step you know review and it's like guys the you got little nightlies and that's what they talk about in the 11-step stuff your 10-stepped stuff is what we do as we go through the day on through the Day I get just you know I'll take care of that in my nightlies you know no sometimes that's too late sometimes again And the best way to make an amends sometimes is when it's still warm, you got, you know, it does a lot less damage. We, the damage that we do is we spend a whole lot of time. It's like we were talking about and making the amends. We spent a lot of times rationalizing and justifying why we were right to act like an idiot. You know, I do it out here on junction highway. I swear I'm going to die out here On Junction Highway. It's just, it's a little, nobody knows how to drive. I don't know what, what it is. Slow traffic to the right, guys. Now, pay attention. I know they do this in California too. Faster traffic on the left-hand side. See, that's how you do that, you know? Oh, geez. If you're in the left hand lane and you're driving slow, I want to shoot you. Yeah. Patty and I carry, we carry imaginary bazookas. So, okay, you got to do what you got to do. But as long as we're talking about shooting you with a bazooka, we're okay, I think. But it's when I start flipping you off on the side, making gestures like, don't you know how big of a hurry I am? I am wrong, folks. I've got to stop. Yeah. As I go through the day, I'm going to try to clean up this mess. And there was an old expression, an old guy said one time, he said, you kick at the universe, it kicks back. It goes back to what we were talking about with making the amends, folks, I put some bad juju out there, I guarantee you, I'm going to get it back. At the end of the day, this is all about love. I mean, it just drives me crazy in the world that we're living in today. I don't even recognize it anymore. Everybody's mad at everybody else. The truth of the matter is, I can understand where some of it comes from. But but if I'm stepping on somebody, one of my brothers or sisters in this world, I need to be real careful what I'm doing. And the sooner I can take care of it, the better I'm gonna be. I'll give you, excuse me, a classic example. Two little quick examples. I've got a little time here. I travel a lot. I should say I used to travel a lot. In this coronavirus, my last big trip was March. I did a workshop in Jacksonville up in Florida. But every week I was in an airport someplace. I was going to do an AA talk or so we're travel for work and uh and i was um i just i live in the airports and uh i always come through the the the tsa guys the little little security deal i wear this little watch i show you to you this is what i'm keeping track of the time and this is a nothing but the best for chris raymond this is $35 timex expedition right here this is um i wear these guys i see some of you guys these big old gaudy watches i said every time you go through a metal detector it beeps, and I don't want to do that, so I wear this little inexpensive plastic watch, and it keeps time well anyway, and i'm going through this little deal, i'm running a little late, and so my head says, and um i'm gonna go through the little screening thing, and i'm always prepared, i don't know about guys, if you ever have to wear a black eyepatch, just get used to the idea that everybody looks at you like you're a terrorist, that's just the way, I don't know what it is. I don' t know. And you better get used to pirate jokes, too, because nobody wants to – yeah. That's why I don'T like to fly with kids. They drive me crazy. Because they won't shut up. You don't make eye contact with them. Y'all just look straight ahead and then maybe they'll go away. It's always pirate stuff. Since that Pirates of the Caribbean, my life went to hell. That's all I can say. God love them. I'm going through that little TSA, guys, and I'm running and I'm paying attention to what I'm doing and just get all my stuff. And beep, beep, that's the alarm off. And this little guy says, excuse me, sir, we need to take some additional screening. Can I look at your watch? And I don't know what it was, folks. I'm just, the travel, I don'T know. Anyway, I just said, guys, buddy, it's a cheap Timex for heaven's sakes. It's nothing. What do I look like, a terrorist? And he just looked at me. He didn't even smile, you know? And of course, I wasn't trying to be funny. I was trying to pick a fight with a guy. That's what I was trying to do. I'm in a hurry. Could you move over here, please? And of course, the more I fidgeted, the more they wanted to check me. You know, could you put your bag up here, please, sir? You know? So I got the full screening and the whole time he's doing it, I'm scowling. You know. I'm just rolling my eyes and I'm like this. You know I just I'm making this big scene, folks. I get my stuff, put my stuff back in my bag, head off back down the terminal. I'm heading to my gate and I'M GRINDING MY TEETH about the time i i get about halfway to my gate um a guy i sponsor uh calls me on the phone i can see his name on the deal i got him on the throne and i start telling him how poorly i've just been treated coming through tsa in san antonio and uh i mean don't these folks know who i am for heaven's sake dang you know and i'm ragging on this guy and guy he goes go whoa whoa whoa he said buddy he said somebody this guy was about six months over he says it sounds like somebody needs to do a 10 step oh man i said i said buddy it sounds like somebody need to find a new sponsor and i clicked i hung up on him you know i just you don't talk to me that way i want a little respect i'm an old man here and i got in there and i took about i mean 10 more feet up the deal like that and i stopped dead in the middle of the terminal and i said man this is so stupid of course he's absolutely right. I'm embarrassed to death because I started something I couldn't finish down there at that terminal, there was no reason for me to do what I just did and I pivoted around, dragged my little bag back up there and I'm starting to head towards him pretty quick because I want to make amends to this guy and he starts backing up and I keep forgetting, guys if you're wearing a patch you don't approach anybody fast, okay I'm just saying especially in a parking lot you do not do that, hey I'm coming in, I'm over here, you're just nice and slow, came up a little fast and he pushed me back. I said, oh, whoa, whoa. I said, no, buddy, buddy. Have you got 10 seconds? I just need to make amends to you for that craziness. He said, Ben, I gotta break in a few minutes. Yeah. And I went back, sat across the terminal and watched him, stood there and waited for him to get off. And he like that, he waved, he shook his head like that. He just doesn't want to play this game anymore. And you did like this. And I walked up to him and I introduced myself and I said you know, I had absolutely no right to talk to you that way. These little guys are out there risking their life, y'all understand on a daily, I mean, just putting up with all kinds of crap. I know this guy, I see him in the airport all the time. You know, I didn't know him. I just introduced myself to him. So I know him now for heaven's sake. And I got a chance to talk to him for a few minutes and he was just amazed. He said, I can't believe that you did that. Nobody's ever done that before. And as well, you know, it'll never happen with me again, I promise you. And if I could ever do anything to make your little life better, well, let me know. and he said no buddy just just be a friend good to see you i mean he literally patted me on the back and i got my bag and headed back up to the to the uh to my gate it the the walk back to the gate the second time was completely different than the walk to my gait the first time all around some little preconceived ideas in my head how i'd been slandered somehow because the guy was trying to do is just stupid. I do it all the time. There's a guy in my group, his name is Chris P., he's a sweetheart of a guy, he's our treasurer of our group and I've been there at the club getting ready, getting all set up and I'm already busy, you know, turning on the PA and making sure the coffee's ready and I'M JUST VERY BUSY. Y'all know how it is, every group needs somebody like me to take care of everything. I'm a hundred miles an hour, and he comes up and asks me a question because there's a problem with one of the commodes in the bathroom, and I answered his question. Obviously, I didn't answer it very nicely because I was quick. I got real abrupt with him. Two days later, he didn't talk to me anymore that night. Two Days Later, I got a letter in the mail uh in our email that he's resigned from the board there at the outpost our little club and uh basically the emails you know i don't need to be talked to like that i didn't even know i did it folks literally never registered that i had said something goofy to this guy and uh he was uh nice enough to let me know that it was different and i buddy i hunted him down and uh the next day and and he was insane meeting i was and i said can i bet we got to visit i am so sorry and i took him out to the front and we got by ourselves a little bit and i explained what happened he told me he says i just used the tone like i talked down to him all he was doing was trying to make sure that the the plumber had been called doing what we asked him to do help us run the place and i was able to hug his little neck and apologize and we're bestie friends yeah a day later he asked me to sponsor him so i you know we're we're bestie bestie friends now you know that's the way it works but guys i just got to be wary of that i i you Know i'm going to talk about it some tomorrow but i've got to absolutely just dovetails into what we're talking about in 10 and 11 folks and i mentioned it yesterday my job 33 years ago was to awaken spiritually my job today is to stay awake, to pay attention to what's going on around me. And I mean, the little newcomer, sometimes you can just, there's an audible sound, you know, is their little head comes out of their own butt. You know, they look around and go, oh my God, there's other people on this earth besides me. Yeah, they've got an excuse because they're new and I'm 33 years sober. And sometimes I can go back to sleep again. Sometimes I'm just, I'm not awake to what's going on around me, and when I step on myself, I've got to be able to clean that up. I want to read you real quick on page 84. It says, this thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. yeah i i know there's a lot of people in afflux namus and they always want to go back to this little trying to the steps are in order for a reason but bill wilson gives us guidelines over and over he tells us that we can do some of this other stuff thank god that the old timers taught me how to do this uh started teaching me this long before i ever got there and we're waiting especially the way some people do the steps months before we get here we're gonna we're going to miss the miracles of what this stuff is talking about. We need to clean up the records of our past. We entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. We continue to watch, watch. That means pay attention for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. It's just verbiage until you start doing it, folks. And then it changes everything. It's given us our marching orders about what we're supposed to do. I wanted to read this real quick. These are the 10-step promises. I need to ask Billy sometimes. Some of you more smarter folks than me, Maybe you can figure out why we got the ninth step promises on every AA club wall in the world. Ninth step promises. And there's nothing wrong with the ninth set promises, guys. They're pretty spectacular. But they pale in comparison with the 10th step premises. I just love it. Listen to this. And we've ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For by this time, sanity will have returned. We are seldom interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it like a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that this new attitude towards liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That's the miracle of it. We're not fighting it. Neither are we avoiding temptation. God, maybe I misread that. Hang on a second. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation i thought it said something about triggers in there it doesn't we feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected we've not even sworn off instead the problem has been removed it does not exist for us we are neither cocky nor are we afraid this is our experience this is how we react so long as we keep in what fit spiritual condition guys fit spiritual condition by doing the work that we're supposed to be doing in the disciplines we stay in fit spiritual conditioning it's going to revolve around meditation it's going to evolve around the 10 step step it's gonna revolve round working with others that we're going to talk about in the morning and which is so dead gun important it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action rest on our laurels how many times have i seen people do that folks how many time have i see i gotta tell you billy was talking about it a minute ago when He was sharing about the folks that work in the industry. I wish I had a nickel in my 27 years working in the treatment business, doing clerical work. I wish i had a nickle for every person i watched in the fellowship working in that industry that have fallen on their butts, that have gotten drunk. The best soldiers we have out there are people that are in recovery. I'm with that. But what happens is we get in there, we start getting complacent thinking, you know, look at us, you know, and we stop doing the things again is exactly what he said. I work with people all day long. I don't need to go to the meeting. Guys, I can't wait to get to a meeting. I get to work with people at work, yes. And then I getto go talk to the little guys for free and for fun in my AA group. And I got the best sponsees in the world. My sponsee can beat up your sponseese. I'm just saying, I just, they're the best. I know some of you are not laughing. I'm sorry, that was inappropriate, but they can. So anyway, this 11 step stuff, guys, real quick. the 11th step my friend Charlie P some of y'all know Charlie P and Katie out of Austin this is good knuckleheads as they come I've known him forever Charlie always says that he says the 11th Step is not extra credit I guarantee you folks I bet you there's a huge percentage of our fellowship never does the 11 Step stuff it's just they pay verbiage to it but it's just, it's not the, yeah. Bill Wilson said in 1958, I had this little quote. It says, if we expend even 5% of the time on step 11 that we habitually and rightfully lavish on step 12, the results can be wonderfully far-reaching. Bill Williamson, 1958. Bill was a meditating fool, folks. Bill Willson was a seeker from the very beginning. He never stopped pushing the envelope. He did it with the niacin experiments. You know, he did it with his LSD. He was always looking for something to help alcoholics and meditation was one of the things that he pushed, that he thought lots of. Billy was talking about dictionaries. I'm a big fan of myself. If you could pick up a 1938 dictionary and you look up the word meditation it means thoughtful contemplation when you take directions directly out of the big book instead of what you hear in the meetings it reinforces the idea of thoughtful contemplation as meditation or direction to the big book is not the absence of thought and clearing of the mind rather the exact opposite it's using the brain that God gave us constructively review we consider our plans for the day in thinking about our day y'all these are out of The Book but you see if you talk to some people I know people in treatment all the time, they want to take this off. And I'm not knocking any of these guided meditations and you go and you, you know, blah, blah. There's a wonderful experience to be had doing that. That's not what Bill Wilson's talking about. He's talking About this purposeful quietness, still the mind so that we can finally get the guidance that God wants us to hear. I think that there's a lot of folks that don't really believe that God wants to communicate with us. God, the spirit of the universe, whatever it is, folks, I believe just from being an old geezer and sober a while, I believe that we're guided. I can look back at the last 33 years, and I mean, how did I end up here? How did I get from point A to point B? from a suicide attempt in 1987 to living in a nice little rock house that's all paid for in Ingram, Texas with a nice wife that I love surrounded by a whole bunch of buddies. The shyest guy on the bus talking to a room with 423 people now. Come on guys. I mean you can't make this stuff up. How many times did I drive home drunk. This didn't happen just because I got sober. How many times did I drive home and come to in my parking lot and realize that I didn't have an idea how I got there? Why didn't I die in all of that? Why Didn't I? And I don't know, guys, I believe there's some guidance there for us. I meditate in the same place every day. Sometimes it's outside, guys. Cause I love nature. You never know when a little possum might show up, but I'm just saying, but i sit here right here at my desk. I wish I could show you with all my little treasures around my little AA stuff, and I'm sitting down here. Look, I got a little grasshopper. You know, I mean, I just, it's just my stuff. This is my space. When Patty and I got married, I said, you can do whatever you want to do, hon. Don't touch my desk, which she did one time that we had the conversation. Don, this is my stuff and so i'm and i'm right here okay and i get to get quiet close my mind a little bit and and see what god's got in store a lot of times when i lecture during the time and i get ideas about guys i'm sponsoring in ways that i might be able to help them pay attention i always sit down with that ever-present little tablet my little legal tablet always said i don't ever meditate without it. I sit down there with it because the guidance will come. So many of you, you're mad because you can't figure out what you need to do with your life. And the problem is sometimes we just don't listen. I think God's been screaming direction at me all my life. But on any given day, I'm so wrapped around the axle with my work and with my relationships or whatever else going on that I can't hear. You're not going to hear God's guidance with the TV on. You've got to, shh, listen, shhh, shut up, be quiet, shhhh. It's hard. it's hard to do there was a guy um there was a guy uh and paul paul m uh he passed away long long time ago he he was in my little sponsorship lineage and uh he was actually in the same lineage with us with don don p and and mark houston and gary brown gary's my sponsor now and bless his heart i just but we all come from this lineage and bill uh paul wrote a bunch of articles for the grapevine if any of you guys have access to their their archives he wrote back through the 70s and 80s. He wrote a bunch of articles for The Great Mind. It was about like 19 of them, 18 of them. And he was prolific. This is back in the day The Great Mind was printing a lot of big book stuff. But a lot of his articles talked about meditation. It talked about getting quiet and actually showing up for God's guidance because he believed the same thing I've been saying all weekend. It's just the same deal. This isn't about not drinking today. This is about getting in touch with what life is supposed to be. It breaks my heart that I look around the room sometime and see so many sad people sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's just not okay. It's just Not Okay. It doesn't have to be that way, and there'll be one of those in the group that want to argue with that and rationalize why it's okay for them to be grumpy. Okay, it doesn't Have To Be That Way, and I believe God will guide us. You get quiet and start listening and paying attention, all of a sudden guidance starts coming. And I write it down, you know, and I go back and I get quiet again, contemplate about my day. What could I do today that would help somebody? I'll give you an example real quick one. I talk about it often because it's this graphic of an illustration about what I'm talking about. I sit there meditating one morning, and I think about this kid. He was a host of mine at a place out near California where I spoke, and he was a little host, and He picked me up at the airport. Y'all just, yeah, He was as sweet-hearted as could be. It was a nice weekend. We had this little workshop out there, did a little talk, and anyway, we were thinking. We stayed in touch after I left. Stayed in touch with a lot of my hosts, bless them for following me around, but I kind of lost track of him and anyway i'm sitting there in meditation and out of the clear blue sky i thought about this kid and um and i you know i jotted his name down and i got to work and got busy anyway i got a free moment and i picked up the phone and i called him and he got on the phone like that and he said what who is this and i told him if this is chris and and uh buddy how you doing and it got real quiet he said can i call you right back yes absolutely i'm you know call me on this number, anyway, about 10 minutes later, he called me back, and he said, why in the hell did you call me today, and I said, buddy, just out of a clear blue sky, I was meditating this morning, I just thought about, you just kind of crossed my little mind, and that was it, nothing, what's going on, and he started to cry, he said man, I've made a mess of this deal, I said are you drunk, he says no, no, I didn't get drunk, but I had a fight with an old-timer in the group, and we locked horns in a group and I made a pretty much of a poo to myself. And I'm not going back to Alcoholics Anonymous ever. Got his little feelings hurt and we talked about it for a few minutes and I said, you know what you need to do, buddy? You need to go clean that mess up. It's called 10 step. You know, he was wrong, you were wrong. Clean off your side of the street and see what happens. he said okay i'll do it i said call me later anyway he does a couple hours later he calls me on the phone man you're not gonna believe what happened y'all follow completely different tone in his voice yeah what happened he said man i made amends to him for calling him those names and i just you know cleaned up my side of the street just like you talked about and he said you know what he did he made amens to me i said no kidding he said yeah guess what i got a new sponsor now. Oh, holy moly. Really? Yeah. Okay. Do y'all realize that we get to participate in so many people's lives on a daily basis? We get a chance to, it's just, we're just guided if we can just shut up long enough. And it's not just an Alcoholics Anonymous. It's just our, the job is to stay awake. And in this meditation, you'll start getting the guidance of the things that you need to do if you're paying attention. One last little quick story. I've done this at work a thousand times. I'll think of somebody, there was a lady that came to treatment not long ago. It was actually a year or so ago. And she was a sweetheart. She was 28 years sober and she relapsed and ended up back in treatment. She was an absolute sweetheart. I knew of her, and she ended up in a place, and I gravitate to those people, folks. Like I said, the relapsers in me are like this. I just, I struggled so hard to get some sobriety under my belt, and I just people treat relapses goofily, and sometimes they just do it all wrong, and that's another talk altogether, but I just needed to talk to this lady because I knew what they were going to do was tell her to come back as a newcomer, and what she needed to do was get her butt back in the trench and help us carry the message like she was doing before, and she'll stay sober the rest of her life. She needs to pick up and jump back in, and I couldn't find her. It's a big campus. It has 40 acres, guys, and I went up. I had to drop off something, and there was a bookshelf I was trying to steal out of another office, and I went into that office where the bookshelf was, and she was in that room. I thought about it that morning what I needed to do, and I walked into her. Didn't see her in a big group of people. I saw her alone in a place that we could talk. It just blew me away, and y'all are sitting there saying, yeah, big deal. Guys, this is what this is about. It's the little things, guys. It means coincidence? My butt had nothing to do with coincidence. God guides us. If we'll stay awake to the day around us, God will continue to put us in positions that we can help other people. I've seen it a million times. And I got to say this, guys, and it's not just in Alcoholics Anonymous. Just a while back, I'm coming out of Walmart about 400 miles an hour. And again, I am very busy. I am so busy. and i'm 100 miles an hour and i'M walking through the parking lot back up it's right at sunset sunset's going down and uh and I'm I'm heading off and I'M thinking about work and I'VE GOT TO GO BACK TO WORK AND TAKE CARE OF SOME BUSINESS THEN I'LL GET A RUN BACK BY THE AA CLUB AND AND UH TAKE care of some business there and uh I WALKED BY THIS OLD GUY AND I LOOK OFF TO THE LEFT-HAND SIDE HE'S LIKE HE'S GOT A SKID YOU KNOW THOSE BIG SKIDS THAT YOU PUSH IN THE BIG BIG BOX PLACES HE'S OUT IN BALMARK AND HE'S got these big goddamn big sacks of dog food it's got to be a big dog he's got i don't know what to tell you this is i don' t know how big these bags were but he's Got three of these big old bags of dog food he's on his skid and he's got the skid he's old guy he's older than i am his little skinny guy and he' s out there and he's wrestling one of those bags trying to get it in the back of his car he didn't have a pickup or he's just got an old car and he put the hoods the trunk up and he'S trying to put this bag in and i walked right by him i said yeah you know uh and i and i got about oh god i got about just a few feet past him. I'm halfway to my car like that, and it's like God thumps me in the head, you know? It's like, God, what are you doing? And I pivoted back around again. Same stuff, guys. Sunset's coming down. Walk slow. Hey, hey, buddy. I're making some noise so he doesn't see I'm coming up on him fast. I said, what? You need a little help there? And he says, God dang, I could use something because he can't get it in there. It's just more than he's got, and I picked that and we got him in just and dumped them all three in there. We're laughing, turns out we know some of the same people, and he's a little homie town, and they just, ah, and we're laughing. I introduced myself and just, you know, I made myself a friend. I asked him, I said, what? I said buddy, you want me to follow you home? I know where you live. I said you want me to following you home and help you unload him? He says nah, I get my wife to do that, no problem, and then he just, he got in the car and drove off, and I said okay, you now, and still see him every once in a while in town, we're like Oh, besties. Why in the world would I walk by somebody that I know is hurting? That I know was embarrassed, that I knew was struggling because I'm sound asleep. Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank God we've got a program that will allow us to on a daily basis, one day at a time, wake up and pay attention to the things that we're supposed to be doing. I'm going to tell you, folks, God wants us happy. I still believe he wants us successful. I think he wants his creative juices flowing. And I just, I think the guidance is there for all of us to attain that and do the things that we want to do. I'm gonna give you one little analogy and let you go. I'm a big cyclist and I've been riding bikes for a long time. It's a, I absolutely love it. And it's very meditative for me to ride. when you're riding a bicycle and some of you get little cyclists some of y'all look like cyclists in there when you were cycling one of the things that the old the guys that are teaching you do when i was riding mountain bikes or road bikes it's the same kind of a deal one of the things you do is you you you look at where you want to go so you you're coming down the shoulder of a road you see a rock if you look att the rock you're going to hit the rock you'll notice it but it's you youre going to go where you where you stare where you look It's the same thing. If you look around and see if there's a car behind you, your bike will turn to the left. You'll turn that way. That's the problem with so many of us in our life, folks. We're looking at everything else that we don't need to be looking at, and we wonder why we've got no direction in our lives. We need to start figuring out what we need to look at and look at that and then go for it. I'm starting to sound like Tony Robbins up here. But you understand what I'm trying to say. this is not rah, rah, rahat. We can do it, guys. I just think more of us would stay sober if we were happy, if we've got some direction in our life. There's some studies out there that show, guys, I'm off topic, but your creative juices, those of us that find a creative outlet have a better chance of staying sober than those that don't. Everybody in this gathering have talents that the person sitting next to you doesn't have. The problem is a lot of us don't know what those talents are. Thank God there's a whole bunch of people in Alcoholics Anonymous that have figured that out, because exactly what Billy was talking about, we couldn't do this. We couldn't doing this without everybody in the trench. The main topic tomorrow, working with others, is that each of us in our own way are going to carry this message. We just got to figure out what that way is and how can we best serve others. My little wife is a treasure of our group. I couldn't be a treasure for all the money in the world. She can, she can do it in her sleep. Everybody uses the talents and that's what it's about folks. Y'all practice in the morning. Y'ALL get quiet for just a few minutes and try to get quiet with God instead of going off to the astral plane. See if you can get some guidance and see what God's trying to talk to you about. It takes a little discipline. It takes little effort but I think you'll be amazed what happens if you'll give it a shot. Thank y'all so much for letting me visit tonight.