Making Amends – Emotional Sobriety – the Next Step – Part 4 of 4 – Bob D.

the fact they didn't have one she kind of let me know what he was angry about she didn't even have his phone number and so i had his phone number so i said is it okay if you and i say a prayer then i want to give you his phone number and i basically what came out of me was a prayer of forgiveness that what was going on between him and her be healed and then i gave her my son's phone number so that amend is over and done with and And so then what I do is I then go back to my room. I'd called my son's number two or three times. I got an answer machine and he used to say I did not leave a message. You know, hi, this is your dad from 31 years ago. Just call him to say hello. How you doing? But finally on about the third ring, I get him and told him who I was and why I was calling and I needed to make amends. And same thing, do you know who I am? And he said, oh, yeah, because she was very clear with him who I was. She was a good woman, a good person. She wasn't malicious about me. She just basically explained it, I guess, more matter-of-factly to him. And so he and I talked, and we made the amends, and I asked what I could do to clean that up. And he says, well, as far as I know, nothing really. I mean, you know, it's not like you've ever been in my life. He said if you'd like to give me your telephone number and all that stuff, you know that would be cool. And then he used words that I use. He said, but he said, you know, Mark, I just need to sit with this. Those are words I use all the time. And so, you Know, that was that. And those were the last two amends in my book of consciousness, you know, that I owed in terms of being here. All the rest had been cleaned up and I can't even begin to tell you what that feels like. it is that state of consciousness that allows me to be with you to just be myself to love you to love others exactly as they are if I hadn't gone through that process of amends and done all of that I would not have the capacity to love my fellow brother and sister and to have compassion for my fellow brothers and sisters for me amends were such a crucial piece in that whole deal um don't don't miss out on this stuff this is this is just incredible stuff don't let your pride and fear get in the way of the immense process don't make a big deal out of them um you know as i said it's one child of god going to sit down from the other uh to bring about really healing also do not pay any attention to the outcome was i thrown out of some offices um yes Did I need to be? Yes. I remember one of those in particular, I was making amends to the mother of a girl I dated. This woman I think God used as a representative probably for about 50 other amends, and she really got clear with me about what kind of a human being she thought I was. And I left that, and I went to my car, and I touched that, and I just sat and bawled like a baby because I saw where my selfishness and self-centered had taken me and what that did to people, and I needed to touch that. I needed? touch that because I did not want to ever again harm another human being at that level. At that level, I had to touch. Some of them call it repentance. I had I had the touch that I had to feel that I had to know what it was when I took this course of action centered in self and the incredible impact that that has on, you know, on other human beings. But the freedom in my life today with myself, the capacity to be at peace with myself, to not be in judgment of myself. You know, I guess as Popeye said, this is just who I am. And I am very, very comfortable with who I are. I don't have to pretend to be something i'm not anymore um the piece of that see when you finally become real the act of humility means humus grounded see i'm grounded i don't have to pretend to be anything that i'm not and that's what i take and bring into every interaction i have with other people and because i'm that way that gives you the freedom to be that way all these stage characters can just drop away and you and i can both be real and uh that's that's when the connection of love takes place. Love can't take place when you've got a lot of stage characters going on, when you're trying to present something to someone else. See, the other thing that happens when you finally get at that level of peace with yourself, this idea that you're quote, taking risk is no longer operational. You're just here to love people, to try and understand people. You're no longer concerned with whether we're a nation obsessed with do somebody love me? And our obsession needs to be is find someone to love because but my experience is if i don't do this work first of all i will never ever know how much the creator loves me and i know that and it makes it turns me inside out and makes me weep it is not the creator's fault that i am asleep to the creator great love for his creation you see and you do this and you begin to touch that and you then you begin to take that out to other human beings and you begin to have compassion and you began to be a lot less judgmental and all the things that used to separate you from others no longer exist whether it's gender or age or race or they're non-existent you begin To see these are just fellow travelers on the on the path giving it their best shot as well and we help pick each other up when we do that with love and compassion and, you know, an understanding. So that's all I've got on that. Thanks, Mark. The St. Augustine's Prayer Book can be had by Holy Cross Monastery. They have a bookstore there. Their number is... I'll wait for everybody to get their pencils. While you get your pencils... I use cards, three-by-five cards to do amends with. I found that it's a great system for me. It works very well. On the front of the card, I put all the instructions for me, what the big book tells me to be calm, frank, and open, not to be afraid to do the things that I need to do. All the information I need is to find the persons on the front of the cart, their name, their address, their phone number, how to get a hold of them. If I don't know, I write find. All right. There's an example of the cards in your packet, obviously. And I'm not always met. I may not be ready to make the amend. I may Not be willing at this point. So I need to pray for the willingness of some of the instructions. The big book gets so on the top of the card, there's a plus and a minus. So I put them into two stacks. All the ones I'm willing to make are pluses and all the ones I'm Not willing to Make are minuses start with the pluses and I order them easiest to hardest the people that lovely love me the most, right? I agree. My experience is exactly what Mark's is except with one exception. The harm that the deepest harm that I've done is probably my spouse, a person closest to me in the relationship. I hold off on that one with guys until they've got some experience making amends because they need all the tools because they're walking into a firestorm. It's going to be a firefight, you know, and I don't want the guy to walk in to that as his first demand and then say, man, if that's what they're like, I'm never touching another one of these deals. Go to a grandmother or grandfather, somebody that loves you unconditionally that's going to make it easy. And you get the juice from that. You get the high of, wow, I'm free of that little piece. Maybe the next one won't be so bad. And then they go, wow. That was cool. Then they go to the next on. And they're progressively getting harder and they've got to even notice it. He's going, wow! And by the time he comes to do the really hard ones, it's like, whoa, this is cool. And the next thing you know, he looks at all the minuses and all of a sudden they're all pluses because he's like this isn't bad. What was I thinking? These are pluses. And boom, he goes through. Plus, it's a way for me as a sponsor to track his ass. Hey, Rasheed, what am I going to mend you on? I'm on number eight. Three weeks later, hey, Rasheeed, what am i going to amend you on ? I'm a number eight . We're having a conversation because he's missed. He has lost the connection to step one. He's forgotten that this has something to do with whether he's going to drink again or not. And if he balks and says he's not going to drink, I am known for this and if it offends you, I'm sorry but I am not beyond sitting down at a table and putting a bottle of booze in front of him and saying which is easier? And if he still doesn't react, I'll take the cap off and say, take a whiff of that. What's easier? Because I care enough about him not to kill him. You know? Life and death stuff. The most missed word in all of the 12 steps is the last word of the eighth step. All. If you do 99 out of 100 amends, you have not worked the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because you're living a lie. That's it. That's the truth. If it hurts your feelings, I'm sorry. But that's the truth. You've got to do this. It's a full deal. Soup to nuts. You've Got to Do the Whole 100%. Or you won't know whether Alcoholics Anonymous will work. Because if you go get drunk and you say, Well, I made my amends. I have that all the time. I work with retreads. They come back to me and say, That program doesn't work. And I ask them one question and I nail them every time. Did you finish your amends? Yeah, I finished my amens. And I said, Every one of them? Well, there's always a couple left. And almost always they're financial, you know, because they don't believe that God is everything or he's nothing. Well, I smashed a crashing airplane. I owe $3.7 million for that. God's everything or He's nothing, you Know? Maybe you'll be paying on it for the rest of your life, but you'll be sober. What's the deal? Phone number. Holy Cross Monastery, 845-384-6660. you get a voicemail system you plug in you ask for the bookstore leave a message and they'll get back to you yeah I noticed the number 666 right 845 384 6660 there's I was just informed by Barefoot Bill he says there's a bookstore right down the street from them called Esoterica Books and they have it it's probably a quicker and easier way to get it 845 255 5777 and it's St. Augustine's Prayer Book I know the Holy Cross Monastery also has a website you just search on the internet, look up Holy Cross MonasterY, plug into the bookstore that way to get a copy of that if you're looking for the Sacrament of Penance so when I'm here in a fifth step I have a blank piece of paper one of the things I do when the guy is telling me all these stories of who he harmed he's telling me about his girlfriend right his high school girlfriend and how he got drunk on her and and uh you know abused her and did all this terrible stuff what i'm writing down on my piece of paper is girlfriend's parents because when it comes to his eight step list he's going to forget that he upset her so much she was a teenager in that household guess what that entire household was put on its head because i did it i've done that i had to go back to my girlfriend's friends from high school and say, hey, I really ripped your household apart. That's one of the ones they threw me out on my ass. They didn't want me to have anything to do with them ever again. The amends process will pay off in spades. It just keeps giving and giving and given. It's delightful. I can't say enough about it. But it's one less deal. Go do it. What does a rose smell like? How do you describe the smell of a rose? Go smell a rose, and then all I have to do is come back to you and say it smells like a rose. And everybody goes, ah, I know what that is. That's the ninth step. That's The Deal. I have received a lot of questions about surrogate amends. What am I talking about? People that can't be seen, for whatever reason, I use a surrogat. I write them an honest letter as if they're sitting right in front of me, the exact same amend that I normally would. On the back side of the amends card, when you look in your packet, there's three questions that I ask. First, start out with, I'm here. I don't say I'm hier because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don' t want to give AA a black eye. I come here and I say, I' m here on a spiritual path and I'm trying to clean up my life to live better. If they ask, well, tell me about this deal more, then maybe I'll reveal I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous, but I don''t lead with I'm in AA. And then I say I' M clear on this harm. I know I've caused you A, B, C, D, whatever it happens to be. Is there any other harm I may have caused you that I don't know? Because I'm not arrogant enough to think, I know exactly what the cause is. I know how it was you. I know that. No. And all of a sudden, because I'm a blackout drinker, sometimes you get to laugh. They start laughing. You think that's the harm? Wait a minute. Let me tell you the harm you caused me, mister. Boom. Question number two. Do you need to tell me how any of this hurt you? Right? You've caused the harm. You've got the key to unlock their heart. You've spent months and months working on this stuff to do all the spiritual work to heal yourself. And the other person is going to heal right before your eyes. So you may just have to shut up and listen and just get in. Here comes a firestorm, and they just puke on you for 35 minutes. You son of a... And they just boom, boom, Boom, boom. And they tell you exactly what a scumbag you are and how you hurt them. And then finally, you look them in the eye with love, and you say, Is there any way that I can straighten this out? How can I fix this? And they've just purged all this poison that's been sitting inside them. You've just killed their emotional banker. He's gone. You just cashed in the IOU and all the interest. And they'll look at you, and they'll tell you, and you'll hear God speak through there from them. And you'll get up, and you're going to be like, and you give each other a hug, and he'll give you a kiss, and he will say, thank you so much. I appreciate you for coming to see me. What a touching thing. And you walk out the door. And that's a person that was ready to kill you when you walked in the door? I'm telling you, it pays off in spades. It's a wonderful deal. just keeps giving. It's a, it is so cool. So what do you do with this amends card? If you got this letter, I write it just like I write an amends guard. Same questions go on there. I can't read it to the person that I want to, for whatever reason, I'm going to create a harm in doing it or they're dead. Yeah. They can't be seen, right? They're dead." So what did I do? I get somebody that reminds me of them. I grabbed a woman last year because I had some amends I wanted to make to my grandmother. My grandmother was an English teacher and this woman is a, was an editor, her, I think for New York times. She had the same linguistic background. You know, she just had, it reminded me of my grandma. So I sat her down. I don't go do spiritual work with women without my wife's knowledge. So he asked my wife said, honey, I got these amends I need to make. Can I have this woman over to the house when you're home? And I'll sit on one side of the house and do these amens. And she said, sure. So Cass comes over to my house. I sit down and we pray together and I said, I want you to sit in for my grandmother. This is who my grandmother was. I gave her a kind of a background of what age she was and when the harm occurred and some of my relationship with my grandmother, then I read it to her as if she is my grandmother. And she's in the mindset, if I was his grandmother and my grandson came to me and did this to me, how would I feel? And she opens up her mind and I swear to you, it was as if my grandmother was sitting there at the table talking to me. She shared stuff. She had no way of knowing what she was going to share. She's like, I don't know why I feel to tell you this stuff And she starts talking about stuff that only my grandmother and I knew had been between the two of us. She says, if you had done this to me, here's how I would have felt, and this is what I would want you to do. Boom. On the card, you'll notice there's an A after the three questions. That's for the answer. We get alcoholic amnesia. They tell us what they want us to do to make it right, and as soon as you walk out and the door closes behind you, you forget it. Whip out the card. Write it down. The other reason for a three-by-five card is it fits in your pocket. If you start to choke and your mind goes blank, you can always whip it out and, oh yeah, this is the amendment. This is what I meant so you don't forget anything to clean this stuff up. So I write the information down. Now I've admitted to God, admitted to myself, and to another human being, the surrogate. Now I go to a place where I feel spiritually connected to them, my grandmother. I go and I park the car right in front of her house where she used to live when she was alive, and I make that amend. Six months transpires. I'm still feeling a little disconnected from my grandma. I can't figure out why. So I grabbed that letter and I drive to her grave and the sun is setting. It was one of those really nice days or this spring and it was warm and everything. It was just gorgeous. It was like 70 degrees in March. It was a really bizarre day and as the sun was setting, I sat there and started talking to my grandmother and grandfather. I read that and meant again and I just sat there until the sun went down. I don't know. It was an hour, maybe two hours. I don' t know how long I was there at the grave when i finished that my grandmother came back into my life i used to call her up and say hey grandma put on the kettle i'm coming over for a cup of tea and i'd drive over her house by the time i could get from my house to her house the kettle would be boiling and she'd be ready to have tea with me i never realized it but after she died for six years i hadn't been drinking tea I was almost a daily tea drinker. I'm back drinking tea. I can smell my grandmother now. Ever walk along? It just triggers the memory, she is with me today and she's been dead for eight years now. She's back in my life. We don't ever die. We're with. Our legacy is not how much money we made or the business. Who cares if you were at work until 5.30 every night or 7.30 every night? It doesn't make a hoot of difference. Our legacy is left in the hearts of the people we touch when we're dead and gone and we will live forever in those people's hearts because they're going to touch other people's arts and our love. Life is a pool. You throw a hurt stone into that pool and you send out hurt ripples everywhere and they ricochet off the shore of the pool and they come right back at you and you get hurt. When you're angry and resentful and you're walking through life, guess what? People sense that in you, who are angry and resentful, and you have fights with them. I haven't had to have fistfights since I've been in A, I don't think, and onto my memory. You know? But people will sense my anger and then they're angry back. When I'm showering people with love, they shower love back. You can throw a happy, a love stone into the pool, the love will radiate out and radiate right back at you. That's what you guys are. You're mirrors. That's why I'm here today. That's where Step 9 is about. Cleaning this stuff up so you can live daily on a daily basis. The power of surrogate amends cannot be underestimated. And I know if you're sitting in here and you're questioning, you're going, this guy is full of shit. If you don't have any experience with it, you have absolutely no leg to stand on. And I can name at least a dozen people in this room that will tell you that it has changed their very life. A guy I know, last week or two weeks ago, his father was murdered in front of his eyes. It was a mafia hit. Boom! His father is dead. Five years old. He completely disconnected from his dad. He has not been able to have a healthy relationship with any woman in his entire life. He starts to touch that stuff because some of the work we started to do together. He makes amends to his current girlfriend. It's time to make amends to his father. Goes to the grave. He has a conversation with his dad and he said he could feel himself getting pulled into the ground. put his head on the tombstone. Couldn't pick his head up. He could feel his father. His father was reaching up. He could see his father and he could feel the love of his dad. Today, his dad is back in his life. You don't believe this stuff works? I'll give you his number. You can talk to him personally. You can look into his eyes. There's no question. This deal works. I don't care who harmed you or who you harmed. It's a two-edged sword. You harm somebody, you've got to make amends to them. They harmed you, you are a prisoner of your emotional banker. You're going to have to go make amens somehow for that deal. A guy called me on the telephone. Excuse me, a guy comes to me up here and says, My family has now moved to Miami. Is it okay to make that amend over the phone? One word answer, did you hurt him over the telephone? If the booze was in Miami and it was broken glass from here to Miami, I guarantee he'd have crawled across that broken glass to get to Miami because he's a real alcoholic. Piece of cake. If it's possible to see somebody face-to-face, I see them face-To-face. They don't want to see me, I use a surrogate. I clean this stuff up. There's ways to do it. And if you run into a jam, email me. I'll answer the question for you. You have to be working with somebody else. Do not go into amends by yourself. It's usually the person that heard your fifth step because they know the deal. They know more about the deal than anybody else. Have them work with you through the amends process because they will see harms that you are blind to. That's why when I started talking my amends over with Mark, he says, no, no. Don't go to that person you scumbagged. You're going to create a harm. I was blind to it. I would not have seen that harm. He says, go to everybody else that you scum bagged and clean it up there. There's other ways to make amends to thatpersonthatyouscumbaggeds. And I will be making amends for that person. That person right now does not want to talk to me. That's okay. And if they continue to not want to talk to me, man, we will make amends another way. I will get a surrogate. I will go through this process. I will be clean. I will do it again. I will feel free. That's eight and nine. That's the deal. I wish I had more time to talk about it, but you guys got the essence of what I'm... If you're not touched by what we just shared here, you're non-human. You know? Love is inside you. To not be touched by this stuff, you are submarine and so bad, it's just waiting to explode. I'll give you 20 bucks, the bar is down the street, go get it over with. Go drink, get beaten bad enough to come in here and be willing to do whatever it takes to clean up your life. It's that friggin' important. Let me kick it back to Mark for 10 and 11. Mark, alcoholic. A couple more comments on that. And I'll give you an example. There's some amends. The best thing you can do is find someone who has experience, and I'll use my Vietnam experience. You get to the ninth step, so what do you do about this? What I did is I went and found a Vietnamese church, and there was a Vietnamese priest in there, And I made that amend with the Vietnamese priest. And then he suggested something to me. Some of you are familiar with Thach Nha Hanh, who is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. And then, of course, out of that thing, he gave me the name of Thach Nahan. And then since then, of course, I've bought many of his books and his practices have been so incredibly helpful to me. So there's a course of action you can take behind any kind of harm that you put out. I'll tell you an amend that I was asleep to for many years was the amend to Mother Earth, which is a living organism. i had littered and at any rate uh it became very clear i'd created harm there so it's called well what do you do uh well uh gosh for several years yeah now i suppose it's about once a month i just take a large garbage can or sack with me and i start walking the streets uh i don't uh throw trash out the windows and and uh you know but there's there's different things that come to you over time. When you start to realize there's nothing but oneness and everything's living, moving, and breathing in you, you just start to get a sense of all those things. So like Dave said, just do it. Okay, let's talk about 10 and 11. We do the work in 1 through 9 so that we can enter the world of the spirit and awaken to the fact that There's a fourth dimension, our beingness, our awakened spirit, if you will. And we get to take that part of us into our doing, if You will. I was so asleep for a long time to the tenth step. Today when I look at it, there's two pages in the big book and I think there's four or five paragraphs. you will find in meetings that we talk about only really one of the paragraphs, the first one, because you've got the short form, right? Continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong. There is so much more to that step. It is absolutely unbelievable. You know, it talks about having entered the world of the Spirit. And one of things I like to do with a lot of the 10-step sentences, if you will, as a tool is sit with that and say, do I have an experience with that? Do I know what that means to have entered the world of the Spirit? You heard me make a statement last night. I've so often tried to think of what it would be like to get a new drunk coming in and the topic of the meeting was share what it's like having entered the World of the Spirit versus when you came in here drinking and puking. discussions around these kinds of topics I think would do amazing things to increase our membership and keep people around but it follows and says your next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness in what? I think Dave so aptly described the growth and understanding and effectiveness in every area of his life the use of the traditions and the concept so you take that spiritual being that awakened spirit which is basically love that we've been talking about all weekend into every area of your life. And consequently, you'll begin to grow in both understanding and effectiveness in every single area of Your life because now You have tapped into that unsuspected inner resource, the great reality deep down within. And then it begins to give you some practices, if you will. Dave talked about off the beam. The ten-step practices are just designed to keep you on the beam One of those practices is watch. Watch is a spiritual practice. That's a word that you could take and just work with for a long, long period of time. Watch yourself during the course of the day, minute by minute. For what? Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And then it says ask. God at once to remove it. Ask is a spiritual tool. It's a spiritual practice. Practice asking. Ask. Another book says the problem is not in receiving. The problem is in asking. And then he talks about turn. Resolutely turn. Turn is a spiritual practice. What does that mean? The egos gather where the mind goes. The goal of turning is to turn away from yourself, get the force away from oneself. You could work with turn. Just practice turning. Something happens, you start to get upset, turn. Turn to someone you can help. Love and tolerance of others becomes my code. You can practice that. tolerance becomes my code what does that mean a code is the way in which i live my life the definition of tolerances is amazing basically what it says is is mark can you can you love someone exactly as they are even if you completely disagree with them love and tolerance of others becomes a code it becomes a way of life and then you begin to practice that see if you don't if you don' t begin to practise these things you won' t be able to know whether or not they're going to work in your life. If you take the word love and tolerance of others as a code and begin to just say, take that either into your family or just into your workplace. Just work with that one sentence and you're goingto start to see how much practice you need. You see, what you do speaks aloud. I cannot hear a word you say. Don't pay any attention to what your mind tells you. Take the practice, watch yourself and see whether or not in fact you can do that. um i've ceased fighting anything or anybody dash even alcohol that is a spiritual practice my experience is the extent to which i am resisting is the intent to which my selfishness is still in play in in this universe the way it is is the way it is so it talks about i've seized fighting anything or anybody, dash even alcohol. And you work with that. You just begin to work with it. Everywhere you go, in your groups and at home, cease fighting. The way it is is the way it ist. Quit trying to change the way tt is. Get in complete acceptance with the way i t is. Cease fighting. We've done some relationship stuff. If someone's in your life and don't want to be in your live anymore, cease fighting! God has your best interests at heart, including taking things out of your life that are not in your best interest anymore. Men and women of faith have courage. They trust their God. You know, God giveth, God taketh away. I mean, that's how the whole thing works. Cease fighting anything or anybody. Stop resisting. I always, to me, it's interesting about the concept of love because what does the face of love really look like? And I'll use the example of a relationship. If you're in a relationship with someone and they tell you they don't want to be in it anymore, what do you think the face of love looks like? God bless you. Go in peace. God bless. You go in peace going to your own experience. How often do you get a chance? How often you practice that thing? And it goes on and talk about that. And then the book shifts you into alcohol and it starts to talk about the fact that you and I have been restored to sanity. Soundness of mind. You know what sanity is to a real alcoholic? Your mind says it would be nice to take a drink, and sanity is a part of you says, that's a very funny idea. Restoration of sanity. That's what it looks like. And it goes on to say that you and I have been placed there. It's a miracle. It's an attitude. We've been placed in a position of neutrality. I don't go around fighting off the demon called alcohol. I've been placed in a position of neutrality. It says a miracle, it was a gift, it was given to me. You do what the book asks you to do in the first nine steps and you get placed there. You don't place yourself there. It says I'm given a new attitude around alcohol. You know what the attitude is? That's poison to me! See? That's poisoning. I have a new altitude. I recoil as though from a hot flame, but it says it happens automatically. And I don't have to do anything to bring that thing about. It goes on to say the problem has been removed. Has been removed at that time, see? Said it no longer exists and then asks you a great question. Is that your experience? See, is that your experienced? If you're taking this course of action, there's little litmus tests all along the steps to see whether or not you've had the experience that the work should have brought about. And one of them is by the time you get to the tenth step and ask, Is that your experience? If you're not in a position of neutrality around alcohol, if you don't recoil from a hot flame, then something's been missed somewhere. If you can't begin to practice love and tolerance is my code, if you can'T begin to cease fighting, something's BEEN MISSED. Right? Go back, rework it, redo it, that kind of a thing. And then it's got the paragraph where I think it's the only place the book does this. It says it's easy to let up in the spiritual program of action that brought you to this place and rest on your laurels. How many of you here know what laurels are, according to a dictionary? Okay, I'm not going to tell you. I want you to go... Listen, see, this is how we are. It's easy to let up in the spiritual program of action and rest it on your laurels, but it goes on to say you shouldn't do that or you're going to die. And you guys don't even know what Laurels are. Go back, get a dictionary, and look up Laurels. This is back to... Here's what looking up words. My inventory revealed I was so arrogant that I think I know what words mean. It's kind of like one of my major defects was I wanted to give you my opinion on experiences I never had and then argue about the experience I never had. Basically, my body can't live off the food I ate last week. I'm not sitting here sober today based on anything I did yesterday. That's the simplicity of laurels. Why is it important you understand that because i don't care if you're sitting here today sober i don' t care how long you're sober what you did yesterday has no value relative to your fifth spiritual condition today if you don't understand what laurels are you won't understand that and you'll think you're going to stay sober off an old experience or meeting you went to last wednesday you understand what i just said it said so then it goes on to say that you and i are given a daily reprieve based on fit spiritual condition. Now, I've told you this before. If God, if their creator was all this was about, the big book would be one page long and say the creator keeps you sober, have a good life. But it's not what I discovered along the way is that I'm responsible for fit spiritual condition, not God, which is back to the disciplines. I am responsible for setting my alarm clock, getting up, reading these books that I read, doing my prayer, doing my meditation. I'm responsible for writing the inventory, for making the amends. Nobody's going to do it for me. I'm responsibly for fit spiritual condition. See, it's such a trap saying, well, God keeps you sober. Because if that's true, then you don't have to do anything. Do you understand? It says if I believe the book and I do, it says I stay sober because I'm in fit spiritual condition, there's no other reason. And the book has showed me how to get there, 10 and 11 are how to stay there. How to stay in fit spiritual condition and continue to grow within your spiritual experience. Then it goes on to talk about how can I best serve thee, thy will not mine be done. And then it's an interesting paradox that says along this line we can do anything we want. See, the 10th step for me is about the line of the will. The line ofthewill. you do this work in the first nine steps you in essence are going through the death of self-will you experience a lot more of God moving through you demonstrating through you and you take that out into your day the line of the will the lineof God's will being demonstrated through you like the book told us what happened and during the course of the day you get a little off track there's a little story for me that sums up my tenth step But if you're in the middle of the street and there's an 18-wheeler coming, that is not the time to analyze why you're there. Get your ass out of the Street and analyze it at night. That's what the 10-step is. I use the 10 step as I'm being moved through my day. It's not a tool to be analyzed. It's a tool to keep me going along with the line of the will to see when I get off the line of the will and into self, and then I get back in line again. That's what all those ten-step tools are. Watch, ask, turn, cease, neutrality. How can I serve Thee, Thy will? Line of the Will. It goes on to tell you that you've now developed a new sixth sense. When was the last time you went to a meeting and the topic was, please share how you use your new sixth senses? Right? See, I don't know if they do this in New York, but it's fairly common anymore. Who has a problem, right? Or who has a topic. I'm throwing out some great topics for you to really mess up meetings here. Who has a topic? I would like you to share your experience with how you used your new sixth sense today. What? The guy's dropping acid. It's in the book. You don't have to believe me. It's In the Tenth Step. It says you have a new sixth sense. That's that fourth dimension. And you get to work with this new sixth sensed in the course of the day. Dave and I have had that happen all weekend long. You go here, and a party says, no, go here. Or someone comes up and asks you a question, okay, say this. Or that's the new sixth sense. Call this person. Do this. Don't do this. That's your new sixth sens, and you get to work with this thing. Don't eat that. Go here. Go to bed. That's a new sixth sen, and then you get back to practice that piece. Eleven Step covers two things. It covers an evening review. Bill, being a good alcoholic, either that or he liked to stay up late, started the 11th step with the evening review. And there are a bunch of questions in there. A lot of other disciplines that I read talk about the benefit of self-observation or self-analysis, and that's really what we get to do. I don't make my evening review too simple or too complex. I write it out. I just answer those questions. Was I resentful, selfish, dishonest, and afraid? I have found that if I start with the last thing I did and go back, it's easier for me to make my list. So I do. I just sit there. I close my eyes. Was I resentful? And I go back through the day. Was I selfish? I go Back Through the Day. Was I afraid? And I Go Back Through My Day. And if I see something, then I write that. Then it goes on to this series of other questions in there. Do I owe an apology? I goback to, uh-oh, I was short here. I was here, here. And I write those down because that's going to dovetail into the corrective action I'm going to take the next morning. It goes on to talk about, was I thinking of myself most of the day? And I love this one. This is a great thing to practice. Was I kind and loving toward all? What a great, what a great way to start. What a good thing to be a great person to practice with. See, here's the benefit of the evening review. You do it enough times, you'll start practicing being kind and loving toward al. You don't think they meant toward all, do you? and you answer those questions and then toward the end of those questions it says Mark, you must be careful not to drift into worry, future remorse, past or morbid reflection this moment for that renders you useless. Once again at this point the book is doing everything in the world that it can to get the light off of yourself if you will and to get it on other people and it warns you to avoid worry the future, remorse the past You know, I didn't realize this, but you know remorse is spiritual pride? I didn'T understand that. I got that out of a book and I sat with that for a while and I would have never realized that. If I'm remorseful in anything I've ever done, that is spiritual Pride. You know how? You know why? Because that part of me thinks it's God should have never made a mistake and I shouldn't have done it in the first place. So it becomes spiritual Pride And then it talks about then, well, you make a list of your corrective action, You ask God's forgiveness. Go to bed and you sleep. And then, of course, you get all the instructions for upon awakening. You get up. You consider your plans for the day. I always have those written out. I dovetail my corrective actions in. Then I begin to go. The 11th step talks to you and I a lot about our thought life. Our thought life And I think there's a reason it talks to us about our thoughts life. Most of my actions stem from my thoughts life So you better start paying attention to your thoughts life Because one of the ways in which I create is through my thoughts. Because the thoughts will ultimately lead to actions. I do those prayers, of which there's several in there. It talks about if you have to make a decision. I pray for inspiration, intuition, right thought, right action. And then I do a very radical thing for a guy like me. I relax and take it easy. See? So you go through the day. You get moved through the way. You move through the line of the will. Just move through the day. You hit a little snag, whatever. By the way, those kids used to say that all the time. It used to make me angry and I realized that's one of the most spiritual words I've ever heard. Whatever. Because it means I've ceased fighting anything or anyone. Right? He says he wants to leave. Whatever. Lost the job. Whatever. Late for the... Whatever. Cease fighting anything you're anyone. I have an altar and above, a friend of mine sent me. It's a big neon sign, whatever. But it's a spiritual practice. I've ceased fighting anything or anyone. More tools to use during the day? Pause when agitated or doubtful. You've got to be awake to pause. If you're like me, when I started to work with that, I would be in the middle of the tornado before pause even hit me. And I wouldbe into action and couldn't stop myself. But so you have to practice with it. The book says, many times throughout the day, thy will not mine be done. Line of the will. 10 and 11 are so interwoven like a tapestry for me. From the time I get up, walk out of my house to the time I get home. Incredible things you can practice with till the day you die. That's what they are. The strict spiritual disciplines of the 10th and 11th step because we're undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way. A couple more comments and then done. and I've had a daily meditation life since late 91 or early 92. If you said to me, what is the most important practice in your life? I would tell you meditation. If you told me, Mark, I'm in a position where there's only one thing I can do, what is it? I would say meditation. I would call you meditation was a meditation that I came to know God. It was a medication that I became to understand that I'm a being, that I'm a spirit. It's in meditation I begin to really connect with the sixth sense. It's In Meditation I begin to get free of fear. I kept that simple. I told you I went and bought a timer I realized I was going to do it two times a day for ten minutes. Current practice two times a day twenty-four minutes right now I happen to be listening to a Theta Metronome. I do it. That's my deal. I do it. I don't talk about it I do it. What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear a word you say. I'm like Dave in that respect. I look at your feet. See, I just look at your feet, are you doing it? This happens to me all the time when I talk about meditation is you get these tons of questions or whatever and then I'll say to people tell you what, you go buy a timer and you meditate every day for 30 days and then you call me. I've hardly ever been called which tells me they didn't do it. It doesn't make any difference to me. You see, I do it if I meditate today I win, if I didn't meditate, I lose. How much of God do I want to know? I'm not the most intelligent guy, but it's very difficult for me to read anything that's spiritually based from any religion or any discipline where I don't see something about meditation. I don'T believe all these people are wrong. I just DON'T believe it. The Bible says, Be still and know I am God. It doesn't say be still and believe that I am God. Be still and know that I am God If you're not doing meditation, I beg of you to begin to work with meditation. It will change your life. It will changed how you experience life, if you will. That's all I got. Just a couple quick things. I'm passing the seventh tradition again for the extra copies we had printed up last night for the traditions and the concepts, and there's extra steel and steels back there. I wrote a four-page guide for 10 and 11 on how to live 10 and 11 as a way of life so those of you that have a computer email me if you want it I'll send it to you I go into nauseating detail how specifically how to take steps 10 and11 and piece them together and it'll answer a lot of what of what what you guys need to hear A couple quick things. One of the guys, I was hoping to bring this up because I figured he knew he had an early flight. He just left. So I didn't want to say this while he was here, but he'll hear it when he hears the tape because it's pretty powerful. The guy that I did the fifth step with in the closet down in Dulles Airport has been here all weekend. And he was a shoe man when I met him. When I met Him, He looked at my feet. He couldn't look me in the eye. And you know the fifth step promises that Mark talked about after the fifth step promises? One of the first promises you'll get is that you'll be able to look the world in the eye. After he fifth stepped, he still looked at my shoes, and I just stood there. And slowly, he said, thank you. He shook my hand. He's looking at my shoe, and his eyes came up. And he looked me square in the eyes. And once he looked into the windows of my soul, then he threw his arms out with tears running down his face. that's the power of the fifth step alright a couple things I forgot to throw in for the ninth step if you're going to make an amend to somebody like your mother and you start digging into this stuff the harms you caused your mother and she says you know what I really don't want to talk about this I don't wanna dig up the past just know that I love you guess what stop you're creating another harm remember the fifth-step rule be hard on yourself and always considerate of others alright that's it that's how we deal if you still feel all jammed up about it go get a surrogate and do it with the surrogat and you can tell the surragate all that crap clean that stuff up all right second don't swap amends my experience if i'm coming to you to make amends if it's something simple like i do this week i swapped amends with about six guys but it wasn't anything really i wasn't huge harm if you know you guys know what i mean by i mean if you got some serious real estate to cover let them know you're coming to make amends for your side of the street and tell them up front. And I'm not going to be talking about anything else that's transpired between us. I'm here to come in here and if you want to have that conversation on another day, we'll do that on another Day. You're going to clean up your side Of The Street because if they start reciprocating amends, it's really easy for your ego to jump in and start justifying because now you can't tell whether you're there to talk about your side The Street or you're hearing their side Of The Street and you can really create harm doing that. That's my experience. Three, if you're making amends to an alcoholic and it's something important, we are flight or fight creatures. If you catch me off guard, I'm either going to fight with you or I'm going to run like a son of a bitch. So don't just walk up to me and blindside me and say, oh, babe, I got this amend for you and then start pouring your soul out of it, this terrible harm. Call me up, make an appointment. And the other thing is, don't surprise me. Don't say, hey, Dave, let's get together for a cup of coffee. So I think we're having a cup o' coffee. And next, you know, you start pouring yourself out of your mind and pouring your guts out to me. I say, Dave, I've caused harm to you and I want to set up an appointment for an amend. And I say great, come on over and have a cup of coffee. Now I know I'm having a cup o' coffee and an amend so I can get myself spiritually centered so if I'm havin' a bad day I don't go and eat you new lunch and chew your head off. I'm known for that, for rippin' your head of and crappin' down your throat. If I'm not spiritual I have a violent side to me that, you guys, you heard my inventory. I can be way off the beam at times. now i need everybody's help we're all hungry it's getting late we got a couple things to cover what i'd like to do is take only a five minute pee break go out be back here at five minutes of and i'm serious go smoke a quick butt do it fast and then i'm going to take us through a guided meditation jump through step 12 and we'll all go home and get something to eat all right so be back in five minutes okay somebody said to me uh what do you do when you call somebody in the program and you leave a message and they don't return. You say, I want to call up. I've got an amendment I need to make to you. I use the rule of three. I make three attempts to contact them. Beyond that, it's my ego. I'm forcing it. God is saying not yet. So the answer is not yet I hold off. I have violated that rule in the past and it's brought me some trouble. So I try to use three shots. Three strikes and I'm out. If it's still eating me up inside, go do a surrogate. And then if six months down the road they change their mind and they call you up and say, I'm ready to talk with you now, then go do it face-to-face. Your spirit's already clean so it's going to cost you nothing. As a matter of fact, you're going to get a gift out of it. It'll be a jewel, a wonderful jewel. What I wanted to do with you today is I'm real big on not telling you. I'm really big on showing you. Mark talked about 10 and 11. in my mind the reason that the nightly inventory comes first is because you use the nightley inventory you need the information that came out of the harms you did yesterday in order to clean it up for today so when you go through those 12 questions and I know the big book lawyer is going to say there's only 11 questions I split one of the questions in half from experience kind and loving if my in my mind I'm kind to everybody yet I'm driving down the road and the voices are in my head are that fucking asshole I can't believe jerk off and that's what that's the voice that's in my head I'm not being real loving am I but I'm still there's a lot of red faces all of a sudden nobody else does that except me right then I've failed on loving you know I do not get through a day virtually without being resentful dishonest self-seeking afraid I mean if you get through those questions all come up nope didn't do it didn't deal with something's wrong you're missing yourself you're deluded alright For relationship purposes, I do these questions now with my wife. You want intimacy into me-see? You do it with somebody else that you love. You've got to remember they're your best friend and they're your lover and they'RE your partner. It's just like steel on steel. You cannot defend yourself. So if I'm looking at my wife and I'm saying, honey, yeah, I was resentful today and I was resentment for you because you did ABCD. She knows that she will not comment on that. I'm just letting down the wall so she can see what's on my plate for how I did my feelings today. And she does the same thing to me, you know, and she may say, you go on for five minutes. Yeah, you hurt me here. You hurt me. Here you hurt me, here you hurt be here. And I got a bite in my tongue. Even if I think she's completely out of her frigging mind, I didn't, I wasn't even in a room when that happened. You know, I bite my tongue into me. See, she's given me a gift to let me see what's inside her wall period you know and uh if if i fail on any of those questions and i clean it up the next day if i was resentful i write a four column inventory the next morning and i go clean it off i fist step it and get rid of the fears you know if i was dishonest i walk up to you stick looking in the eye and i say you know what i lied a bold ass lie to your face i can't explain it there's no excuse for it did this hurt you a and how can i clean it you go through the deal you know i do have a problem like me with dishonesty you start doing that guess what your ego will work for you your ego does not hollywood does not want to look bad very short order you will stop lying you may still lie unconsciously i mean there's a lot of times that i will i will tell a bold ass lie but it's unconscious i'm not doing it on purpose it's happening and if i catch it on inventory i go and i make amends as hard as that is and it's brutal with because your ego saying you got this much sobriety i can't believe you still do that stuff you know and that's the same voice that's going to say it's okay to pick up that drink. It's not going to hurt you this time, Dave. So one last thing on the ninth step and then I'm going to go through a guided meditation that will change because I don't believe in telling you, I believe in showing you. So I'm gonna show you what I do currently with 10 and 11. On page 18 of the big book, people come to me and they got 14 harms and I've heard their fifth step, right? That's the key. I've hear their fifth said i got 14 harms and i go how many people in your family well i got seven brothers and sisters and i Go okay there's seven mom and dad eight nine got grandparents yeah 10 11 12 13 you got any friends more than one friend yeah i think we got more than 14 harms what does the book say it says an illness of this sort we have come to believe that an illness involves those about us in a way other human sicknesses can if a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt, but not so with the alcoholic illness. For with it there goes annihilation of all things worthwhile in life. It engulfs what? All whose lives touch the sufferers. If you were drinking and you had any kind of interface with somebody, chances are there was a harm you projected there because you were a walking frigging harm. You know that that's you know there's a spanky and in peanuts you know the dust cloud you just kind of that's what we're like we just get that dust cloud if we we come anywhere near anybody we're projecting a harm and they're going to get some on them think of that that's why i use the tornado exercise start in your family and rotate out family aunts uncles cousins brothers sisters and work it out into the work life into your church or you know did you stand up and scumbag at a deacon meeting and really create a hassle over there you don't even belong to that church anymore when you've forgotten all about it how how free do you want to be all right enough on nine step uh 84 to 88 i do it every day and what i've started to do my prayer life became stale my meditation life became stail i had to figure out a way instead of you know god i offered myself to me to build with me as well you know just reading the stuff it was rote it was boring and some days there was passion to it and i could feel it and it was good and other days it was literally that fast And the next thing you know, I'm in the shower. God, I offer myself to thee. The next thing I know, I'm driving down the highway. I'm not even taking the time to spend the time with God. I'm doing something else and pretending I'm praying and meditating at the same time. Look at my feet. What are my actions dictating? You can't do two things at once. Don't be in the car and try to convince yourself you're having good prayer and meditation life. It doesn't work. I've done it for years. It doesn'T work. So what do I do? I get up early, however early I need to get to spend at least an hour with God in the morning. And here's what I do. And I say, Father, I appreciate the gifts you've brought into my life from the promises. And I understand that I have to continue to take personal inventory. So, Father please help me to continue taking personal inventory and help me continue to set right any mistakes as I go along. And Father please, help me vigorously commence this way of life. Make this a fabric of my life and help to do this as I'm going through life. you've helped me so much Father but please help me to correct any harms that I've put out and help me clean up my past even if it's the distant past I don't remember it Father please bring it to the surface so I can clean that up because I want to be the best most effective instrument for you that I can possibly be I've entered the world of the Spirit Father please help us please help to grow in understanding of the world of the spirit please help me to be effective in the world of the spiritual I know I can't understand and be effective without your help Father I need you Please come to me. And God, I understand this is not an overnight matter. It's going to take the rest of my life. So Father, please help me to continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, self-seeking and fear. Help me to be conscious, awake and aware. And Father, come to Me and bring Your Son with You. And help me understand the Holy Spirit. Bring in all the saints and Muhammad and Buddha. Every spiritual creature that has ever been. Bring that energy into my life and help me be conscious and present in the moment and help me to watch for my ego, to drag me into the past with remorse or resentment or to drag ??? into the future with my fears of what's going to come down the pipe. And Father, if those resentments and those character defects come up in my life, help me immediately to share those with someone else and helpme to make amends as quickly as possible. The moment I find out that I've created a harm, helpme clean that up, Father. And Father helpme at that point to turn, to turn to you God and help me to be what you want me to be. Turn my thoughts towards you and my actions. Most importantly Father help me have the power that I need to take the actions to correct what I've created. And Father love and tolerance of others is in my code. Now I use key words in here. The word love jumps off the page at me. That reminds me to go back to the nine step prayer. Flip the page back to 83. On 83 end of the first paragraph it says asking each morning in meditation that the creator show us the way of patience tolerance It's kindliness and love, right? That's an instruction. I should be praying the nine-step prayer every day. If you're not, there it is. If you've got a family member, you owe this prayer as part of your sobriety. But notice what it says. Ask the Creator to show us the way. Do a meditation. Sit down and think of what does it look like to be patient? I'm real big on vision. What does the way of patience look like? What does it feel like? What does The Way of Tolerance look like?" And I go into a meditation right there. I stop and I'm thinking about patience, tolerance, kindness, and love. What does that look like? How am I going to be loving to my wife, into my kids, into the people I'm going to interface? And I envision a white light, that kernel of the golf ball inside me. And I start it out and I feel it come up inside of me. And I try to envision it and the light just radiates out and it hits the mirror. It's the mirror of this building and the trees and it starts reflecting back to me. And that's my meditation of love. And I ask God to be a beacon of love, of light. all spiritual books describe love and the power of God as light so the light is inside me and I want to shine it out and guess what it's going to go into the shadows wherever the darkness is whether it's the darkness that I created or whether somebody else created it if I shine love in there it's gone I'm going to destroy it and I don't care what your belief is you try this deal it'll change you alright so I do that quick little meditation for patience tolerance kindness and love what does that look like and father I've ceased fighting anyone or anything even alcohol father please help me not to take a drink today because that would destroy my effectiveness for you and hurt countless people in my life. And Father, if I'm tempted, help me to recoil from that as if from a hot flame and help me react sanely and normally. God, please help me to use the tools You've given me. At this point, I should have my thought life back, Father. Help me not to think like an alcoholic. Help me to think like a child of God with Your love and Your direction and Your power. Help me carry that out into everything I do. And Father, help me to feel as if I'm in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. Protect that little two-year-old that lives inside me, Father, and help me act like that two- year-old. Help me be joyous and free and unconditionally loving to everybody I go through and touch in this world. And Father please remove my problem of alcohol. Alcohol is not my problem today, Father. Thanks to you and your glory. What a gift to me. And help me share that gift with others. There's a key. There's a promise to come, or a prayer that we're supposed to be asking on page 164 in a vision for you. We're supposedto ask every day how we can help the man who's still sick and suffering. So I have to add that in here. I either add it in here or I add it at the very end of this when we get to page 88. All right? Then I go right back into prayer. God, please help me to keep in a fit spiritual condition. What does that look like? I go into another mini meditation. What does fit spiritual conditioning look like to me? Right? That meditation we had this morning was beautiful. That's fit spiritual condition. I'm going to start adding that in there, man. If you didn't get it, go see Glenn. He's got the tapes. For a donation, you're going to get a tape of that meditation. Try it. Wonderful deal. I know I'm not cured of alcoholism, Father. I knowI have a daily reprieve contingent on my spiritual condition, and please watch over me and help me to be in a fit spiritual conditon. Father, I need a vision of your will for me. And I meditate on what does it look like to have God's will for me. I don't have to climb into God's head. It's what's in my head. What does it look like to me to be living God's Will? And then I say the prayer. How can I best serve you, Father? Your will, not mine, be done. I know today, Father, that what I want doesn't matter. Remove that from me, God. Please remove my selfishness and self-centeredness so that I can be effective for You. God, much has already been said about receiving strength. Father, please give me strength. Inspire me. Give me direction. Give me knowledge and power so I can be the best intelligent agent for you, the spearhead of your advancing creation, not Dave's advancing creation. Help me not to get what I want. Help me to get what you want, Father, and to want to do what you need me to do. Help me get what you want me to go through and then I go through and I turn this next set of instructions into a prayer. God, please help me when I retire tonight to constructively review my day. Help me today not to be selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or afraid. Help me not to owe any apologies today. Help me nicht zu harm anybody in need to clean that up. Help me niet zu... Here's a key one for New Yorkers. Help me n�o te kramm too much into the stream of life because Father I know there's one stream of Life and it's Your will and when I try to kram too much into Your will it's my will and I'm blocking myself off from helping You and others. God help me to be an agent for You to do Your will. Help me to not think of myself. Help me to think constantly of my brothers and sisters and what I can do for them to help them in their daily life. God, please forgive me for the harms I've perpetuated that I'll perpetuate today. I need your help. I'm lost without you. Guide me and direct me and show me what corrective actions I can take tomorrow for the harm that I know I'm going to cause today because Father, I know that I'm not going to be able I know, I know I'm gonna miss the mark today. And then I think about my day. Right? I'm in my prayer and meditation. So I, God, please direct my thinking today. Please keep my thought life divorced from self-pity, dishonest, and self-seeking motives. Guide me and direct me. Help me to rely on my hunches and my inspiration, my intuition. Help me be a father today, God. The best possible father I can be. And then I do a mini meditation on what does that specifically look like? What is the one thing I'm going to do today for my kids? And I come up with something. That's my plan for the day. God, help me to be the best husband I can become. That's the only thing I can do for the rest of the day and I come up with one thing and that's going to be my plan for the day. And then help me to be the best employee. If I'm going to go to the military, how can I do that job the best? If I're going to go to American, how can i be that best airline pilot I can be? Right? I come up with a meditation and a vision. I'm using it. It becomes the fabric of my life. All right? And then I continue on as I go through. God, I owe so much to you, Father. As I go through my day, please show me what the next step is to be taken and give me the power and the energy I need to take that Help me to recognize my character defects. Keep me mindful of the characters of the theater that are going to be the first things I recognize. Help me not to be afraid. Help me constantly awake and help me to watch and be aware. God, help me to take some time today to pray with someone else. Help me pray with my wife and my kids today. Even if it's in the middle of nothing, for no reason at all, just stop and pray with somebody that needs prayer. Help me think of others today, Father. Now the book says here we sometimes memorize some set prayers. That's when I do the third step prayer and the seventh step prayer. I've memorized those. Someday there's great emotion in them, someday they're not. They're just memorized prayers and I take what comes there at that point. God, as I go through my day, I know if I'm agitated, doubtful, indecisive, Father, if I pause and take it easy, relax, and turn to You, that You'll empower me and show me what my next step is to be. Help me to do that, Father. And Father, help me to stop throughout this day and remember, thy will not mine be done. And Father, most importantly, help me to watch for the things that I'm not going to see as a threat to me. I know I'm an adrenaline junkie, Father, so please keep me from the dangers of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, and foolish decisions. Help me to use the thought life and the gifts that you've given me, Father. As I go out to help others. In your name, Father... Thank you from the bottom of my heart that I know you better. Thy will not mind be done and then I get up and I do some stretches because this is my temple right God gave me this physical body it's my temple I do something I do a few stretches I do som calisthenics I plan in some physical activity in my life today I'm losing weight I'm trying to get my mind back I read nine spiritual books a day I go and I do that stuff and then I go out into the world and I go out and I be a spirit head of God's intelligent spirit head hopefully of God's ever advancing creation alright part of this deal is I pray for my sponsees that are having trouble I pray for the people that I'm resentful for I pray for myself if I'm resentment for other people for God to soften my heart I add whatever it is wherever I am in the steps I add that into my prayer and meditation life I mean what did that take Glenn maybe 8 minutes 10 minutes and I'm talking you through the meditation when you're actually doing it and it's different every day just like I did it with you here tomorrow it'll be something different so it's always new and every word changes over time and one day you'll see a new word and you'll go, wow, I never thought of the word turn or the word watch. I've been working with watch for three years. I've Been Working With The Word Watch and I know that if I ever think I know about the word wash, they're going to be throwing dirt in my face. This physical body is going to me dead if I get rid of it. If I ever get that word down, it always changes because why? We. I have to be constantly changing. This book constantly changes for me Now, how do I help others? 12-step call. There's two different kinds of 12-stepp calls we've got. We've got a 12-stop call of the old variety, which the big book describes, and working with others, and in two employers. Two employers is not about two employers, it's all about how to do a 12 step call. All right? So if you don't read the last chapters, go back in there and read about how to do 12-step call, read working with other people. There's 2 calls. The initial call, when you find out that if the guy is serious, that he wants help. And then what do you do? You leave him a big book, you show him what you got and say, if this was what you want on our next visit, we'll start down this path. And the interim read this big book. That's short and sweet. I gave you all the instructions are in the packet for how to do that. The second call he's already demonstrated. I'm looking at his feet. I say, Hey, did you read the big book? He says, yeah. Now let me back up a little bit in the first 12 step call. I said, do you want what I have? He has no idea what I want, what I had. I got to tell him. This is what I have. I have a profound spiritual awakening as a result of 12 steps. If he's scared of God, he's not going to want what I Have. And then I described to him step one. In 20 minutes, I sit down with the guy and I say, here's step one. There's three pieces to it. Is that what you want? Step two, you're going to give your entire life over to this higher power. I don't care what it is, but you're gonna have some higher power maybe it'll be AA. That'll work. Do you want to give your entire life over? And I say, is that what you want? And I don't let them answer right away. And I talk about step three. I talk a written inventory. We're going to write inventory. When we go in, we're going look at all that stuff. We're gonna look at the bestiality, the rapes, the murders, the robberies, the thefts. We are going to talk about that all and you're going share it with God and another human being. Is this what you wanna do to get sober? We're talking about paying the money back and talk about the amends process. Is that what want to do? Go read the book. Think about it for a couple of days. If you want that, we'll talk again. Boom. Give me your number. I give you, I give him my number. The next day I call him. Hey, this is Dave. We met last night. I don't think you'll forget me after all that, huh? You know, go into meetings, get a sponsor. I, you know, talk about the other stuff. That's a good, good stuff to do. All right. Second 12 step call. I started in the book. We go, man, we go boom straight through, jump them right into the steps. It's not too soon for that. There's a 12-step call that nobody will talk about from the podium. I'm one of the few people that you'll hear talk about it. It is a 12 step call in these rooms. I have been doing one all weekend. This is a twelve step call. People that are deluded in AA thinking they work in AA. If you haven't finished all your amends, let me be the first person to tell you that you have absolutely no idea whether AA works. If you have not done all of step 1 through all of step 12 soup to nuts if you're not praying and meditating you have absolutely no idea whether step whether the a 12-step program is working for you you may be dry up to this point you may be full of sobriety but whether you've got spiritual awakening as the result of these 12 steps you don't have no knowledge because you haven't done all 12 steps and they're not linear they're circular you have to continue to go back through them over and it becomes the fabric of your life. It's a way of life. It's not something I do. It's the way of my life. It's part of me. Alright? Real important. Let's jump to the guide on page 24. How many minutes I got? Okay. These are things you need to bring on a 12-step call. I put them in the guide. A lot of people have never gone on a wet 12-stepped call The guy who's drinking a lot of booze, his body's full of sugar. A lot of us are diabetic. If you take away the booze and then you drive into the rehab, the guy will go into diabetic coma and die on you, right? You need to have sugar, candy. The guy's loaded up on booze and he starts to go into DTs and withdraw, you're going to have to have booze to give him a shot of boozed to get him to a detox. If there's no detox, take him to the emergency room. The emergency room will get him down below the legal limit, It's below .10 around here. In some states, it's .05. As soon as he gets below that, guess what? They're calling your ass and saying, come get him. We're done with him. Man, now you're on a 12-step call. It's the old-fashioned 12-stepped call. You want a 40-gallon garbage bag because he's going to puke. If he's in your car, you don't want him puking in the car. You need two people on a twelve-step called. He'll try to jump out of the damn car doing 60 miles an hour. So you're driving the car, your safety is sitting in the back with the drunk, all right? I'm doing a 12 step call with Gene. Is he still here? Yeah, Gene's over there in the middle of this 12 step call. His roommate comes home from the hospital. His his liver was so big and that he got a ruptured hernia. And they said, if you didn't come into the emergency room, you were going to die. So he just got done with hernia surgery. He walks in and now all of a sudden we got two 12 step calls and they're both right where they're live ones. Gene's got now said we're split. He's got one. I got the other. If I walk in the room to do the wet 12 step called, you determine this, you pray together, and you determine who's going to do the 12-step call. If I'm the 12th step, Mark and I go out. I say, okay, I'm going to be the 12 step call. You are the safety. He's got one job to walk in the room and say, figure out who's in the building with you. Look for weapons. It's not uncommon these days to walk into a building and a guy's got a bottle of booze and a loaded gun sitting right next to it. You engage him in conversation as the 12 stepper get his attention focused on you. Mark's going over and get the weapon. That means that I need to know to make sure that Mark knows how to clear a weapon. If he doesn't, guess what? He's the 12-stepper and I'll go get the gun because I know how to clear the weapon. You're looking for baseball bats and knives. Drunks love to go into the kitchen when you're doing 12-step. Keep them the hell out of the damn kitchen. There's knives in there. And this is serious stuff. That's the deal. Read through the guide. Prayer and meditation is absolutely important. If you stay sober, it's a successful 12- step call. Don't kid yourself. There's hundreds of AAs that have gone on 12-step calls and a cunning alcoholic has convinced them their sobriety is shaky and they go out. They'll go out drinking, they become drinking buddies, sitting at a bar talking how AA doesn't work. It's dangerous business, all right? I only got one other thing and I'm ready to wrap. You ready to rap or you want to share something on 12 step calls? Okay. If you go to your guide on page 24, there's one last thing I'd like to share. it's a poem that came from one of the international conventions shared by an old, old timer I share this whenever I do a workshop it's called Show the Way if this poem doesn't touch you the way it touched me you're missing something I would rather see a sermon than to hear one any day I would Rather One walk with me than merely tell the way for the eye is a better pupil more willing than the ear fine counsel is confusing but example is always clear You can soon learn to do it if you let me see it done. I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run. And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creed, for seeing good in action is what everybody needs. I may misunderstand you in the high advice you give, but there is no misunderstanding in how you act and how you live. The very last page of the guide is a vision for you. How many people in here know what the vision is that AA preaches? Read the last page of the guide. The vision that AA preaches will jump off the page at you. Clean house, trust God, clean house, help others. That's our deal. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here with you guys. And I'm truly blessed. Hey, Bart? Bart, hang on one second. Just hang on one more second Bart We're a spiritual body We need to close with a prayer So if you guys will hang on just one second I'll close with the prayer And then Bart can do a couple of announcements And we'll do that deal Heavenly Father We thank you for this opportunity For us to be here And learn more about you Father But we understand that knowledge is no good To an alcoholic If we don't apply it and turn it into action It will kill us This knowledge our ego will use against us So, Father, we ask you to help us to take the actions that we've heard here today and keep us safe and protected until we meet again as a spiritual body on this journey, shoulder to shoulder, on the high road to a new freedom. Father, thank you for this opportunity, and we're forever in your debt. In your name, Father. Amen. I bought alcohol. I just want to spend about an hour talking about the fellowship. I'm scared. a little bit of of why we we do this a little bit um and what what it feels like for me um in 90s what happens in 97 um i heard mark share and to me this program is a lot about attraction and about action and um seeing the change in mark from then and now and the few times i got to talk to him has been amazing for me, and now I need to put a lot of that into action. He introduced me and Dave through the phone, and I knew I would get something and that a lot of us would get Something about putting these two guys together, and I just definitely want to thank both of them. I think most important, we need to thank you guys um because there'd be no reason for all for them to come here and do this if you guys didn't show up um and i know it takes us months to put this together and gives us a reason to do some of the fellowship work and some ofthe service work um and it's a lot of people that were here last year and the year before that we did this and a lotof new faces and the family just keeps growing and uh i love that um you know tom is doing that thing in december and i really can't wait to get together again with a bunch of us. Sometimes it gets a little lonely here. I love everybody that's doing the work here and everybody that's just in the rooms here, but I miss you guys too, so it gives us an opportunity to all get together and I really look forward to that nightly. Rick has a few words that he wants to say, but again thanks to all of you. I always make a lot of noise. I'm Rick, I'm an alcoholic you know me and Bart are pretty much on the same page so he said everything I was going to say so I don't know what I'll say just you know once a year us guys around here and we got some people from the Harlem group here which I want to thank which is Sidney and Loretta and And I know we've got a friend here from the Bronx. Thanks for coming up. We've got Rashid from St. Albans. You know, there's a lot of youths here, some new friends from College Point, some new fans from Middle Village. We start getting lonely once a year, and we're starting to get lonely already. We ain't gone. So we like to have you guys come down every year. And, you know, about four and a half years ago, I was out here and I was getting lonely. And I went up to Worcester, Massachusetts, and I met a guy by the name of Don P. And I met about 100 other alcoholics. And I was exposed to something that I didn't know existed. So when I came back, I read this. And I read it before, but then I read It again. And it says, Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you charge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. Thanks for listening.