Step 12 and Carrying the Message Wilson House Big Book Workshop Retreat – With Valerie D. & John S. – Part 4 of 4

which is a pretty awesome thing that we've invested in. So that's great. It's been an amazing weekend. If you're here, then you're awesome, because this is like the hard crew. Yeah, yeah, we're hardcore. The real spiritual ninjas. Yeah, exactly. But if you have specific feedback for me around the weekend, we are thinking foregoing a group conscience at the end because we're getting a little small but I've been kind of checking in with people to get feedback around your experience this weekend, positives or anything that you think we should be changing or adding so if you have something you can come find me or any of our other committee members so if your like on the Wilson House committee whatever team can you just raise your hand great awesome Just raise your hand. Yeah. So you can, if you have feedback, you can find any one of us. We would love feedback from you, okay? We want to improve this and make it better for you every year. And there is a phone that was found. It's an OtterBox, and it's gray and white. And it is here. Malcolm's? I don't know. No. that was adorable the old timer is getting forgetful okay yes thank you Julie and we would really like to have your name tags back so you know what um is there a basket we can pass around? yeah great and we'll just this is going to go around just drop your name tag in there so we can reuse them every year thank you Julia alright She's been doing some. Oh, of course, Carrie Ann has been. Okay, I'm going to give it over to Valerie and John. Here you go, guys. Thanks. So good morning. Glad to be here again this morning. And, you know, this is, to me, this step is the point of the whole deal. this is why we even do the first 11 steps in my opinion is to get ready to carry the message in an effective way because truly to me that's how we grow in the world of the spirit and understanding and effectiveness is through trying to practice these principles in all of our affairs and carry the message and you know if you say yes to Alcoholics Anonymous, you say yes, that this is your answer, you're going to drink the AA Kool-Aid, then you've signed up for a life of service. I mean, that's the dealio. That's the trade. And when I woke up spiritually through that process, I could not not carry the message. I could Not do it. I mean, I was, like, compelled to go do it. You will get sober. Thank you, sir. May I have another? Yes, you may. Happy to. What was that from Animal House? That's right. So, but yeah, I Was just compelled to do it, And I was just on fire trying to carry this message that had changed my life profoundly and had changed me profoundly. Because when I was at that three-and-a-half year period, I was suicidal and homicidal. I did not think AA worked, but I had tried this ANA stuff again and it wasn't working. And I thought I'd done it differently this time and blah, blah, bla, blah. So the change was so profound for me on the inside. I wanted everybody to have it. Everybody to have. And I got really, really busy carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous like we do when we're just on fire. And with sponsoring a lot of women and going into a lot facilities doing big book studies in jails and penitentiaries, getting another group started, doing things like this, just trying to bring the big book message to Richmond, Virginia, bringing Jerry in, Don Pritson. And we grew just from a very small group. There was eight of us to now Richmond is really a big book town. And, you know, I was in a meeting not long ago and I was listening to a gal talk about how her sponsor was sitting down with her for an hour, whatever, and taking her through the book. I had no idea who she was and I hadno idea who her sponsor was. And I was like, this is so awesome. And I got to be a part of that beginning in that area. And I'm so, so grateful for that because it changed my life, saved my life. So that's the message I carry. If some other message had worked for me and had changed me, that'd be the message that I'd be carrying. But that's not the messagethat changed me. The message that changed me is the one that's outlined in the book. So, you know, there's a lot of things that can be said for sponsorship and trying to carry the message and practicing the principles like I shared with you guys last night Don used to say make sure you have more principles than you have affairs which, you know, I'll try but sponsorship has been the key for me the key in trying to carry the massage it has you know a lot of us male and female go depending on how you grew up you know I grew up in an alcoholic family so and everything that comes along with that and I had a lot experiences growing up that were you know not nice and things that you know can damage you I guess for lack of a better way to say that. And it's through the process of sponsoring women, taking them through the steps, that those things that hurt me so deeply were healed. So carrying the message took somebody who was very broken and for me, it put me back together. And you'd never think that that would be the answer that the answer for healing those those deep hurts the answer your life becoming whole and making sense for your life for progressing forward would be sitting down eyeball to eyeball with another drunk but that would be that, that's the super snappy sauce. I had no idea. But that's what happened as a result of being willing to carry the message and you know we were telling stories at breakfast you know the reality is that most of us don't make it unfortunately. Either you know because we're, I like how Chuck C says we're a, what does he say weird breed of cat? Tough breed a cat, whatever. We don't see until we can see and we don't hear until we can hear. Sometimes there are those of us that are just constitutionally incapable, truly. I have met them and they just can't get it. There are some people that are so damaged mentally, they truly can't grasp what we do here and apply it. I've also seen people that are very damaged and very legit, not the garden variety alcoholic mental illness i'm talking about like serious mental illness that you know we're able to grasp these principles and get sober and and and lead a good life so i mean we work with all kinds now i could tell you story after story after story about crazy that has gone on in my house was bringing drunks home i've learned a lot just from following the directions in working with others on step 12 about how to do that effectively. You know, I would try to chase people down, try to make them get it and make them find a relationship with God. Um, uh, you know, i've brought people home kind of like your god squad peeps and what are they called in atlanta pulling people off the street yeah so you know I pull people out, not off the street, but out of meetings and just bring them home. You know, I've had people detoxing in my house and, you know, all that stuff that they talk about in terms of getting on the firing line of life, you know, um, that it may mean interruption to your business, to your pleasures, to your, um...all that stuff. You may have to do this, you may have to do that. But it tells us if we stay on the line of life, everything's going to be okay. And nothing so much ensures immunity from drinking than intensive work with other alcoholics. So I'll say something about and I hate to use this word in AA. It's almost like a dirty word. Balance. If you love 12-step work and you love carrying the message you can get so busy doing that that you don't pay attention to your own family and they they talk about that in here but it was a it's a very real warning so my this is a real gift for me to be here this week in my last four years have just been what's the right adjective no they have not you know a lot of loss a lot grief a lot change just a big upheaval in every area of my life every area yes and huh hell on earth yeah it's complicated so but But the thing that has kept me going, like our friend Linda. I call her pussy cat and she is a pussy cat. She calls me kitten. Anyway. She might be out here next year, right? God, y'all would just love her. Y'all get such a treat if you had Linda out here. She's just, she is the shit. Can you tell I love her? I'm just getting, I can't say it. I'm not going to say it, I love her. Okay, so anyway she called, she told me she called Jerry and she said I'm afraid Val's going to drink. It's all the stuff that's going on. And I mean she's so low, I'm worried she's going to drink and what Jerry told her was she works with too many women, she'll be fine. so you know that thing that's in there about and Bill's story about you know we avail ourselves to that work otherwise we don't survive the trials and low spots ahead and we don't I've seen people leave over much less so you know spiritual path and life is not always easy but we have a way that enables us to stay sober through all of that getting all misty but the key thing is that you know the steps get us ready to carry the message in an effective way and that's what it's all about and carrying that those principles into all your affairs you know your family life work life all of all of it. Do my insides match my outsides? Am I the same at work that I am in AA? And sometimes the answer's been yes and sometimes the answers have been no. Am I the same in AA, do I give the same time to the people in my family as I do to people in AA. The same tolerance, the same acceptance. So when I was going through a lot of this difficulty. I was writing, when it all started, I was writing a lot of inventory and one of the things that came up was, you know, I have a very young son and I have a son who's much older, who's 20 years older. So he came up in my inventory and when I went to make amends to him, this is what he said to me because I was going through a divorce and he said uh and you know i have a young son involved in that and he said um he goes just don't do to beck what you did to me i'm like what's that he goes well beck is different than i am i mean my oldest son's like a zen child compared to my youngest he's like the devil incarnate it's like god's cruel karmic justice or something because now I'm like, I'm too old for this shit, man. I can't hang. Anyway, so Nick is like zen, right? He even looks like Jesus right now. Anyway, he's got the long hair, beard, you know, rocking the man bun thing. So, but he said, just don't do to me what you did to Nick, to Beck what you didn't do. What you did it to me. And I'm, like, what are you talking about? He goes, you know I'm pretty laid back. I'm pretty, you know, I can entertain myself and I can do the do. And I'm okay most of the time spending time alone. But Beck is not like that. Beck is nicht that way. You were always so busy helping other people. Because there was constantly people in the house. It's constantly on the phone. Constantly sitting down with somebody taking them through the book. gone somewhere, at meetings all the time, fellowshipping all the time, not spending a lot of quality time with my son. And it's not all bad. He got to see some great stuff and he's met some interesting people and all that other stuff. But there's something to be said for being able to spend time with your mother. And having your mother pay the same kind of attention, give you the same type of care that she's willing to give another individual an AA. And he was so laid back, it was easy to do. It was easy for him to do it. It was easier to sit down with another drunk than to spend time with my family. It's harder to spend time with your family in some times, in some ways, to practice those principles there. You can run around AA and if you say yes all the time and you're doing the do, you get a lot of attention. You get a lotta, you're so great, you saved my life, you know, all those jujus and all that's true good stuff. That's not the only thing that's in our lives. You know, and Bill Wilson talked a lot about carrying what we learned here out into the world and I think that that's our, it's not just about getting busy and Alcoholics Anonymous and helping people, while that is vital and I would not be here or alive today without it because I'm at my best actually when I'm sitting down with another alcoholic talking about recovering, doing the do taking these actions together that's when I am at my absolute best but carrying it into all of our affairs is key. Thanks, Val. Morning, everybody. It's been a heck of a weekend for me. Many of you have said it's been a good weekend for you. I hope that's true. But being a self-centered alcoholic, I'm just glad it's Been a Good Weekend for Me. Because it makes you look good. Yeah, and hopefully I looked good doing it. That's definitely an added advantage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Val said some great stuff there. Kind of stole some of my thunder, you know. But I'll forgive you because I'm really spiritual. Yeah, the opening line, you know, of chapter 7. So before I say that, so we talked to, I talked a little bit about this earlier on. You know, the first two steps are basically covered in about 80 pages of material up to page 63 where we take the third step. then three through 11 is 25 pages and then really the rest of the book until you get to the you know the personal story is really about step 12 i mean chapter 7 is clearly about working with others but then the family afterward you know and to the employer and with and you know at the time that the book was put together we didn't have the luxury that we now have of meetings essentially anywhere you know even if you're in a remote location in the united states you could probably make seven meetings a week if you're willing to drive to the surrounding towns and stuff. And you probably have a car to be able to do that. And you Probably have a computer to be Able to go and do an online meeting if you really Really wanted to do That. I mean, there's a million ways To connect with Alcoholics Anonymous today. You know, we have chapters in here Working with others just like, well, Go to the local sanitarium and try to talk To them and see if they'll let you talk to some drunk there. You know? I mean that's a level Of willingness that I don't think Many of us have had to rise to. You know. And many people when the book was first put out, you're the only guy in your town. You rode away to New York or probably more realistically your wife rode away to Newark or some family member rode away to Newyork and got this book sent out and gave it to you and said you need to read this. This is this amazing new thing about alcoholism. So maybe you read it and you're like wow I'm going to work these steps. I'm gonna write an inventory. I'm gotta take it to a local priest and read it to him. Then I'm gunna go down to the detox or you know there wasn't a detox you know but i'm going to go to the psych hospital you know and what's the local psych hospital we said we passed an old psych hospital the old asylum the old asylum starts with a b yeah so big yeah big asylum there right so someone went to the asylum probably and pulled a drunk out of there and got to sit down and talk to him and got him sober and then they realized he wasn't an insane person he was just a drunk and so he's sober now we're letting him go so a meeting got started and i'm just grateful that it wasn't left to John Shires to start AA in Atlanta. Because I don't know that I would have had that level of willingness early on. Or at least, I wouldn't like to put my own spiritual metal to the test in that regard. But thankfully, I'm in an era where there's as much AA as you can shake a stick at. And practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. And he says it works when other activities fail. So that almost sounds like to me it's saying it works when the rest of your steps aren't doing anything for you. And I said it before, and I believe it. One through 11 doesn't have lasting meaning without 12. I've got to do one through 11 100% for sure. I have to do that because I have to have that message to carry, and I have the spiritual experience to kind of give me the strength to go carry. But if I'm not doing 12, I think the one through eleven stuff, everything that I get one through eleventh really starts to just fade away you know and i've had a lot of people over the years and i think i've done this when early sobriety i wanted to work the steps again i wanted to go through the step work again right i wanted to go do it again because i got such a okay first time i drank the next day my thought was i can't wait to do that again then the first time I worked the steps soon after I can't wait to that again I want to have that same experience one more time of the mask being ripped away and the insights and the understanding of things that I never could put to words and the spiritual lifting up that came as a result of all of that. I want to have that again. I'm treating my 12-step work as a drug or as a drink. Oh, I want to do that again! Can we put it in a syringe? Can I get a double? I mean... But that's the way I treat everything that makes me feel good. And it is possible to take our beloved steps and spiritual traditions and use them in selfish, sick ways. You know, and Valerie was going to talk about that with 12-step work. You can take 12-stepped work that far. But here is my experience about the steps. I have, as I said last night, I've written multiple inventories over my time in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've made amends in sobriety for things I did in sobrietty multiple times in my time in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I will again, I believe, because that's the kind of sicko that I am. But my understanding of myself and our 12 steps has been improved not by me working the steps again, but by me helping somebody else to do it. When I'm sitting with a guy and we're reading in the book together, things come out of my mouth that I'm like, where the hell did that come from? Insights come to me about myself and about the guy that I'M working with that are from the ether, man. I mean, they're from God is what they're from, you know, but they're just from out of the blue. You know, and I've had that experience over and over and ever again. When I'm helping a guy do an inventory, he's written his fourth step, and we're talking about his fifth step. Again, things come out of my mouth and I'm like, where did that come from? The exact right thing to say to that guy in that situation at that time about that difficulty that he's having with that resentment or that fear or that sexual conduct. you know just blah blah you know and then i can't remember it an hour later i'm like i said some heavy deep spiritual shit today and i can'T remember it i should have written it down you know that happens to me a lot happens to be a whole lot it's really we can tell can you tell me what did i say yesterday it was so great but it's been very true for me um the spiritual rush if you will that i got from my first the first time i worked through the steps was amazing first time was amazing first time of anything is amazing you know but i went through the step had an amazing experience i couldn't believe because i was very skeptical i worked the steps skeptically the first time like it's probably not going to work but i got no other options so i'm going to go ahead and do it these guys it seems to be working for so I guess I'll go ahead and give it a swing but I don't really believe that it's gonna work and then it did miraculously work I had a great feeling I want to say something about feelings did I say about feelings about taking your barometric feelings pressure a little bit every day the longer that I stay sober the more aware I am of just how self-centered I am and how everything is about how I feel you And if something makes me feel good, I'm going to chase that thing down. Which kind of explains my crazy relationship behavior in my first three years of sobriety. And I think a lot of us do that kind of thing. I was just going to share, to his point, I remember calling Don one time and I wanted him to take me through the steps again. I was feeling bad about something. I'm like, I need to go back through the footsteps. Something's wrong. You know, he goes, yeah, go find somebody else and take them through. I'm not taking you through. Go find someone to help to do it. That will solve your problem. And it did. And it didn't. That's what I just needed to turn outward. Absolutely. So I do a lot of service. I want to say this. I do it ton of service in AA. I do sponsor a lot guys. I do lot of various commitments in AA, different levels. I don't do that because I'm a great guy, okay? I do that because I am a sorry guy and that is part of the solution for being a sorry guys. That is what takes a self-centered guy like me and gets him out of self enough for the miracle, for the spiritual connection to take place. It happens when I'm not looking. It happens when I am totally not focused on self. You know, I can't solve any of my problems but when I get out of myself, had a speaker one time made this analogy I've always thought it was a great analogy He said, every one of us is like a stained glass window, okay? Covered in dirt, covered in mud, covered in muck, okay. The sunlight of the spirit is shining down and the sunlight never goes anywhere, okay I mean it's snowing today but above those clouds there's beautiful sunlight, okay the sunlight Never Goes Anywhere the spirit never goes anywhere, you know but my beautiful stained glass window, the potential, right of my life is totally covered up with dirt and muck we work the 12 steps okay all 12 of them and we start to clear that stuff away now the sunlight of the spirit can shine through the window and now there's a beautiful pattern on the floor on the other side in the building you know where the sunlight's coming through that window i think that's a very close analogy to what actually happens here one of the problems is though is i can work all 12 steps and be involved and do service and sponsor guys. And then I can ease away from it, you know, because I got this new relationship or this new job or this knew whatever, you know, just through alcoholic drift. You know, this thing I like to call alcoholic drift, I just sort of, I miss a meeting here, you know, I don't take a commitment there that I could have taken. I don�t return a phone call that I should have returned, whatever. I just slowly, slowly drift away. And then the dirty patches start appearing on the window. But there's still plenty of light getting through so I don't really pay any attention to it and it gets a little dirtier, a little dirtier. And I'm like well I don' t really feel like cleaning it now you know then it gets a little dirty and over this gradual process the lights gone again and I don''t know what happened you know I'm sort of blind to what happened. So sponsorship is important for lots and lots of reasons. A lot of times I think when we're new we think oh I can't really do 12 step work and I think what people mean is I really can't sponsor somebody yet because I haven't finished working with steps you know which i think is accurate I think I should be at least one step ahead of the guy that I'm sponsoring but I think you can do I think a lot of step work gets done in alcoholics anonymous out of panic you know because I have made my amends and my sponsees right in his inventory you know pretty soon I'm gonna need to tell them some amend stories so i better go make some and i think that's okay i really do peer pressure i think that's absolutely okay god will use my ego you know to help when it's necessary in my pride you know so but when you're new so fine you haven't worked the steps yet you know you're kind of an early process doesn't mean that you cannot do 12-step work and the steps don't necessarily have to go in order like i told you when i when my sponsor i was doing my fifth step and he's like, you're going to start calling your dad every Sunday and telling him you love him. And that was an amend that he was, I was making, I mean, before I was done with my fifth step. I had just done the resentment section. He had me doing that on Sunday, you know. So the steps can kind of, little bits and pieces can come in indirect order. When you're new, if you're six months sober and you haven't finished working your steps yet, you can, and you have a car, you can do an immense amount of 12-step work taking people to meetings. If you're three weeks sober and you're at the meeting, you've been here long enough to know what a guy with no days sober looks like at the meet. And to walk up to that person and say, hey, I'm Joe or whatever. I'm John. Are you new? You know, and the worst thing it's going to say, they're going to say no and say OK, great. Well, welcome. You know. And if they say yes, well, welcome to the meeting. Let me get you a cup of coffee and, you know, come over here. I want you to meet where you're sitting. You sit with me. Let's talk about stuff. You we save a lot of lives in Alcoholics Anonymous by greeting somebody the first day they got here. And I think we miss a lot of people, too, who don't get a greeting the first time they got her. A woman came into our home group a few years ago, and I met her in the parking lot, and she was looking confused. She was kind of just, you know, the look. And, I said, are you looking for the AA meeting? And, she said, yeah, I absolutely am. I'm like, great. Well, it's down the hill here. Come on, walk with me. And ,I said, is this your first meeting here? She says, my first meeting ever. I just looked up Alcoholics Anonymous on the internet, and I saw there was a meeting here. She lived in the neighborhood right where our meeting is. I said, well, that's so awesome. Well, come here. I want to introduce you to some ladies. Walked down the hill, gave her to my wife and her gals, and they just surrounded her. Oh, my God, newcomer! Right? You know? Which is really great. I was like, this is Barbara. This is her first day. Yay! You know, which it's really great to see that in action, right, to be in a group that is like that. so whatever at the end of the meeting I ended up walking back to my car she was outside we were talking and she says wow what a great meeting and I really enjoyed meeting all your friends at this meeting and stuff like well that's awesome and she goes where is there a meeting tomorrow night and I said I don't know there's not a regular Friday this is Thursday our group is Thursday Saturday so I said there's not a regularly Friday night that I go to but I gave her a couple of meetings that I knew about. But I said, we're here on Saturday, so come back at 7 o'clock on Saturday. And so I didn't see her. I saw her on Saturday at 7 o' clock. And I said how are you doing? She goes, oh my god, I'm so glad to be back at this meeting. I went to the 8 o' lock meeting at the clubhouse last night and no one came up to me. No one said anything to me . I sat in the back of the room. I didn t talk to one person during the entire meeting. You know it was a very different experience than what I had here on Thursday night and I said well great this is that means this is probably with your home group you know I don't need to poopoo anybody else's meeting you know or anything like that so it's in it's important and here's another thing is at 28 years sober I can go and tell my story today a group and there's gonna be someone in that room who's unreachable by me okay We have, our Saturday night meeting is a two-speaker meeting. And we have a 15-minute speaker who's usually an earlier sobriety and then a break and then an hour speaker, okay? Hour and a half long meeting. The 15-minutes speaker who is six months sober or nine months sober can reach people a lot of times a lot better than some of us who've been here longer because no one believes, no newcomer, or many newcomers anyway, don't believe that anybody's got 28 years sober. Why would you want that much sobriety? It sounds, when you're new, right? It sounds like a sentence. I sentence you to 28 years without liquor. That's what it sounds like, right. But a guy who's got six months, who's like, I'm here six months and I've got out of the halfway house and I got my place now and I gotta job and I'm kinda paying off some things and it's good and I been talking to my mom and dad and I've been talking to my ex-wife and my kids and all that kind of stuff. That's a miracle, right? That's an example of a miracle. So don't believe just because you have limited time that you can't be effective and you can' t carry the message. You can. You absolutely can. There's a million ways to do it. A related point on this is there's the 12-step work and the service work that I can do and there's the 12-step work and the service work that my group can do, okay? And this is a really important piece of the business to me is having a home group. Having a home groups that is a three legacies group that is unified and practicing the 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the three legancies, right? Unity, service, and recovery. Recovery is our application of the 12 steps, our enthusiastic approach to a solution-based group, okay, And then service is what we as a group can do to help the still-suffering alcoholic. Now, as an individual, what can I do? I can share in meetings. I can sponsor guys taking them through the steps. You know, and I can, I think, achieve a lot of good doing that. Okay, but at the group level, so my home group, we have, like I said, it's Thursday night big book study meeting and Saturday night speaker meeting. So we don't have any discussion meetings. You know it's literature meeting and it's, you know, it' s a speaker meeting And the speakers are selected because we're pretty sure they have a good story to tell. You know, that they're not just like, hey, this is my friend Susie from the halfway house. You know? I haven't seen her in a year. Go, Susie! And she's like, well, I relapsed Saturday. You know. I actually was at a meeting where that happened. You do have to vet the speakers a little bit if you want to have a solution-based speaker meeting. You have to vent the speakers. You have the speakers, a little. You have to pick people that you know have some kind of program of recovery. But the point is that the group can do things that I can help more people than what I can do, and that's why, for me, the home group is so important. My home group, Thursday, Saturday, we do, as a group, so we have a monthly thing. We have a lot of commitments that are elected, positions that we hand out. So we have Tuesday night, three-person panel meeting that we take to Peachford Hospital, which is a detox treatment center and psych hospital that we do that meeting on Tuesday night. On Wednesday night, there is a halfway house, a real low-end kind of indigent kind of halfway house just down the street from our home group. There's about 20 of us that all go over there together, men and women, to this halfway house. We do a meeting in the basement of the halfway house It's a really dingy basement. It's the perfect place for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. You walk in, you're like, yes! So it's like 20 or 25 of us and, like, 20, 30, 40 insane people that come from the community. And then half of them are high when they get there. It's the best show in town, though. You hear some newcomer shares, like the like of which I just, ah, it does my heart good. So that's Wednesday night. Then Thursday is our big book study. Friday night we have another two-speaker meeting that we do at the Peachford Hospital again. Saturday nights are our meetings. Sunday night we don't have a commitment. Monday night we have a commitment at another halfway house where it's just for men, that particular halfway house. Actually Sunday the women do a meeting. Women in our group do a meet-up at a women's shelter. It's like two women go down each 30 minutes to tell their story. Then on Monday night we do another halfway House where someone tells their story to a bunch of guys at the halfway House. So all total, it's about 30 external commitments per week that are capable of doing. Some of them are elected like you're the chairperson for Tuesday night for this month you've got to get speakers for Tuesday night or for Friday night for this month. Other ones, like the Wednesday night one, anybody can come to that. It's just a meeting that our group takes to the halfway house. So you can be really new, really sober in our group and get a lot of opportunities to do stuff. And so a lot of these 12-step commitments people haven't finished working the steps yet, but they're out helping their fellow drunks. And we really, really feel strongly in our group that it's not enough to wait for that newcomer to show up at our meeting we need to be out there where they are you know i want to we want that strong enthusiastic message to be the first message they hear you know not the well i don't drink and go to meetings you know next you know I want that strong hey I got a sponsor and I worked steps and I had a spiritual awakening and I don't drink anymore you know and I have been sober and this has happened and that has happened to me you know when you can hear that message on day one there's some hope in that. So there's a group level thing. For instance, I have sponsored women, but I won't sponsor a brand new woman. A brand new girl who comes into my home group, there's plenty of women. Maybe there are situations where that's necessary because there's basically no other choices, and I've heard that. But there's too many things that could go wrong with me and my ego sponsoring a cute young female. okay and I'm married so that makes it even more complicated but even if I was single there's too many things that could go wrong okay it's I don't need this sick guy does not need temptation you know and I don' t need some little girl saying oh John you're so spiritual I just love the way you share that stuff happens in Alcoholics Anonymous all the time right it does don't meet those complications okay don't need those complications which way or vice versa wait so we have the 13 step what's the 14th step I don't know that when you make amends for the 13th step no no that's the newcomer going after the old-timer oh okay the 14 step yeah I haven't been fortunate enough so but it truly is for me it is uh my experience of re-experiencing the steps is through sponsoring guys you know my experience i'm getting out of myself so that god can do what needs doing in my life is when i'm paying attention to the guys i'm playing attention to my group i'm paying attention anything but john you know nothing has a good has happened to john when i was paying attention with john but lots of good has happen to me when i was playing attention to you guys and paying attention to, you know, the newcomers that are in my life. Here's another, I'll tell you a little story. So when I was 12 years, let's see now, how long was I sober? I guess I was 15 or 16 years sober and my wife relapsed. And she'd been sober as long as I had you know and we've been together for 11 12 years and she and her relapse was kind of a subtle thing her program kind of spiraled downward and she kind of had that alcoholic drift and she kind of got away from things she was doing quite a bit in Alcoholics Anonymous she was sponsoring a few gals she was you know doing some service look you know area service level things and this and that she was actually part of it had a service job in our home group but she'd tell you this she hadn't been sponsored or sponsor a bull in quite a while he wasn't current on her personal application of the spiritual program of alcoholics and um and so you know she ended up picking up and and and it was all on the down low it was all under the radar and she was all hiding it she was taking a lot of prescription medications and different things uh i mean not like you know uh antidepressants or something i'm talking about like you know oxy 80s uh you know opiates and stuff like that and um and it got up to uh about 30 a day over about 18 month period and now and i was totally oblivious to this you know um because she's doing like we do she's during the sneaky like underhanded you're like you know and she's in charge of the finances in our household you know and so i never noticed that the money that was missing you know for the uh for the pills and things so she's kind of hiding this whole thing and she's speaking at meetings she's sponsoring girls okay just because and i get that we keep up appearances alcoholics we're gonna by god we're going to keep up appearances somehow it's gonna all get worked out you know and uh and she tells this story she tells it really great but anyway she finally has to it becomes too much and she finally gets sober again so but there's this stretch of time and we have a um so we had a daughter born She had a, you know, brain injury. She had stroke. She had some brain surgery. She's kind of got some special needs as a result of all of that. So that happened. She relapsed. My mother had a stroke. It was just like a two-year period of time where it was pretty rough, you know, like Valerie was talking about. It was juste a rough patch, you know, just dealing with my daughter, Kathy, you know, her relapse and then my mom had a stroke and it began which began for my mother uh and my just a crazy turn in our relationship which had always been close and now it's not and so it's just a rough patch and i remember talking to jerry during all that and uh actually there's two stories related stories that i have to tell here um and jerry saying john the thing that you need to do about kathy particularly you know because you get a lot of crazy advice if you're married and you have a long term you know relationship where the other person has relapsed and uh you get a lot of crazy advice and i had people telling me stuff like you need to drop a contract and you know and she needs to sign we adhere to those and if she uses again or drinks again then there has to be a set consequences you know because this is a family you got to protect your family and a lot OF crazy stuff like that um yeah alcoholic contracts that's awesome so but jerry gave me the best advice said, I got to go. He goes, John, why don't you just get out of the way and focus on your sponsors and let God do whatever he's going to do and let Kathy do whatever she's going to do. And don't fight anything. Don't try to control anything. You know how Jerry is. She says, it'll be fine. Either way, it will be fine, you know. And that's exactly what I did. And she's now sober 13 years after all of that. Better AA member than she ever was. Sponsors more women than she every did. She's kind of scary, actually. She's the best. She is awesome. Yeah, she's awesome. I mean, she is so gung-ho. I just love her to death. And we have a great marriage and we have a great life together. But I want to tell you another story about 12-step work and service work, and it relates to Jerry. And so when my daughter was born, that was a pretty traumatic deal. We had two boys, right? And now we were going, we wanted the girl. We got the girl, you know. You do the ultrasound and you see the girl and you're like, oh, it's a girl. We got the girl, we got the girl. And then, so she was a week late and at this particular clinic when you're a week late they bring you in, they want to do an ultra scan and make sure everything's good and all this kind of stuff. So they do the scan and the doctor says, there's a problem. It's like the worst, every parent's nightmare, you know, there's no problem. There's a problem. You know. And he gets the other doctor and they all come in and they're all looking at the ultra scan. And he says, listen, we're sending you over to the emergency. We're going to do emergency c-section and we have like the neonatal neurosurgery intensive care team gonna take care of your daughter and but she's got something wrong with her brain and that's just like the weight of that right so a couple of phone calls got made to like the AA community in our little network and so we immediately started getting a lot of calls and a lot support and people were coming to the hospital. You know, I called Jerry and I said, Jerry, here's what's going on. And he said, all right, well, John, just go in there and be of service to everybody and be prayerful. And you know that I'm here and just let us know what's gone on and let us now how we can help. So anyway, I was in touch with Jerry a lot, obviously, my sponsor during this period of time. So over the next six months or a year, 18 months. And my daughter, by the way, has come through all of that. She's fine. She is a little mentally impaired and she kind of has autistic spectrum because of this brain injury she has, but she's charming and sweet and she's just the most beautiful hysterically funny little kid. And she says things. There's a condition called echolalia. Some of you will be familiar with it. So you pick up entire pieces of dialogue and then you repeat them as a feeling or something. So she'll do things when we're fighting with the kids and her older brothers and we're arguing and stuff, she'll go, Mayday, mayday, we're going down. And it's just like comic relief when there's tension in the alcoholic house or she'll say, or she will go, oh no, there's no more blueberries. She just has these little things that she says over and over again and she just inserts them so appropriately. It's really funny. But anyway, so whatever. It's about two years after her birth. She's about 2 years old, and I'm calling Jerry one day, and I'M talking to Jerry about something. Totally unrelated to any of that, and he says, well, you know, I said, so how's things going in your life, Jerry? You know, and he said, well good, you know, the doctor says that he thinks that, you know, that there's just no trace of my cancer whatsoever. I said whoa, cancer, what cancer? He goes, oh, you know, a couple years ago I diagnosed with liver cancer and everything? I must have told you about that. And I'm like, nah, Jerry, you never told me about that, you know? When the hell were you diagnosed with liver cancer? And it was basically the same month that Kinsey was born. And so I'm calling Jerry, and I'm laying out all this shit about my daughter, and her brain's messed up, and all this stuff. And he's just like, okay, John, I'm here for you, man. Let's talk about what's the spiritual angle on this deal and how we're going to go about doing it. He's going through chemotherapy, he's got his surgery on his liver and all this kind of stuff. Never mentioned it to me. Never mentioned it to him. And I said, Jerry, why didn't you mention that to me? Because I didn't want you not to call. Very powerful example, isn't it? Twelve step in action. And he said, you know, me talking to you was taking me I was feeling terrible it was really helping me to know that you were dealing with something and I could be a little helpful to you you know there's a line here about it works in rough going and it does work in rough going so getting a little short on time and misty I'm misty too it's been awesome for us to be here this weekend and I just love John so it was great to be here with him and be able to spend the weekend with him as well he always makes me laugh he's a funny dude and traveling with Chris and it's been great yeah so and you know now when you travel south you got places to go and places to stay call up Valerie call up John yeah if you're flying anywhere in the southeast you have to go through Atlanta you know that's right you have a lot of people you have to go through Atlanta that's always right so you know take a day and come to a couple of meetings you know we'd love to see you now have yeah you have friends now in Richmond and in Atlanta and we now have friends up here and we'll call when we visit so yeah but yeah it's a huge gift to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous It is an incredible fellowship. You know, something that always blows me away about people that are spiritually fit, you see it. You know somebody will ask them to sponsor them and they're like, oh yeah, it would be a real honor. It would be real privilege for me. And they mean it. They mean it and it's always so touching when I see that happen. happen yeah you're that way too well here's the thing too sometimes and i'm sure some of you in here felt this god i can't sponsor anybody else i got three or four or five or i got eight or ten or whatever it is you know and uh but the reality is is that i just have to adapt my sponsorship methods you know i haven't yet reached the limit i've gotten to about 20 at one time again how only half of those were probably really being sponsored by me the other half are calling me occasionally are just floating around and just like, yeah, that guy with 20-something years is my sponsor. But the kind of shit that I did when I was new. But I absolutely can because we're going to lose you've got to keep filling up your sponsee tank because you're going tp lose them. You're going ot lose them when you get to step three and then you're gong to lose them when you go to step four and then step nine. The more you have, the more you'll get through the process. Sometimes you've gotta do tribal sponsorship. You know, like I've got five newcomers all ask me and I gave my number to all of them. And usually when I give my number to five newcomer's, nobody calls ever, okay? But then sometimes you give your number to five and they all call the next day, you know? And then they all called the day after that. And you're like, holy cow. Fifth steps are the hardest part, right? Fifth steps is the hardest parts of sponsorship because it's the time commitment. You know? You gotta really set aside time and adjust your schedule and all that kind of stuff. But I'll get all five guys when I have a situation like that which occasionally comes up. Okay, we're meeting on Sunday mornings at my house, or meeting on Sunday mornings at your house or meeting Sunday mornings at the coffee shop, wherever's appropriate. And we sit down with our books and we start going through and the truth is two months later when we're getting ready to get on our knees and take the third step, there's only two of those five guys left. The other three might come back later once they've been beaten up some more. So anyway, so I don't ever need to worry. I have had five or six or seven brand spanking new guys in the book together at the same time you know but it always gets whittled down you know and i heard a speaker say this it's a little more crude it doesn't sound as good but it's accurate if god takes out the trash or aa is self-cleaning oven that sounds more spiritual anyway i think that's all i got so but yeah i think you know But one of the directions in the book is we let God guide us and direct us. You know, and that's, you know, Don used to say the great thing about sponsorship is that it keeps you in prayer. Like, oh, God, what am I going to say to this one? You know? Or what do I, what's the best course? But for me today, prayer is such an important part of sponsorship. and, you know, not getting, I don't know the right way to say that, but making sure that's, what's the right word to say? What am I trying to say. What are you trying to saying? I don' t know. I wasn' t listening. I'm not listening either. You're so pretty. Shut up. I don't know so we'll leave it there thanks for listening yeah thanks for having us