Ninth Step Amends and Sanity of Action – L – Step Study – Part 2 of 2 – Scott L.

Okay. Funny how we have to get back in the same seats, isn't it? Did you ever notice that? It's not comfortable. I didn't move. I didn' t move. You didn' d either. Okay. I'm Scott Lee. I'm an alcoholic and so grateful to be here. I'm always amazed when people come back. You know, I just think it's great. I have tremendous respect for you. I'd like to ask somebody to close that back door, please, as you come in. Thank you, ma'am. And let's have a few moments of silence and acknowledge the presence and ask again for the open hearts, and I'll meet you back here. Amen. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. Tom, where are you? Somebody asked a question about step four and how many times you do it. My immediate past sponsor believed that you did the four-step once and if you were thorough that you could stay sober on 10, 11, 12. And he had a great program and I have a world of respect for him. That's not my take on it. And whatever your sponsor says, by the way, is final authority. And if you take something that I've said to your sponsor to argue with them I disagree with you. I agree with your sponsor, all right? Now, I mean that with all my heart. I believe God bless his sponsorship. And if you're shopping what your sponsor says, you ought to be shopping for sponsors, okay? Page 64, a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. That is the reference. And I believe in taking inventory about once a year. It's been three years since my last one, okay, that's the best I can do with it I'm long overdue that's my own perspective I thought it was a great question I've got five of the men that I sponsor one of them is sober four years and the others are all over ten that are in the step work now again they've asked me to bring them back through it again the fourth step the ensuing four steps you're third with the first one you do the second one a year later take you less than an hour probably won't turn the page on the resentment inventory probably won'T fill the first page So don't be surprised when that happens. I'm due for a four-step, and I bet I knock it out in less than an hour because there isn't that much work to do. I don't want to carry the resentments anymore. I'm okay. I'm at peace with the people that are attacking my country. I have been blessed with seeing them as very sick individuals. I'm sad for them. They've been lied to. They have a set of beliefs that turns them away from the power of goodness and love and joy, and i'm sad. for them and i wasn't always sad for them i had anger for them but the prayer worked for me again they're spiritually sick and i'm sad for him i wish him the best i hope they have a spiritual awakening don't you yeah okay so i'm not expecting this process to take me very long it's interesting the uh the former spouse thing is flared for me and she hadn't done a thing i haven't i've had no contact with her. Thank you. And I'm sorry, that's very flippant of me. But some of my old stuff has come up, the old thinking. So I've got some work to do. It's time. So for me, I need to continue to stay active in the work. You know, if one's a mistake, if it's a mistakes to do a four-step again, what's the harm? If it's mistake not to do a fourth step again uh it looks like the price might be high that's just my take on it okay so we're on page 83 and it says the spiritual life is not a theory we have to live it now that's really important because they put it in squiggly writing okay unless one's family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them we should not talk excuse me incessantly to them about spiritual matters they will change in time our behavior will convince them more than our words oh i'm gonna have to go be a good guy now mm-hmm we must remember that 10 or 20 years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone yeah okay i can see how that might have happened i personally restrict the men that i sponsor from using the word sorry when they make amends? I think we've told them we were sorry enough. And I believe that amends is not a lecture course, all right? It needs to be brief. You may open by saying I was wrong or I believed I harmed you or both. I think those are good ways to open amends. You will be very brief about it and we have to be extremely careful that we don't hurt somebody. I'm going to give an example, okay? And this is best I can do with the language. Somebody can help me with this later i'd like to hear it let's say for example that he used the lady's charms lightly and then ignored her after that okay you got the idea so how do you go and make amends to her and not make her feel cheap again because we do not want to hurt her and this is the best i've been able to come up with you go to herand say i was not as good a friend to you as i could have been and i'm ashamed and i believe i may have harmed you and i would like to make that right? Would you like to talk to me about how I harmed you? What can I do to make it right? That's plenty. I tell them, when you sit down and you think about what you want to say to somebody and make an amends, figure out how many words that is and divide by two and then knock off a zero. I mean, this is a little number, all right? This is a teeny tiny number, right? You're not going to go to your mother and talk about all the times you were a bad son or daughter to her. You're going to say, I'm sorry, not sorry, I wasn't as good a child to you as I could have been. I ignored you. I did not act in a loving fashion. I believe I've harmed you. I'd like to make that right. Would you please tell me how I've harmed you and what I can do to square the books? That's plenty. And then you listen. Now, we don't have to take abuse. And we are also, and this is really important, And we are not asking you to turn your will and life over to the care of someone that you have harmed. All right? If I sponsor you, I will tell you that this guy that you harmed is not final authority on what this amend will be. I am. You and I prayerfully are. Because there may be somebody out there who absolutely treasures the fact that he hates you and will bash you for the rest of your life. It is not necessary for you to submit to that. All right, so that's not what we're doing here. And the question is, did you harm them? Restitution to those harmed. For those who were, as I was, abused as a child, I do not owe amends to someone who abused me. I do NOT owe them amends. And I do Not have to see them, for I did Not harm them. Alright? It's an important piece. I believe God blesses sponsorship. And if you're new and you're heading out to make amends without your sponsor's full authority and approval, you are probably making a very, very serious mistake. I'd like to recommend as strongly against that as I can. That's a mistake. And then we let them talk. Now, we don't take abuse, but we let them talk and say, well, if you owe them $100, it might be good to give them $ 100. If you owe him $ 5,000, it would be good to give him $ 100 and tell him when the next $ 100 is coming and make sure that it does. And if you think you can do 100 a month, tell them 50 and make sure that you get it covered. Let's make sure we do what we say because we went a long time without so. So let's do what мы say. My wife came up with something I think is so powerful. And for those of you who are blessed enough to hear her tomorrow, she'll talk about it. She calls it good amends. And that's where you go back and thank the people who deeply touched your life. Who here has been thanked too much? Who's been over-thanked? No hands? Hmm. Okay. And when I heard her talk about that, it occurred to me there were people who had touched my life deeply I had not thanked. And I thanked my dad for being a good dad. Best he could do. And I thanking my mother for being my mom and being in my corner all the time. And I thank my major professor in college because I learned a lot from him. And I think the man that taught me to fly. Because he set up my Air Force career. I went back and thanked people. You want to do something that's really fun? You wantto do something that'll touch you deeply? You're going to hunt them down and thank them. Go hunt them and thank them and see what happens to you. It's a spectacular process. That's a gift from my wife. Don't miss her talk. Page 83. There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would write them if we could. i'm going to tell uh i'm going to talk about the worst thing i ever did for a couple of minutes and i want to preface this i'll do this sunday and part of my talks i think it's maybe the most important thing i have to say if you have done what i'm about to describe and you're okay with it i'm okay with it all right there's not a political discussion as a young man i paid for an abortion and that festered my soul i used to think about the what-ifs on that one and uh and i used to think about it all the time and i had a major spiritual experience so i'm not going to go into now when i was thinking about that one time and I received the forgiveness I had one of the burning bushes I'll tell about that Sunday and I receive God's forgiveness but when I got to the ninth step it looked to me like I owed amends to an unborn child and I didn't think it could be done I have been blessed to bend in the hands of people who knew what was in this book I'd like to read to you from page 83 Some people cannot be seen. We send them an honest letter. And I'm going to talk about the letter that I wrote, and I'm gonna talk about how I recommend people write letters. I was sat down, and I recommend outside under God's sky instead of indoors under man's roof. And I was told to write a letter. Dear unborn child. And my instructions were to write only until I was able to cry. And for those of you who are suffering now because I know I picked your scabs, I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have an answer, and I do. Please listen. Please see me afterward. I want to talk to you. This is an unborn child. This is a grandparent. It's anybody who's gone to the other side, and I'm told to write this child a letter. And like the fourth step, I think we demonstrated earlier, it's not about writing. It was observations and prayers that made the changes. In my experience, this letter process is not about riding. It is about tears. If you are unable to cry, I do not recommend this process. I've seen people lock up, and it just doesn't do any good. I was taught to cry when I was sober a year. A member of my home group guy taught me to cry. It took me a year, he taught me. And I can cry and I can teach you and I want to. And if you don't know how to cry, if you will see me later, I've got a handout right here, you'll learn to cry because no baby was ever born unable to cry your inability to cry was learned, it can be unlearned. And I mentioned that only because I believe tears are necessary to this letter process because I've had the privilege of sitting with a lot of people. And so I sat down with one of my spiritual advisors, well not my sponsor, but one of my spiritual advisers set me down and said write to this child. And I would write only until I was able to cry. And I was told to lay the pen down and cry as long as I could. If you have one of these to do you're going to want to write and cry at the same time and if you do that you're gonna compress the time frame and it will not get complete. I've seen it over and over again. So you write until you can cry. As soon as you can cry you lay the pin down and you cry as long as you can. And as soon as the tears stop on their own, you begin to write again. You do this with someone who is not afraid of your tears, who will prayerfully hold the space. We need someone to sit there and prayerfully holds the space while you do this thing. They need to understand that and they need to be informed that you're going to have to be told to lay the pen down when you're crying because believe me, you're gonna want to write and cry. Don't do it. And you lay the pin down, you cry as long as you can. When the tears stopped on their end, you begin to write again, and as soon as you can cry again, lay the pen down again. And you do that process, and I did it until I was sure I was complete. And I talked about how much I missed. You can imagine, and i'll talk to you later if you need to hear details. I'd be glad to because I got free. You see, nothing's going on in here while I do this. I got free. That's what I came to tell you. I Got Free. I Serve a Powerful God gave me a powerful program. He uses the worst things I've ever done as tools to help other people. that's going on right now. I can see it in some faces. I know that's happening right now, powerful and when I was sure I was finished, I was told to sign love dad and I was not finished. I was then handed a plain white envelope and I was told the envelope and said how? And I was asked the question where is the child and I said with God. That's correct with God in heaven and there's no resentment there. Nobody's mad and God in that child wants you to get free. Now address the letter And I addressed a plain envelope to an unborn child in heaven. And I was told to put on extra postage. That's a long way from Nashville, Tennessee. And I mailed it and I got free. And I have permission to tell this piece of the story. I got a phone call a few years ago and a guy that I sponsor said, I sponsor a guy who needs to write a letter. I started telling this one, I'm telling you in public about four and a half years ago. So this story predates that. but he and I had exchanged fist steps and consequently he knew about this and he said I'm sponsoring a guy that needs to write a letter and I don't have the experience would you sit with us I said I'd be honored and we sat down myself, the man I sponsored and the man he sponsored and this guy wrote a letter to two unborn children and I coached him and I just kept saying lay the pen down lay the pin down lay the pain down and he cried and when he was finished i said here's a plain white envelope address the letter and he said no he said i think i'm going to burn this not in the sense of destroying it but to send it in smoke i think you could get where it's going better that way and i said wow and we went over by the rose bushes and he held a kitchen match to it and when it was just ashes he crumbled it put them on the roses and he got free and i don't have his permission to tell this he begged me to tell you and I don't give them the envelope anymore. We pick a special place and we send it in smoke and we get free and the people who follow these instructions get free. I've seen it over and over and ever again. I've also written that down if somebody would like to have that it's on the back of this how to learn to cry thing. Powerful stuff. I say again if you've done what I've done and you're okay with it I'm okay with that I did not come to indict you I came to maybe help some other people get free that's what I'm about That's what that page 124 was about, about the worst thing in my past is a tool in God's hands. I watch it over and over again. It's one of my great joys. And nothing happened in here. That's the worst things I ever did. I'm free. I am free. What a gift. It's my experience in coaching people through the ninth step. I'm going to lighten up a little bit, okay? That was pretty heavy. Lighten up. Lighten it up a lot. Lighten a little big. That, you know, when I get the guy, he's got a lot of problems. But by the time I've got him all the way into step nine, his life has changed. I mean, he's been promoted at work. There's money in the bank. He throws the switch. The lights come on. The phone rings. He's not afraid to answer it. Okay? He's sleeping in the big bed. All right? I mean his life's changed and his motivation is gone. His motivation is done because my motivation of choice is pain. I mean isn't yours? That's my favorite. And so what I like to do at this point is apply, because it's hard to keep them moving in the ninth step. Anybody experience that, sponsoring people? A lot of trouble keeping them moving through step nine. And what I've found is that you can apply the one-day-at-a-time concept to step nine and keep them movement. So what I say, he says, you know, he's saying to himself, I can't make 160 amends. And I'm saying to myself, I know that, but you can make one today. Which one is it? We're only 160 days from being through with this. so i say what's what amend you want to make next okay let's talk about that amend when can you get that person on the phone schedule an appointment oh you can call him today good good what's the next hole in your counter when could you see him well you can see him tomorrow good good call him book the appointment call me back yeah okay appointment tomorrow two shouldn't take over an hour i'll look for your phone call at three i wonder how it went all right so i got his feet right up against the fire he calls me at three says season went good it was amazing or it was terrible or you know whatever we process that i say okay who's next right i do that 159 more times and we're done one day at a time concept applied to sponsoring somebody through step nine it is so hard to keep them moving at that point and that's that's what i use it works pretty good that unborn child thing just wears me out i am physically tired and i wasn't kidding when i said we were going to get heavy duty okay and then we have the nine-step promises which i read before so i'm not going to do that again but aren't they powerful i'd like to make an observation about one of them it's two observations the first one is my favorite is the first it says we will be amazed before we are halfway through that is a promise Were you not amazed before you were halfway through? That's my favorite one. I see people that take them out and insist on having 12, the number 1 through 12. They miss that one. And they have to break another one in half so they can have the magic number of 12. I think we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. It's pretty important stuff. And this one, the last one, we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. It doesn't say God will suddenly begin to do for us what we couldn't do for ourself. It says our realization will be sudden. We'll suddenly say, wow. It's been going on for a long time, but I finally noticed it. I have my own definition for a revelation. You know what a revelation is? Revelation is when I figure out for myself something you've been trying to tell me for six months or longer, okay? It's a revelation, okay. All right, middle of page 84. This thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to write any new mistakes as we go along. I think the as we go along is the powerful piece for me. Again, this is just how I approach it. For me, the difference between step 10 and step 11 is the as-we-go-along. Step 10 is about me being present in my own life moment by moment. We're going to come to the directions on step 11 here in a few minutes that recommend morning and evening prayer and meditation. If I wait until 11 o'clock tonight to inventory what I did today, how am I going to promptly admit it and fix something I did wrong at 7.15 in the morning it's not possible so for me step 10 is about being present in my own life moment by moment about taking inventory not necessarily right after I did something but maybe right before I did something to think about it and I think one of the slogans applies to this and the slogan is easy does it that if I'm running Mach 2 with my hair on fire, right? You're familiar, right. Mach 2 of my hair-on-fire, I'm not present. I'm usually way out in the future, right, and I'm leaving a sonic boom that's breaking eggs and windows everywhere. I have to slow down. I have too easy does it if I've got to live step 10. I can inventory before I do something. I need inventory after. Did I just do harm? Have I hurt somebody? What do I need to do? moment by moment during the day. That, for me, is the difference. So I don't do a 10-step inventory at night. I do a10-step all day long. I live in step 10. Step 11 is a handful of very specific prayers and observations that are done morning and night. And that's just my observation on it, okay? The 12 and 12 disagrees with that. That's just where I am with it. I'm kind of a big book guy. So take a look at that. I'm aware of that difference, by the way. That's what I'm saying. Don't bring me that one, I know. okay it says we vigorously that means with a lot of energy commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past we have entered the world of the spirit how's that for a promise our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness this is the very first time we've been involved in understanding this has been action up until now not what i understand or know but what i do and now we can begin to understand excuse me it says it's not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. This is forever. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Those to me are the earmarks of ego. The re-emergence of ego is the most terrifying thing. I was telling the story about my own character defect and how it's the re-emergence of ego that terrifies me. And those spiritual barometers, that's my ego that lies. That's my evil wanting to get its own way at any price. It swears because it's not spiritually connected, right? It becomes angry with you because I think I should be controlling you and what you do. Anything I'm angry about, anything I'm unhappy about, it's because I'm trying to control it because I feel like I'm doing the right thing. I think that's why I think I ought to be in charge. Step one, section B. I think i'm supposed to be managing it. That's why i'm angry, right. That's the reemergence of ego. These words, selfish, dishonest, resentment, and fear and various forms appear throughout the book. And I told you part of what we would do here was to sort of skip around through the book, all right? So let's take a look at that same concept here in step 11, page 86. When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Same list. Page 88, still in the 11th step. We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. Pretty much the same list. Page 67, in the inventory where we looked at our own mistakes, it says, Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened? On page 145, the greatest enemies of us alcoholics are resentment jealousy envy frustration and fear man oh man oh now there's a concept that just crawls all over this book says the same thing over and over again and those things for me are all the re-emergence of ego fear is my ego want to have its way in the future resentments when i'm not getting it right now or I didn't get it in the past, and anger is when I'm not getting it now. I mean, it's all over the place. Envy is the same thing. Envy's anger because you've got something I think I should have. It's the same list over and over again. And so what's the answer to that? All right, I'm back on page 84. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear when these crop up. I'd like to observe it did not say if. Okay, this is a when question. This is not an if question. So this is not the perfection step either. Here's one of two 10-step prayers. We ask God to remove them. Oh, okay. I can't get rid of my own selfishness. We found that concept on page 62. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone. That sounds familiar. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Isn't that interesting? It doesn't say that we sit and beat ourselves up for once again having failed to be perfect. I cannot find permission in this book to beat myself up, and I do not take the liberty of beating up the men that I sponsor in any way, shape, or form. I'm going to talk about dropping them if they don't do what I ask. I'm gonna get to that in the next hour, but I never beat on them. It's not my job. I'm in no position to do that, but I need to point at these things, and that what we're supposed to do when we screw up is turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Now, we chased that through the book before, but it's all over the place in here. And then here's our code. Love and tolerance of others is our code. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. Okay, I'm out of the fight. I've resigned from the fight, so that means I don't have to lose anymore. I don' t have to surrender anymore. Because I'm not fighting. I'm out of this fight. For this time, sanity will have returned. Okay. We found sanity at the top of page 57. Here it is again. We have promised you at step 10 the return of sanity. I think sanity comes in two forms. This is my own observation. Sanity of mind and sanity of action, and it is the sanity of action that's the important one. It's important for me to do sane things. I have a friend who says that he's pretty sure that God can restore him to sanity, but every morning when he wakes up, he's pretty sure it hasn't happened yet. He says his disease gets up every morning and does push-ups for about 20 minutes before he wakesup, and then it sits up on the top of the bed, up on the head post, and it waits. And when he opens that eye, it goes, rawr, and jumps on him. Because I wake up nuts every morning myself. Don't you? And I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes when we get to step 11. So I think it's really important that what I must have is sanity of action because my sponsor told me that in the history of this planet, no human has ever been put in an insane asylum for being insane. It's never happened. They put us in there for acting insane. Big difference. And nobody's ever been let out of an insane asylum for Being Sane. They let them out for Acting Sane So on the days when I'm nuts, if I don't act that way, they don't know and i can walk around with everybody else let me tell you something i've been to the insane asylum okay i've been in the little padded cell in withdrawal i know all about that this is a better deal even when i'm not if i don't act that way well i think i made my point hope so anyway so we're going to talk here about sanity of action it says we will seldom be interested in liquor I haven't been interested in liquor in a long time. It says, every once in a while I see one thing. That's kind of an interesting-looking bottle. I think, pfft, I'm not interested in that. They give me a wine list and say, is this all you have? There's no sense in me getting started. They got beers now that they didn't have as a beer drinker. They got bears that I didn't know. I thought, I wonder what that smells like. I thought no, you don't. I know what it tastes like. It tastes about the same coming back up as it did going down. and that's what I need to know about it. So I'm seldom interested. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. That is a sane reaction for someone with my history. We react sanely, there it is again, and normally, and we find that this happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. What that says, I mean, there's tremendous effort that's been taken from the beginning of this book to this point, but the effort has not been about liquor. It hasn't been about stopping drinking. It hasn'T been about not wanting a drink. It has been effort, because that's the problem. That's living in the problem, so we haven'T been focused on the problem I haven'T beN focused on not wanting to drink. I've been focused ON having a spiritual experience and learning to live a spiritual life And in that answer, this other one has been removed. That's what I see when I read this. That's the miracle of it. We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. we've not even sworn off who quit forever huh who quit forever lots of times all right every time you puked come on pukers i know you quit forever right how'd it work right okay so we're not doing that anymore instead the problem has been removed how did it get removed by following these steps by digging the poison out of my soul because that's what this fourth through ninth steps actually through 10 or about about digging the poison out Of my soul about making me be lighter on my feet and in my own skin at peace walking in hand in hand with the spirit of the universe how could you be thirsty it does not exist for us we are neither cocky nor are we afraid that is our experience that is how we react so long as we keep in a fit spiritual condition oh there's a caveat okay got to keep in fit spiritual condition it is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels we are headed for trouble if we do for alcohol is a subtle foe we are not cured of alcoholism what we really have is a daily reprieve look it up that's a stay of execution that's what a reprieved is it's a state of execution this is a death threat we have a daily reproof contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition i talked about maintenance meaning two things it means i can't lose what i've already got it also means i must maintenance my spiritual condition with prayer reading spiritual literature, meditation, being nice to folks, taking meetings into jails, all that sort of stuff that we do to maintenance our spiritual condition. And when I first read that sentence in my first year sober, I thought, okay, a spiritual condition, what I'm going to do is to get that spiritual condition, whatever's necessary. And then once I have that, I can take the rest of my life off with pay. I won't have to do anything else. And so I searched for over a year trying to discover of what that spiritual condition was. And I finally found it. It's the next sentence where it says, every day is a day when we must, there are no musts in the program and this is one of them, all right? Every day is the day when we most carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. The vision is the best I can see of. Every day. Okay, so I don't get any days off is a way to carry the mission is a date when I must carry, means absolutely got to, the vision of god's will into all of my activities not almost all or most all of my activities there's a spiritual condition how do i do that with this maintenance thing that we talked about and then here's the here'sthe second ten step prayer how can i best serve thee thy will not mind be done that's that prayer these are thoughts which must go with us constantly all right that's about being present in my own life moment by moment prayerfully just in touch with the great realities of what the book refers to God as in one place. We can exercise our willpower along this line, all we wish it is the proper use of the will. Excuse me. Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, you know Bill wanted to use directions and how it works and they got that out of there, but he sneaked it in on them here. We have carefully followed directions. We have begun to sense the flow of his spirit into us. How's that for a promise? Huh? How do you love that? Speaking of promises, how about the short form of step 11? How do You like that for A Promise? Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him. I can't improve something I don't already have. It implies that having done these first 10 steps under the tutelage of a sponsor who has already done them, I will at that point have a conscious contact, for I cannot improve something I don't have. What a powerful promise that is. Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of his spirit into us. To some extent, we have become God-conscious. What a promise. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. Vital, once again, beta. This is a death threat. This is only if you want to live. Sixth sense. A friend of mine says, If I'm still using my other five senses trying to get my will to come to pass, I will not develop this Vital Sixth Sense. For it comes in this trying to walk in the Master's presence and trying to say simply, What can I give today? How may I be of service to you or somebody else? What can I do for the man that still suffers? And that's where that consciousness comes from. It says, but we must go further, and that means more action. Well, we keep getting into this action thing, don't we? Has anybody got a question or something? My voice could use a break. Pardon? I haven't gotten to 11 yet. Oh, I didn't read the whole thing, the whole 11 step? Yeah, I will. I'm going to come to that when I read the step. I was just making that point. We're still in 10, but I was just making that point. Thank you. Hi. Hi, my name is Edelman Elkeholland. Hi. We had a big discussion in our home group about the forward that says we are the hundred men and women who have recovered. And then over here, we are not cured. The – Big problem. Allow me if I might. Can I interrupt? this is the great, I'm going to call it a discussion because I'm trying to be a gentleman, about whether I'm a recovering or recovered alcoholic. Right? We're hearing this one all the time. I walked into the old Woodbine Club. I was in there about two years sober and I was having a rather heated discussion. It may have been about this. Now you not being as spiritually developed as I am might have thought it was an argument but it was a discussion. About something exceptionally important and I'm not sure today what it was but I know it was extremely important and this may have been it. And old Joe B walked in and Joe had been sober since about a week before the earth began to cool and was a highly intelligent individual which clearly would place him on my side of this burning issue which I cannot quite remember what it wasn't at this point. And as he poured his coffee, I posed the question to him and said, what do you think? And Joe said, well, I am not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution to not wish to engage in any controversy. Neither endorse nor oppose any causes. My primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. And I wonder how many AA meetings have got old-time members standing there arguing about whether I'm recovered or recovering and there's a newcomer standing alone in the door wondering if he needs to come in. i have a primary purpose and i do not wish to engage in any controversy and that's my answer thank you thanks for the question yeah isn't that fun okay moving right along all right step 11 suggests prayer and meditation My wife and I have the high honor and privilege of doing a meditation workshop tomorrow morning at 8.30. Ms. Linda does most of it, and she has quite a gift for guided imageries. We're going to read to you from AA and Al-Anon conference-approved literature and share our experience with it. And if there's any chance at all you can come, I'd like to recommend that you do so. I'd also like to say thank you to my wife and daughter, I'd love to recommend also, if you can stand it, that you don't do any caffeine before then because, you know, there's just nothing like meditating really fast. Okay? For me, meditating really faster is like praying hard. Let me show you praying hard, hmmm. Okay, when I'm praying hard I'm back to trying to train God and when I meditate fast I think I missed a point. So allow me to suggest that if your heart will start without caffeine, bring it on in here. Okay? I'd love to see you tomorrow. For me, prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening. And I have the strongest suspicion that I need to listen more than I need to talk. The gentleman here in the second row suggested that I read the full 11th step, but I think it was a good idea. Short form, 11th Step, page 59. Sought through prayer and meditation. I like to observe it does not say achieved. the result is not my responsibility sought through prayer and meditation that means that if I go to sleep during meditation, I did great that's as good as it gets because I sought. I take no responsibility for the results. That gives me a lot of peace. Hi Hi Vince I remember you saying that when you woke up, you wake up insane. And I do that too. And part of my daily meditation is when I get on my hands and knees, I'll say to y'all, Father, third step breath, seventh step breath. Right in the middle of prayer, my mind's going, you know, to my task of the day. What are some of the tools you use to get centered? You don't let the mind go the job it is to that. You can't really get centered. Sure. He's asking about how do you keep your prayers prayers instead of your mind wandering off. And I don't think I have full answers for that, but I'm going to share my experience in a couple of minutes on that. That's a great question. Thank you. There may be some other people that have some good suggestions on that, but let me come back to this point, and I'm gonna get to that in just a minute. It says, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. So that means that I've got to get out of the business of training God, right? I've just got to quit praying. I used to pray to the great Monty Hall in the sky. Anybody old enough? Let's make a deal. If you will get me out of this one, I will, hmm? You ever do that one? Yeah. How'd it work? Yeah, me too. Okay. So for me, prayer is talking to God. Meditation is an attempt to listen, to sit quietly in the master's presence and see what happens. and for those of you who are new if you believe what I'm about to say you will be impressed if you Believe It okay I have one thought at a time and sometimes there's a little space between them and I wouldn't take anything for that space and when I got here my head was a very busy place and it's not anymore and prayer and meditation most especially meditation and going through this work to dig the poison out of my soul is what's brought me that sense of peace my head's not a busy place anymore says we shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer there was a very very well-known clergyman as a matter of fact you would recognize his name if i could remember it um who who was asked one time how much time he spent in prayer and meditation every morning and he said an hour unless my life is extremely hectic and the walls are closing in and i have more to do than i can possibly do in which case i spend two hours i got that one on backwards, don't you? Yeah. It's the first thing that goes better men than we are using it constantly. It works. If we have the proper attitude and work at it, it would be easy. If we had the proper altitude and work ahead, it will be easy to be vague on this matter yet. We believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions. One of the things that I do with new people is I have them read the book out loud. One other things that happened to me when I was new and still occasionally is that my mind, my eyes are moving across the page and my mind has gone somewhere else. And I can trap my mind in the moment by reading out loud. If I read out loud, it has to stay here because the mind's my worst enemy. I swear it is. And not only that, but I get more out of it because I not only read it with my eyes, I now read it with my throat and my mouth, and I hear it with mine. With my ears. I get an awful lot more retention from anything that I read out loud. So if you're new, you're having trouble, or if you've been around a while and your eyes are moving across the page and it's not sticking, read it out loud, read it Out Loud. I think you'll find that to be very, very helpful. Now it says here, when we retire at night, I always thought this was upside down. Why don't they do the morning thing first? And it occurred to me that whenever I pick this book up the very first time to read it, I'm already awake. all right i've already missed the morning deal so the next one comes at night and then it starts to make better sense to me that way that's just my own my own take on it and i do not wish to engage in any controversy that's juste an observation okay just an observation it says we constructively review the day that means i'm not going to beat myself up where were we here's our list again resentful dishonest selfish dishonest or afraid those are the earmarks for me of the re-emergence of my ego, my will. Do we owe an apology? Uh-huh. Did I miss something? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time or were we thinking about what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? Isn't that beautiful prose? To pack into the stream of life but we must be careful not to drift into worry remorse or morbid reflection all right says you can't beat yourself up no matter what permission to beat yourself up is not in here for that would diminish our usefulness to others back to what i'm trying to do here page 77 but our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be a maximum service to god and people about us i can't do that if i'm sitting around bashing myself not possible after making our review we ask god's forgiveness that looks like a prayer to me and inquire i'm going to ask god what corrective measures should be taken that's the evening review that a lot of people consider that a tenth step it looks to me like it's an 11 and my own take is it tends about being present in my own life right and whatever you're doing and your sponsor doing suits me fine that's just my take and then we go it says on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead i'd like to observe what it does not say. It does not say after two over easy and a ham, a half a pot of coffee and reading the paper. That's not what it says. It says on awakening because I like Vince wake up crazy as an outhouse rat. I wake up with untreated alcohol as in first thing in the morning and I must do this on awakening. My friend Don from Louisville, Kentucky says that he's capable of making life devastating decisions between the bed and the bathroom. okay so it says on awakening aha that must be first thing we consider plans for the day interesting how do we do that though it says before we begin we ask god to direct our thinking so that's the first prayer i ask god direct my thinking especially asking to be divorced from self-pity dishonest or self-seeking motives and i'm going to tell you a personal story I bought this exceptionally ugly watch at Radio Shack for $30. I don't own Radio Shag stock, but I want to tell you why I bought it. It's because it has multiple alarms. And this morning, Ms. Linda and I had them set 15 minutes apart. It's usually somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes. When the first one goes off, we cuddle. And I do my morning prayers in my wife's arms, and she does hers. It's the best way we've found to start the day. It says on awakening. Now, many people feel that they need to kneel and pray. I don't even want to touch that. I do not wish that. I mean, if that's what you want to do, I think that's wonderful. I really do. I have tremendous respect for that. And I kneel to pray some, but I can pray anywhere. And I do my morning prayers in my wife's arms. Wow. Wow. Try that sometime. So I bought this ugly watch because it has multiple alarms because when the second one goes off, it's get-up time, right? And the first one we cuddle, and we do our morning prayers. And let me tell you the truth. Sometimes that second one wakes us up. I think that's okay. I really think that it's okay, sought through prayer and meditation. Not achieved, sought. That's my job is to seek. And so we sought. So that's how we start our day. Under these conditions, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use, Our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day, we may face indecision. Boy, I guess so. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God, that must be a prayer, we ask Gott for inspiration, intuitive thought or decision. We relax and take it easy. Oh, we don't thrash around? No, we relax and make decisions. We don't take it easily. we don't struggle and we're often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while what used to be the hunch or occasional inspiration gradually right this is not one of those immediate things gradually becomes a working part of the mind being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with god it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times we might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas nevertheless less we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely on it. I need to bounce these things off of my sponsor when I think I'm being told what to do. I need some help with some skin on it I think as my sponsor and I prayerfully approach anything, we come up with good answers A wonderful friend of mine As a matter of fact, I just saw he's speaking at a conference down here. The yellow one back there is a guy from my home group who's speaking A fellow named Steve. Fabulous guy He said he had a problem the other day, and it was either do A or do B, and he wasn't sure which one. And he said as he reached for the phone to call his sponsor, he got his relief. The reaching for the foam gave him his relief because he knew if his sponsor said do A, he'd do A. If his sponsor says B, he would do B. And he wasn' t going to argue. He already had his relief . Now, his sponsor may not come up with the best answer. Oh, but his banding average is so much better than mine. He doesn't make any bad mistakes, all right? And then it says, we usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer. All right, so it recommends meditation to try to sit quietly in the Master's presence. We're going to talk about that tomorrow morning at depth. I'm going to work out of the 12 and 12 Linda works out of some of the Al-Anon literature. I think you'll find it interesting. We usually conclude The Period of Meditation with a Prayer that would be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we'd be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. we ask especially for freedom from self-will. Boy, there it is again, over and over and over again. I'm asking God to help me be free of self and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. Page 15 in Bill's story, very powerful. Hold on, I may be on the wrong page. I am, it's on 13. Yeah. This is near the bottom of page 13. I was to test my thinking by the new God consciousness within. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. For those of you who don't know, it looks to me like the 12 steps appear in narrative form on pages 12 and 13. You might have a look and see what you think. I would also observe that the sober alcoholic called on the wet one. Bill didn't call Ebi. Ebi called Bill. And then he called him back. He called him again. At my home group, we don't give our phone numbers out to newcomers anymore. We stopped it. When I was sober 100 days, I had 100 phone numbers. How many had I called? That's correct. That's exactly right. We don't give our phone numbers out. We exchange phone numbers with newcomers, guys with guys, girls with girls. And I task myself and the men that I sponsor, when you exchange phone numbers with a new guy, you will call him twice in the next three days. All right? There's nothing for you with 12 years to pick up the phone and call a guy with 12 days and say, hey, it's Fred. I met you at the back room group yesterday. I talk to five guys every day that are on the phone. You're on today's list. How's it going? I'm going to the fellowship group tonight, 8 o'clock, Presbyterian Church on Nolensville Road. Maybe meet you there, get a cup of coffee. I've got a speaker tape you might like. There's nothing for me to call him. He can't call me. This thing about the hand of AA being there, I'm not sure it's enough. I'm Not Sure It's Enough. Maybe we can reach it out just a little bit further. This is life or death. I think we ask for too many surrenders. I believe in giving newcomers sponsors. That's what the greeters of my home group are doing. We're looking for newcomers that don't have sponsors and giving them one if we can. Life or death, life or death. Let's make it easy for them to stay. Somebody mentioned something to me, too, about someone who's had extended periods of sobriety and gone back out. I think the two most important things we do in recovery are make it easier for the newcomers to stay and make it easiest for those who've gone back to come back. And I like to tell the ones coming back, if you're coming back I want to talk to you. This is not a seniority contest. I think we make a little bit too much out of how long you've been sober. I mean it's important but it's not a seniority context. This istife or death today. Life or death today. Let's make it easy for them to come back folks because please God if I go back out, please make it easier for me. I got nowhere else to go. Have you? Nowhere. Let'S make it easy okay that's what we got to do for each other bill says i was to sit quietly when in doubt asking only for direction and strength to meet my problem as he would have me never was i to pray for myself except as my request bore on my usefulness to others then only might i expect to receive but that would be in great measure wow when i ask god for what he wants me to have It's astonishing how much help I get. We're careful never to pray. I'm back on page 87. Forgive me, I'm skipping around and not telling you. I apologize. We're fearful never to pay for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work. If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in meditation. I like the group meditation thing. The men at my home group unofficially do a number of retreats and we do a lot of meditations we do uh we do one that's really neat that we call a love meditation where we sit in a circle and we all try to sit quietly in god's presence using whatever method seems appropriate and then um when the whoever's leading it say for example i am when he's ready we'll take the hand next to him and he takes the hand Next to Him and once when this man on this side takes my left hand i know we have a circle and i say god help us send love too and i name somebody and they could be here or they couldbe gone and then each man in the circle focuses his love toward me and sends it in with his breath all right and this is going to sound really weird to you but boy do not knock this if you have not tried it and uh and they they do it until this man on my right has done three breaths at least and then it's his turn and he says god help us send love too and then i join the rest of the crowd and we focus our love and he could be naming somebody none of us have ever heard of that doesn't matter i believe love can be sent part of one of the things i learned from my wife was each morning in my prayer and meditation i send love to the places i'm going to be i sent some to this room this morning and meditation so there'd be some when i got here and i do that for all the places I'm going be during the day and we do this love meditation and we hold a circle and then if it comes to you we go around several times If it comes to you, you don't have someone to name. You just squeeze the hand on your right so they know it's their turn. And we don't know what that does to the people that we send this to. For us, it's an exceptionally powerful experience. I'd recommend to you if you want to talk details on that, I'd be glad to some of the other meditation things that we do for we're seekers. The 12 and 12 recommends that. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, We attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. So here's praying yet again. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer. As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. Isn't that interesting? This is so important that they've had to tell us again. Bye, girls. Thanks for coming. These people need to sponsor you, by the way. Ladies, before you go, we need to sponsored you very, very much. I wish I'd known when I was new that the old-timers needed to sponsor. You're not begging somebody. You're saying, I'm a dead weight. Would you drag me? You're going to hate this. When you ask someone to sponsor, you're saying I believe you're on the path. May I walk beside you? We will help each other. I don't care how new you are. that's the deal how many times have i heard myself telling somebody i sponsor something i needed to hear how many time have they asked questions that opened doors for me we need to sponsor you do somebody a favor let them sponsor you thanks god bless thanks for coming these girls are all in treatment is that great that they were here i didn't know they were leaving that's part of what i like to do on step 12 Now I'm confused. I'm going to have to start again with good morning. Oh, man. Okay, we're at the bottom of page 87. Yeah, that's right. Y'all got to set the alarm. Where's Ms. Linda? I was supposed to cuddle. As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. That's exactly what it said on the facing page at the same place. It says, here we ask God for inspiration intuitive thought or decision we relax and take it easy must be an important concept they've told us twice that's what i'm supposed to do when i don't know to do what to do is not thrash around sit quietly in the master's presence and ask to be open to what he'd have me do pretty simple oh here's one we constantly that's pretty often we constantly right remind ourselves we are no longer running the show ah step one section b i'm not in charge okay humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will be done that's a prayer we are then in much less danger of here's the here's ego list again excitement fear anger worry self-pity or foolish decisions we become much more efficient oh really yeah we do not tire so easily if we were not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves. It works, it really does. We alcoholics are undisciplined. I love that. I want to read to you from page, I think it's 23, 25 or 23, 23. This is one of my favorite quotations in the book. They're talking to alcoholics this is a sentence not taken out of context it says once in a while he may tell the truth is that thin once in awhile maybe okay yeah don't want to spread the truth around too thick uh-huh save it for emergencies there's a wonderful line from Nashville I know a lot of country folk, uh, country singers and so on. And one of them wrote a great song that has a wonderful line in it. It says, you'll never catch me in a lie, but I'll tell you the truth at my own pace. Well, we stretch that every way we can, don't we? I think we're great at that kind of thing. Um, let's see here. Where am I? We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in this simple way we've just outlined. Interesting. The word discipline comes from the same root word as disciple. It's someone who learns. In the home I grew up in, discipline and punishment, the same thing. I was confused. It is an old belief that had to go. So when I discipline myself, I don't beat on me. I put myself in a position to learn. That is why if you are involved in a university, they refer to the disciplines. Philosophy is a discipline the sciences are disciplines they're bodies of learning so that's what this is so when it says here we let god discipline us it doesn't mean he punish it means i'm allowing him to teach my god this is just me my god's a gentleman and i don't fully believe this okay but operationally works pretty good for me he doesn't go where he's not invited doesn't say where he'S not made welcome that's What A Gentleman Does So It'S My Job Each Morning To Invite God Into My Life As God and to try to do the things during the day that I think will make him welcome. Now, I don't fully believe that because I'm not sure any of us would have survived the wet phase of our alcoholism if he didn't go where he was uninvited. But I think it's important for me today to do that. And that's in part, I think, what step 11 is about. And it says, but this is not all. There is action and more action. Faith without works is dead. Oh, not another death threat. Golly. I mean, they just don't ever seem to get off of that. i don't know that i've missed a morning since uh since i got out of treatment and discovered these directions on pages 86 87 and 88 on how to open and close my day i start my newcomers on that immediately i want them to read 86 87 88 out loud morning and night for the first 30 days they're sober and i want to do it to get that in their mind i begin them on roman numeral 11 which is the first page after the table of contents, reading a minimum of two pages a day, looking up at least one word. I don't care if you have a Ph.D. in English. Look up at last a word on every page and let's talk about those things. Do you happen to know, by the way, the difference between a good habit and a bad habit? I'm going to tell you. Good habits are easy to break. That's the difference. If I'm gonna have a good habbit, I'ma have to pay the price to keep it. and opening and closing my day on those pages is a good habit, and it's something I have to continue to do. If I'm going to have this thing, I've got to continue to do it. I have a good friend in Nashville who says that if he could give every newcomer coming through the door only one thing, it'd be 500 cc's of desperation right in the butt. Because the desperate ones we do pretty good with. We don't care much how squirrely they are. we really don't care and i i tell the new ones that i sponsor say i've been a park ranger a long time baby you're not my first squirrel don't worry about it just dump your bucket let's talk about what's going on i like to start them there and then take them through the work and i have personally not yet seen any individual go through these steps too fast and drink again i've seen several hundred thousand go too slow we can do it again we can get what we can get i'm not giving them the trophy i don't believe in the trophy um what i'd like to do now i've got uh about 11 minutes after three and i really need a break this time um does somebody have a question we got a couple of minutes left on this one hi hi um you just said that you start them out on page 11 roman numeral 11 okay roman numerel 11 thank you very much start on roman numeral eleven yeah yeah you're sober i tell them you're sobre now we read forwards and introductions Okay. Prefaces. We read those things. You're sober now. Okay? There's powerful stuff in there. We've referred to that several times. Anybody else? Okay. 18-minute warning. Take a break. Yeah, if you want the how to learn to cry or how to write the letter handout, It's right here on the end. I'm going to be so available this weekend you won't believe it.