The Three Part Disease – Awakening Workshop – Part 6 of 18 – Local AA Speakers

And then we do some kind of prayer. And a set-aside. Well, yeah. Okay, here we go. Hi, everybody. Welcome to another wonderful Tuesday night. Can you think of anything better to do but hang out here with each other? Talk about all this crazy stuff? I'm really glad you're all here. Nancy, alcoholic, addict, recovered, happy to be here myself. How many finished the assignment for this week? Yeah yeah that was kind of a tough one okay I have to wing it here because we don't know where our cheat sheet is so a couple of announcements there's no smoking in the parking lot here or around the building it has to be on the street in the front of the building or an alley kind of on the other side of the street and if you have actual cigarettes with butts please pick them up and dispose of them somewhere other than public street thank you good food tonight right yeah awesome Let's see, I'm going to do a little bit of a review because we're finishing, we're completing step one tonight. You know in the beginning we looked at the fact that we have a three part disease. We have a spiritual malady, a mental obsession and a physical allergy also known as the phenomenon of craving that only happens right once we put something in us then we have the phenomenon of craving and if you're not real clear about your phenomenon of craving you might review up to page 23 from the beginning of the book and ask yourself or write down when and what was going on when the phenomenon of craving showed up for you. You know, once you put something in and you couldn't control the amount you took, what happened? And write out five or ten of those situations and you'll be then convinced that you have the phenomenon a craving if you're not already convinced. because on page 23 of course we started the mental obsession and in more about alcoholism we were given a number of examples first we were told that we've lost power choice and control over whether we pick up even so once that happens we've had an experience of kind of deflation like suddenly we were we're not able to drink like a gentleman or drink with the boys and have a good time or you know drink like the lady or you know not get out of it crazy and start dancing on the tables at weddings you go to or you know whatever kind of behavior you did due to the phenomenon of craving so this mental obsession is having us drink or use when we don't want to or maybe we think we want to and we think were choosing and what happens then we keep doing it till it beats the crap out of us right so you know what I found was that my using became I started going over that line of normal using if you could if there is any normal using into areas of behavior that I didn't even know were possible right and the things that i was starting to do were so out of the norm um that and i was so hypnotized by the drugs that i did them anyway who cares right oh boy a new experience and until it wasn't fun anymore right and there was some shame going on and at one point I remember looking in the mirror, I weighed about 90 pounds. I did not like what I saw. I didn't have any clothes on and I really didn't like what I saw so we start going over the line of what we consider normal right? Why? Because it's a progressive illness. It gets worse never better so we have this thing and some of the examples we're given in more about alcoholism is that we have we're told over and over again we're without defense against the first drink or drug that was true for me I examined my experience of of getting loaded what I could remember of it And it turned out that that was true for me. You know, is it true for you? We're entering information into our big book and when we're doing that, we're asking ourselves these questions all along the way. And one of the things, I'm not going to go into it because Pat and Leanne are, but on page 52, it talks about our readiness to change our point of view just before that paragraph with the bedevilments that are listed readiness to change our point of view what point of you have we been having along the way I had a point of view about my drug addiction I can quit if I want to I just don't want to but under that were all of these bedevillments you're the worst mom in the world you should be locked up you're so bad Look how much you've hurt your daughter. Look what you've done to your parents. Your dad died, you didn't even go to his funeral. What's the matter with you? You know, there was this dialogue going on in my head that was all negative, all critical and made me feel awful. So I had a point of view at that point in my life. I could quit if I want to, I just don't want to. Where's the stash? and see the carpet slipper guy had a point of view right this one of you was what I need in my life is a good career and make lots of money and then I can drink where did that take him it took him to be dead within four years young people have ideas but there's this peculiar we're told there's a peculiar mental twist which is what the obsession of the mind and it's going on whether you know it or like it or not and what are you doing you getting loaded beyond where your friends get putting needles in your arms you're smoking whatever it as you're smoking. You're, you know, probably having some sexual behavior that you're not used to having. You know all kinds of stuff happens and we come in here and we're like, ah, deer in the headlights! What happened to me? Why couldn't I stop on my own and just get on with my life? We're smart, able, intelligent people right none of us were able to do that though right we have to sit in here every Tuesday night with each other and laugh about what happened and seek a solution having faith in this program that this solution will work for each and every one of us that's pretty awesome right we're not in church together we're in the fellowship of the Spirit together looking for a common spiritual solution to our problems so the carpet slipper guy then there's Jim right he had a nervous disposition and he failed to it perfect and enlarge his spiritual life and then comes along the jaywalker and what happens to the jaywalker and he is determined to jaywalk I will be okay this time right isn't that what we told ourselves for all however long we told ourselves that then comes Fred and Fred the book says he just that the first nip of the ringer happened for Fred but it was such a nip that Fred became convinced but some of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous worked with him and went over what happened and they told him if he had an alcoholic mind that the time in place would come and he would drink whether he wanted to or not regardless of situations right not a cloud on the horizon he did a great job with his business and then a week later he's wondering why he's in a taxi cab driver and where was his wife when he landed in New York so we've we've looked at more about alcoholism oh it is ringing yeah so bottom of page 43 once more the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the drink page 43 bottom paragraph except in a few rare cases of course we want to be that rare case right I'm special doesn't apply to me I'll be all right my life is good track marks all over my body I weigh 90 pounds my hair looks like straw yeah I'm doing fine. No, really. I got this. Except in a few rare cases, neither he, she, nor any other human being can provide such a defense. Our defense must come from a higher power. And so we're going to hear from Leanne. Oh, we have to do a prayer. Let's see which one it is. It is on page 34 of the workbook. Okay, 34 of the work book. God, please enable me to set aside everything I think I know for an open mind and a experience help me see the truth about the unmanageability of my life thank you very much thank you can we get those lights off back there all right Good evening, everybody. My name is Leanne, and I'm a recovered alcoholic. Is there anybody here who's not paired up with a partner? Don't be shy. Anybody? You're not paired off with anyone? Can you see us after the meeting so we can pair you up with someone? Are you going through the work right now? I did it for my first time here and I don't even know what it is. Oh, okay. Never mind. Is there anyone here that's just like auditing the workshop today? Okay, good. All right. Awesome. Okay. So we're now looking at the third part of the first step. As Nancy so eloquently recapped for all of us, we see that we have a physical allergy, right? We're all clear on that. We know what that looks like. We see that, um, this mental obsession that, that, uh, at any time I could pick up a drink. It doesn't have to be a bad day. It doesn' t have to, it can be any day, right. And the third part of this disease that we had is, is that we suffer from this spiritual malady. And it's interesting how the book does this and how the order that it puts it in. You know, the order it puts in is we start off talking about the physical allergy and then we talk about the mental obsession in the book. And then we talked about the spiritual malady when ironically it's the other way, it's all reversed because I have the spiritual unmanageability. I have this obsession of the mind that takes me back to drink. But what if the writers would have started off telling you that you had a spiritual malty in the beginning of this book? I don't think anybody would have, we would have read a couple of pages and we would've shut it and said, ah, this is a religious thing you know I ain't reading this book I'm not doing this AA stuff but they did it but even in the beginning even when we were in the doctor's opinion Dr. Silkworth was very sly about talking about how I don't have any way to help you this what you have is a spiritual problem right he if he were to write a prescription the prescription would say you need God here's what you need bottom line that's what his prescription was you know but we learn about the physical allergies so that we can identify and qualify ourselves to see if we have this in the beginning but they're telling us from the very beginning of this book it's all i'm the thing god's fingerprints are all over this book in in every chapter and we even see it a little bit or a lot even in the mental obsession but now we're getting to to look at the uh the unmanageability of my spirit and And as you probably know, we only covered three pages. Pages 44, 45, and 52, which is the first two pages of We Agnostics and in the middle of We agnostics, which are the bedevilments. And Pat's going to cover the bedivilments, I'm going to be covering the first 2 pages. So it might have been confusing in the work that you were doing because if you noticed, we wrote down the bedivilments, right? If we have bedivilents in our life. And then when we got over to our questions, it said step 2, right, Because I know it might have been confusing and I just want to clear that up because step two is we agnostics, all right? But we're also looking at the unmanageability of our spirit, which is also the first couple pages of step two, a couple pages in we agnostics, okay? So we're going to end up reading that twice, all Right? The first couple of pages. So I hope that's clear. Was anyone confused on that? Yeah, it was a little confusing. Does that make sense now? Okay, good. all right so the spiritual malady what is a spiritual malody you know um i didn't think i had a spiritual melody when i was four years sober and i met tyla and i just thought that you know and she she wanted to look at present day agnosticism and we're going to talk a little bit more about that next week because we start talking about step two and and in your book you next week you write the the you know the definitions to atheists and agnostics we don't do that this week, but I want to tap into it a little bit because I didn't think I had any present-day agnosticism and I didn' t think I suffered from spiritual unmanageability. I thought I was spiritual because I believed in God, you know? And it takes more than just belief, right? So we're going to smash any idea starting from this point on that this is a self-help program. You may sit in meetings and, you now, and this is why I get so passionate sometimes when I talk because, you know, we can go into meetings and all these open discussion meetings, you know where we sit around and we talk about our problems is really not talking about the solution, right? We're not talking what the fifth tradition talks about. It's about carrying a message. How are we carrying a message when we're talking about our week or talking about our partner or we're taking about our divorce or whatever it may be. This isn't so this is why I get really passionate about this is because I have to see that what I have is it stems from the spiritual unmanageability right do I have if I remove the alcohol from my body right now I've removed the alcohol the big book is going to tell me that that's just scratching the surface right it's gonna talk well isn't alcohol my problem right I remove the alcohol so what the hell is a problem you shall be happy with me that's that that was the attitude that I had. Like, I'm not drinking anymore, so everybody in my family just, you know, you need to be proud of me because I'm not drinking, so there. You know, and that's kind of the attitude that I had. Really, I was like, I was very, you know entitled and thought that, you know, everybody should really be putting me on a pedestal because I am not drinking anymore. Did anyone else, like, is that? Okay, good. I just want to make sure that I'm not weird or something, but I really did. I thought that's what the problem was. But just to remove the alcohol, I had to see that I suffered from this spiritual unmanageability, this spiritual bankruptcy that I didn't realize that I had, right? Because just removing the alcohol is a lot like peeing on yourself on a really cold day. It feels really good until the wind starts blowing. It's not a long-term solution, right? We read that when we did our, you know, it's just, I have to seethat just removing that is just scratching the surface. And now I have to get to the root of the problem and the root of the unmanageability. Step one, by the way, is not on the wall. Obviously we've learned that step one is in the book. The first 52 pages of the book, right? I haveと understand what it means to be powerless over alcohol and that my life is unmanable. My life is manageable because I suffer from this internal condition with a spiritual unrest, a spiritual unmanagability. Um, and the top of when we wrote in our books here through the big book awakening unmanageability of my life page 44 through 45 and the middle of page 52 the second half of step one unmanagability untreated alcoholism spiritual malady this condition exists before and after the first drink drunk or sober i can suffer from spiritual unmanigability and i can and i'm not going to get into the bedevilments because path's gonna but i can be totally crazy right sober i know that because i was four years four years like that and of being an alcoholic synonymous and thinking that just because i wasn't drinking that was all i needed to do just remove the alcohol you know and as long as i don't obsess over and i wasn't obsessing over it in a way but i was acting out in other areas I was active and sober you know so it's really interesting to me when I learned that I had this this present-day agnosticism and by the way this this title of this chapter is not we atheists because it's we agnostics and like I said I don't want to talk too much about what that means because we're going to talk well maybe I will it's like we're gonna talk about it more next week but but agnestic is believing that there's something that I think most of us come into the rooms believing there's something out there whether we believe in you know whether we have a religious belief or not we believe that there's nothing out there we just don't have a relationship with it you know it's out there it's you know god does his thing or whatever you want to call it and and i do kind of my thing and and and then atheism atheism is to believe in absolutely no god at all and i think that's somewhere like three or four percent of the population of the world so they title it we agnostics because most of us believe that There's Something Out That We Just don't have a relationship with it. So I'm going to go through these first two pages and I'm going to read, I'm just going to go over this since it's only a couple pages. It says in the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. Have we learned so far? Right, have we learned that we are the real deal? Have we learned that maybe we're hard drinkers and just want to be here? Look, if you're just a hard drinker and you, you know, you don't, I don't know why you would be sitting around here but hopefully most of you are either the real deal you know addict or alcoholic we hope you have made we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic the book is very good about doing that the book was very clear about what it looks like to be the real alcoholic and a hard drinker right if and when you honestly want to you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take you're probably alcoholic right just just like what it says in the middle of, I think it was page 26 or whatever it is it talks about we determine whether we're the real deal by which we have lost power, choice and control if that be the case you may be suffering from an illness which only is spiritual it doesn't say which one choice could be a spiritual experience it says the only choice the only way of relieving yourself that a spiritual experience will conquer to one who feels he's an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible but to continue as he is means exact disaster especially if he's the alcoholic of the hopeless variety i was the alcoholic or the hopeless variety maybe you were the addict of the homeless variety you have to ask yourself that question to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face but by the way you notice there is no door c it's a or b but it isn't so difficult about half our original fellowship were exactly that type I think a lot of us came in here that way I know a lot I know for myself I didn't you know I was I had the um I grew up my mother was from the Philippines and so she with her she brought Buddhism Catholicism Christianity and Hinduism and I practiced all four she was covering her grounds just in case you know just making sure but seriously I would do transcendental meditation I was in 6th grade I was initiated one degree from the Maharishi himself era I grew up in so I would do transcendential meditation and then on my way to mass I would rub the Buddha belly on myway to mass on Sunday mornings that's just what I did so I didn't have and I wasn't nothing was beaten into me like I know some people have had experiences you know whether it be you know some someone told you you're going to hell you know you're a sinner and you know whatever it was i know a lot of us come in here we walk away from the faith that we knew in childhood i never i i had a lotof faiths in childhood until i finally found what was true to me you know and i think that's what we get to to do as alcoholics you know as we get into this chapter you get to discover who you want to call your higher power and for me you know i i um i still go to church i still you know for me it's christianity and that's just the truth that i found doesn't have to be your truth because you could that's the beautiful thing about big about the big book of alcoholics anonymous is that you can choose a power that makes sense to you but let's make sure it's something that is where you're not worshiping the created you're worshiping a creator like a doorknob's created and so is yeah doorknobs are created and i've never known a doernob to keep me from drinking i've ever known a door knob to do anything but open a door for me so uh an ocean or whatever whatever it is and the book will tell you later in this chapter it's going to smash any idea to think that you can worship a doornob sorry but it is but is isn't so difficult about half of our original fellowship were exactly that tight at first some of us tried to avoid the issue hoping against all hope we were not true alcoholics right I was in that boat just maybe there's maybe there is a loophole but after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life or else right every other way that I tried didn't work exercise didn't worked going just going to church didn't work running marathons didn't work you know all these things that I tried didn't worked perhaps it is going to be that way with you and then I love this but cheer up get over it something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics our experience shows that you need not be disturbed if a mere code of morals or better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism was a better code of morals or philosophy of life was I able to overcome alcoholism just based on what my moral beliefs were absolutely not I would have recovered long ago but we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us like I thought that maybe if I just kept going to church on Sundays, something would magically be gone from my head or whatever like I could just you know be like these people like they would rub off on me like I Could Be You Know Like A Church Person And And Drink Like A Normal Person Because I Did Not Want To Go To Alcoholics Anonymous I Did Not Want To Get Up And Announce Myself An Alcoholic I Did Not Want That I Didn't I Wanted To Find Another Way And I Thought That Maybe If I Just You Know Was A Little Bit More Moral And But The Thing It Was I Couldn'T Be Moral i couldn't be moral sober let alone drunk right so which did not save us no matter how no matter how much we tried we could wish to be moral which i did we could Wish to be philosophically philosophically comforted in fact we could will these things with all my all our might right i've already known and learned that that my my willpower right i have no willpower i've lost power choice and control i have no willpower but especially when it comes to alcohol but the needed power wasn't there are human resources as marshaled by the will were not sufficient they failed utterly right this is just reiterating what we've learned over the last seven eight weeks right every time self-reliance has failed me every time i've especially when it comesto alcohol every single time i have tried to manage my drinking i have tried to control what I would do after I started drinking, nothing worked, right? I had lost power choice and control. Lack of power, lack of power. That was our dilemma. Every time I would see this word power in the big book, it really would bother me until someone said, why don't you substitute that word power for God or higher power or whatever it is? And it made more sense to me. So it reads to me like this, lackofgod, that was my dilemma. LACKOFAHIGHERPOWER, that was our dilemma we had to find a higher power or a god by which we could live and it had to be a power here we go italics neon signs right what did we learn every time it's in italics they stopped the printing press changed the font you know a pet had to Beapower greater than ourselves this is just the beginning of when we're gonna we're going to smash any idea that a doorknob is going to be a power greater than me obviously but where and how were we to find this power this is this next paragraph is probably my favorite paragraph in the book because see when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I thought this was a program on how to stop drinking and that is part of it in the very beginning it tells me that we're going to remove the alcohol but it's a design for living this is a design för living I have to just by removing the alcohol because I have a mind that's going to take me back if I just remove the alcohol. That doesn't, it's not going to reassure me sobriety. What's going to reassURE me sobrietY is if I change the way I live. It's the same thing with dieting. Diets don't work. You know? I can go, you know, not eat for 10 days and lose 5-6 pounds or whatever but that's not a long term solution either. I have to change the ways I live and how I eat. It has to be if I want to sustain a healthy lifestyle. You know, just eating healthy or just being, you know, eating healthy for two weeks isn't going to do anything. Going to the gym for a month and then going, oh, I got the results I wanted. Do you think those results are going to stay there? It's a design for living. Well, here's what this book is about because I thought if someone were to ask me what thisbook was about, I'd say it's a book on how to quit drinking. Well, no, it's not. It says right here. Well, that's exactly what this Book is about. its main object is to enable you to find a power, a God a higher power, spirit of the universe whatever you want to call it greater than yourself which will solve your problems that means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral so anytime you sit in a meeting and someone tells you not to talk about God open it up to the middle of page 45 and say explain this because this is what our book is about. And this is the book that I follow. And that means, of course, we're going to talk about God. I'm just reading it. I don't know about your big book, but that's what my big book says. Here difficulty arises with agnostics. Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship. But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters oh you know don't talk about god in the meetings you might offend the newcomer when are you planning on telling him that this book is a spirit i don't know it says right here we got to tell you there's you know we gotto tell you you know event we watch his face fall his face is gonna fall back them up to the other page but cheer up cheer up buddy especially when we mentioned God, for we have reopened the subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored. And that's where that comes in. So whether it was, you know, whether you had a bad experience with church as a kid, I don't know, or whether you have just, you know... Just remember one thing, that not to be... God didn't do anything. It was never God's fault. Those people and those of us that represent God, you know, that give God, make a bad example for who God is, be mad at us. Be mad at the people that represent God in a bad way because God didn't do anything. It's the people that represent him and sometimes it's the religions that represent him and then misconstrue what his word and what it is that he wants you wants you to to know about him you know to find out on your own this is a journey that you can take on yourown you could figure out what God works for you you know and this is not about for me it's not about finding a God that I can do business with it's about being a person God can do businesses with that's what it needs to be you know because God is God we all have there is but one power that one is you know God may you find him now there is one God however you may view him is your own business you know that's that's you know it's like having a relationship with you know with my dad I have a really a relationship different than my sister does with my Dad she sees my dad and loves my dad a different way than I do you know but he's still our dad we have one dad you know so whoever that God is whether are you after you know start off with him being loved being whatever you know if this is this is your journey in your experience with God. So with that, I'm going to end and I'm going to let Pat continue. Thank you. Keep on going. Pat Alcoholic. Jeez. You know what? This is the last week on step one. Can I get a yahoo? Right? I mean, that's what? Nine weeks. Nine weeks on step one. That's a long time. That is a long time. Let's see here. Get this thing back up. Just a second. We will get started. We'll get started, okay there we go. Alrighty. Well you guys, if you got your book turn over to page 13 you know I don't know about you but when somebody said to me that dawn could see it when somebody said to me that I didn't have any willpower I had a lot of willpower when I was out there anybody agree with me on that I mean I I could do a lot of damage and not give up. I could do a lot of damage. I'm just saying. I mean, I wasn't lacking for the ability to press through and press on, right? I mean you know what? Black knight, white knight, money python, what? Come back here, I'll bite you to death. You know? Maybe I lost both arms and legs but don't worry about it. Come over here, I'll bite you to death. That giving up thing wasn't part of my nature and we're going to talk about that tonight in the bedevilness the giving up and the surrender that we must come to grips with in step one is it's beyond breath how important it is the very breath that you take in that surrender is that important and there's probably some of you sitting here going I don't think I can do it I don' t think I could finally give in, I don''t think I coul finally admit surrender, I can't really say uncle maybe I'm one of these unfortunates that can't get this thing I can''t get honest enough I can' t go deep enough there's always going to be something hanging back on me there's no one in the original hundred that participated in writing this book that didn't feel that statement. That was very present in the first hundred. Very present. Dr. Bob, man, he was that in spades when he was talking to Bill Wilson. So on page 13, the very bottom, Evie gets done talking to bill and he says, my friend promised that when these things were done, the steps I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all of my problems. My sponsor spent a lot of time with me on that. He said, you know what, Pat? You think your problem is what? And I said, well, I can't control my drinking. I can stay away from the drink. If I could quit drinking, my life would get better really fast. Anybody feel like that? I mean, seriously. I mean I heard stuff in the first couple meetings I was in AA, and I was going, if I could just, you know, I don't know what you guys are talking about. If I couldjust stay away from the drink, my life is going to get good and get good quick. Anybody stay awayfrom the drink without doing the work? How did your life go? Terrible. Terrible for a while. Good for a little while, and then crashed her mat, Kenny? It was terrible. Terrible? I was on so many medications that, like, I didn't leave the house for six months. Kimmy, Kimmy was a walking pharmacy advertisement. Got it. That was working. Anybody else? Me. I cried. Cried? I was homicidal, suicidal. Panic attacks. Panic effects. Panic impacts. Great. I mean, so we sort of got the picture, right? You know, hard drinkers, hard drinker's hard users. You take away the drink or the drug and what are they doing in a week? Hey, life's pretty good. Glad I quit. I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. You see them in five years? I was like, oh, life's good, man. Got the family back together. You know, things are going well. Here is just on a rise. I'm going to rock it. Life is great. Really? That isn't the experience of a real alcoholic. That is not the experience of a really good person. It's not the real addict. It's because the people in the first hundred wrote this book knew that we needed something that was going to solve all of our problems. And we sort of walk into this whole thing about this higher power thinking he's Santa Claus. You know, I'm just going to cosmic bellhop. He's going to do what I want him to do. Take out my luggage. Fix up my life. You know give me back my wife. Give me my job back. I want a new car. Right? I'm going to give God a list and it's God's job to do one. Fix everything I have in mind. And that's the challenge. my mind needs to be fixed for what it's asking for so it says solve all my problems flip over to page 25 real fast and we jump on into the bedevilings page 25 first paragraph where it says there is a solution midway through that they slip in this little line as i'm doing the step work and it says and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we were living it that specifically is not only addressing what's going on in my drunken charades it's talking about my internal condition of whether or not my life is working at all anybody ever feel a sense of hopelessness i'm like honest to god pat why you just shut up this is never going to work for me i am hopeless how about a sense of futility like nothing i try even when i have good motives it always turns to right a sense of futability never getting it done it's never working out there's a reason for that all the way through the book it always points at where it's going to take us zaps us, gives us a one-two punch and just when we're down and out in this step one it gives us these slivers of hope. There is a solution there is freedom there is a life beyond our wildest dream and anybody that's done this work thoroughly like we're talking about up here are experiencing that and I say honestly God that is my truth today. If you would have asked me about my life today from 14 and a half years ago I would have said you are freaking insane there's no way it could be that good there could be no way relationships could turn that special there is no way my emotional nature to be changed like you're talking about misery and depression those are my best friends are you kidding me how in heck are those going to go away so let's turn over to page 52 i get a little pumped here sorry guys Gosh. You know, we're going to read about it next week also, but I've got to bring this up. Wright brothers pull off the insane miracle of flight. Kitty Hawk, right? Turn of the century. And do you know what the newspapers were afraid to do? Print it. They were absolutely convinced that there's no way that could be true. no way in the world we're going to report that somehow those these two young brothers they're crazy i don't know they pulled one over and somebody somebody was drunk taking picture i don' t know what the heck they did but it wasn't real and there's no way we're gonna uh report it heck mit harvard money the best minds in the business langley himself said it cannot be done there is no such thing as a flight by a human it will not happened i'm sorry wilbur and orville said i don't really care what you guys think i got this child like faith that we could pull it off and what i'm asking you guys to do tonight is have a little bit of faith in this process we're only in step one if you don't have faith in yourself and faith in what's possible have faith and the people that are they're giving this workshop that this thing is real follow us let us be a little bit of strength with you as we're going through this okay because you're going to wake up to your god of the understanding that's going to blow your minds liberation of your thinking gosh i get teary-eyed man i watch people's lives my life i mean just i don't know you just can't even believe it discard old ideas for new complete readiness to throw out the theory or gadget in my life that doesn't work but we got to get really clear about what's not working so prepare god's gonna pop us one more time in this book i believe it was god inspired and he's gonna allow us to look at this thing one more time and i want you to look it in this way you are in a protected position if you're in this room tonight god has given you your sobriety your ability not to drink tonight if you're a real alcoholic or a real addict is a god gift so he's got you in a safe and protected position you could answer these questions and not freak out all right there's a way out because i remember when i talked to my sponsor i said there's no way i want to sit down here and regurgitate to you all the crap that's going on in my life i already feel bad enough the last thing i need to do is sit here and dwell on it why in the world i've been drinking to get out of that dwelling on this stuff right i start to have an emotion i drink i startto have a personal relationship i leave fast or i add more wrong answer right wrong answer but i start screwing things up because i'm scared to death of facing this stuff because i know deep down inside i don't have enough power in my life to pull it off god dang it i would stay in it if i had power i don't have power i get out i get at it because i don' t have power that's the bottom line okay so here we are we had to ask ourselves pat are you having trouble or have asked ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view good lord are you kidding me I've got to look at this stuff. Let's give it a shot, okay? Let's set aside the fear just for a second. God's got you. Let's look at This Stuff together. Am I having trouble in personal relationships? If I look at my history and my personal relationships, is it characterized by lying, strife, contention, argument, breakups? accusations, selfish act, bitter fights, jail, public display. Nate, can you see where I'm going with that? And I try a different style, I try different methodology and it still is the same stuff. now the interesting thing about these bedevilments is that they show up both internally and externally part of these bedivulments fester on the inside for a while and then they start popping out in my actions that's where personal relationships show up right so i eliminated my bedevillments with personal relationships i just exited out of all relationships by end of my drinking i didn't have personal relationships so i honestly answer my sponsor my relations are fine oh really uh do you have kids yeah three when's the last time you saw them been a while well how come well they told me to drop dead and die oh that's not a problem yeah right pat good and um i noticed that you used to have a ring on your finger. Oh yeah, that was my second wife. Oh, I got it. So you're not really having any trouble with wives or affairs or stuff that you shouldn't be doing or showing up in an honest way at that relationship. That's working out pretty well for you? Okay, well now you put it that way. You know, I don't know why you're getting mad at me about this. You know? I'm getting a little mean. I am sensitive, you know? I'm very sensitive. gosh emotional nature gosh emotional nature is a weird animal I need a new emotional nature here's what I came in with an emotional nature how we doing time like five minutes we're good all right emotional nature here is my emotional nature I was just talking to the guys that were going through the work with before the meeting my emotional nature was flatline i didn't have emotions i really didn't and i would do crazy ass things to pop some adrenaline just to feel something by the end i had no emotion i thought it was you know i didn'T know the definition of a sociopath was when i came in but my sponsor told me about it a little bit and i DIDN'T say anything to him at the time i was going oh my god I'm one of those. I really thought I was one of those because I faked every emotion there was. I did not have real emotion. People would be happy at a party and I would fake laughing. Anybody ever do that? People would be sad. I'd fake being sad. We're supposed to be sad right now. I don't know. I very much said. I got it. But whatever it was I couldn't pull it off. And then if it came to any kind of real emotion, I didn't even have the capacity to have joy. I didn' t have the capacity to feel compassion for another person. I was too busy going, you're not treating me special. I was completely self-absorbed. And so my emotional nature was shut down. and one of the gifts that we get doing the work the way we do it is god gives you back the special emotional nature footprint fingerprint that you were uniquely each one of us designed to have now i faked for a lot of years being this extrovert i'm really not i mean here we are up here speaking doing the thing but i'm not wears me out wears me off to be in public wears me out to do that stuff i'd like to go home and i like to rest you know play with my dog under the stars and i'm just good to go by emotional nature i was always trying to fake excitement i was Always trying to Fake oh got it got it going on man full throttle i am the real deal i was just dying inside but i had to fake it because if i told anybody what was really going on oh my gosh anybody can relate to that let's go on and by the way each one through here i'm going to ask you a question it's at the very bottom i'm asking you right now the bedevilments is asking us to take a real hard look at them because if we don't it's going to trigger a mental obsession that is progressively getting worse the longer we live whether i drink or i don't drink the actual mental obsession gets worse now it's eradicated and i'm a recovered alcoholic tonight and i do not have and i have not had the mental obsession for over 14 years okay i quit doing this work and i quit being spiritually growing not maintenancing which is their crock in the rooms it's growing and understanding and effectiveness but if i quit that stuff the rest of the stuff's going to come back mental obsession and then i'm triggered the first drink does all that stuff and i'm i'm toast because it's just worse than it ever would have been so i look at this thing and i go can i drink over any spiritual bedevilments if i don't get some relief my emotional nature the way i'm treated in the way i'm treating my personal relationships we haven't gotten to some of their stuff yet misery depression i'm going i'll talk about a little bit about those for a second here um living living a life that we feel is i'm useless i'm not being helpful can't be you seem to be real help to anybody else i'm Not happy we'll go into some of these details but my question to you tonight is drunk i mean newly sober or maybe 10 or 15 years sober tonight if you're experiencing these bedevilments i've got a promise for you if you don't find a power access to god of your understanding bigger than what you have tonight and you're in the bedevillments you are on an ice skating rink tilted downhill with wind at your back taking you to the first drink we've already proven to ourselves we don't have the ability to have power, choice and control over the first drink I don't know about you I don' t want to go back there so we got to ask ourselves if these things are going on actively in my life might I drink over them or how about worse I get the right relationship that I think is going to solve all my problems I get it I get to get the right job I get the right bank account number I get the right situation might I still drink over that because see I you know here's a weird thing and I'm going to use a couple examples but remind me to give you this example of of the drone okay remind me about the drone before I forget it all right how about misery and depression misery sort of an external thing could be your financial worlds in a shit storm it could be you know your living situation you know you're you're ducking the landlord a to go to landlord b and you're hoping they don't do the background check or whatever else is going on anybody ever going that way yeah you know uh it can be a whole lot of things like we you know can get the driver's lights because you can't you know get the insurance because you still there's spank there uh misery could be a lot of different things depression that's an internal condition i didn't know this but i was clinically a depressed i fit the clinical definition depression from age 10 till after i got sober god has relieved me of depression now this is not a meeting to tell you ever not to seek outside help not to see medical psychological psychiatric help this program is not about that this program has to give us access to this power greater than herself. God is going to give you his mind about what to do about your situation, but I will tell you there is a way out of depression, and it doesn't mean necessarily, not necessarily, don't overreact to this, but you may not need to live on meds for the rest of your life, all right? Not saying that you living on med is a bad thing. That's not my point, but i'm telling you there's way out of active depression couldn't make a living had a feeling of uselessness I was full of fear anybody full of fear oh my gosh that thing was wrapping me up you know fear what you're going to say think feel about me I'm not going to get what I want I'm going to lose what I have I was afraid of everything I mean there wasn't anything I wasn't afraid of really and I was a liar I was freaking professional liar and I knew how to size people up right away to see what I needed to say to get them on my team but I was afraid honest to God they'd find out my truth and oh geez shit's going to hit the fan and it didn't I lost and it happened unhappy I couldn't seem to be a real help to other people because you know I couldn' t even be around real I couldn''t even be around people right I'm way over sorry guys I didn't see that alright so here's the point i'm gonna give you two analogies that are uh one's really sort of funny one's not quite so funny i'm going to end with this this this bedevilment that we look at in step one is designed to drive us to the decision that even the way i feel internally in my life even the way I experiment and try to live life on my terms out there with my best efforts I'm still coming up short alright three examples real quick fast I got a new weed whacker for the house yahoo fun fun fun anyway I had old gas in an old gas can so what did I do I threw it in there thinking hey I'm going to save myself some time and I'd start the thing up and it's going Did I hit the throttle to make it go fast? You go, and it wouldn't run. I mean, it would idle, but it wouldn'T run right, and I'd try to whack a weed, and the weed would laugh at me. There's no way it was cutting it over. That's our lives and our own power. We have just enough power to show up and make noise, but no effect. No effect. Another example, drone. Oh, my God, this is funny. this happened yesterday I'm downtown I'm having a quick burrito for lunch in these high-rise buildings down symphony towers it's like a 34 story building and this guy's out there with four of his buddies and they have a one of these really fancy drones it's about half the size of this table four motors on it he has a couple cameras like this thing was expensive thousands of dollars this thing wasn't your low-key you know get it at Costco kind of thing this was a hardcore deal he had all these contraptions he has a helmet on he has two different eye things it looks like a navy seal running around downtown right so he's running this thing and it's going up and it'S hovering it's GOING DOWN and it' s hovering it'S GOING LEFT it'S going RIGHT it's looking really cool so he raises it up to 10 stories above and he's watching the computer laptop screen and you can tell the guy is watching it going up and down walk and everybody's going oh You are, oh, you're so good at this. And so then he goes, I'm going to raise this thing up high, and not slowly. Up until now it's gone sort of slow. Next time he raises it up, and what he didn't know is outside Symphony Towers, about floor 20, the building moves out. So he's going vertical straight up fast, and you know what happened. he took his 2000 3000 drone pop the window hit the window square and his drone and all the money and all everything on it comes crashing down like rain down to the ground and all four of the guys sat there or stood there and they're the ones you're doing great way to go and they look at the guy and they just didn't even know what to say they just stood there and the guy had this look of, God, I had it going on. I had a good time. I had something going on and I don't have it going on. I lost. I crashed. I burned. That's what happens in my life. I get just enough excitement. I get enough hope. Just enough something to carry me forward and then I'm blown up. Do we need a way out of the devilness? Thank you. awesome thank you okay who's ready to come up and share some of what you wrote on the bedevil months the questions question number 40 are you having trouble with personal relationships. I like what the workbook has to say, too. The question in the workbook before the listing of these bedevilments is, have I asked myself why I shouldn't apply to my human problems this same willingness to change my point of view as I did with the obsession and the craving? We had a mental switch somewhere along the line in step one where we were willing to trust that this process might work for me. I don't think God will show up for me but this process sounds pretty interesting. When I was 90 days sober, I went to an ICIPA conference which is International Young People of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Francisco and my daughter had been on the bidding committee to bring it into town and I got a pass from the recovery place I was in and I drove to San Francisco from Napa Valley. Tenuous. I had to say prayers all the way down there till I got actually on the bridge because my mind knew where to score at every exit. Was creepy. So anyway, I get to downtown, I park, go in there. The theme of this conference was there is a solution. I was so excited and all her friends would surround, literally surround me and take me to the meetings all weekend long and I felt safe and protected and I got back to the recovery home and I didn't know what that solution was yet but was so happy and uplifted that there was one, right? So my obsession took about a year to go away. The craving obviously was gone like after about 10 days. So there was a new attitude I had with regard what had been wrong with me. I I didn't totally understand it yet, but I had a new willingness to stick with whatever the program might be, which is I did everything they told me to in Alcoholics Anonymous and went to a meeting every day for however long. Went to see my probation officer on a regular basis. And so here we are. We're being asked to, for the first time, to really take a little bit deeper look at what caused all that crazy drinking and using and the behavior. Could it be these bedevilments? Could it me I've never been able to control my emotional nature? Have you? What did you write down there? No. Pick any of them. Any of them would be down over there. No, I'm not going to read them all. I could, but I'm Bob. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Hi, Bob. Hi, everybody. I've been separated from alcohol for 13 years. I've gone through the steps. I've done this work a whole bunch of times. alcohol is but a symptom of something deeper just like what's been spoken about here and the crystal meth, the desire was taken away the desire to drink alcohol was taken away, the design of the desire to drink coffee, these are addictions that I've suffered, those are just symptoms I'm still really torn up inside I'm still a mess with 13 years of sobriety I still suffer from the bedevilments and I don't know what to do I've come here for years, I do the same I do everything that's asked of me but I don' t have anywhere else to go I don't have another solution except to come here I don' t have anything else so I need a psychic change I need something more powerful than me I've read every self-help book I've done every single thing within my power and in the doctor's opinion it talks about having a psychic change i need a psychic change i needs something powerful um let's see are you having trouble with personal relationships with whom i'm on good terms with everyone in my life but i can't seem to create a meaningful meaningful intimate relationship with the with the woman i've had this problem most of my life b can you control your emotional nature um i have anger flare-ups but most of the time it's when i'm alone i have a quick burst of anger then take a breath and deal with it are you uh prey to misery and depression uh lately i have been yes the financial burdens are weighing down on me heavily it's busy as it's ever been and i'm struggling to pay my bills it sucks and i can't see him myself seems pretty shit right now um d can you make a living even if you can't be satisfied with it um i'm struggling right now i'm doing my best but it's scary uh do i feel have a feeling of uselessness no i feel very useful i'm very much service are you full of fear uh yes i'm scared financially i'm scared that i'm getting old and we'll never find a woman i'm scared that nothing will change so i'm being real vulnerable at a group level so here i am um are you unhappy with what um i've been pretty unhappy for a while Do you seem unable to be of real help to other people? No, I'm of help to a lot of people. Is the basic solution to these things more important than anything in the world? Duh. Thank you for letting me put you on the spot. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, these things are not fun. My name is Heather, I'm an alcoholic. The first time I went through these I had really short yes and no kind of answers. And I think it's funny how, like, when I'm listening to other people, how things come up for me and I remember other things and sort of feel more honest, I guess. Anyway, are you having trouble with personal relationships? If so, with whom? I put a few. I named one lady at work my dad and my ex-husband. that was even kind of hard to come up with because I I guess I think if I'm having personal relationship troubles I just like well they don't mean anything to me anyway and I just kind of let him go and don't think about it like it's sort of dealing with it and making them better so I think I don't have any problems you know because I just don't deal with them can you control your emotional nature I don t really I don' t know if I understood the question or not but i think the only time i have like if i'm starting to get worked up or anxious or angry or whatever the only thing i can really kind of like reel it in is if i become aware of it and like stop and really like ask like like pause you know and help ask for help because otherwise left to my own i'm usually passive aggressive and um a little shitty with people sometimes um mostly what's the word not cynical it's sarcastic that's like a big surly there you go surly are you prey to misery and depression i at first i put sometimes like whatever sometimes i you know can get in a little morass of self-pity but I just remembered that actually when I first got sober no at the end of my drinking I was suicidal so I guess that kind of is sort of like depressed and also a few months after I got sober I actually was on Prozac I totally forgot about that like I completely forgot I was on prozac for several months and it wasn't until like I moved to Charlotte and became involved in meetings and started becoming involved in a fellowship and doing program work that I actually went off of it and I didn't take it anymore but I completely forgot about that can you make a living and even if you can are you satisfied with it yeah I'm pretty good at getting jobs but it there always comes a time and it's usually not more than a year when I start feeling like it's not good enough and I should be making more and why didn't I ask for more and, like, all this stuff. I'm an under-earner, and I think it's tied to my self-worth. And I'm also an over-spender, and it's usually all in bullshit. It's not even, like – it's just, like… It's just a little bit at a time, a lot of it. And I think that's, like a coping mechanism. I tend to kind of do that instead of drink or eat. I go buy stupid shit. do you have a feeling of uselessness occasionally but it's usually I can notice it's usually when I'm not in connection with my higher power or I'm not being of service so I know there's a way to get out of it but that's when I usually notice it are you full of fear or what are you afraid of well first of all I'm really afraid of talking in front of a lot of people so there's one thing um but mostly i think i'm afraid of deeply like of succeeding um or being whole um and i'm also afraid that i'm not going to be able to find the kind of spiritual connection that i see other people having like i always think to myself that's got to be fake like that can't be real like i'm i'm scared that i don't know what to do with it i'm just afraid that I'm afraid that I'm never going to get to that place, you know, that I see other people at. I mean, I can talk it, but I don't always feel it. Are you unhappy? At first I wrote no, like not really, no, not at all. I'm pretty happy in general because I know on a mental, whatever that word is, Um, like I know that my happiness doesn't depend on anyone else or anything else around me. I mean, I can just be happy. Um, but I guess happy means different things to different people. But I said I'm unsatisfied with where I am spiritually. Like I know I'm, like, I feel it. Like I'm at the edge of another growth spurt, let's call it. um and it scares me honestly because I don't know if I'm I don t mean I just don t know what it's going to look like because I've never gotten there you know and it's kind of embarrassing to be in this program for so long and not to get to the place where I see other people with with a lot shorter amount of time like having that and I'm like well what have they done what haven't I done like and I mean I know what I haven't done so you know it's there do you seem unable to be of real help to other people in what way I said not really anymore I think now I can see how my experience can benefit others and the more I do this work the more I can see how little things like little ways of connecting with people or sharing with other people and doing this work with other people how it is meaningful and it's really the only thing I really need to be doing you know um is a basic solution to these things more important than anything in the world around you if that means like i don't really know what that means but like if the basic solution of these things if these things are spiritual fitness spiritual growth a relationship with god if it's those kinds of things then the answer is yes because without it my life is meaningless just like it was at the end of my drinking so Any family? My name's Mike. I'm a recovering addict. First question, I'm not going to do all of them. I only have two that I really feel like sharing about. It says, are you having trouble with personal relationships? I actually avoid all trouble in my personal relationships by not having any. Solve that one. then uh the last one is the basic solution to these things more important than anything in the world around you you know for me uh i know i walk on a tightrope because uh i don't just use their drink to use their drinking drink to burn it down like that's where i go that's what my mind goes just to burn it down um so uh so it is important to um otherwise i'll self-destruct that's just what i do broke alcoholic addict I'm just going to share one um the are you full of fear and what are you afraid of and the reason I'm sharing this is because my life today still six months sober is run on fear and it's because I haven't gone through this work yet and to back up i have all of these bedevilments still um but i put yes fear runs my life fears the reason i feel the need to lie and be selfish and self-centered i fear not being good enough not being successful enough not living up to my potential being alone being abandoned not being liked not fitting in relapsing hurting other people's feelings financial insecurities not being pretty not being skinny making mistakes fear of anxiety which gives me more anxiety regretting not doing things fear of change fear of losing my boyfriend death and this work not working for me you know I think I think i fear that most that i'm going to be that one person that it just doesn't work that i am just not going to have a spiritual experience because i am selfish and the world revolves around me that's all i got John alcoholic got just a couple um all right so are you prey to misery and depression when I get the most depressed when I compare myself to other with totally different circumstances than me I get depressed a little when i'm not number one i don't know if you guys remember reading about um that kind of being like a symptom of alcoholism like us being wanting to be number one all the time that was me and uh so then another one was um is a mere code of morals better or a better philosophy a life of life sufficient to overcome your alcoholism and so um i practice buddhism and I do not believe morality is a is outside of us and by staying aligned with my higher power I can stay sober and morally just and be if it was why didn't you stop drinking a long time ago I didn't know how bad of a problem what what that's why thank you I want things What I was asking was if we could spend more time on answering the other questions, because to me they're really important ones. Kind of a big deal. I just said... Okay, this one made me cry a little bit. Number four. My name is Michelle and I'm an addict and alcoholic. Have you ever wished to be morally or philosophically comforted? all right number four so i'm just gonna read my answer i wished i could think and act right i begged myself i lost belief in everything everyone and myself the only comfort i found was the love i felt for my mom it soothed my broken spirit many many times and the book and i did a lot of thinking and searching to to come up with that about my mom you know like where i felt it and what kept me going i said um and the belief my friends had in me even with the knowledge and the witness of my repeated failings that gave me some spiritual support to keep me alive and striving and then i realized maybe that was my higher power moving through them at that time to keep me alive, even when I didn't want to be. So it was pretty neat. Angelica, Alcoholic Addict. Hi, you guys. This workshop is really awesome, by the way. um all right um i'll just do like two or three um can you make a living even if you can are you satisfied with it um i am a hard worker and i'm good at making a living i am not satisfied because I know that I have more potential. My fear of relapsing keeps me from moving forward faster. Are you full of fear? What are you afraid of? My number one fear is of relapsing because of my chronic you know like my history and not being respected I am afraid of meeting the description of a loser I have there's three of us I have two brothers my older what my older brother is a sheriff and my younger brother is an aviation engineer and I do Spanish interpreting and I asked one of the attorneys one day I said you know mr. Chester my older brothers to show my younger brother is in aviation engineer for NASA and I'm a recovery recovering alcoholic addict and he says well at least you have a title hi I'm Camille I'm recovered alcoholic number five is lack of power your dilemma do you have to find a power by which you can live does it have to be a power greater than you it's just obvious yes lack of power was my dilemma and it was imperative that I found a power greater than me because I was very agnostic like I had faith but I didn't have a power that could separate me from alcohol I was a person that went to church every day and asked and asked that I could just prayed away but really what I was praying for was to drink like a normal person. And the way my life looks today is like I have access to that power because there's facts and then there's truth. And the facts are that I suffer from disease of alcoholism and I'm recovered. The facts are that once I put alcohol in my body, I immediately want more. The fats are that if I don't live with that power every day and rest in the breath of what that power is, that I will go back to drink and the truth is that power is here and I've experienced it and I think countered it and it changes atmosphere and it's open heaven for me and that will happen in this workshop for you thank you ah that's all the time we have for sharing um we're gonna pass the baskets so that we have money to, I think next week we're going to have Chinese food, everybody. Woo-hoo! Yum. So can I have some volunteers to clean up tonight and straighten up the chairs and take out garbage and things like that? Yeah, we'll all get it. Yeah? I volunteer. Huh? Next week. Next week, we're going to be on step two, everybody. We're going to do assignment ten. Right? Everybody with me on this? Assignment ten? Okay, which is read read agnostics right after where it says right after where it says in the sponsorship guide this finishes step one it says right after assignment nine so this is step two and it tells us what we need to read and what questions we need to answer and what was that to do with our sponsor we got it right here I don't think I need to read it everyone has a sponsorship guide assignment sheet right yeah we get someone to help clean up in the kitchen thank you great okay have I missed anything are we have we finished it okay let's pray up Because he's in here? I'm angry. A few hugs. Yeah, okay. Boom. What do we say? Should we say that serenity prayer? God, pray for me to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Stay! It's really hard to say that word. like a lollipop in your mouth. That was good. All right. Hello. Hey sweetheart. How are you? I'm good. Good. Awesome. One of the girls last week asked if I would, you know, work with her and I said sure. How cool. Yeah. Great. And she didn't show up this week but that's okay. She's calling me at least. Yeah. You know. Right? Yeah. Good to see you. Thank you. This has been a pleasure. I want to see you. Yeah, so. Mic up. Mic up, mic up. Mic up on the mic. Mic up one more time. Mic up two more times. Mic up three more times, and then we're going to do it again. Mic up four times. Mic up five times. Mic up six times. Mic up seven times. Mic up eight times. Mic up nine times. Mic up 10 times. Mic up 11 times. Mic up 12 times. Mic up 13 times. Mic up 14 times. Mic up 15 times. Mic up 16 times. Mic up 17 times. Mic up 18 times. Mic up 19 times. Mic up 20 times. Mic up 21 times. Mic up 22 times. Mic up 23 times. Mic up 24 times. Mic up 25 times. And I just, you know, it's just kind of a natural recognition of how crazy this is. I don't know anyone who doesn't drink, but you just stay in touch with people, and they're not going to get lost. So I'm okay with that, and that was very interesting. Well, I just want to say thank you all for being able to talk to us. That's one of the last things we did, because I saw Bryce, and I just wanted to say hi to him, and Bryce is, yeah, he's got some, yeah. Okay, so he's making me want to go through it, but I just want to ask him. Can I get through this on the point of saying, like, yeah, go for it. Like, what's going on? That was my first conversation with a child, and it was perfect. Like, just in all this. Yeah, absolutely. So, should we talk about all the work that you're doing right now? It's a lot of work for me. I think so, because he said I was selling it to him. Well, I didn't know you started it. No, no, I know. I literally, I literally... I've been waiting for this for a long time. Later in life, I thought it worked tomorrow. You got the book and you're writing it? Yeah. Okay. Just put it in your hand right now. And then now, to get that done by the next day, there's a different way to do it. But I was going to go inside with my son. Like, I was gonna put it on my hand, but I'm like, don't do it online. I'm not going to think of this for four days, but I've made it like there. If you've got it done, if you know what you're doing, if you want to know what it is, that's all it takes. You can go back and please be online We're still taping. Hold on a second. Yeah, buddy's like listening to all your tapes and stuff.