Romance in Recovery – Blueprint for Recovery Big Book Study Weekend – Part 1 of 5 – Chris R.

Sorry. My name is Chris Raymer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. How was lunch? We ate some noodley things, some noodle things. Yeah. It was great. I don't know what it was, but it was good. I think I got more on me than... We've got an hour here. What we want to do, we're going to do 6 and 7, 8 and 9 and we want to talk about this and I'm thinking having some conversations with some of you there's only one place to kind of interject this and there's no appropriate place so I just want to go ahead and start out by saying this is not anything to do with 6 and 6 8 or 9 but Now, part of the – I suppose it is in sponsorship. Part of the stuff that we do with the new guys that we sponsor is we teach people what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. Y'all with us? And I just – I feel a strong desire to mention this. If – the fellowship and the program, the program is what saves our lives. We're all in agreement on that. It's a program that gets us connected to God. We're enriched by the fellowship. But there's a lot of things that have seeped into our fellowship That's not necessarily AA I was just talking with my buddy about this hugging thing About, you know Women in Alcoholics Anonymous Have, in my experience A tough time sometimes getting sober We have a tendency Not to let them get their feet on the ground Before we start Trying to date them I'm trying to be very diplomatic here. But I don't want to talk out of both sides of my mouth because I'm a firm believer in romance and recovery. It happens, and I don' t know who God's going to bring in my life to put me in contact with. But early on, guys, I think all of us have a certain responsibility to make sure that the newcomer is a safe place, be it man or woman. Let's face it, there are some women predators out there. I watch how some of you women dress when you come to meetings And it's like, Jesus, you know, I don't understand. We see them at the hospital all the time. They come in and we're practically nothing, you know? And it is just like, I do not understand why everybody, they treat me like a whore. Maybe because you are advertising like one, you know? It is like, we have to protect the young guys from that. We have to protection the old guys from that We have pay attention what you are doing. You come into Alcoholics Anonymous and if You find hugging, you know there's some of us that have been through some childhood of origin things and this hugging, this personal contact is offensive to us. We're not there spiritually to say it's okay. But then everybody thinks, oh it's AA, it's hugging. It's about hugging. It's a hug. No it's not. And you have every right to not do it. I've talked to hundreds of women who won't come back to Alcoholics Anonymous because they've got to run the gauntlet coming in the front door. You with us? If you want a hug, hug I'm not saying that I'm saying each individual one of us Has the right to either do it Or not do it This is the universal sign of stay away I'm just saying I'm interested You come at me with a hug And you have every right to do that It will travel like wildfire in the group Everybody will know And then you will not be pestered with it any longer I don't want to do anything that separates, that makes it uncomfortable for you to come in here. Make sense? This is one of the reasons like down in the States we don't do smoking meetings anymore. A lot of people will stay away from the life-giving fellowship because they couldn't stand the smoke. Now we have lots of non-smoking meetings where people can come. You can find the group that you need. Y'all are with me on that. We don't need to hit that any harder, do we? Take care of yourself. Say what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. Let that other person in your group understand what's going on. So, I think it's a good thing to talk about. Chris. Sir. I have a question about the step four. About hugging? No. Step four. Let's talk about hugging some more. Come on with it. Isn't part of the instructions that, and somebody alluded to this just before our break, about that we pray for others, like on their resentment, that we prayed for them before we go to our part in the fear prayer that we ask God to remove the fear. Nope, sorry. It's in subsequent AA literature in the fourth step it's not there. I pray for myself. I'm the one that's pissed. You follow me? I'mtheonethatneedstohelpgettingoverthis. You pray for anybody you want. You with me? But praying for that person is not going to fix me from being angry. It may eventually down the road work. It comes out of a story in the back of the book where it talks about I'm not knocking that technique I'm saying the book is pretty specific it's the four step prayer we ask us to grant them mercy to pray for the sick man you all with us? pray for this person pray for a sick man in that regard, yes pray for that person specifically to get rid of the resentment no you can pray until your hair falls out and the resentment will not go away That's been my experience. Any of y'all have ever experienced that? We do a third step prayer and then it steps four through nine that we lose the resentment. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to... I wish I didn't have to walk away from this. Sorry. How many people I've walked with or talked to that do a fourth step, dump a fifth step and they're still resentful and they are really upset because they are still resentable. Seeing your truth doesn't free you from the resentment. It's the character defects in 6 and 7 and then making the amend in 8 and 9 that allow us to get past the resentment, yeah? I pray for everybody, but God saved me from being angry is my prayer because I get so blocked so quickly. You'd think at 19 years sober that wouldn't affect me. The stuff that you people do affects me. And I have to ask God to constantly be there with me to help me walk through to the other side. Pray for whoever you want to. Cool? Six and seven, you all ready? Character defects. Returning home. After we do that fifth step, pocket our pride, we go through it, we tell the cat what's going on. Returning home, we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour. Now that's pretty specific information there, isn't it? Where we can Be Quiet for an Hour. It doesn't say we leave home and next week we come back and do 6 and 7. It says the next hour we do 6and7. Bottom of page 75, guys. I'm sorry. Carefully reviewing what we've done. We thank God from the bottom of our hearts that we know Him better. Him, capital letter, her, whatever. Taking this book down from the shelf, we turn to the page which contains the 12 steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals, we ask if we have admitted anything. For we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man. Remember the cornerstone and the keystone we talked about? Is our work solid so far? Do I have a lurking notion in the back of my mind that I'm a real alcoholic, but I'm going to go ahead and work the steps anyway? You follow me? Because you're destined to crap out on the next few steps called the amends. You're not going to finish them if you don't think that your life depends on it. So we want to make sure that our ducks are in a row here. Are the stones properly in place? Have we stripped on the cement and put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand? If we can answer to our satisfaction through the first five proposals, we then look at step six. We've emphasized willingness as being indispensable? Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things we have admitted are objectionable? Remember, we've got a seven-step list that we got from our inventory. We've got an idea of what's going on. We can add to that list. Can He now take them all, every one? If we still cling to something, we will not let go. We ask God to help us be willing. I've never really understood that. I've got these things in me that caused me to behave badly, that caused my behavior that caused it caused me to function poorly in society. Now I want to be a different person. I don't want to become the same person I was. I want somebody different. So I've got these character defects that are choking me that are causing the problems. There's a great quote a little guy named Archie M wrote. Let's see if I can find it here. No change in our circumstance will repair our defects. Make sense? I was in the food business and was a creep. I was on the road and I was a freak. I was doing sales and I Was a creep I was In retail and I Was a Creep No change in my circumstances Changed who I am Who I've become But I don't like who I've Become Based on all the resentments And all the survival stuff that we do out there I've adopted some characteristics That are not acceptable to me any longer Make sense Some of the character defects we saw in our fourth step. I mean, that's the stuff that we have to look at. The book talks about... I tell you what was a great reference. I'm not a big 12 and 12 fan. I'm just not. I'm knocking it at all. I'm juste not a bit fan. It was written 11 years after the big book. I believe the bigbook is the textbook we should spend most of our time in. But the 12 and twelve has got some great stuff in it. Don't get me wrong. Especially around 6 and 7. Because that book talks specifically about humility. If you could honestly look at your life we've got this picture, this vivid picture of who I think I really am. But the truth is, and it's coming out in my four-step stuff and in this character defect list, that I'm not a really likable person. I've lied to myself for years thinking I'm pretty much hot shit. But the true truth of the matter is I've got some stuff going on. And if I can humbly look at this, then I can go to God with these character defects and start taking care of this. God will take care of it. It's God that removes the character defects. It freaks me out. I go to meetings, the meeting, I'm working on six and seven. It's the same stuff as the second and third step. I'm workin' on six and seven What are you doin'? You're workin', you're worknin' on six and... You're practicin' your character defects? Because I don't understand. And I know, and I know that there's some of you that will disagree with this. You've been to weekend workshops where all we did was focus on the character defects and there's a lot of work to be done around that. I'm tellin' ya, I don'T see it. The book says that God's going to remove the character defect. God's either going to remove it or He's not. And if you're willing to have it removed and you can identify it and see it, put a name on it, this is what this is, and ask God humbly to remove it, it's been my experience that it'll be removed. If, if, if it's standing in the way of your usefulness to God. You with us on that one? Doesn't mean you're going to be perfect because maybe perfect people don't help God the way it's supposed to be done. What good would it do if I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm perfect? Who's going to identify with me? It's the truth. Think about it for a second. Have you seen yourself being selfish, judgmental? How about inadequacy, this self-pity, envy? Isn't that right? We were talking about it at lunch. It's amazing to me how many people end up looking at somebody else's plate and saying, God, I wish I'd had that. Instead of being grateful for what you've got sitting right in front of you. You with us? God, you buy a brand new car and you're driving, you're feeling pretty like hot, you know, this is good. You with this? Somebody pulls up in a blue one. Same model, everything. God, that should have got the blue one! God, there's no winning people. Impatience. One of my biggest characters in Deep, impatience. How many of y'all are like that? Sitting in an AA meeting and all gun-digging spiritual and everything's just wonderful. Get out, get in your car, driving home, you know, and somebody's driving 20 miles an hour in front of you. You know, it's like if you had a gun, you would shoot them. Get really quick. Impulsiveness. It's a great character defect to look at. Impulsiness. How many you guys are impulsive shoppers? Never give it a second thought. Look at it. Oh shit, I got to have that. Wait a minute. Procrastination. does that sound worry it's a character defect indecisiveness perfectionism all of this stuff is the stuff that we're going to see in that fourth column when we're looking at our part of that resentment, this stuff's going to start poking to the top, our intolerance of other people, all of that we're gonna write that stuff down and we're gonna look at that, an hour after we do that fourth step, we're going to do the seven-step prayer. We're going to ask God to remove these character defects. You with us? I spent years asking God to how can I put this? Help me with I wanted to be gentler. There was a therapist at work that I worked with for years and he was just one of these kindest man. And he was very soft spoken and he was very, very, very gentle. And I always respected this guy because he was very direct and to the point but he was very gentle and I always wanted to be more like him. And so that was a big prayer of mine. You know, God make me more like this man because that's who I want to be. But the truth of the matter is my effectiveness from this podium although it may offend some of you wakes up some of you. You'll follow? I had a character defect of my cussing at times. Some of y'all have heard old CDs of mine. I cuss like a sailor. I make no bones about it. I still cuss a bit, but the operative word is a bit. I don't do anything. I haven't said the F word from the podium in a long, long time. That was a direct result of going to God in 6 and 7 and saying, God, remove this from me because it may bond me with this cat, but it may offend the person in the back, so I don t need to do it. We watch a lot of people go into meetings doing this. I can say anything I want in an AA meeting. Of course you can, but will your effectiveness be diluted by doing it? You said some great stuff in the meeting, but every other word was F. Who did you push away because of that? Who could you have helped? Are you with us? It's kind of a catch-22, but if it's standing in the way of my usefulness to God and others, then I need to really watch what I'm doing. And I go to God in 6 and 7 and I ask Him to help me with that. I've asked Him to helped me with my shyness forever and He has failed me miserably. Some of these character defects are not, I don't know. In God's time, that stuff will be removed. How many of y'all think I like to speak from the podium? I do it every weekend. Absolutely. I don t. Hate it. Would rather get an enema than speak from a podium. You're sick. Probably shouldn't have said that. Seven-step prayer is pretty cool. When ready, we say something like this. My Creator... I love that term. I'm now willing for you to have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen Third step Fourth step Fifth step Sixth step Seventh step Five steps should be done all in a row very quickly You with us? Not this long drawn out way that we always talk about it Joe and Charlie talks about this stuff non-stop Some of their Joe McHugh did a book not long ago called On Sponsorship and it talks about working these 12 steps. It talks about it. Use the analogy of making a cake. You make a cake? Y'all know how to make a Cake? What if we put the eggs in a bowl and then two weeks later came back and added the milk? And then six months later we added the flour? You with us? What kind of cake are you going to get out of this thing? When you finally get it made, get it in the oven, what's this going to look like, huh? It's going to be inedible. It's the same thing with working the 12 steps You guys want to have a vital spiritual experience? Do this stuff quickly, rapidly. And you'll be blown out of the water. What happens? You will see the change in your life. You drag it out forever, you may not see it so drastically. Make sense? Guys, one of the character defects that most of us in this room face is a thing called laziness. We're just damn lazy. I'm going to put it off. Do you really believe that you're powerless over alcohol? the stuff that we talked about in the first step? If you do, and you truly know that the moment is going to come when the obsession is going to return, you won't be dragging your feet on these 12 steps. Let's get it done, guys. Let's please. Y'all cool with that? Yeah? Amends. You got your eight-step list. Somebody mentioned earlier a very valid point. Everything that we got off of our fourth step is not going to be the only thing that we've got on the amends list. There's going to have some cats out there that we have absolutely no resentment in connection with, but we owe them some amends anyway. You with us? Some people at work. We just passed in the hallway. Said something to them, whatever. Didn't make any difference. They didn't say anything back, but you hurt their feelings. I get to go clean that nonsense up. I'm telling you, eight and nine, this stuff about making these amends is still to me one of the most powerful freeing steps there is that needs to be done rapidly. Can I make all of my amends immediately? No. Because most of my Amends, a lot of myAmends were financial. And I didn't have any money when I got sober. None. But I could make my first approach and that's what Bill Wilson talks about in the few pages that he talks about. It covers just about every area that I can think about where we owe amends. Relationships, financial, legal. It talks about all of this in this book, about what to do. I make my first approach. I don't hide from this stuff. I owe the credit card companies a gazillion dollars. You with me? I don'T hide out. My ego, my arrogance wants to say, I want to wait until I make a big killing in Vegas and then I'm going to go pay these bastards off. Here, here's all your money. Well, that's nice, but it ain't probably going to happen. So what I need to do is call them and make the best deal I can. You follow? It's okay to negotiate. Don't have a problem with that. I did it with the IRS. Owed them a fortune. But I didn't let them hunt me down and wonder where I was. I got sober. My sponsor sat me down. I'm going to talk to you about it. And he showed me what to do, and I had to pick up the phone and call these guys and let them know where I Was, what I was doing, what I Was involved in, that I was willing. I was not running. I'm willing to pay you the money. I need to work the best deal I can. And they did. It still sucked, but I worked them a deal and it took me years to get them paid off, but I did get them paid off. It doesn't make a big splash when you go write somebody a $5 check. You follow me? Make a... But it eventually gets the job done. See, what we're trying to do, guys, is set the universe right. That's what the amends process is about. It's not so that people will stop eating my butt and coming at me from all directions. It is so that I can set the universe straight. Some of you cats in this room right now I can assure you because you are like some guys I sponsor are tormented at night. You can't sleep. That's why you end up going to doctors to get sleep aids because you can't asleep. Why can't you sleep? Because you are wracked with guilt. You owe everybody on earth. You with us? Because you haven't made the amends that you are supposed to make. It's not something we can dodge. Watch these cats that I sponsor. Guy comes in, we're working on amends and he walks in strutting around, he's got him a $150 pair of sneakers on. What are you doing? Where'd you get these? They're on sale. $150 bucks. Uh-huh. You owe everybody but you got a $150 pair of speakers. It ain't your money. It's their money. You follow me? It's an attitude shift. It's a perception here. You have to start looking at this. Until you've paid everybody back, you're using their money Everybody wants to get down on the credit card. I heard a guy in a meeting the other night. I ain't going to pay Ford Credit back. They got enough money. That's not your decision. That's Not for you to decide. You borrowed the money. You didn't pay it back. Now you get a chance to. Make sense? You see, I want to be free in this earth. I believe the old analogy, what goes around comes around. I truly believe that. I've seen it in my own life. You start cleaning up the wreckage of your past out there in the world and watch the good stuff start to come back to you. Everybody thinks that's mumbo-jumbo. Oh, Chris, that's just new age spiritual crap. That's not true. Watch. You will be healthier. you will be wealthier you will get laid more well maybe not the third one but you'll get the first two for sure what I do is this I got my list shot y'all be fine absolutely pay the money back I got that I got it I got the I've got my eight step list and I go down here's what I have the guys do when I'm sponsoring them you can do this anyway it's pretty open I get them to get four by five business cards index cards, because you can carry them with you. Because I believe out of sight is truly out of mind. And I want to keep this stuff current with me. I'm not going to be able to make all these amends right away, but I'm going to being able to sort through this literature, this list and figure out which ones are the ones I've got to make right now, which are the one's that I can go slow on, which ones that I don't need to touch at all. Because that's the truth. We don't make amends to people where we're going to end up harming them or other people get involved. We can talk about that, but the general principle you understand. But we sit down with a 4x5 index card, or you can do it in a notebook, and I have these guys go through every one of these lists, everybody on that list, and I Have them list the person, who it is, what their address is, what their phone number is, and then I Have him list specifically what the amend is. Making an amend is not going to somebody and saying, I'm sorry I treated you like shit. It's not. That's not an amend. When I said this, I was wrong. You with us? This I'm sorry... They know. I've said it all. I'm so sorry. I'm sorrry. I had my first wife. I know you are. You're the sorriest I've ever seen. What are you going to do different? I was wronk and this is what I'm going to d to clean it up. You with it? It works great. It works great. But you make a laundry list of what you owe them amends for. If you want to see an amend go bad, show up unprepared. Show up when you really don't know what you're doing there. I know I've harmed you some way, but I really don'T know how. I'm sorry, regardless. And they will dust you. You with us? The idea is to make the relationship whole again. But that's not going to work if you won't own your stuff. So, I try to get specific. And then I get the guy to do the paperwork on it and write down all of this and then I go over each individual card with a cap to make sure we're not heading in the wrong direction. Are they being too specific? Are they bringing other people in that they don't need to bring into the amends process? I don't want to have to make this amend again. This is going to be a tough enough piece to swallow. You know what I'm saying? Anybody could eat crow with enough ketchup on it. But I don'T want to have to do it again. And the amends that go bad are almost impossible to repair. So you don't rush into this. I get with my sponsees, and I make sure that we're all on a clear path. You with us? I go to the cat. I call them, andI try to set up an appointment with them. I don't just show up at their office unannounced. I make surethat they're willing to hear this amend. because if they're not ready I mean how dare me the book talks about you know I'm not going to make somebody else's load heavier by making my load lighter and I've had people do that in this fellowship and it drives me nuts people come up Chris when I first met you I hated you oh no kidding thanks up until this point I thought you were a pretty nice guy. And now we've got a bone to pick. You with us? Why did they have to come up and say that? I'm feeling down today. I think I'll go make some amends so I can feel better about myself. Not considering who you're going to harm in the process. Let's go to an old relationship that we've tried to repair. You with me? And let's just drag up a whole bunch of crap at an inopportune time so I Can Feel Better. Uh-uh. We say some prayers around this, guys. We say some prayers. We ask God to show us the right way to make this amend. We go to them. Do you have time for me? I need to talk to you personally. People are always asking me that. Can you make amends over the phone? Did you harm the person over the throne? Then go see them. Make sense? Could I make the amended email? Absolutely not. You know what they'll do with it? Delete. You've not made it right Here's what I'm saying Often times in my delusional thinking I think I know what I've done to you That's pissed you off I tried to make amends to my first wife I don't think I've ever talked about this before I tried making amends To my first life She split In the early 80's and I had about five more years drinking in me. And she disappeared. And after I got sober, I tried to contact her so I could make amends for my terrible behavior. And her family isolated her. They did not want me near her. She did not wants me near here. Just, you know what I mean? They dropped through the crowd and I couldn't find her. I couldn' get through to her. Letters were sent back to try to set this appointment up unopened. Phone calls were not answered. And I just, I became willing. I knew she was in Houston or I suspected she was in Houston and I'd been there several times speaking and I tried on all of those occasions to call her brother and call her any number I could find, her work number where I'd like to try to make amends. Always at a dead end, dead end. My sponsor and I were down doing a talk one time. This was about 10 years after I got sober. Almost 13 years. And I said, I'm going to try this one more time. And I called this number that I'd called a hundred times and her brother answered the phone. And he said, Chris, I don't think she'll talk to you, but I'll give her the message. And I says, That's all I can ask. Thank you. Hung up the phone and we went and did our talk and I came back that's why I don't tell this story and I had a message and she called back and I called her and she was out with the girls and she just thanks for calling and I said can I get with you tomorrow night and make amends to you finally for the stuff I put you through would you be interested in talking and she said Chris if you'd have called a week ago I'd have said no but yeah So I went to dinner with her the next night And nervous wreck She looked great Was making lots of money I should have stuck that out But we sat at this restaurant We asked for a table where we could visit Off to the side and we talked And I had a little old busted up 4x5 index card that I'd been carrying in my glove box for 13 years. And I got it out because I was ready. And I made my amends to her, what I had put her through. And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, Buddy, thanks. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for taking the time to do this. She'd been an Al-Anon for years. I almost killed this woman. Because everything that was happening bad in my life, I blamed her for. And I treated her like garbage. But I talked to her and she looked up and she said, but can I say something? Of course, I've been instructed by my sponsor. Now we let the person we're making amends to, we let them talk back to us. She said, Chris, the problem is you made amends for things that were very obvious. The money, the abusiveness. But there were certain things that you don't understand that you did to me and I need to tell you about that. And so I got to sit there, I would like to say for two or three minutes. I got the opportunity to sit here for 45 minutes with my mouth shut. Shut! And let her tell me what I did to her. I had no clue I had no clue we're so focused on the big stuff the stuff that mattered to me I had not a clue what I did to that woman she got to tell me and we went home that night and I got to hug her neck and I had to exchange some artwork and we got to make the relationship right again We've got to talk about our lives again. She's in Houston, and if I need her, I can call her. We're not friends. We did not... I was remarried. But we've got to put that relationship to rest. You down with this? You can't force this. But you've got be ready to do it. If you ask God to show you, God will put these people in your life. And then you've got to have the courage, and it takes courage to sit there and go through this amends process. Everything she told me I had a rebuttal for. But honey, you don't understand what I was going through at work. I mean, good gosh, that should make it... Shut up. Let them say what they need to say. Let them get it off their chest. We owe them that. And instantly I get to make that relationship livable again. You're down? I want to set the universe straight. When I first got sober, there were whole cities in the state of Texas that I couldn't drive into because I'd done so much damage in those cities. There were banks I couldn'T walk into because I owed them money. Make sense? We've got to get this stuff finished and we've gotto get it knocked out quick. I had a friend of mine that had a chance, got asked to go overseas to do a talk. And this guy had been sober 30 plus years. Had to get a passport. Couldn't get a password because there were some little stupid, stupid glitches on a police report that he chose to look the other way from instead of facing it, cleaning it up. You with us? And that little stupid speeding ticket 30 years ago cost him a trip to Iceland. Make sense? The stuff that you think nobody will find out about, this doesn't matter? God knows. The universe knows. We've got to clean it up. Make sense. Do I make amends to drug dealers? No. You better believe it You damn right You thief You damn Right Do I go to the drug dealer And make the amend No Do I send him the money order Guys it's this Who's the amend hurting Who's this hurting It's hurting me This guy went out of his way Covered my butt Stayed up late You follow what I'm saying? He just did all he could do to help. You may not want to do that. But every time I laid down and thought about this guy, I got real uncomfortable inside. I left him holding a bag. He got in trouble for the money I didn't pay him. It didn't matter that he's a dishonest lawbreaker. I harmed another human being. I've got no right to do it. I don't have the right to say that. I need to clean up my mess. Make sense? Check with your sponsor. They may disagree. Great. Do what your sponsor tells you to do. I want to be free and clear in this world. Yeah, like my sponsor suggests in that particular concept, if you owe drug dealers money and things like that, that you can take that money that you owe and you can put all that money into the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and that's a way for you to make amends. Because some people might get right fucked up and triggered over picking up as a result of making that amends and my sponsor seen it happen. So he told me, he said, if you owe $10,000, then you're going to take $10.000 and put that into Alcoholics Anonymous. If I can't make the amend, that's what I'll do. I'm 100% with you if I can to make that amend there. I'll give you a classic example. When I was in the food business as a professional chef, I brutalized a certain segment of society called waitresses. You're down with this? If you were a nice waitress and you were bringing me beers under the table, buddy, your orders got out quick and on time and they were good. Do you follow me? If you said, no, I can't do that, I might get in trouble, we would back your tickets up and hold them until you got about a wedge like that and they would all come out at once. And that would be the last night that you didn't bring us brewskis. Now listen, guys. I worked with hundreds of waitresses. Hundreds of waitesses. There were some specifically that I knew and that I could go make amends directly to. But there were lots of them I couldn't. But I can guarantee you what I won't do today. If I go into a restaurant and I've only got $5 in my pocket and that meal is $5, I won' t eat. I won''t go into that restaurant. I will tip enormously for the rest of my life to try to make up... It's the same exact thing what we're talking about here. If a waitress brought me a plate of dried cat turds, you follow me? I don' t have to eat them, but I will not send them back under any circumstances. I will not complain. I don't care how bad the service is. It's just my way to make it right to these poor waitresses that I've brutalized for years. Make sense? Again, it's about me trying to set the universe right. Y'all down with that? I understand the legal ramifications around this. There's a great line in the book that talks about making amends. What happens if I might go to jail making that amend? Then you need to talk to your family about it. You need to let them know what's coming down the pike. Y'All figure out the best plan of attack and then you need to go do what you need to go do I'd rather see you do jail time than to see you squirm the rest of your life looking over your shoulder that's not free that's not free I didn't get sober to be dry one day at a time folks I got sober so I could have a new life a lot of people get tweaky with this folks if I go to jail I can't help my family I'm saying talk it over with your family See what you can do. Get a good lawyer. Let's look at all the ramifications of what takes place. But I guarantee you, I sponsor some men in jail right now that are freer than some people sitting in this room. They're doing their time and they're going to get out absolutely free. A lot of us have a lot of wreckage, folks. But we don't get to just sweep that under the carpet because we're hip, slick, and cool today. And I have a desire not to hurt anybody else in the future that's not making an amend. Do you have a question? I kind of have a question you kind of asked me about like amend at work where if you were to make the amend you'd lose it, same thing? Talk to your family first. Because see here's the deal. I think buddy it was a great question. I think I know how this amend is going to go. It's like I knew exactly how that amend with my first wife was going to go. I'm going to go in there. I'm gonna make the amend. She's going to cry. I'm not going to cry. It's going to be great. We're going to go and that's it. It didn't quite turn out that way. You follow me? It turned out better than I could have ever hoped, but it did not turn out the way I thought. It's like if I go in and make an amend and get canned from a job, could it possibly be that God didn't want me at that job anyway? I had a business partner in Curville in a catering company and I went to him and I made amends for the shenanigans that I pulled. I didn't steal any money from a guy, but I was a piss poor employee. I guarantee you. I discovered cocaine by that time and I was nuts. I was crazy. And basically what I did was I went back to Houston running from the law. I left him holding a bag. And so I went Back to this little town that I was never going to go back to, right? That shows me. All of a sudden, I end up moving back to this town. So I know it's a small town. I'm going to come face-to-face with this guy. Sooner or later, Walmart, you're going to run right into the bastard. You've got to go make amends. And I went to this guy and I asked permission to sit with him and his wife and make amens. So I made amends, and it was one of those, it worked great. They loved me. God, we're just... They loved us and we hugged necks and it was going to be okay and that was it. I said, buddy, if I could ever help you, if I can ever make this right, let me know how. You with me? Six months later, their son who was an alcoholic drug addict just like me was in major trouble down in another town south of us and it just so happened I knew a bunch of people in the program and so they called and said, is there any way you can help us with this kid? And I was able to hook that kid up with some good sponsorship down there on the coast. And the little guy got sober. You with me? Had I not made amends to those people, I would not have been able to do that. I risk getting in some financial hot water around that company, dissolving of that company. But I screwed up my courage. I made the mess. I've got to go clean it up. You follow? We've got a lot of people in this program saying I've worked all 12 steps. but half their amends are still not done. So you haven't worked the 12 steps yet. Make your first approach. Make sense? Oh, you ought to feel the temperature of this room. Buddy, because it does. It makes me uncomfortable. Every time I go back through a fourth step and a fifth step, again, I look at things. I had some stuff come up out of the clear blue sky that happened 19 years ago for heaven's sakes. And all of a sudden it came to me and it's like now I've got to face the music here. I've got to look at this. I'm not willing to carry this crap around and look over my shoulder the rest of my life. I cannot be an instrument of God's power if I'm doing that. I just can't. First question. Mr. Koppel, I guess, says step nine, except to do so would injure them or others. And others is me. Absolutely not. See? That's what you've been told. Everybody's told it. How many of y'all have heard that in meetings? I've heard it all my life. We are not others. My family is others. Make sense? I dated this attractive woman and treated her like garbage, and I really wanted to go make amends to this woman. But she's married to a very jealous man now. You with me? So now I have to be real careful about how I do this. If I go make Amends to her, am I going to cause her more harm than good? You follow me? I sent a little feeler letter out through friends. She was not comfortable with seeing me again. I've got to let that die. I've Got to tear that card. I've GOT TO BE DONE WITH IT. If it ever happens that I can make amends to that person, I will. But I'm not going to go in there like a bull in a china cabinet and make stuff happen just because I want to feel better about what's going on. I'veGotToConsiderTheirSensitiveFeelings. Make sense? That's why we don't make amens until we talk to somebody about it, folks. We sat down with a sponsor in the fellowship, with other people in the meetings and said, listen, this is what I'm considering doing. I'll give you a classic example to end this up. You remember recently on the Internet, there was a bunch of stories that were made on national television about the guy that had quote-unquote raped the girl in college for some kind of deal. And years later, this guy's in the program and he emails this girl trying to make amends. He tracks her down through one of those little head-hunting finding services. And he tracks this girl down and he emails her and tries to make amends to this woman. You follow? Ends up getting in trouble and going to jail for it. They arrest his ass. They prosecute him for doing this. And now he's got to go to jail. You follow ? Now, there was other ways to do this amend than sitting on an internet email. But I didn't talk to one person out there I mean, I'm on a dozen chat rooms Everybody wants to This guy's a dumbass This guy is a stupid fool No, this guy was doing exactly what he was supposed to do Whether this girl took it right or not I mean she was a fruitcake Luck of the draw You follow what I'm saying? But this guy Albeit in jail is finally free from that. That was the stuff that was affecting his life. Some of you I can see digging your feet in now. I'm never going to make amends. That's your right. That's you're right. You don't have to make that amend if you don't want to. But I'm telling you, he did the right thing. I wouldn't have done it through the internet. That's called evidence. You follow? He should have done exactly what I said in person. One-on-one. One-to-one, he wouldn't have gone to jail. A little bit more of what you're talking about before you do it here. It says, before taking drastic action which might implicate other people, we secure their consent. If we obtain permission and have consulted with others, ask God to help in the drastic step that's indicating we must not shrink. So a little bit going on before you go ahead with it, eh? That's all I'm saying. We do some footwork on this, guys. We don't do knee-jerk stuff. We don't just go willy-nilly making amends. We think about what we're doing. Who else is going to be affected by this? We talk to the possibly affected partners, our loved ones, our financial. Can we afford to do this? And then we screw up our courage and we go do what we are supposed to do. I'm telling you guys, it drives me nuts when I see guys that I'm working with and they are out there, they want to get their life back in shape and they're going to buy a new truck and theyre going to put a down payment on a house but they owe everybody on earth. That is wrong. It's not your money. Get free and clear first and then watch and see what happens. You get ready to make a big financial amendment and I can assure you God will put that money in your lap. I've seen it a thousand times. Make sense? You'll be the absolute freest you've ever been in your life when you get this stuff taken care of. God dang it, it takes effort. It takes courage. Any of you guys want to further talk about this, y'all come see me. Everybody's different. Every story is different. That's why we've got to really look at each individual one as isolated cases. There's no black and white for everybody. Everybody's a little different. But trust me, God can take you to a different spot. My sponsor says it all the time. How free do you want to be? How free Do you want To Be? Y'all cool? Let's go smoke. Smoke a big one. God, y'all got some greatest questions. Make me think. All of this is not easy. None of this, when you start... But the book has kind of outlined a little plan of attack. Nothing's etched in stone. Again, it goes back to the same old stuff. Whatever works, man, bop to your drop. There's nothing etched in stone, but there's some really guidelines to do this in the 12 steps. I mean, that's a given. But we've got to remember that we're not doing this by ourselves. All of this stuff about making amends and stuff, we think we're going to have to do by ourselves and the truth of the matter is all of this is spiritually guided. All of these things are spiritual. All of it is about God. If you're working the steps up to this point, you've been given some pretty strong power to deal with this stuff. And I've got tell you guys, I mean, it takes so much courage to do what y'all are doing. Again, we talked about it earlier. You know, the spiritual path, the road less traveled, is less traveled because it's a bear to get there and it's een bear to stay there and you've got to do things that are uncomfortable at times to do and that brings us to the tenth step. Short and sweet, it's not a very complicated step. I was sitting here thinking last night, but I couldn't sleep. I don't remember ever once in the 19 years that I've been sober ever intentionally hurting someone you know, I really had a profound spiritual experience 19 years ago but and because of that my heart softened in lots of areas and I don' t remember ever intentionally trying to hurt someone but I do it all the time with my intolerance, with my quickness, with the tone of my voice. Oh my gosh! It can be so subtle. You don't know the person from Adam and you use the wrong tone and instantly whatever you said just goes down the toilet. I do it from this podium this weekend, I'm sure, with some of you. It's like not wanting to do it It doesn't stop me from doing it. And that's why the 10th step is so absolutely freeing for me. On page 84, we're going to read just a little bit here, guys. It's a page long, that step. There's not much to it. But it's a lifetime of... This brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any mistake as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. You all with us? As we cleaned out the past, we don't start working step 10 after we do step 9. We start day 1. As we start cleaning up the path, we start taking care of this current stuff too so we don' t have a bunch of other stuff that we've got to take care of. It's so much easier to take car of this when it happens. That's what the book says. We make a valiant attempt to take care of these mistakes pronto, pronto, pronto. I don't know about you guys. Some of y'all can probably relate. But my threshold of pain, I could take a lot of crap when I first got here. I mean, I, I can live in this very dirty, murky water that was called my life. And today, if it just gets a little dingy, I feel compelled to go clean it up. I have spoken from the podium know I've stepped on somebody and then got back off the plane back into Ingram and have fought to track that person down so I could clean up the wreckage of my past my current past y'all with us? it's just you can't let stuff lie and we get so callous in this sometimes thinking it doesn't really matter I'm not hurting anybody but myself I mean that comment right there has caused me untold hours of grief I want to stay current With the people I live with, with the people I work with, the people in my group I want to watch what I'm doing. Sometimes I can't see it when it happens and that's why this 10th step stuff so many of us in my sponsorship lineage, what we end up doing is we take a moment on a daily basis to sit and take this inventory. There's some great stuff out there on the internet. Forms you can fill out, check marks and little deals You can go over and do some detailed writing about the day. I don't do a lot of that. I'm pretty busy in my life, and I don'T spend a lot OF time getting too anal about this. But I DO make a point to make it happen. This is how I do my 10-step. People are always asking me, Do you do a formal 10- step? No, in the light of, I DON'T take a form and check a bunch of... But I do sit on the edge of my seat, and I ask God, God, show me, Was there anybody today that I stepped on? Anybody I offended. I work in a hospital with 100 very sensitive patients. Was I gentle? Did I watch my tone? Did I cuss too much? I know my character defects. I know what they've been. I watched for them to crop back up again. Was I intolerant of somebody? Did I dust somebody too quick? I've done it here today. Trying to get organized for this and dusted some. I'm sorry. Tonight, in meditation, it'll come up. And I owe you an apology. I owe it to men. As long as I'm breathing air, I'm going to make mistakes. It's a given. But what we have to do is clean it up. Promptly. Not next week. PromptLY. I cannot tell you how many times I've walked out of an AA meeting after eating somebody's butt in there or getting too quick with them. You know how I end up hurting people with me. Sarcasm. I can be so witty, funny boy at your expense and I have to really watch that because I can cut pretty fast in words. Guys, I'm telling you you can make amends for slugging somebody in the nose but those words you said those are tough to take back. That's tough to deal with. I've got to stay on top of that so that I don't have a bunch of loose ends laying out there. Y'all follow? The things I want you to see real quick are the promises that we never read. And this is huge. If I'm working with a newcomer and they want to know what this program is about, if they want to question me whether you can recover or not, I get that all the time. Chris, I don't know why you introduce yourself as a recovered alcoholic. After all, we only have one day at a time. You could get sick tomorrow. Let me read you something. You with me? Guys, the book tells me on page 97 if you want to look it up to introduce myself as a recovered alcoholic. If I'm still obsessing about alcohol, I shouldn't be telling you that life's all great and wonderful. I should just keep my mouth shut. But once the stuff starts to happen and my life starts to change, I'm supposed to bear witness to you that my life is changed, that I'm a better person for it. You'll follow? I don't mean to lie about it. I mean, if it's honestly true, then I need to share that with you. And the 10-step promise is, I mean, they'll take your breath away. And we've ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. What kind of a great promise is that? See, if I'm having to watch my triggers on a daily basis, I haven't ceased fighting anyone or alcohol, have I? For this time, bottom of page 84, guys, where we are. For by this time sanity will have returned. What sanity are we talking about, buds? Remember the sanity in the second step? God's going to restore us to sanity? The sanity around alcohol? The ability to differentiate that this stuff is poison for me and to stay away from it? That's the sanity we're talking about. If you're a fruitcake and you get sober, you're going to be a sober fruitcake. You with me? I'm going to tell you because a lot of people worry about that. That's what I hear in the 6 and 7 stuff all the time. I'm afraid of doing 6 and 8. 6 and 9, I don't know who I'll be. You'll be better. Can we move on? You follow me? You're still going to become... We've got guys in my AA group with mohawks, hair out the hair, green, You know, tattoos and earrings. Just because you got sober doesn't mean you've got to change all that. Why should you? I hear people in meetings all the time. You need to clean up your act. You look like you're living on the street. Why don't you mind your own damn business? The kid's being individual. He's being who he's supposed to be. I'm telling you, that's what makes this fellowship so wonderful is that we've got a wonderful bunch of people and we're all different. Goddamn, you want to all be like me? Heaven forbid, no. You're not going to share the message of hope like I do. You're going to show it in your own way with your own personality. Get another tattoo. Do what you want to go do. The sanity that the book is talking about in the second step and the book that's talking about here in the tenth step is the sanity around alcohol and dope. You with us? By this time, sanity will have returned. We are seldom interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it like it was a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this just happens automatically. You with me? You with this? It means you've either recovered or you haven't. We will see that our 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 are not fighting it. Neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've 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 fit spiritual condition make sense? I ain't going to go down and hang out in a bar tonight folks unless some of y'all want to go downstairs and listen to some music and then I'll go with you because I've got every reason in the world to be there with you but I can go in there and sit in that bar and not obsess about alcohol because I have done the work I have been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected I was talking to an ex-patient from this hospital she had relapsed and she called me on the phone to tell me about it excuse me I said what happened she said I was vacuuming oh shit this is going to be good come on give it to me and she was vacuumed in her apartment and she came across a little white speck in the carpet But I said, what did you do? She knew what it was. What did you doing? She said, well, I turned off the vacuum cleaner and looked at it. I mean, I can just see this woman. I mean I've been there, done that. She turns the vacuum cleaners off and she sits down on the edge of the bed and she just looks at it and then her head says, there's nobody home, nobody will know, I'm just going to do one. You with us? So she smokes it. She was not in a position of neutrality, safe and protected, was she? She hadn't finished the work yet. I ask her, she's been out of treatment eight months. Buddy, what step are you on? I'm still working on that damn fourth step. Oh, oh, like we told you at the hospital that you should have that finished like maybe two days after you leave treatment if you haven't already finished it. The cats in our hospital, we encourage them to finish a fourth step while they're there so they can just walk off campus, find a sponsor, dump this nonsense, and get on down the road. But she's eight months out still working on a fourth step. I go back again. What's the truth, buddies? Lazy. Lazy, what's the proof? She still doesn't believe she's one of us. She still hasn't believed she's powerless. She still believes that she's got all the time in the world. Just do one. If she would do one, she would get well. Guys, with urgency, with the absolute stark terror of a death sentence called alcoholism and drug addiction, you will not drag your feet on these steps. You will get this crap finished. You'll go to a sponsor and say, I'm ready to do a fifth step. Honey, I can't do a sixth step with you until next month. To heck with you. I'm going to go find somebody else because there's a sense of urgency here to get it finished. We want you guys to get to this spot, this position of neutrality, safe and protected. I know what it's like to be obsessing, like we were talking the other night, to be obsessed about alcohol or dope. I remember that. I don't want to ever go back to that. I'm in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. These are great promises. But guys, we have a tendency in our fellowship, we want to use these promises as a carrot. You want these? You want thee? Come get them. You want thieves? What we need to be doing is using these promises like a ruler. The question is why haven't you had these promises yet? Because the answer clearly rests on our shoulders. And that's the best news I can give anybody in this room, folks. No matter what I've said this weekend, the best news I can get you, the responsibility for you getting sober rests squarely on your shoulders. Whether you're going to get sober or not. We were talking about the sponsorship and we'll talk about it later. What if you can't find somebody that understands this work? I'm sorry for you. Go find somebody. If I had a dose of cancer, folks, and the only person that could treat it was somebody in Seattle, I would find a way to get from Texas to Seattle. Because I knew if I didn't, I'd die. We all know people that have done that. But, oh, this is just alcoholism and drug addiction, the most fatal illness on earth. Guaranteed death sentence. But I'm going to mess around and wait for God to just have a sponsor drop in my lap. Some of y'all are going to have to go look for it. You're going to Have to call me. You're Going to Have To Stay In Touch With The People That You Meet At This Gathering As A Hotbed Of People That Are Doing The Work. You Guys Need To Be Getting Each Other's Numbers So You Can Stay In touch. Y'all with us? 10 step stuff great promises position of neutrality safe and protected how cool is that y'all ready for 11th step this will be quick we're going to take a break and I guarantee you we're gonna take an hour we're gunna talk about this 12 step stuff and then we're gunna go smoke big time I was reading that somebody I got a friend in New York if any of you guys want this email address I'll send them to you because this guy sends out some of the best stuff his name is Bill in New Europe a good friend of mine he sent this out it's a quote it's not in the big book don't look for it all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. The piece that people want to make exception with is this conscious contact with God. Because there's too many people out there that don't believe that we can communicate with God There's too few people out here that are not communicating with God Prayer and meditation, folks, is real It's probably the least understood and the least focused on step of them all Now, when you think about meditation, what do you think about? Sitar music? Lit candles? Sitting naked in the lotus position? That's a scary thought for me. I'm going to tell you. You with us? The problem is that what we're talking about is a thing called discipline. My sponsor Mark talks a lot about the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. And that's what we are dealing with here. Can you discipline yourself to make these nightly reviews? to remember the people that you've messed over? Can you discipline? Because it takes effort. You've got to turn CNN off, click, and you've got a set on the side. You've Got to make a point to do this. Note bag in hand so that you can make some notes. Do you have the discipline to do the stuff around prayer and meditation? We all pray when our ass is falling off. Doesn't take much discipline for that. God save me. But about this meditation piece, nobody seems to want to do it. and it takes effort. The book talks about it on awakening and at night you spend some quiet time with God, but the discipline is to try to extend your time over a couple of months, years. The time in quiet stillness should get longer and it will with practice. Anytime you can get quiet with this power, you have more of a likelihood of hearing what God wants you to do. It's in the quiet, small, the stillness that you get to hear God's Word. God is not going to turn off CNN to tell you something. He's not going take the MP3 player out of your ears so that you can hear the guidance that He's given you. You've got to force yourself to get away from the noise, to get quiet. That's what they call the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. The discipline. It takes practice. The guys in my sponsorship lineage, A lot of these guys meditate an hour and a half a day, 45 minutes in the morning, 45 minutes at night. I wish I could do that. I wish i had the time to do that But guys anything is better than what some of us are doing in this room right now Which is absolutely nothing It's like anything we do it takes practice There was a comment made at the dinner table at lunch About my expertise with the chopsticks You'll follow me? I still need a little practice with that Don't you know? I had that stuff all over me but I'm working you should have seen me when I first started using Chopstick it's pretty awesome that's how I lost this eye I'm just kidding actually I lost a eye in a rock fight in case any of y'all want to know when I was 11 years old it was tragic don't go there I know I know It takes practice for anything. In quietness, in meditation, we get quiet with God in one specific... Shut up! Here's what's going to happen when you start practicing this. You're going to get quiet, sit comfortably. I don't lay down in a bed because you may go night-night. Just sit up, feet on the ground. You with us? Get comfortable. You may want to play some light music if you want to. I prefer silence. That's where the discipline comes from. You with me? Then close your mind. Ask God to show you what He wants you to hear. Here's what will happen. The guy in the apartment next to you will flush the toilet. The dog will start barking. The freaking birds won't shut up. You with us? Somebody will be knocking on the door. The guy is mowing the lawn next door. 50,000 things will come into your head. Most every guy in here, somebody in your life will be naked in your mind. That's a fact. And there's Pamela Anderson walking by, and I'm just, oh my God, how spiritual is that? I mean, that's terrible. Listen, don't fight these thoughts. Let them come in one ear and out the other. Let them pass through. You're not going to not think about that stuff, folks. It's an impossibility. With practice, it'll happen less and less. And what will happen is if you get you a little, what do you call those, a little egg timer. Are you with us? preferably one of the more expensive ones that don't make all that racket. The cheap ones are so loud it'll distract you. But when I sit down and meditate, especially when I started, I would touch my forehead and I would focus on my forehead just to give me something to focus on. And I would set the timer for five minutes and then I would try to sit there for five minutes in quiet. It seemed like ever. It was like, oh my God! And I need to go to the bathroom and I needto go... Practice. By a few days down the path. What will happen is one day you'll set that timer, you'll get quiet and the timer will go off and you'll go what the hell just happened? Where did that time go? I just closed my eyes. And at five minutes in stillness, you with us? And of course you'll be refreshed and relaxed afterwards. It'll freak you out. Then you edge it up to ten minutes. Make sense? Practice. Now here's the kicker Here's what so many people don't understand My end result to meditation Is not leaving my body And going into some astral plane I did that It was called LSD And I did it a lot That's not why I did this We meditate So that we can get this conscious contact with God We practice And it's in this quiet time That you're going to start hearing things is that you're going to start getting guidance. That's why that book I was recommending earlier today that Wally P. did, it's called How to Listen to God. And it's based on the studies that they did about the early cats from the Oxford Movement. And they would get together in groups and do these group meditations. And I would get guidance. I might not get guidance about me, but I'd get some guidance about you. You might want to consider this. I don't know why this came to mind, but it came... Do you follow what I'm saying? It's a pretty amazing thing when you do it. We used to do a group and we would call each other. we would meet at the same time at 6 o'clock in our own respective houses and we would all get quiet and we'd all meditate and it was amazing the stuff that would come up through these meditations may not have to do with me might have had to do with my girlfriend or the other guys I sponsored that were in this group for a period of time it's pretty amazing what happens God wants your attention this is what drives me crazy when we talk about this stuff These therapists at work, everybody's trying to outline these guys' lives. You come to treatment and we're going to try to fix your life. You with me? But the truth of the matter is nobody in the world knows what you need to do. Only you need to know what's right for you. Make sense? I don't know. That's why in sponsorship I don'T spend a lot of time telling these guys what to do but I do hold them accountable. If they're not living on spiritual principles, we're going to have a conversation. You'll follow? God knows what you're supposed to do. That's where some of y'all... It's what we were talking about earlier. You're all dead center. Do I stay in this relationship or do I get out? Do I say in this relationship? Do i get out years go by and you're still there. God is going to tell you what to do if you'll shut up long enough to listen. God has given you direction. The truth of the matter is all of us in this room were being screamed at. God wants to show us what to do. Welcome to humanity. This is my life. This is my wife. It's just a knot and what we're trying to do is untangle this knot and the more we untangle it, the more we fight with it,the tighter it gets. What we have to do is we have stop and we have start asking Give me the guidance Sam Shoemaker The cat that brought a lot of this spiritual stuff To Bill Wilson He talked about this His prayer was God put me where you want me And keep me there One of the problems I had in early surprise Is I couldn't stay any place at one time I just wanted to go I want a quick fix Quick fix I watched the guys trying to get Out from under their amends financially They want a big job Paying $100,000 a year So I can go make all these amends Why don't you shut up? Why don'T you stick? Why don' t you work at that 7-Eleven making $7 an hour, you with me? And in two years, you'll have all those amends made. But we want to make it all at once. See, God will show you where you need to be. And there's a bunch of you in this room that don't believe that. A bunch of people A bunch if you in here don't belive that God gives a rat's butt what you do with your life. You're wrong. It's not been my experience. My experience is that God does want the best for me. And if I'll get out of the way and listen, God will show me what to do. Here's what it looks like. I'm going to run out of time here. I was in... I had this kid that wanted me to come to a little place in Arizona. and I was booked solid and I told him so quick on the phone buddy can't booked up thanks bye click he called back putty maybe you misunderstood man I'm booked up I can't click he called back it was the most persistent little cuss you ever saw in your life he wore me down I finally said dang just okay just to shut him up I said okay do you want to see where that went did he hit anybody got anybody in a min and so this guy anyway i went out to arizona and i did this little talk and it was great seeing this little guy he was a pistol he was in a few years sober in the program couple of years sober and just i just fell in love with him and just a good egg i left uh and we exchanged one or two emails and then i lost track of it well in meditation i started thinking about this kid And my job is real high pressure while I'm there. I mean, I'm working all the time and I kept thinking, I'm going to call this kid. I'm gonna call this kids. But I never made time to do it. There never seemed to be time to it. And when I had time, I wasn't thinking about it. You follow me? And one day I came in after doing a lecture and I came and I sat down and I was starting to answer messages and I got this... It was... Call! This kid! so I looked at my date planner and found his number where this was months past and I called a kid got him and he answered the phone I recognized his voice right off the bat I said hey buddy this is Chris Craver in Hunt, Texas how you doing how you been and the phone went dead quiet and he started crying I could hear him sobbing on the on the phone he said why did you call me I said buddy you've just been on my mind. For weeks you've been on my mind, I just finally slowed down long enough to call you. He said you would not believe what's going on right now. Same stuff girl problem, he decided to twist had a problem with a guy in a meeting guy hurt his feelings, he told him to go kiss his ass and he'd split hadn't been back to the meeting since. He was still sober but he was spiritually bankrupt he was miserable. You'll follow? Why did I call that day? Because I got the instruction. Call now. It was different than the ones before. You might ought to call this guy. It was call now. I stopped what I was doing and called. And this guy cried. I told him what to do. I said, I made him some suggestions what he could do to get past it which was 10th step stuff. Go own your stuff. Go back and make an amends to that guy that you got mouthy with in that meeting. You were wrong. He was wrong too But your job is to clean off your side of the street. So go clean it up. You with us? He did. He called me back the next day and he was just the old kid that I used to know and love. He was kicking butt taking names. Now why? But why? Because he got a call from an old geezer up in the hill country. I could spend an hour telling you how this stuff has happened to me. I was in a pharmacy one time and I said, How long is it going to take to get this medication? is she said, Chris, 15 minutes. 15 minutes An hour and a half later I'm still sitting there and Mr. Spiritual is coming unglued I scheduled my day pretty tight and I do not have time for this It was obvious they were busy but come on guys it's not like I was getting some weird goofy medication Come on I'm grinding my teeth there's got to be a reason for this chill out got my meds walked out you know one of these thank you I'll show you Chris is leaving the pharmacy and he's pissed and I want everybody to know that I don't appreciate being treated this way and I walk right out of the pharmacy and I walked right out the door and I ran right into my stepson who I hadn't seen in about eight months. I knew he worked at this store. You follow me? I'd been talking to God about this. I need to see this kid. I need talk to him. I need make sure he's okay. This was after our divorce and it was just a... And I walked, I mean, right into him. If I had gotten those meds in 15 minutes, I'd have been home down the street and nothing would have been accomplished. God said, buddy, put the skids on this. Just slow down just a minute. I got something for you here I want you to take care of and walk right into it thousands of stories just like that when you attune yourself when you align your will with God's that's the stuff that happens on a daily basis that's what we're talking about that's not just about not drinking one day at a time it's about a spiritual path that we can all benefit from You'll find out who you're supposed to be with. You'll found out the career you're suppose to be in. The answer to your health problems, they will be answered. Sounds like humbo jumbo, doesn't it? It's just my experience. It was Bill Wilson's experience. It was Dr. Bob's experience Those cats wrote extensively about this prayer and meditation. It's real. It takes discipline on our part. You down with that? I know some people that don't want to do it because they're afraid of what they're going to hear. I understand that. What if God tells me to do something I don't want to do? It's a guaranteed given. God is going to tell you to do something that you don't wants to do. Eventually, that's exactly what's going to happen. So what? You can continue to fight this battle and try to untangle this yourself or you can relax, take it easy. We pause when agitated or doubtful. You all with us? We stop fighting the world and we just cruise right along. It's like being in a rapid river. Guys, you even go with the flow that you can try to swim up it. Some of y'all are in here. You're swimming up it I don't know why I'm getting the shit beat out of me because you're not listening to what you're supposed to be listening to. You with us. Nobody gets let off the hook here folks. God has got a voice for every single one of you. God doesn't love one more than the other. You're not going to be more in tune to this than the others. You do the work, clean out all the wreckage of your past so you don't have all this guilt and shame stuff to be cropping up in your head and I guarantee you if you'll get quiet, you'll start hearing this guidance. Y'all cool? Let's take a quick smoke break and come back. We're going to do 12. See ya. It's going to mean...