The Fifth Step – 12 Steps/12 Traditions Workshop – Part 5 of 7 – Chris R.

I hope you're ready because we're getting into action. Page 72. That's right. Next up are steps five, six, and seven. You've got 40 minutes, Chris. Take it away. Thank you so much. Let's see. It's page 72 to 75-ish. We're talking about the next three steps. Pretty simple. again so many people want to make it as complicated as it can possibly be book is pretty clear it asks us to do a fifth step with somebody that's going to be unaffected it's amazing how many people don't understand that but we'll visit about it just a little bit usually like I said when I got my guys out there they're working on a fourth step and I'm there by phone anytime or I'll see them at the AA meeting and we can talk and answer questions and I've going to encourage them um i already got a text by somebody says that's too rigid to give it him a week you know guys give or take i mean i understand somebody's in trouble they got a problem at work whatever you need to take a little bit longer i'm okay with that i'm all right but but this nonsense guys you're just dragging your feet you know are you confused about something then let's talk about it if you're not wanting to do this uh let's get on with it because it ain't going to be you know the longer you put it off the worse you know it's going to feel it's just like i said we're we're not anesthetized anymore all of this stuff's coming to the top and so uh let's find somebody i heard a um a counselor one time uh nice guy uh he said he was an ai i have no idea but he said you know well i did my fifth step with i went down to the bus station and got a homeless guy to listen to my fifth step. And that's like, okay, because he's concerned about somebody that being not affected, you're going to tell it to a total stranger. And I know people that have done fifth steps with priests. You know, every big city has got a retreat center where they go and somebody, but if you've got something that's really deep down secret, you want somebody to do that with, then that's groovy. I got that. But this is a fact-finding mission As I do a fifth step, as I read my fourth step to somebody in the program, this guy has obviously had some of the same experiences I have. But he's not a therapist or a counselor. He's there to listen and kind of keep me honest. And that's what I'm all about is trying to help that little newcomer understand this is not about confession. Folks, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but if this was all it was, was confession, then all the Catholics would be sober. and they're not, so I'm just, it's not. There's nothing wrong with doing it with a priest, especially if the priest is in the program, and there's a bunch of them that are. I just, from this experience, we're going to get some information that we're gonna be able to use in subsequent steps. That's basically it. But one of the things when I'm writing a four-step and I try to explain to them, the whole purpose of this is to stay as simple as possible. You know, when we did that first column, I put that person's name and mom and then the second column what she did to me and I'm mad about that and the third column, look at how this all affected me and i'm mad about that. And the fourth column, we stop and I start looking at my mistakes and I am judging the daylights out of this woman. And oh, by the way, there is some dishonesty because I have done the exact same thing that she did, you know, and I get to see some truth here. And it's pretty cool. What drives me crazy is these people who have been instructed by people that maybe don't really understand what's in the big book. And or they got hold of that 84 page workbook. And they want to make this a more arduous process than it has to be. It's oh god how many of you guys have done this you're sitting down next to somebody that's uh it's got a well i'm i'm mad at my boss and this is what he did well you know he wasn't actually my boss actually he was related to me downstream i see my wife had a cousin who got married and and well you know they weren't actually married but they lived together for a long time and then to go. Y'all know that I could do this for an hour, you know, I can give you all these details and it's like you guys after a while just going to get up and go get coffee because you're tired of listening about this. Can we cut to the chase? Yes, y'all don't, have you ever read any of you scholars in there know what a haiku is? You could probably explain it better than me. Y'All probably use these Japanese poetry. It's beautiful, you Know, I think if there are three lines in it, and just bam, bam, bam. And you get this beautiful visual. It's using your words to... Guys, I'm not listening to all the details drives me crazy in the fifth step. What you're trying to do in the first four steps is justify why this person was a turd in the third three columns. In the fourth column, basically, I look at my stuff, but I don't need to hear all the details. You do it with women, you do it in the sex inventory, You do it with your resentment inventories. You just want to go on and on and on. You're trying to justify why it was okay for you to be mad. I'm sorry, you're missing the point of what this is about. This whole thing was about I'm going to say it. Let me look at this clock real quick. I got it. This is about mercy not about justice if you want justice go get a lawyer i i just there's a there's a thing about me that just i'm i'm tired of living my life mad about all the stuff that's happened and the cool part is is that i'm not going through life carrying all that stuff into every relationship i have and all that step i mean we got so many people out there that are couch broke you know they blamed everybody in their past for why they behave the way they behave today. Guys, I'm just telling you, you can get past that. You can look at this thing clearly in a fifth step. You see your mistake, you could get free of the whole deal. I mentioned this real quick. I'll still finish early. The, I don't know if any of y'all, I'm trying to remember the dates that this happened. This was back in the early 90s. uh there was a brutal uh killing uh over in east texas and um there was a a fellow that got killed and and there was a two old white guys that did it and it was just the poor town is just known for it now you know it's just it was terrible it was on cnn every night you got to see it front page texans looked like idiots because of it it was horrible and uh guy's name was mr bird that had passed away and in the court they went play through the trial and this guy ends up they end up sentencing these two guys to prison and death and just as tragic as could be and there's these videos i had a copy of it at one time i wish i could get it again i'm sure we could look on it online but there's this video of uh mr bird's mother who uh she's a big old lady And she was in there and at the trial when the two young guys got sentenced to death, after the trial they showed video of her getting up off of her seat and going over to the mother of the guys that killed her son. And putting her big old arms around the mothers and crying with them. That's called mercy. see this vindictive i hope you die for that i hope see that's the stuff that ruins our life that saps our strength you want to hear god's guidance you're not going to hear it with all that vindictiveness in your system you're Not Going To Hear It And I Believe This Whole Thing Is Not Just About Not Drinking One Stupid Day At A Time It'S About Living Life A Day At A Time And Getting The Freedom That We Want So That We Can Go Out And Do All The Cool things we ever wanted to go do. That's what this is about. I watch people in Alcoholics Anonymous sit around the rooms and I'm sober, miserable, just a bunch of grumpy bastards sitting around the table, just hating life. That is not sobriety. That isn't what this is about getting some cool things, painting pictures and starting new businesses and getting in cool relationships finally and doing all the cool things that we've always wanted to go do, going back to school. But the guidance that you need to do that, you're not going to get when you hate people. Bible talks a lot about it. I'm not going there. I've just saying, folks, this is not about justice. This is about mercy. And I'll get that by seeing my truth. Do it with people that are going to be unaffected, folks. When I first got sober, I guess I was about six months sober and I already had done my fifth step. And I'm living in some freedom now, guys. I's paying bills back. I' m already making amends. but uh there's this guy that comes in he was an english guy i'll never forget him and he was a good guy and very very uh english you know very very you know just good guy articulate he was he was a scientist and uh but he came in it's like you know uh i've been working on my fourth step you know and everybody groaned again and this is i'm ready to do my fifth step and my therapist suggested that it would be a good idea if i did my fifth step with my wife and you could have heard the the room groan three doors down y'all understand this is stupid idea this is a stupid well he believes this will be a bonding experience no no yeah well we told him not this is on a friday and he was going to do this inventory on the weekend so monday at six o'clock we're all in there and he walks in the back door i gotta tell you guys true story He walks in the back door, and he's got a black eye, and his arm is in a sling. And this little girl that he was married to beat his butt because he dropped a whole bunch of stuff in her lap that she didn't need to hear. Got it? Do it with somebody that's going to be affected. I've had people that I've sponsored and put me on the inventory and then wanted to do a fifth step and talk shit about me. And after about the sixth resentment, I've said, you know what? That's enough. So I thought you'd be, I thought your spirit, you could handle this. I thought she wouldn't mind. I said, You thought wrong. Bye-bye. Oh, and go find another sponsor. I don't have to listen to that nonsense. You know, don't. Don't be doing it to people that are going to be affected. It's like sitting down and doing it with your mother. It's not like, Are you nuts? We got to talk about some of this stuff, but they don't need to see all the it's bad news just this is a fact-finding mission i'm going to tell you real quick what i did i know screen share this little thing right here i've got well i'm doing an inventory i'm listening to a guy's fifth step y'all can see it on there's six step on one side eight step on the other look at that it ain't nice to have a hand all right and i'm gonna sit down and i've done a this step with this guy, and I'm steady writing. Is he sharing this information with me? It's like inventory. I don't need all the details, just specifics. I can, I'm writing all of this stuff down in my six-step list. What are the character defects? Fear always shows up. Dishonesty always shows up, selfishness, my judgmentalness, that always shows Up, and then there's some other stuff. You'll find the critical nature, sloth, you know, anger, just there's a lot of stuff that may go in there. Some people have a lot of character defects. Some don't have that many. But guys, I'm going to make this list because my guy an hour after I finish this fifth step is going to need to go do his seventh step prayer. It always kills me when I go to meetings and the guy says, I've been working on six and seven. I'm working on sixth and seventh. You were supposed to do it an hour after your fifth step. What are you working on? Let's go. it's two paragraphs look returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour carefully reviewing what we have done we thank god for the bottom of our heart that we know him better taking this book down from our shelf we turn to the pages which contains the 12 steps carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we admitted anything for we are building an arch to which we shall walk a free man woman at last if our work is solid so far are the stones in place uh properly in place have we skimmed on the cement put in the foundation have we tried to make mortar without sand now again most of the folks out there folks understand this without without if we go into this with any kind of dishonesty like i'm not really sure i'm an alcoholic but i'm going to do this work anyway it's you're gonna you're missing it Again, everything is about honesty. If I'm not putting the stuff down, if I'm omitting things, I'm putting stuff down. I'mnot putting things down that I need to put down on the inventory. I'm accomplishing nothing. It's our secrets that kill us folks. That's the stuff that comes back and bites us in the butt. To the grave, I am more concerned with what you think about me than what I think about. It just it's nuts. I just need to sit down there warts and all and let you know who the hell i am i also want to tell you this guys i come from a sponsorship lineage that believe in doing multiple fifth steps i don't just do one fifth step and sometimes i've done fifth steps with more than one person the same fifth step the more people that know who i am the better it's going to be i've seen it a thousand times guys that secret and the old times the old guys if you read the history back up to bill wilson there were a lot of those people that did multiple fifth steps so i'm just saying you can do them in a group if you want to that's it's it's okay if we can answer to our satisfaction when we look at step six we've emphasized willingness being indispensable are we now ready to let god remove from us all the things that we find uh admitted or objectionable can we now take can he now take them all every one maybe still cling to something we will not let go we ask god to help us be willing it's pretty simple guys and i'm going to tell you um there's a book out there called drop the rock there's some great articles that have been written grapevine did some good stuff you can get them online it's it's great guys the big book says there's two paragraphs and talks about these character defects as i'm sitting there reading that fifth step uh uh talking to my sponsor and uh and he's steady writing these things down um there's some things that came in i have to know it's there my shortcomings and my character defects the things that i'm not not good at i mean i as i as I become aware of this I can go to God and ask God to remove this I'm going to tell you one of the things That I Asked God To Remove From Me Was My Shyness I've Been Painfully Shy All My Life And Uh I Just You Know Being Blinded When I Probably Didn't Help It But And I've always, as a kid, I was like that. I was very shy. And I do okay when I get up here talking to my peeps in the room. But out there in social events, some of y'all in this room know me. Some of y'll know me well. You know I am like that." That's why I love to travel with Patty because she's not shy and she can carry a conversation better than anybody I know. And I love, you know, she can do that. And I'll just sit there and listen. And it's okay. But I can't do this work. I can sponsor if I can get past this shyness. Some of you, I've got this love-hate relationship with the tapers. I know so many people, folks that have heard the message through the recorded word. The good news is that it helps a lot of people. That the stuff I did years ago is still out there. And that's a bad news sometimes because there has been some spiritual growth in my life over the years. I haven't dropped an F-bomb from the podium in a long time. But back in the day, I used to. It's my right. And that's okay if I'm talking to a room full of 16-year-olds. I suppose they don't care, but it's ridiculous. I had to have some nice lady in a meeting one time, came up after I shared, after two standing ovations, I might add, and questioned my cussing. You must have said something very good, but after the first F-bomb, I couldn't hear a thing you said. And I was at a conference, and I was going to look for later and continue the conversation why it was my right to share any way I wanted to. And I prayed about it and went and talked to her about it and thanked her for telling me that and made a conscious effort not to do that anymore. I had to have God's help with that, folks. Y'all follow character defects. I don't want to be the same person I was 35 years ago, folks I want to become a different person that this whole thing is about spiritual i said it earlier i don't want to live off a spiritual experience i had in the past i want to living off current stuff and i got to tell you guys on this walk and then steps that we're going to talk about in the morning making amends and steps 10 11 and 12 i'm going to tell him i can tell i can we're gonna talk about some of this spiritual walk and it's pretty amazing what happens when i'm doing my fifth step i'm sitting down and i'm listening to this let's say i'm doing a fifth step for somebody i'm listening to them i'm steady writing on the other side this little eight step list because like an hour later i'm going to need their character defects and i've got to get them to go by themselves usually out by the river and you're going to do a seventh step prayer and then i'm gonna ask these little guys buddy right then and there the next day usually i get with them and i'M GOING TO GO OVER THEIR EIGHT STEP LIST WE'RE GOINGTO TALK ABOUT THAT TOMORROW BUT BUT I GET THAT FROM THE RESENTMENT INVENTORY everybody i resented i don't owe them an amends i've heard that crap in aa2 that's just not true if i've talked trash about them i probably owe him amends we can talk about that but i'll have the list and i can immediately start working again that's the place other place after the third step the other place is between this the my seventh step prayer and my eighth step that's where we lose so many people they sputter out they slow down lose momentum and then we don't sometimes we don'T get them back so our job as a sponsor is to try to keep them uh keep them moving and um it's just an important thing that we've got to look at guys i uh you know it's a fact-finding mission and i'm looking for my truth and if i've got a sponsor there that's going to help me uh he can help me see the truth this is good this is not therapy uh this is uh facts is facts walks like a duck quacks like a duck and i can look at that and and be a changed individual so i just i just think it's pretty pretty amazing i'm going to close with this guys real quick i want to read this seventh step prayer because i just Think It's Fine as Cat Hair said my creator i am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad i pray that you now remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows grant me strength as I go from here to do thy bidding, your bidding. Amen. Remember after that third step prayer, there was no amen guys in that third step. Prayer. These steps were intended to be worked all at one time. We teach them separately guys in treatment. A lot of times we teach them in a big book. We're going to work on this, that, this, these were supposed to be worked all at once. All at one in a setting. That's why if you look at the history sites, I can send you a lot of these sites, if you will get on there. And if you read the stories in the back of the book in the first and second editions, they, a lotof them will talk about that. They'll talk about how fast that they work these steps. They were sitting down in an afternoon doing this work. They were setting down in a couple of days and doing this word. This absolute ridiculousness of having people take a year to work the steps is breathtaking. Just again, guys, I can work these steps the rest of my life if something comes up and i'm not taking care of it in a tenth step y'all wanted to continue to come up and I'm gonna call my buddy Mike and uh known him forever and I won't get on that little we're gonna we're going to visit I said let me share a little piece of inventory with you and I want to sit down and I'll look go through the columns I'm going to look and see help let him help me see my truth around this because sometimes I'm so justified I have every right to be mad at him no such thing I have it every right to be uncomfortable probably but you can be so right you're wrong i want to be free guys and i'll say this my sponsor used to say it and i know some of you guys have heard it before how free do you want to beat if your whole intention is just not to drink one stupid day at a time good luck you can have that that's not what i want i want I want to be one of you on the room that's just laughing and having a good time and enjoying the day That's what this is about, guys. I keep going back to it. You start getting old, you start looking at the clock and I don't know how many more days we got. I just know that I've wasted a lot of my life being mad at people and allowing some stupid character defects to keep me from experiencing the joys that I'm supposed to be experiencing. I'm so blessed for these steps. Talking about life changing, this stuff is. Thank y'all so much for letting me come. Thank you, Chris. and now back to the traditions i give you billy n for the next 30 minutes on tradition six and seven thanks billy alcoholic thanks chris um so let's uh i think dive into the long form of tradition six which is a lot of words for sure um but i'll read it problems of money property and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim we think for any considerable property of genuine use to aa should be separately incorporated managed thus dividing the material from the spiritual an aa group as such should never go into business. Secondary aides to AA, such as clubs or hospitals, which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that if necessary they can be freely discarded by the groups. And such facilities ought not to use the AA name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, AA managers are usually preferred, but hospitals as well as other places of recuperation ought to be well outside a and medically supervised while an a group may cooperate with anyone such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement actual or implied an a a group can bind itself to no one so i think i'll go through a little of that because that's a lot um may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim and then it says we think therefore any considerable property should be separately incorporated thus dividing the material from the spiritual this is where we get that AA is for fun and for free this is you know where we get that you can't sell something that you've been given for free there's a line that comes next an AA group should never go into business let me talk about 2022 real practical implications of this what does it mean an a group cannot go into business well in 1946 they did not know that after a thing called 9-11 there would be a thing called the patriot act and prior to the patriot Act you could walk down to your local bank you could tell them that you were starting the one day at a time a group you could barely give them your driver's license and a social security card and they would just give you a checking account that day that's the way it used to work it was so built for aa not so much anymore since the patriot act you know aa has aa has to deal with the rest of society the way the rest of society has to deal with it you know there is a good time that I lived you know thinking that speed signs had an asterisk on on the speed limit except for Billy right 55 except for Billy full stop here except for Willie right you know we as members of society have to comply with the laws of the state and the county and the federal government. And unfortunately, that today there is a lot of what they call truth in source of funds rules. So they want to know where money is coming from. They want to Know the source of money. They want To Know the person putting the money in the bank, where are they getting the money from? They want TO Know what is the purpose of the money. and then when you go down non-profit they want to know even more so what i don't believe this tradition is saying is that you can't be a non-prophet and be an aa group or you canít become a partnership or a llc i get it some aa groups have to be almost like the general service board now they have to have a spiritual and a legal side um and meet in the middle so that they can do business. And now it's even become more complicated. Now we have landlords who want leases, even churches. They want us to sign a lease. They wants us to agree to certain rules. We also have landlords who want us get insurance. And by the way, for anyone who maybe has a problem with people requiring insurance from us. I just want to let you know, about 10 years ago, I was in a meeting with call call him the chief financial officer of a large religious group that covered a certain part of the country. And so, you know I don't get the opportunity to interact with people a lot like that but i was in my business life so i i got to know this guy so i said hey i said i have a question for you i said uh you know i've been in aa quite a while and i've noticed a lot of churches are starting to ask for insurance well i just want to reassure you they did not do it to punish us they did it for all the aa members that sue them because they fall on snow that wasn't properly shoveled or trip in a parking lot and say the lighting wasn't right. They didn't just come one day and decide to give us a hard time. You can thank, I always say, the great thing about AA is our membership. The worst thing about AAA is our partnership. It's a double-edged sword. I think what they mean by going into business here is a profit-making business of making money. It says secondary aid to AA, such as clubs or hospitals, which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that if necessary they can be freely discarded by the group. So again, when was this written? It says such as club or hospital. Clubs or hospitals. What should I add there? oxford houses halfway houses recovery houses recovery coaching uh companies i could go on and on of things that didn't exist back then that exists now but those are all separate all very separate they say hence such facilities ought not to use the aa name their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them for clubs a managers are usually preferred but again this was written when there was no other 12-step fellowships the only meetings that met in the club were aa and then alan on for a while today we have multiple fellowships and we should celebrate that that other people with other problems have found a solution but it might not be an aa manager today it might be an na manager it might be an OA manager it might even be someone who's not in a fellowship um it says while an AA group may cooperate with anyone such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation and or endorsement actual or implied an AA Group can bind itself to no one actual implied is strong strong strong language. Like when I get on a meeting and I notice, wow, that Zoom code belongs to a recovery house, not an AA group. That's kind of strange. Shouldn't the AA group have its own? And even if it's paying rent to that recovery house, I think all of us know that are familiar with Zoom accounts, It's easy to create a number just for that meeting, a separate Zoom number separate from the master code. You know, by having the same as a recovery house, you're implying that there's some connection between the AA group and that recovery house. Also announcements at meetings. Announcements at meetings, I'm not a big fan of meetings that allow non-AA announcements, But I do appreciate, at least they try to separate the AA from the non-AA. But we've grown up in a world the last 20 years where anything recovery related, people say is AA related. And it's just not. The recovery house might be having a great, great fishing trip. That's not an AA related announcement. Now, on the other hand, let's not go crazy with the term official AA. You know, I hear people say this. You know somebody sent me a flyer and it had a circle and triangle in it and they said a trusted servant from their area said they couldn't do that because it wasn't a district or area event so not an official AA event. Well, I just want to give the real information based on the history. any two or three alcoholics gathered together for the purpose of sobriety yeah that's an official aa event if it has nothing to do with anything else i don't care if it's a big book workshop i don'T CARE IF IT'S A PANEL WITH PUBLIC INFORMATION SPEAKERS IF ITS AA IT'S AA WE SHOULD NOT BE THAT DOGMATIC NOW A COUPLE OF THINGS THAT I WANT TO REFER TO um in the group pamphlet uh on page 17 in particular the naming of an aa group it's covered in the a group pamplet it says no matter how noble the activity or institution experiences toward a groups to be kept to carefully avoid any affiliation with or endorsement of any enterprise outside aa Even the appearance of being linked to any organization, club or political or religious institution needs to be avoided. Therefore, an AA group that meets in a correctional or treatment facility or a church should take great care to not use the institution's name but to call itself something quite different. This makes it clear that the AA group is not affiliated with the hospital, church, prison, treatment facility, or whatever, but simply rent space there for meetings. So no such thing as the St. Mary's group, right? Or the general hospital group. The name should be very different than the place that you meet so that it's clear to anybody that the AA group itself is just a rent paying customer of that institution. uh also on page 8 um page 18 our aa group conscience as voiced by the general service conference has recommended that family meetings double trouble and alcohol and pill meetings not be listed in our a directories the use of the word family might invite confusion with alan on family groups a fellowship entirely separate from aa so our meetings you know this is like a cross between the fifth and sixth tradition, we don't list other things in the names of our meeting. We don't try to use them to imply that there's something else. The name of the meeting should be sacred. Inside the group pamphlet, I'm sorry, wrong pamphet. Traditions Illustrated, the one with no page numbers second page of tradition six there's a little cartoon with a gentleman putting a hat on and trying to put one hat over a second over a first hat and it says aa members employed by outside agencies wear two hats but tradition six causes any such members against wearing both at once on the job they may be alcoholism counselors they are not aa counselors at meetings they're just aas not alcoholism experts so in today's world i work in the business world we love things as two code words we use a lot we love the brand we have to have our own brand and we love thing things that are sticky we love clients that are sticky so that they don't go anywhere else, that they're always coming to us. And we have to be very careful of this, especially with the podium. Anybody at an AA podium is there as an AA speaker, an AA member. They're not advertisements for treatment facilities or a place for recovery coaches or anybody else we don't do that we stay away from that but we see this all the time in AA we see it all the time same with recovery houses the history of recovery houses is actually very good that somebody discovered that the average human being needs three basics for life they need food they need shelter and they need clothes and recovery houses were created originally to provide that for people so that they could get a foundation and a 12-step fellowship that saved their life not so they could be connected to the recovery house for the rest of their life and people confuse this i told the story long ago that a kid told me his home group was the thursday night meeting at the house told me that in the parking lot i'm like what house he's like the recovery house i live in i'm not sure what house he's talking about well that's nice that they have a meeting there but that sounds like kind of like a alumni meeting or a current resident meeting If it was an AA group, it would have a separate name and it would pay rent to that recovery house. Same with announcements at meeting. Somehow recovery house announcements have all of a sudden in some places become acceptable to make. And then we have the people whose job it is to take people to meetings. whether they're a van driver whatever chaperone they can only be at that meeting as one thing either an aa member or an employee not both not both you can't be there you canít use the aa member exception you can say oh this is a closed meeting but i'm going to sit in it if you're being paid by someone else you're not there as an AA member. It's just that simple. And then handing out business cards. Business cards have no business being handed out in AA meetings. We don't do that. And listen, I'm not talking about if you're a regular attendee of your meeting and you go out to fellowship with the same people every week and you know don is a mechanic and lisa is a real estate agent and john is a dentist and you get to know them over fellowship and become friends with them who it's your business who you decide in your personal life to use for business what is wrong is if any of those people are handing out those cards in a meeting or using aa service mailing lists and somehow putting an advertisement for their own employment or their own company you know somehow in that email we shouldn't be doing that because it's implied on the on the below the description with the hat it says there are two major danger areas but our course has been charted and the hazards clearly marked if we steer clear of them we should of smooth sailing. And then there's a boat with two big icebergs. Iceberg number one, affiliation of AA groups with anything outside AA. Number two, any activity that would harm AA as a whole. Now I want to talk about this affiliation word. Affiliation is a two-party agreement. It means both parties have to agree they're affiliated. There are lots of lunatics outside AA saying they're affiliated with AA, and they're not. But the traditions are not for them. The traditions are for us. Now, if you see one of them causing your group harm, you may want to say something to them. Or you may even want to announce that your group, hey, Like, so-and-so bakery is saying they provided the cake for our anniversary. We just want everyone to know that is not the official bakery of our group. But we can't take this too far. We don't take the labels off of soda cans. We don'T black out whatever brand half and half and milk we're using in the meetings. We don' t scribble over it. Like, you know, there has to be some practicality to this. inside aa comes of age particularly page 109 third paragraph is a line that i love long afterward we saw something else we saw that the more aa minded its own business the greater its general influence would become and then at the bottom it says today we understand and accept this paradox the more aa sticks to its primary purpose the greater will be its helpful influence everywhere so i love that the more we mind i say that all the time there's two kinds of aa business my business and none of my business we have all these paradoxes inside aa but here it tells us The more AA minds its own business, the more influence we'll have in the outside world. It's kind of like in the personal recovery way. We think the busier we are in AA, the less of an outside life we'll happen. But talk to anybody who's successfully sober. The more active they've been so active in Alcoholics Anonymous, the greater their outside life is blown up. It's spiritual math. It's not real math. It doesn't make sense on a calculator. on a calculator it would say the busier you are in aa the less of an outside life you'll have but it's opposite i'm going to read the long form of tradition seven the aa groups themselves ought to be fully supported by the voluntary contributions of their own members we think that each group should achieve this ideal that any public solicitation of funds using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly dangerous whether by groups hospitals or other outside agencies that acceptance of large gifts from any source or of contributions carrying any obligation whatever is unwise then too we view with much concern those AA treasuries which continue beyond prudent reserve to accumulate funds for no stated purpose experiences often warned us that nothing else can so surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes over property money and authority i think if some of you have a pre-highlighted um a group pamphlet on page 45 you'll see tradition seven there the a groups themselves be fully self-supported and you see the long form um i think there should be another highlight in this pamphlet for tradition seven and that would be on page 21 because i think it's one of the only places it shows in aa literature and it's super important on page21 under the section on aa treasurers and treasuries after the bullet points the one there's a paragraph that starts aa experience and i love this paragraph a experience clearly shows that it is not a good idea for a group to accumulate large funds in excess of what is needed for rent and other expenses it is wise though to keep a prudent reserve in case an unfortunate need arises and then this one group troubles also may arise when extra large donations and money goods or services are accepted from one member so if you take a large amount of money in services or money that's a donation not a contribution we stick with the word contribution if they're a lawyer hire a lawyer if they own a pizza parlor pay the same thing other companies would pay If they give a discount to nonprofits, well, there's no problem if they give a discountto all nonprofits. But we don't take large gifts from AA members because it puts them in a position of authority. I sit on the board of a very large nonprofit. In fact, I'm the treasurer, the chair of the finance committee. When I walk into that facility, and it is a large facility, when I go down towards the executive offices, I see a lot of plaques on the wall. And they all tell you who gave money, who's a gold sponsor, who is a platinum sponsor, Who's this? Who's that? We don't do that in AA. From a general service board perspective, we won't take more than $5,000 from any AA member. And if you pass away, we'll only take $10,000 from you once no recurring trusts no trustee sending money out of your estate every year ten thousand dollars once i'll tell you this if you have a lot of money send it to a couple of intergroups send it through the general service board and a couple intergroupes but most of them all have a limit because we know the trouble here i want to focus on um the wording of the beginning of that tradition the aa groups themselves ought to be fully self-supported by the voluntary contributions of their own members t-h-e-i-r their own numbers i'm not telling people not to put money in another basket when you visit another group to me it's no different than when my mother brought an entenmann's danish over to somebody's house when we visited she didn't have to pay their mortgage or pay their light bill it was just kind to bring something that's like your dollar or two or whatever in a basket of a group that's not your home group but we have a big math problem in aa right now we do we have too many meetings and not enough members we have Too Many meetings and Not Enough groups your primary responsibility as a member of your home group is to take care of your home group I've given this example before you could come over my house where I'm sitting right now. In fact, there's a big football game on tonight and some people that are in my home group are coming over to watch it. Some of them may bring something. Maybe they were raised in a house like mine. You don't go anywhere without bringing something. It's just what I was raised to do. But I'm not going to give them a bill for the water and I'm Not going to tell them they have to vacuum and clean up. They might volunteer to clean up a little, but it's my house, my responsibility. Same with your home group. Now this is one thing where I think that electronic payments have helped us. You know the simple rule I tell people or kind of spiritual exercise and again it's not dependent on money. You can contribute your time but if you have your money we need it i hate that statement we need you more than your money no we don't we don'T none of us are that important we DON'T need you MORE THAN YOUR MONEY WE NEED BOTH BECAUSE WE DON'T TAKE OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY WE ONLY TAKE OUR MONEY THAT'S WHAT SEPARATED US FROM EVERYBODY ELSE um i tell people to simply for one month just one month keep track of how many aa meetings how many baskets you put money in and whether it was your home group or another group or meeting at the end of that month what's the total money you put in a baskets i don't care if it's 10 cents ten dollars or a hundred dollars but whatever that total is then take a look at what's the total you put in your home group basket and are you giving more of your money away to just put money in baskets for other groups where you don't have a vote you know the money is tied to your vote we already talked about having one home group You might not like how other groups do things, but you don't have a vote there. They may take money and have a big annual dance that you think is crazy, but you Don't Have a Vote There. In your own home group where you should be putting most of your AA basket money, you have a Vote there. You can exercise your right as a member. It's a huge difference. and and what i'd like to think is we could get rid of this problem of too many meetings if people properly funded their home groups and stopped funding all these kind of renegade kind of one-off often meetings because they're getting supported by money that should be in home group baskets i also want to talk about the great responsibility of spending aa money which is something sometimes we don't talk about in the seventh tradition if you're a trusted servant at your group at your district at your area at your inner group you know how hard it is to get money you know hard it isn't the aa money scheme to get money to the services that we need to keep our organization alive by the time one dollar goes in a basket and then subtract the rent and then contract the cost for a gsr what 10 cents get split later on between four bodies and home groups have the vote to make sure those organizations are in check not meetings. It's so, so important. A couple other things I want to say about money are what does self-support mean? Well, if you have a home group, I would hope that it means paying for your rent. I hope that it means playing for pamphlets. I hope that you have enough money to order big books so you can sell them to people. maybe you have an anniversary cake but how many groups new groups start that don't have the money to fund the gsr to go to an assembly or a district meeting shouldn't that be part of being self-supporting and some people say and this is another thing i want to throw out there that ruins the AA economy. Nobody's economic status should be a condition for doing service in Alcoholics Anonymous, nobody's. So if you're a person that's been blessed financially and you're entitled to mileage to go to your assembly, don't be so flippant and say, oh, I'm just not gonna take it. No, what you should do is take it And then if you want to put that money in an AA basket, put it in. But don't put the feeling on the person replacing you that they have to be in the same financial condition as you. That is not supporting the seventh tradition. It also ruins our budgeting process. And I'll tell you, it's real life. If you have a GSR that takes no money for hotel and no money for gas, the group doesn't think they need to pay that money anymore. And then what happens when the next GSR needs money for a hotel and needs money för gas? And then they're made to feel bad because they're asking for it? No, no, we need to be self-supporting regardless of economic condition. You know, and we take this really seriously. A large inner group during the pandemic decided that there were new traditions pandemic traditions they decided to take a hundred and fifty thousand dollar gift from an estate of a member who died and they even wrote in their minutes this was not an exception to the traditions because they were only going to do it one time i'm not sure if there's a more alcoholic statement in the entire world than that about our personal behavior but this isn't to do with an intergroup and the board voted to take it for a special i.t project and thank god for one member who had a grasp of the traditions and the concepts and wrote an appeal letter and you know the groups of that in a group area overturned the board and refused $150,000. I'll share with you one thing. I was on a long plane trip, a long train trip. A long plane tip one day and I was coming back from another country and I started talking to the person next to me or he started talking to me and it turned out he was the chairperson of the board of a very large nonprofit that if I mentioned the name you would all know and i would guess most of you would say wow they do some really incredible work for the world so i shared with him at the time that i was the chair of the aa world services board that i Was a trustee for alcoholics anonymous and we started talking about the challenges that each organization has he told me that he spent 80 percent of his time fundraising we don't fundraise in alcoholics anonymous i know people want to split hairs and say well if we're taking aa members money it's not fundraising well the term fundraising gets us in trouble we are not good people with slippery slopes we get on a slippery slope and it's like a pole greased with grease so it's best for us to stay away from fundraising but he told me that they took 80 of his time for fundraising you should have sure saw the look on his face when i told him that that we're self-supporting by our own contributions he couldn't believe it he actually asked me to send him a service manual and a 12 and 12 he was so fascinated by that idea i mean that is really incredible i am i have sat on other boards i've interviewed to be on the aa world services board unlike other charity boards you know what they didn't ask me at aa they didn'T ask me how many foursomes i could buy for their annual golf tournament. They didn't ask me how many tables I could buy at their annual gala. And it doesn't mean that those things are bad. That's how those charities operate. We're self-supporting, I hate to tell everybody this, because most of us have been freeloaders our entire life. Most of us Have been living off other people. Most of us have never paid our own way or been responsible. And the last thing I'll close with to make it so important is why the word contribution is so important. It's different than a donation. I donate to charities, but my life does not depend on them. I contribute to Alcoholics Anonymous, my time and my money. I always say this. In the early pandemic, my accountant sent me a note saying he was going to file an extension on my taxes till October. In October, I got an email from him out of nowhere that said, hey, Billy, I need your account number and your routing number. You got to pay your taxes next Tuesday or something. I did not make a donation to the United States Internal Revenue Service at all it's not on my list of donors I pay a bank every month for my house I don't donate to them either I'm just a contributing member of society money is one of those things and I want to make this very clear and Chris talked about it in the fourth step money sex and i could go on and on i'm not saying money is evil what i am saying is our relationship with money is broken and that we need to fix that relationship and aa is the only place in the world where we think that because we're doing god's business we should lose money. Self-support does not mean losing money and making a little bit of money does not means you're profitable. What makes you profitable is when any individual financially benefits from any of your extra money. If your extra money goes back towards your mission that's what a non-profit is there's no shareholders nobody gets dividends but it doesn't mean we should lose money it drives me crazy with aa groups and districts and everything else we're doing god's work we'll just lose some money we already talked about the bedevilments you ever have a sponsee sit in front of you and tell you they have money problems in aa it's usually pretty simple they spend more money than they make it's usually not that complicated it's this is how much income you have and your expenses are more than your income would we ever tell that person in a diner to get another credit card so that they could take cash advances to pay off the five other cards they've maxed out. No, we would tell them they're suffering from untreated alcoholism and it's showing up in their finances. So becoming self-supporting in your own life is just as important. But I hope everyone here, i'm not judging you i'm actually saying this because i care about good home groups i hope you take a look at what you're giving your home group each month and with venmo and paypal and cash app it's so easy to just send money once a month you don't even have to put it in the basket but is your group self-supporting from its own members or do you have to go to other meetings and raise your hand and say, you ever been to a meeting where someone says any AA related announcements and someone raises a hand and I say, oh my name's Billy my meeting needs support usually that means that meeting needs to go out of business. That meeting needs to end. That people are voting with their feet which is how we vote in Alcoholics Anonymous You don't go to other meetings looking for financial support. You go to your own home group. So that's it. Been great to be here today. Thank you very much for having me.