Steps 11 and 12 – Milestone Step Workshop – Part 1 of 5 – Chris

morning i talked to certainly get this is gonna be the last session we're gonna be talking about 11 and 12. so so i've been looking at things a little bit like this lately uh as far as as far the trajectory of the 12 steps you know in step one i recognize that my my life is unmanageable and it's because of a lot of these manifestations itself and how they impact my ability to deal with life. Step two, you know, I come to believe that there's a power. I come TO believe that THERE'S A WAY OF LIFE THAT CAN PUT ME INTO CONNECTION WITH A POWER THAT CAN SOLVE MY PROBLEM, SOLVE My ALCOHOLISM PROBLEMS. I MAKE A DECISION IN STEP THREE, I MAKES A DEPTH DECision TO START DOING THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES THAT ARE GOING TO BRING ME into a way of life that's a spiritual way of life that will expel the obsession to drink and enable me to become whole i make that decision in in step three in step four i discover the manifestations of self that have been defeating me selfishness resentment fear dishonesty i discover those and i see the terrible destructiveness not only in my own life and my own quality of life or spiritual condition but but that of other people around me i impact other people none of us are an island you know um so in step four i i discover these things and step five i share about these things what do i share my resentment my selfishness my dishonesty my fear uh the the manifestations of self that have defeated me you know the the and a lot of the damage that is caused because of that in step six i become willing to have these manifestations of self removed and in step seven i humbly ask for these manifestations itself to be removed basically selfishness uh resentment fear and dishonesty. Step eight, I put down on paper if I don't already have a good inventory list of the people in the institutions that my character defects have harmed. My selfishness, my dishonesty, my resentment and my fear. And I become willing to make direct amends to those people in institutions. And step nine, I go out and make direct amends to those institutions and those people. Sharing with them whatever character defects impacted or damaged or harmed them. And in step ten, Marty was talking about living this stuff right here, right now. What am I supposed to watch for? I'm supposed to watch for resentment, selfishness, fear, dishonesty. I'm suppose to watch forward in real time and take action when they crop up. And then in step 11, those first 10 steps have really taught me how to live a spiritual life. In step 11, I prepare my day with upon awakening. There's additional instructions for what I need to do as it crops up in real time, just like in step 10, as I move through the day. And at night, I constructively review my day. I constructatively review, you know, have I lived spiritually? Have I attended to the selfishness, the dishonesty, the resentment and fear the way I should have? And there's instructions here that are great. Retiring at night, I constructively review my day. Was I resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Upon awakening, let's think about the 24 hours ahead. As I go through the day, I pause when agitated or doubtful, asking for the right thought or action. So don't just do something, stand there, is really what it's asking us to do. We're no longer running the show ourselves, humbling saying to ourselves, many times each day thy will be done I want to share like three stories, that's how I'm going to end this I'm totally going to botch the whole trajectory of this thing up, Marty I'm sorry so yeah, I'm gonna share a number of things alright, so the first thing I want to share is this, step 11 really asks me to dig deep spiritually to go deep to be a seeker it's really asking me to be a secret and i want to share about uh i was out at a retreat in california uh about three months ago and somebody out there that i i respect enough to to listen to when he makes a book recommendation anybody ever make book recommendations to you you know my god so but uh but i listened to this guy and i gave it a try and i'm not going to mention the book because it's it's It's kind of a tradition thing to recommend outside literature, but... Okay, okay. It's got the bestseller. All right, all right, Marty. And it's written by a guy named Steven Patero. And I want to tell you the story of this book, okay? Because it actually makes sense when looking at the 11th step. So here's the story. This guy's a book dealer. And he buys book collections. He especially buys like estate book collections, high-end hardcover collectible books. And there's this family out on Cape Cod that's calling him up and bugging him. You've got to come out. You've Got to come Out. And it's a real long haul for him. So he's like putting it off, putting it Off. Finally, he goes there and he walks into this house and he looks and he's like oh my god it is the largest collection of beautiful first edition spiritual books signed by the author most of them that he's ever seen in his life and he's like oh My God you know he goes who the hell lives here and and he comes to find out the guy that lived there was named was named axman he had owned the house and he had died like years and years ago uh but but he's he's so interesting he can't believe what he's seeing and he starts spending a lot of time there and and this guy actually never threw anything away there was boxes of letters and all stuff and that guy just starts spending all his time there it's just fascinating to him what he's finding and come to find out that what axman was was he was the religion editor for harper's publishing from the mid-20s to the mid 70s this guy so what did he do he colored our whole perspective on religion and spirituality in the 20th century and he did it by picking the authors editing the authors and publishing the authors and turning things into bestsellers and some of the people he countless people this guy edited but i'll just name some of them that you'll recognize their name albert schweitzer martin luther king jr yogananda heard huxley all these people he brought them to our attention with his publishing and and a lot of these people yes they were real real spiritual people and he helped them publish the books but not only did they have really deep spiritual convictions but they accomplished extraordinary things and guess who he finds all throughout this collection in letters and documents bill wilson finds bill wilsen's stuff in there come to find out he has been buddies with bill wilsun since like the late 40s and and they were tight and they had a there was a group of them that got together and went really deep spiritually with like huxley and i mean they would meet with these people these were the top people in experiential spirituality in america today and bill wilson would be having a steel on steel group with them you know what i mean i'm serious in the 50s and and it's just it's remarkable and come to find out that axman was so close to bill wilson he's the guy that did the final editing and publishing on the 12 steps and 12 traditions and aa comes of age i did not know that until i read this book because he was friends with bill he allowed bill to have a special deal with works publishing and you could go ahead and you know publish it in perpetuity bill you know do whatever you need to do but he's the guy he's a guy that put that put stuff together now i'm looking around the audience i think this is safe there was a period of time in the 50s where bill and some people did some uh some deep deep spiritual experimenting with a substance called lsd now many of us many of us when we first heard this got a really bad impression we got the wrong impression bill was partying no in the 50s this particular drug was seen as a gateway to spiritual experiences that psychiatrists and religion people were studying because because people the first people who had taken this drug had come back saying i saw god you know so so so there was a small group of these people axman tom powers bill wilson the psychiatrists you know the the huxley who who would have these small meetings and they would they would partake of this substance looking for an extra added tool for deep spiritual experience now after well after lois turned into a muppet on bill you know they they recognized that this this may not be the right direction to go so so they abandoned this they abandoned this and they saw it as yeah there's some interesting stuff going on here but you know but but but spiritual practice is how you have to do this right there's no there's not going to be a shortcut but there was a short period of time now now you don't find any of this stuff in aa literature but he found it in axman's axman is the guy who kept all this stuff all they would they would they would write uh they would journal as they were doing their experiments and all these journals were found in this guy's house now this this book god the bestseller details not only uh the experience with bill wilson but but the experience this guy had with a lot of the other deep spiritual thinkers why am i going off on this crazy tangent it is because i believe bill gave us a recipe to continue to dig really really deep into this thing called spirituality broaden and deepen broaden and deep in our understanding broaden and deepen our experience. We don't stop, we don't just go through the steps and I'm good now Marty you know call you in ten years. This needs to be a vital piece of our way of life and our co-founder the principal architect of Alcoholics Anonymous not only talked the talk he walked the walk and he walked the walk with the absolute best people you could walk the walk with in America and in the english-speaking world and and I just I just find that I find that really really really amazing so I'm gonna tell another story and then I'm going to do something that Marty asked me to do and none of of it's going to make any sense. Really, probably. It doesn't matter. Let me find where I got to go. So all right. So here is the story that I want to tell you. All right. Here it is. Here's the story I want. What I did for a living. What do I do for a living what i did do for i'm a facility manager and what a facility manager is is basically property management i'm in charge of everything that has to do with the building except the business the and so so the maintenance on the building the yard work the custodial services the the uh the dining services the construction projects the all project management all this stuff this is what i would do for a living I would be in charge of that and uh and I went from being you know a bad electrician to being a facility manager in charge a large pharmaceutical research and development sites and manufacturing plants so I would me in charge about million square foot laboratory system with energy centers and vivariums and all this crazy stuff and and I would I would have all these employees and my job basically was to oversee the physical plant and everything that has to do with the physical plants so that the the people who were the the pharma people could just concentrate on their business they didn't need to get involved in hr with you know cooks and cleaners and stuff like i did all that right so so so i had some really big jobs uh towards the end of my career And then COVID hit, right? COVID hits. And I got furloughed. Anybody in here get furloughing during COVID? Did you ever get unfurlough? Because I never got unfurlowed. You know, yeah, we'll bring you back when the time is right, Chris. So what I did is I said, look, I'm at that age, right, I'm not that age when I can retire. So I turned on Social Security and Medicare and all that stuff, and I retired. No big deal. And my wife is still working. She's younger than me. She's working, and I'm retired. And there's something I like to do. I've got to tell you, there's Something I Like to Do More Than Anything in the World. Marnie knows what it is. You know what I like To Do? Nothing. I love to do nothing. You ever just do nothing, like sit on the couch and stare into space? You know? So I'm sitting there doing nothing this one day. And my wife Andrea walks in and she goes, what are you doing? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. There's a list of stuff to do around the house. I'm like, I know, I Know. You don't have to keep reminding me every six months. You know, I'll get to it. I will. And so I started to think, you know, God, I'm able-bodied. You know, I still got some horsepower left. And I start looking around and a job pops up. A job pops about eight miles away from my house. And it's a little pokey little puppy job compared to what I used to do. It is a facility manager job for a hospice. And so, I apply there. They hire me. I give good interview after that you know it's a whole other story but they hire me they hire me and and you know I start I start working here and now I want to I want to tell you something I want to tell yourself I fell in love with this job I am work at 98% of the people in this company are women and most of them are doing some of the most heroic acts of compassion on a day-to-day basis that you've ever seen in your life. I mean, it's this hospice, right? And I'm in there and I have an office in the inpatient hospice unit of this hospICE. So I'm in the inpatient probably 60% of my time and taking care of the other sites the other 40. But I start to feel pretty comfortable with who I'm working with and what's going on. And I start To notice something. And what I noticed was this you know who shows up in hospice we do okay we do and we're not hard to spot lung cancer liver cancer esophagus cancer you know what whatever and uh and i started that i started to pay attention to to some of these people in it and you know i got the job under control so i got you know i got some bandwidth and i just started to go in and i start to talk to a lot of these people you know tell them you know how i am i'm in recovery whatever and and this one period of time there ended up being three people in the hospice who who you know were alcohol one of them was on intubation and you know wasn't really gonna make it one of him was about to celebrate 40 years sober in the hospital and you know what I did I got everybody together I got her a birthday cake and we did at Southern California style you know big happy birthday forty year cake her family was there and everything you know and it was just it was just really really cool and then there was a young lady in their early 30s advanced cirrhosis of the liver and uh and she shows up in hospice she'd gone in there to check out bad shape but yellow societies it was it was a mess and i start going in and talking to her and she's a sweetheart right and uh some of the things i tell her is look this isn't your fault You haven't even been exposed to a recovery process. You've just been stumbling around in the dark with this alcoholism thing. Let me share some stuff with you. And then I said, hey, I'm part of a home group not far down the street. Would it be okay if I bring some of the women in to talk to you? Some of the men and to share? She goes, that'd be okay. That'd be OK. so uh so I show up in my home group and I raise my hand and I make an announcement I need women for and and so the women came up to me after the meeting they go what's this all about I go up you know what I want you to I want you to come down to the inpatient hospice and I want you to bring a meeting to somebody and the first reaction is like why you know And I'm just like, because they're reaching out their hand. That's why. They're reaching our hand. So six of these women come down from the home group. And they come in and they meet the lady with 40 years. And she's hugging them all. And then they go in and sit with the young lady with advanced cirrhosis of the liver. And they're in there an hour. They're like in there an hour and a half, right? They come out. And their minds are blown. I'm talking about the AA people. And there's this one AA lady who had like 30 years sober. And she grabs me outside and she goes, Chris, that was the most pivotal experience I've experienced in AA. That was the Most Amazing Thing I've Experienced in 30 Years in AA." And they had fallen in love with this girl. And it started coming back. It started coming black. And every week we had a meeting, but they'd be texting and they'd be showing. They just started loving on this person. And I need to tell you from the moment that they circled her bed, there was a change. I saw a change in this girl. And she started to fight. And a couple of months go by, you know, and everybody's loving on her. You know, and there's going to be a Zoom call with the surgeon who's running this whole case and the question is going to be can I get on the liver transplant list you know her liver's not her liver shot right can I Get On The Liver Transplant List and uh and so the AAs are there the nurses are there and the family's there and everybody's looking at this zoom and the main surgeon uh she asked the question can I GET ON THE LIVER TRANSPLANT LIST And the main surgeon goes, we're not going to put you on the transplant list. And she goes, why? And the surgeon goes damn it, we are looking at your labs and you are getting better. Do you know, I swear to God, two months later we walked her out of there. She was walked out. Now, I need to tell you, the chances of somebody walking out at inpatient hospice is not big. You don't bet a lot of money on that one, right? It may happen, but it's like one in a thousand. Now, now I got to tellyou, you know, we're talking about the 12-step. We're going to be talking about carrying the message. The women in my home group carried the message to this young lady with cirrhosis of the liver. a change happened she got better and we walked her out of there and she went off to you know do her outpatient or whatever she was gonna gonna do physical therapy and stuff like that and i saw the power again the power that is unmistakable the power that i absolutely i don't believe in a power greater than myself anymore i know i've seen it i saw the power you know working through those women in that hospice you know one of them became a volunteer she's a volunteer now because of that experience and uh and and that that's that's an amazing experience i've had you don't know what these 12-step things are going to be like they're they can they can uh the opportunity can pop up right the opportunity could pop up and talking about talking about 12 step um i want to talk about what i've termed the 12 inconveniences has anyone ever told you about the 12th inconveniences all right i got to tell you this story i'm doing like a million zooms i'm there with marty and jack and clean we're doing like 1 million zoons jj's on them all and and there's this one guy who uh it's just it might be cultural but it just came off really inappropriate like like there'd be there'd 30 people on the zoom and they're all kind of chit-chatting and there is a way you can chit chat on zoom there's like a there's a way and and he comes like out of left field he's like Chris Chris you know I want you to share in my meeting you know and I'm like oh my god take it offline you know chat me or something right and and he bugged me but okay okay god damn it i'll speak on your your zoom at three in the morning you know in new guinea you're wherever the hell is right i'll do it and uh and a couple of weeks go by and he shows back up and he's asking me i need a title i need a title for your talk gotta give a name to your talk and so he breaks into everybody right I get really pissed off, and I can be a wise ass. Some people know that. And I go, okay, yeah, I'll give you the talk. You know, they've just discovered a whole bunch of Bill Wilson's writings that were never discovered before. And, you know, he had done the 12 steps, he'd done the twelve traditions, he'd does the twelve concepts. Well, he just found this work that he was working on the twelve inconveniences. And that's what I'll get my talk on. I'm being a total wise ass! Now, on page... So about two weeks later, I see the flyer. The flyer goes out internationally, right? I'm like, oh God, oh geez. So I got to think on my feet. So here's what I came up with. Went to page 97, all right, in working with others. And guess what? There's 12 inconveniences. i'm gonna read them okay helping others is the foundation of stone of your recovery to kindly act once and once in a while is not enough now this is the instruction on how we are to be available to carry this message after after we've gone through the first 11 steps after this thing starts to become a way of life this is cement that's going to keep us keep us in this thing that has saved our life and makes our life better on a daily basis right you have to act a good Samaritan every day if need be it may mean the loss of many nights sleep great interferences with your pleasures you ever have somebody caught I had this guy who was just kind of lately he was like call me in the middle of night calling me early in the morning and and and this is this is how I react when somebody calls me you know in an inconvenient time ring this is how I answer the phone. Hello? I got some stuff going on, I want to run by you. Alright, alright, it's two in the morning. Can we run by it tomorrow maybe? Great interferences with your pleasures. Listen, our life is none of our business when we get to this point if you don't understand that you missed something it's it's none of our business like like like things things just appear and and automatically you know automatically we go into 12-step mode these these opportunities and and you know it would I like to just do nothing all weekend Yeah, but that never happens. There's always phone calls and this and that. Somebody's in trouble. So is there great interference from my pleasures? Yeah, but I don't even know if I'd call it interference because it's part of my life. Interruptions to your business. So in the last 25 years or so, I've always let my boss know that I have kind of an unconventional way of approaching work. And it's a little unorthodox. And I need to tell you that every once in a while I'm going to get a call that I'm gonna have to step out of work or I might even have to leave work. I'm telling you before any of this happens that I will never steal time for you. I will make up whatever time I need the time to take for these this unorthodox thing that is going on in my life and they've always been cool with it if i'm honest with them and i'm up front about it so i get calls during business all the time hey chris how you doing you at work well actually yes i'm at work you know it's okay don't worry about it and uh and so yeah that happens all the Time it may mean sharing your money your home you know i don't share my money as much anymore because it because i'm just i'm working with a different group of people but have i have i lent people have i given people money right right right like marty you don't you don' t lend if you're an idiot if you' re lending alcoholics uh money so so do i do i give people money it's like throwing money in a church basket You know, do I do that? Yeah. If it's appropriate, if it's as long as it's not, you know, prolonging someone's inability to practice spiritual principles. Yeah. You know if somebody is like really trying and you know what's in life happens sometimes I've done it. I've got a quite a few times my home. I've had many many times people people living living at my house. uh you know what i mean steve ash right steve steve lived with mike for a while mike was tired of himself so he ended up he ended he ended living with me for a while and you do you do it sometimes we do this this is an inconvenience one of the 12 inconveniences counseling frantic wives and relatives uh yeah i mean listen little joey gets caught you know od'ing on fentanyl and the parents are freaked out right they're like oh my god oh my god and they they know about what to do where to send them what's going on they don't know anything so a lot of times a lot of times my wife and i we get a lot of phone calls you know from frantic parents or or wives or whatever And we try to tell them as accurately as we can what's going on and what would probably be the best set of actions to take to minimize the harm. Innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails, and asylums. The only thing, I haven't gone to a lot of sanitarians or asylumes lately, right? But I'll do everything else. I'll have a treatment center commitment. I mean, yeah, absolutely. I would call them innumerable because I don't know how many times I've done it. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night. So it'll be fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and the score will be tied. and I'll hear RING and I go god damn it it's the fourth quarter what idiot is calling hello you know and I will tell you one thing that drives me crazy everybody wants to go to treatment on the weekend when all the admissions departments are closed and everything right you know if you get a hit bottom would you please do it Monday through Friday you know it's a big pain in the ass you know you know it's like 11 o'clock Friday night I need to go in your wife may sometimes say she's neglected that you know that happens sometimes I get overzealous and travel too many weekends i've got like seven next seven weekends i'm doing something and it was it was just it was bad planning and uh and she's upset uh a drunk may smash your furniture in your home or burn a mattress i haven't i haven'T had a mattress burned but i've had the cigarette butt hole in the couch um i you know i've HAD money stolen i you KNOW I'VE HAD cars disappear i've I've had all that stuff in my overzealous, you know, trying to work with newcomers I probably shouldn't have gone near. But you've got to learn somewhere. You may have to fight with him if he's violent. So I'm real serious about this. If you're working with me, I'm pushing you toward the martial arts. And the reason I do that is some people need a meeting. Some people need to beat. That's just the way it is. Just the way it is. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under your direction. This is the only thing I don't do out of the 12 inconveniences, Marty, because I had real bad experience being the sedative administrator back in the 70s. I allowed some people to be over sedated and we were all in high school and we slept for three days, all of us, and it caused a lot of concern among some parents. So I don't do that. I really try to get know medical survey if somebody needs like super detoxing or something medical surveillance you know get some don't don't screw around if there's absolutely no way to get somebody to do a detox or an er or something like that what i've done is i've gotten a bunch of those airline bottles like whiskey airline bottles and you give two bottles an hour for five hours one bottle an hour for 5 hours and you can help tip you can i've tapered people off a few times but i just don't i just don't like doing it because because uh you you can die in the midst of an alcohol detox and it's inconvenient if it's like on your porch or something you know another time another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance i've had to do that occasionally you will have to meet some of these obligations and why i read this besides marty asking me to do it is because it's our job the stuff is our job we've been granted a reprieve from a devastating progressively fatal illness and and our job is to stay in spiritual condition and this is how you do it right marty okay we'll get you out of here in 10 minutes folks Get the rest of your Saturday in order. Beautiful, Chris. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. That is actually one of the funniest things I ever heard. And I watched the whole thing play out. And when he didn't have a topic and he just came up with that, and it was like I was there when he actually was doing the rip, and it Was pretty good. So I've got it highlighted in my book that says the 12 inconveniences. He was just telling me before the meeting started, someone actually plagiarized it recently which didn't even give him credit for it but uh this uh when i was coming out of that step 10 stuff with such sort of adamance and uh um like a steely determination around living this life of sobriety um it's almost like you have a process in respite care where you go through the steps and going through inventory and you start to make amends And then you start to understand that this power is going to keep you in the center. You're going to stay in the in the centre of recovery as long as you stay connected. And that actually so that opens up the door to the seeking piece. And Chris gave me a book a couple of years ago, gave me elite on a book a couple years ago American Vita. And what that book did is it absolutely changed the way that I exercise meditation. And it's not because there was any new directions in there. that it's just i saw so much stuff that i was missing so much stuff that when it says when pause when agitated or doubtful where it says pause i i noticed that there was a lot of stuff that I was missing because i thought i had learned enough in here about the practice of meditation that i had going on but what i learned was that when these things are available to us to use whether it's a book or this you look at this stuff here and given us specific directions about how to live in this in the spirit so last night i get down on my knees at my bedside and my suite that chris has provided for me the marty cosco suite and uh i got on my bed side and i did what it is that i'm asked to do here and uh what it looks like for me again this practical piece is that I do it on my knees position is optional but i do it on my needs and you look at this stuff on page 86 and you're given these specific directions that Chris read out this is when we retire at night you don't have to wait until it's bedtime or anything bad. I happen to. I got a mat beside my bed and I just got some stuff set up there and I get on my knees and I gotta tell you, this is what it looks like 90% of the time. That's what it looks like. That's my sober life today. 90% of the time it doesn't matter what i hit through that day when it's time to reconcile it with this power the god of my understanding it's like really you did that again it's still happening that's still there and that becomes it's become this flavor of uh conviviality between me and my newfound friend and my new found friend does not make harsh terms it brings it softly to my awareness today there may have been things that i did today that will not come to my awareness at 11 30 midnight two o'clock in the morning whenever it is instead of go to bed but it's going to come and my job is to and then wrap it up all the time with what they say is asking for corrective measures and i just say show me how to live you know i always end up with let me be a vehicle for you and you show me how to live. And I go to bed and I sleep wonderfully. Now, I get up the next morning. My morning practices are nowhere near as sound as my evening practices, but they're very, very similar to what's being asked of me here. God direct my thinking. You know, JJ yelled this morning, hey, time to get up. I'd been rolling around for about 10 minutes just contemplating the day, nervous to meet all you folks, wondering about how this was going to go today. You know, I'm human. So before my feet hit the ground, my ego wants to attack the day that's about to come. And it doesn't last very long for me because I find this place of peace and this place of comfort that I get another day of challenge. And I thank God for restoring me to awakeness, and I get up. And when he yells my name, it's like three seconds and I'm coming out the door. My practice on the mornings is a lot less influential, it seems, on my life than my evening review. That's just me. Because all through the day, I can pause when agitated or helpful. When these things crop up, like I said in the 10th step, I immediately set about amending or correcting these things as they come. Now that's how the practice looks. When it tells us we need to grow in effectiveness and usefulness around this tool and reading and sharing with each other. I mean, that to me is where it all, like sitting around tables or I'm talking about dinner tables and stuff like that and talking with people about their relationship with the power, their relationship, their experience being in the dark, being brought out into the light and how that happened for them and how they sort of stay connected to that power today that's where I get my juice that's Where I Get My Juice To Live That Way having had a spiritual experience as a result of those 11 steps you see July the 16th 1987 I think it was several hours ago that I talked about being brought to my knees in a jail cell and yelled out I can't live like this, I don't want to live like this anymore and the power came and for 14 years I thought that's what you meant I thought was the power you were talking about and I tried to transmit that experience and it was never effective you know people thought I was a lunatic like for hearing a voice and all that kind of thing people thought it was crazy so I did just held it it was personal it wasn't a part of my recovery my sobriety life this is tangible having had an experience as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message and practice these principles in all our affairs and thank chris for going into the 12 and 12 and talking about that tradition nine thing what a discovery that is about personal disobedience to spiritual principles is what's going to cause you any anguish at all not just return you to drinking your personal disobedance to spiritual principles is responsible for 100 of your angst whether it's anxiety or fear whether it'S resentment or anger it's response your personal disobedience to spiritual principles is 100% responsible for your angst. And so my job is to get constantly connected. And I do it through you. I talked about it earlier today. When it says when these things crop up, this is what I do, this what I'm doing to turn my attention to someone I can help. This is a 12-step opportunity for me and I don't ever have to look far. I never have to look for somebody to help. And when I'm going here, like if I'm taking a new guy through these steps and you talk to JJ and a couple other guys that here you go these guys are taking books meeting new guys who means setting it up and meeting at a coffee shop and sitting down taking guys through the work these are specific directions on how to do that there's nothing missed there's no no stone unturned here I find I don't know like how it could be so specific and deliberate and so wonderfully sort of wonderfully sort laid out for us exactly how to carry this message and yet again we meet people in recovery who don't sponsor who don' t carry this message who don''t work with others and I'm not if there's any of you in the room don't take this personally just take it we have a 12 step program having had a spiritual experience as a result of these 11 steps i'm directed to do this now carry this message that i've just had the experience of to other alcoholics if i don't do that if i'm not doing that if I'm loving AA and going to meetings and all that shit but never connecting with a new guy or never connecting with anybody never carrying this message if I m not doing it chances are pretty good i really didn't get step 10 and 11. chances are good that i didn't step 11 for sure and if that's true if if I'm not practicing the seeking of a power, that's not really happening for me. If this is just a rudimentary thing or something that's theoretical in the book, like step 10, and I'm não pratico essas coisas quando essas cropam. Se eu não fizer isso, eu provavelmente não vou fazer todas as minhas amendações. Eu só vou sair lá em cima de uma limpa. Eu talvez nem tenha feito nenhuma. Eu talvez tenha pensado, well, pelo menos eu não estou machucando ninguém hoje. So I didn't make any amends. I didn' t even need to make a list, really, and I didn''t need to become willing to make amends because I'm now going to make an amends and so if I didn ''t do that, I probably don't really believe that I even have any defects of character and shortcomings anymore, because God damn it, I didn't drink today. And if I believe that, then I'd probably just stop talking to people in step five, and I'm not taking my inventory, I'm taking your inventory. My life is spent on assessing the situations of my life as being damaging and trolling. If that's true, I probably reneged on my deal I made in step three. You look after me, and I'll get performance work well. I renege on that deal that I made at step three, and if that's truth, I'll probably sit under that sort of auspices of being restored to sanity, and I'm not really restored to sanity. And then step two is just, I'm now participating in step two. God isn't everything or nothing. In fact, God is just a small part of my life. And if that's true, probably my life isn't unmanageable by me. I've been managing it for my whole sobriety. And I'm probably not powerless and I should get shit-faced. And that's the 12 steps in reverse. And sadly, it's how it works. You will not stay in AA. I wouldn't stay here if I wasn't connected to you. There are people who have been here for 30, 40, 50 years. And it's very difficult for us to talk about time when we're talking about elements of spirituality. Because there is no time in the spiritual world. It's always only ever now. Just like we said earlier, it's always Only Ever Now. But if I'm not executing, sharing the message of those 11 steps with somebody, then I'm NOT in a 12-step program. I'm in what I believe would be like a one and a half step program. and it's only because I followed all the directions that I was willing to follow I don't know how you can do this I don' t know how you can be around here for 2 years and 3 years and 5 years and 8 years and 10 years and never have a sponsor and you'll say stupid shit like nobody's asked me that's what you'll say when I say to you, you've got nobody you're not sponsoring anybody, oh no nobody's asked me, you're sitting around discussion tables for 5 and a half years sharing but nobody thought sharing enough good stuff that they thought maybe you could help them You know what I'm saying? Like, don't answer my questions. Don't. I get frustrated by it because you're going to come at me with some sort of rationale that some need a meeting and some need to be beaten. And it's like, it doesn't make any sense to me that you would sit here and try to justify that to me. Having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps, so we sat here all day and talked about the need for taking the steps. If you take those 11 steps, you can't hold those guys back. You can't help them. You can hold JJ and Jack and Cleo. you can't hold them back, Dane. You can't hold them from helping people. They're in constant thought of others. You know it tells us on the top of page 20 is that our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we might help meet their needs. I got a guy who sends me his inventory from Yonkers. Every day he sends it to me and he has a percentage. He's been able to manage a sort of numerical perspective on how much time in a day he thinks of others and how much time in a day he thinks of himself. And like it's about 80 20 on the average 80 20 80 self 20 others on the average and he's a good dude imagine if you bump that up to 50 50. you know and it's yourself you can you can you can do that relatively easy just now thinking about today how much time here today did you think of others and how much time here to date did you thank you for yourself it's not hard to do you know but this 12 step you know says we can't give it away if we haven't got it i have this thing brian and i were talking about that you guys know the fifth step promises right as we begin to feel the news or created we start to we start to have a spiritual experience before we just had like a sort of a belief now we start to have spiritual experience we begin to have that spiritual experience and uh my gum's drying up in my mouth we begin to have the spiritual experience and so i'm moving from this place to that in the fifth step and I got to turn around now say I've got a guy for a month I've been working with the guy for month I he has to turn now and offer the help to somebody else what help the same help that that Bill Wilson and Bob engaged in the same health that they engaged in in the third person same help they began to do and then started taking people through the work I have to engage it he has the engage in that help and they said oh my god like the guys a month sober what's he gonna tell him how about the first five steps. How about that? How about he tells them just about the first five steps and then stays ahead of him, you know? Don't let him catch up. You know, don't balk at amends and then don't ever do amends. And then he goes, whoop, sails right by you. We've always been the half-blind leading the blind. We're always been the Half-Blind leading the Blind. Nobody here, except for Nicoletta, is fully actualized. Nobody. Alright? The rest of us are always going to be struggling towards that ability. And so we've always been the half-blind leading the blind. And I don't think that... When you look at all of these... Think of the lengths that sometimes people will go to to help somebody else. The miles they'll travel to get in a car. You were talking about your sister's house, right? Just for somebody just to help out. we're not talking about life-saving alcoholism stuff we're talking about being there i'll tell a real quick story and then i'll shut up and i shared it with a couple of guys but i love it and um about a year just just about just before covid we here had a men's retreat up in uh orangeville in north of toronto and uh a bunch of men 60 70 men there and we were ripping it up and on the saturday night a guy named olaf some of you might know olaf a guy name olaf was going to come and share and uh and take us through a little meditation process and uh we got winded his son had overdosed and died and he couldn't make it olaf couldn't make it and we were all devastated we felt horrible for the guy because we're all close so right around just after dinner time the evening was settling in and we're all sort of getting cash and olaf walks in the door and it's like oh my god and we got a chance to get around him and put our arms around him and love on him and all that kind of stuff and scott l walks right in behind him from tennessee this is orangeville canada north of toronto and scotell walks in behind them and i said holy scott what are you doing here and i went up and gave him a hug and said hello and he said well you know marty says how do you word he says you can fake caring but you can't fake showing up that's the 12th step show up that's the 12th step thanks so much guys for a wonderful day I absolutely loved it applause applause applause applause applause applause applause alright, alright thank you everybody