The Chapter to the Agnostic and the Truth of the Problem – Kip C.

Hello, and welcome to SoberCast, where we provide AA speaker meetings and workshops in podcast format. We're an ad-free podcast, and if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by visiting Sobercast.com, look for the donate link, and drop a dollar or two into our virtual basket. We hope you enjoy the podcast. Have a great day. Pretty cool stuff. and I was going to go on and talk about step 12 which is vastly more important. Hit it. I always love step 11 because I don't think God wakes up in the morning and says, I'm going to be Michael today. Not impersonating. For some reason when I wake up in The Morning I want to be God. There's nothing worse than doing God's will and He doesn't know you're doing it. You know, and that's the other thing we forget. You know? Early on, it's amazing what I thought God's will was. So don't be so amazed with what these new little protégés come up with. I mean, we all had grand ideas, you know? But now that we've learned so simply how to connect with God on a daily basis and pray for the knowledge of His will for me today and the power to carry that out. What a powerful, powerful step. You know? And I'm getting in touch with the One that can save me. I'm trying to be who He wants me to be. Not who I want me to become. Now I'm ready to impact others. You've got me exactly where I need to be. And it says chapter 7, go into meetings. You'd think eventually we'd get to it, wouldn't you? Up to this point they mentioned meetings once. We meet frequently so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. And that was in Bill's story. But it's all about doing the work. This is chapter 7, working with others. Oh my God, what am I supposed to do? Well, we spent a great deal of time today on how to get someone through this work. Yes, we explained the directions, but we're also directing it to how do I walk someone through this process? Well, let's find out why this is so important. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much as ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Period. Welcome to the secret handshake of Alcoholics Anonymous. Nothing will ensure your sobriety more than you getting off your butt in getting one-on-one with someone who is just like you. And we're going to make some distinctions. And I'm going to come out of the book, but we've got to understand what the distinction is. There's a distinction between carrying this message and sponsorship. And if I don't understand the difference, I'm not going to get confused. There's a difference between talking at people and talking to someone. Make sense? I can go carry the message and talk at people extensively throughout the week, but am I working one-on-one? Am I talking to someone who is just like me? because nothing will ensure your sobriety more than you getting one-on-one with someone who is just like you. It'll put you right where you need to be no matter what your circumstances are and intellectually, nine times out of ten it makes no sense why you should do this to solve that in your life. my world's falling apart go work with another alcoholic one on one you don't understand my life is falling apart I heard you duly noted go work with another alcoholic and call me back but no buts click call me back ok As you can see, I was a knucklehead. I was convinced my sponsor was hard of hearing. No. What does the word immediately mean to y'all? Some of you are old enough in this room to remember the illness polio. Someone in your family going back was probably affected. Three of my dad's brothers had polio as children. Do people worry about their child getting polio anymore? Why? They have come up with a shot that they shoot each and every one of us. And guess what? No more polio. Children aren't crippled up anymore. the problem has been solved here in the United States does not exist for us if you want to know what your vaccination is from relapse it is this we got you to this point do this it says it works when other activities fail are you going to do other activities Absolutely. You are going to come up with some winners. Joining health clubs, throwing yourself harder at work, getting a second job, volunteering amongst your community, working on your relationships at home, developing your relationships with your family members. Guess what? When all of that stuff doesn't work, this does. Guess what you're going to try first? all of that other stuff. Go back and read Bill's story. When all other measures failed, him going back to town's hospitals saved the day as he could not find a job the first year and a half of his sobriety. He was unemployed. If you think it's different now, they were coming out of a thing called the Depression back then. we'd have no clue how hard it was back then compared to how you have it now it works when other activities fail this is our twelfth suggestion do you have to do it? nope are you going to stay sober? doubt it it's up to you kind of like jumping out of an airplane They suggest you pull the ripcord on your parachute after you leave the airplane. Do you have to pull the ripcorder? They just suggest it. It's really up to you. Once you leave the plane, they suggest you put the rip cord so the parachute comes out and you don't hit the ground at terminal velocity. It's just a suggestion. There's no one there saying you better pull it. You're about to hit it. Pull it. This is our suggestion. It says, I love this, carry this message to other alcoholics. Not carry other alcoholcs to this message. There is a great difference. Alcoholics Anonymous is for people who want Alcoholics Anonymous. The world is full of people who need Alcoholics Anonymous but don't want Alcoholic Anonymous, You dragging them to AA, dragging this message, or dragging the alcoholic to this message does not work. I carry this message. I present it if they care to have it. So be it. If not, moving on to the next one. If I get the barbershop, he says next, the guy gets out of the chair, the next guy sits down. Next. But here's where the whole book changes. You can help when no one else can. you can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember, they're very ill. Life will take on a new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow about you, to have a host of friends, this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. You notice the new word they introduced on this page? They're using it a lot. They use it 13 times on this page. Anybody pick out what word it is? Look at who they were talking to on page 88. Were they talking to you? They were talking to we as a group. Working with others is now talking to you. No one else are going to talk to you now. You can help when no one else can. And you, you can help someone when no one else can. The living proof is Audrey and I can sit here all day long and say the same exact things and eventually someone comes up to one of us and says I've never heard that before. Oh my God! When I said it before her. Do this for a while and you will see this. For some reason your voice is going to get through to an individual when no one else's voice can? Look back at your own experience. Did all of a sudden someone, it was like someone pulled the cotton out of your ears and that one person who had been saying the same stuff that legions of people have been saying to you, all of the sudden it's all shiny and brand new to you. Each and every one of you, someone out there is probably only going to hear it through your voice. And the craziest part is you don't get to pick who that person is. So our job is to get in the dirt. See, everybody wants to make the garden grow. That's God's job. Our job is for people Our job has to get messy and plant the seeds in the dirty. The rest is up to God. God makes the garden growth. And He's pointing His finger at each and every one of you when Bill wrote this and saying, guess what? This is what you need to do. oh my God, how do I do this? Well, have they left you hanging on instructions up to this point in this book? Absolutely not. They've told you when to take a step, how to take it, how to make a step. What's going to happen if you do? What happens if you don't? It's precise instruction. If I stick to the plan and I don't try to change it, if I use this recipe, I'm going to get the magical cake. It's like baking a world's famous cake. If someone comes up with an award winning cake you stick to their recipe if you want the award winning take. You don't take from and add to and expect the same result of the award winner cake. Make sense? We're going to keep it really simple. But going back to the book it's littered with examples all the way from the beginning I mean let's run through a couple of them real quick let's go back to forward to the second edition page XVI could this be true what they say here's giving you a little experience of Bill Wilson six months sober on a business trip it busted down He's in Ohio when he lives in New York. He's left with $10 to his name. He doesn't have enough to pay his bill, his hotel bill that he's staying at. His whole world's falling apart. He doesn'T know how he's going to get back. His business partner said, you're going to stay here. You need to fix what went on here. And he's screwed. He's about to drink. He's standing in a hotel room. A hotel lobby. Down the hall. What's down the hall in every hotel? Guess what he's hearing? Tinkling of the glass, the laughter of the crowd. And guess where his mind goes? Man, maybe I could just sneak in there, meet an acquaintance. And then it turns into, well, maybe i could have a couple drinks. And all of a sudden he's like, I am on thin ice. Instead of going into the bar, he starts making phone calls because someone planted the seed to him and told him, and we'll cover it, what he needs to do when these certain trials and low spots happen in your life. How will you survive them? Before you know it, Henrietta Cyberlink puts him in front of Dr. Bob? A doctor. Here's a stockbroker sitting in front of a doctor and the stockbrokers explaining to the doctor what's wrong with them. Are you wrapping your head around that for a second? That's kind of backwards, isn't it? But at the bottom of the page it says this seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect Another is no non-alcoholic could. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery. What are you looking for? What are your colleagues and what are you trying to convey to your protégés? Temporary relief of a recovering process that lasts a lifetime or are you looking for permanent recovery and are you trying to convey permanent recovery to your protégées? Well, here's the magic handshake. What does vital mean? Of life. You cannot take this away and maintain sobriety if you're the real alcoholic. It's vital. It's like someone taking away your heart. How long are you going to live? Not long. This combination. Well, what could someone have possibly said to Bill? Let's flip over to page 14. Right at the bottom of the page, Bill's sitting in Towns Hospital. He has not even left treatment yet. He has had what we know as a vital spiritual experience as a result of this work in a very short period of time. God had came to him. Boom! He had what they call the burning bush experience. I mean, it was... God came to Him. His was not an awakening over time. He's freaking out. He doesn't know what's happened to him And Ebi just got done walking him through the steps in a matter of a two-day period. He hasn't even left yet, but before Bill left the hospital, here's a conversation Ebi had with Bill. My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly it was an imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works is dead, he said, and how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge is spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice. You getting out of you in the midst of all of your little life and going and helping another person welcome to self-Sacrifices. Doing the work that we have laid out. This is what we're going to be asking of these newcomers. You're not going to survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. Because guess what? If you're trying to paint the picture that life is going to happen and life is gonna be happily ever after to the people that you're carrying this message to, you're wrong. Stuff happens. Life goes on. People are born. People die. Jobs are gained. Jobs are lost. Stuff happens in life. Eventually they're going to run into something that is going to be a low spot. How are they going to survive it? And this is what Ebi was stressing to Bill before he ever left Tom's hospital. Guess what got him making those phone calls that day? Ebby planting that seed, getting in the dirt and letting Bill know exactly what he needed to do to survive, and he did. If he did not work, he surely would drink again and if he drank, he sure would die then faith would be dead indeed with us it is just like that. It is our job to plant the seed to the newcomer of what is going to be expected of them. So what do I do with this newcomer once it's in front of me? Let's look at chapter 7 and kind of briefly go through this. I'm not going to go through it all. I'm going to paraphrase a lot, but there's some bullet points that just walk you through this thing. And it's so simple, you aren't going to believe it's going to work. On top of the page, 90, it says when you discover a prospect for alcoholics and honest, find out all you can about him. Don't be beating them over the head with a book and telling them they need to be doing this and tell them all about what you're doing to stay sober? Wrong answer. You don't even know who you have in front of you. First of all, find out if they want to stop drinking. Believe it or not, people end up in treatment facilities, AA meetings, jails, all sorts of situations that have nothing to do with wanting to stop drinking. I went to a treatment facility as an option not going to jail it had nothing to do with me not drinking I went into a treatment facility trying to keep her it really had nothing to deal with not drinking it was I was trying to get the fires put out in my life I went through two treatment facilities trying to keeps a job with a lurking notion somehow, some way I'm going to see I've got to get some information out of these people and they don't want to stop don't waste your time you might spoil a later opportunity of trying to shove something down their throat it's just getting an idea that their behavior their problems their backgrounds the seriousness of their condition their religious leaning why? because I need to be able to place myself in their shoes I remember I can't forget who I am and I'm trying to get to where they're at they're sitting there confused they have no idea what's going on how should I approach them because you can't approach each individual the same way there's no cookie cutter way of approaching someone it's our job to find out the best we can and try to attempt to carry this and you know what it's a learning process and you will get better at it. Sometimes it's better to wait until he goes on a binge. Unfortunately, in these rooms we're scared of people doing it again. Sometimes people have to do it again sometimes relapse is part of getting to where they need to get. Is it dangerous? Absolutely. But I can't keep someone from taking their last drink and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of it and trying to talk them into not wanting to do it. I can't talk someone into the desperation. But once they come off that last bender, guess when they're the most receptive? Right at that moment. My job is to be there at the last gas dying breath. I see them 30 days after their last drank. They're bulletproof all over again. call on him when he's still jittery in the middle of page 91 he'll be more receptive when depressed absolutely when are you the most open minded when you are ground to a pulp so what do I do once I get that opportunity I see him alone at first engage in any general conversation but after a while turn the talk to some phase of drinking Here's where your story becomes your greatest asset. God has already made a promise happen in your life that He took your greatest liability and turned it into your greatest assets. I thought alcoholism was my greatest liability. You know what the best thing that ever happened to me is? I became an alcoholic. As crazy as that sounds, Because prior, I wouldn't want to help you unless I could get your wallet or something out of you. And you know what? Today, God has turned my greatest liability into my greatest asset. My story is my experience. So I'm going to tell them about my drinking habits. what caught my attention was a man looked at me and said it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I what? because you know what everyone's been telling me for the last 15 years how bad it is from this guy's like it was the greatest things that ever happen to me it was like someone handed him the keys to the kingdom once he did it And I'm like, absolutely. I don't know where my phone is half the time, but I know exactly when I experience what alcohol can do for me. And it's stamped in. And all of a sudden, I'm seeing that head nod up and down. And then I start telling them what happened. And I start changing the phase of the talk. and it's all about the best example is the analogy that Bill lays out for you the boomerang your story the flight of the boomERANG how the outgoing flight of your drinking experience was unbelievable don't forget that but at some point in time that majestic flight of that boomerANG something happens and it changes and it went from the greatest thing that ever happened to me to all of a sudden I've got problems piling up and I'm trying to not blame the alcohol because it's the greatest thing that happened to me and all of a sudden I'm conveying my drinking experience with them. And if I don't have this experience, I probably don't need to be in front of them. And that's why one alcoholic can affect another as no non-alcoholic can. Have you ever had someone try to help you and they'd say, oh, I so understand. You're like, really? You're an alcoholic? And they're like no. But I'm highly educated on the product and it's like, what? But all of a sudden someone telling me their experience of how they attempted to control their drinking and just failed utterly in all of the different ways they attemptedto control it. And before you know it, you've got their head nodding up and down. I'm not talking about Alcoholics Anonymous. I'mnot talking about this book. I'mnot talking about what I did about my drinking. I'm just getting them to relate. Makes sense? And that's what this whole, you know, if he's in a serious mood, dwell on the troubles liquor has caused. Being careful not to moralize or lecture. If he is in a light mood, tell him some humorous stories. You're escapades. Get him to tell you some of his. When he sees you know all about the drinking game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic. Have you ever called someone an alcoholic when they weren't prepared to be called an alcoholic? Have you ever been called an alcoholic when you weren't prepare to be an alcoholic. It's not a good thing, is it? Tell them how baffled you were or how you finally learned you were sick. Give them an account of your struggles you made to stop because now I've told them how I've tried to control it and I failed utterly and now I begin to tell them the different ways I attempted to never do it again. and all of a sudden the head starts bouncing again. And if you have a person sitting there with a puzzled look and going, you know what? No, that isn't what happened. All the better. Because everyone you come across isn't going to be a real alcoholic. So don't try to make them a real alcoholic. You know? Show them how the mental twist which leads to the first drink of the spree. If you don't know how to do that Go back and study chapter 3. That's what it's all about. More about alcoholism. Look back at your own experience and relate how it suddenly happened in your life. Walking through a doorway and all of a sudden I need to drink or I'm sitting there eating a sandwich and bourbon and milk sounds good. Where does that come from? You know, if he's an alcoholic, he will understand. He'll match your mental inconsistencies with some of his own. And if you are satisfied he is a real alcoholic, that's a heck of a question. Is it my job to determine if they're an alcoholic or not? Some people struggle with this. Some people say no. What does that sentence just say? I'm not here to tell him he's a real alcoholic. But if I'm sitting back and I'm in front of an individual and I'm going, you know what? He's going, no, I don't lose control. I just drink. And you know What? I really don't want to drink anymore and I catch myself drinking, but I can go out and have a couple shots of bourbon and stop. Or I can get drunk. Are you a real alcoholic? Is it my job to help him understand what he is and what he isn't? Absolutely. It's our job. And if I'm satisfied he's a real alcoholic, begin to dwell on the hopelessness of the future. I get to bring it all. Buddy, you're welcome to be unscrewed. There wasn't a damn thing I could do. Ain't no one around here. All of this, all the ways you tried to stop. If you're thinking they're not, you may want to bring another person in and have them sit down, listen to them. They used to do a lot of 12-step calls sending another person in just to get an idea of what they got on their hands. Because if they don't need to be in AA. Why would you ever condemn someone to a lifetime of this work if they really don't need tobe here? They might have some divorce issues. They need a really good therapist to work their way through. It doesn't mean they're an alcoholic. Just because he got a DWI doesn't means you're an alcoholic. You could be a really bad driver. You have a couple, three drinks and you run into curbs no matter if you're sober or drinking. Guess what? Does that mean they are an alcoholic. Rooms of alcoholics and alums are filled with people on paper that have a DWI. Does it mean they're a real alcoholic? See, our job is to help them figure out what they are and what they aren't. I had no idea what it meant to be an alcoholic until someone sat down and walked me through. Don't at this stage refer to this book unless he wishes to discuss it and be careful not to brand him as an alcoholic. Let him draw his own conclusions. Even if I'm convinced he is, he's got to figure it out but eventually the real ones are going to look at you and go how the heck are you not drinking and I'm drinking myself to death that's the million dollar question we're waiting for because then I get to bring this book out with authority I get to tell them exactly what happened but if they think they can do it some other way go read Fred's story they were convinced Fred was a real alcoholic guess what Fred was convinced he was not Fred said all I have to do is stay on guard exert my willpower guess what they said good luck Fred they left it friendly time and place comes you drink again you might be like us you may want to hang on to our phone number they didn't tell him his plan was bad They let him go find out his truth. What happened as a result of that? He came back and asked, what do you guys do to stay sober? I found out my truth. And then I lay it out to them. And it talks on page 93. We talked about it when we were talking about step two. We're talking about spirituality. Don't get caught up in religion. AA is not religion. It's spiritual. The minute I start talking about a specific religion, I've excluded people. AA is all-inclusive. Religion has no place in Alcoholics Anonymous. As crazy as that sounds. Because once I talk about a specific religion, I'm separating. I'm not saying religion is bad outside. You know what? You can do whatever you want. But here it's spiritual terms. Simple spiritual terms so it's all-exclusive. No matter who you're talking to, the God of their understanding. Whatever that may be. And we lay it out. On page 94, it says, outline the program of action explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out the past, how you're now endeavoring to help him. At this point, we're on our first visit. I'm going to lay out. He asks the question, I'm gonna tell him what to do. Do I get him busy doing a third step right that moment? Maybe. but here's where responsible sponsorship comes in. If this guy's been in and out of the program for the last 15 years and has had a head full of AA, I might get him busy right away. He's not a newcomer. He's someone who will not do what he's been asked to do. There's a big difference. But if someone's never been in a 12-step fellowship, never read this book, I'm going to say, alright, here, why don't you go home and read the doctor's opinion, Bill's story, We'll talk about it. I'm going to walk him through so they can make an informed decision on what they're going to do so there's no surprise. You know, the most... I love this. On 95, I've heard people debate this. It says, sometimes a new man is anxious to proceed at once and you may be tempted to let him do so. This sometimes is a mistake. If he has trouble later, he is likely to say you rushed him. and people say you work your people through the work way too fast and they bring this sentence up out of context. They're telling you not to do it because look at the bottom of the previous page. Where are we at? On your first visit with this individual. Absolutely no. But flip the page. Middle of page 96, suppose you are now making your second visit to the man. He has read this volume and he says he's prepared to go through 12 steps of the program of recovery. They know what the 12 steps are. They know that they're going to do what they're about to be asked to do and they're willing to do it. Now I'm ready to get moving. The last thing I want to do is get someone doing a third step and they have no idea what amends is. Think about it. Can you imagine being shocked you know, a week later you're being told that you need to go clean up all your messes and you're like where did that come from? So I'm going to make them have an informed decision in step three and I'm gonna get busy and at that point we're gonna get moving through the work as we outlined. That's what they did back then and you'd be amazed at how effective this is now. It's all about understanding what the problem is, understanding what the solution is and making an informed decision. Do you want to do this or not? And as long as we do our job of outlining the problem and outlining the solution and giving them the option they get they're at the turning point. What are they going to do? We're going to walk them through the steps we so carefully outlined today. Look at the bottom page 97. says though an alcoholic does not respond there is no reason why you should neglect his family you should continue to be friendly to them family should be offered your way of life I'm a very pro-Alanon person let me tell you why Alcoholics Anonymous showed up on my dad's doorstep in 1974 through one of his brothers and a member of AlcoholicsAnonymous this. His brother was a member and he brought someone else with him when my dad was coming off a bender. And they tried to lay this out to him. And he told them to get the heck out of the house. Guess who showed up the next day? Anybody know? Two members of Al-Anon showed up the next day to meet with my mother. Because even though he didn't want anything to do with it, guess who they knew was dying too? The family. And guess whose job it is for us? It's all part of this 12th step. Don't forget about the family. my dad got sober in 1976 18 months after my mom got plugged in and got busy working the 12 steps of Al-Anon to where her life was okay regardless of what he did say or anything who's to say if they hadn't have done that I don't know but it changed his world because he no longer was the center of attention anymore. So it's amazing how we can be helpful in so many different ways. And even if the alcoholic themselves doesn't need help, don't forget about the family. You might get to the alcoholic through the family and regardless if they face over or not, it's our job to carry a solution to them because they're dying and they don't even get to drink over it. wrap your head around that one. Flip over to page 98, and I love this one. Does anybody work with people who have nothing? I work with bottom barrel alcoholics. I came off the street in some of my haunts where I go carry the message and where I do best is people who come right off the streets. I live at the 24-hour club basically working with people who have nothing, not have two nickels to rub. Homeward bound. Guys coming in and out of there right off the street and they have nothing. And it's so easy to get in the way of God through sponsorship. And the last thing you want to do is do God's work when you don't need to be doing God's love. And here's where sponsorship is so critical in trying to stay away from God and relying on your sponsor as you're working with protégés because it's so easy to just pull out your wallet and make everything okay for this little newcomer because you don't like the way it makes you feel because you're worried about them if they're going to eat tomorrow or not. And do you see how my ego, pride, and arrogance can get in the way of God? There's a matter of giving, but we've got to figure out when and how to give. And like they say in the middle of the page, a no-job wife or no-life wife, we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place the dependence upon other people ahead of our dependence upon God. And I have seen the most amazing things happen with guys that I did not know how they were going to survive when I got out of God's way. And it would have been so easy to just hand them over everything I got. Paid their rent, bought them food, done everything I possibly could. we learn that sometimes you buy them a meal sometimes you flip them a twenty but you've got to make sure you're not getting their dependence on you as opposed to upon God because if they're relying upon me for their sobriety let's face it if my sobriete is dependent on someone else the rules are going to change completely i am going to be like handcuffed to that person you know what i'm saying it's everything is going to change well we've got to learn how to do this you know and you might hurt some in the beginning but that's okay you know we're all growing in effectiveness and understanding and we get better at this through time and you only get it through experience you know but look what it says on 100 Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will happen when you look back. The whole key to this whole program is always when you work back, not when you're going through. When you look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Do I have any planners in this room? If I could have planned what my life was going to be as I'm laying on a green vinyl mat at the 24-hour club shaking and baking trying to get sober after moving out of my car into the 24 hour club if I would have planned what my wife was going to be like in the year 2011 11 years later I would've sold my butt short. You've got to convey this to the newcomer it says follow the dictates of a higher power and you're presently living in a new and wonderful world no matter what your present circumstances are. You know? Exclamation point. And I'll tell you, I'm living through it. I mean, the last year and a half of my life has been an absolute turmoil with my mom and dad. My mom has basically lived in and out of ICU rooms for the last two years. She's been out of a hospital three weeks this year. But doing this, no matter what my present circumstances, even though intellectually it does not make sense, helping another alcoholic allows me to be the son that I never could be because you know what I should be doing right now? Getting drunk. I have no tolerance for pain. I drink. And when everything is going astray in your life, when those certain trials and low spots ahead, doing this is going to save the day no matter what happens. And you will live in a wonderful world. And you WILL get to do those things that you need to do even though your world appears to be just chaos. And my sponsor knew what he was talking about when I thought he was just hard of hearing. I just wasn't listening. It wasn't he wasn't listening. And when we do this and we look back, we see what the power of God can do in our lives today when we fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. And it's that darn simple. Thank God it's that simple. and then we get busy dealing with to the wives a beautiful chapter trust me when you start looking at it in a different way I'd have would have never got sober if it wasn't for Al-Anon. I truly believe that in my heart. Do I know it for sure? I don't know but for some reason I truly believe it in my heart that Al-A'nan made such an impact underneath our roof that he wasn't left with too many other options and it's a great chapter al-anon another thing will make you a better sponsor learning how to detach with love is difficult when it isn't the time to give to one of your protégés and they may get hurt and i've grown attached to them and all of a sudden i want to jump in the pool and save them from drowning when Al-Anon's like, no, step away from the pool. Has anybody had their family walk away from you and say we will not take part in your demise anymore? Guess what? That's what Al-Anon is all about. Detaching with love. Love you from over here. Good luck. And not getting neck deep into your little drama over there. Either you're going to make it or you're not. Good luck to you. Love you. We're going on with our life over here. You've got to get to where you've gotto get. And it's an amazing thing that will make you a better sponsor when you get to that point. And it sounds hard to do, and believe it or not, if you've ever struggled with your protégés and got into playing God, you may want to pay a visit to Al-Anon. Because guess what your family members were doing is they're throwing pillows underneath you so you don't hit the concrete too hard when you fall. And then there's a chapter called The Family Afterwards. I'm just going to be brief through some of these chapters. I never understood why that chapter was such a big deal. Did not get it. God had removed everything in my life conveniently, so I had nothing left but to plug into Him. And I remember sitting at Primary Purpose and studying this chapter for two years and I'm like, what's the big deal? I don't get it. How can this be difficult? Then I married one of them. And then I got to find out what the word humility is because just when you think you're where you're at, it's really easy to be spiritual and stuff all by yourself and in these rooms but all of a sudden that whole chapter took on a whole new meaning once I attempted to have a healthy relationship which I know nothing about. I'm 47 years old and I don't know anything about it. I got married three years ago for the first time in my life. What a humbling experience this chapter is all about how do I get through some of this stuff? How do we practice these principles underneath our own roof, which is the hardest place to do it. If you haven't tried it, go for it once. It's really easy to be spiritual out in these rooms and go home and blow up because she hasn't turned her garage light off. I so get that argument. I get that. It's so simple. The switch is right there. turn the damn light off. I get it. And I never understood that. I never understand I never stood that. And then it talks about the chapter to the employers. Some of us are fortunate enough I worked for someone who knew me back then. And when everyone else wouldn't hire me he hired me. So, it's not as if I had to really expose anything to Him. He watched me in all my glory and we drank together and what a great opportunity that I have today because if it isn't someone at work, it is somebody's kid at work or somebody's brother at work, and all of a sudden someone walks into my office and says, can we talk? Absolutely. Shut the door. Let's talk. And today I get to be helpful there. And I get Carrie, and I get help them better understand what it means to be an alcoholic. He's the vice president of the company, and he gets to help. I explain to them what works and what doesn't work you know and it's an interesting place but then we get to chapter 11 and it talks about how do we create that fellowship we crave well get busy go get you a couple get them doing this work and before you know it you start a little meeting maybe at your house and you've got your little protégés there and you're studying what to do and you are all getting plugged in and getting lockstep to what it is we do. And before you know it, those two little protègés, one of them has got one of theirs and all of a sudden you have five or six of these surrounding you and you get a couple more and before you know it you have got a fellowship that they are talking about back in the day. Which is people who have work the steps out of this book, had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. Not as a result like there's multiple other ways of getting this result. No! It's amazing. Some 12-step fellowships actually rewrote that and it says as a results of these step. Well, no, it's the result of these steppes. And before you know it, you've got a little fellowship going among you. And you're all speaking the same problem and you're also speaking the problem and you are all speaking the same solution. And I heard a newcomer say, or someone with three years last night, that I remember looking at that back in 1998 going, I didn't take it like she did, but she said how refreshing was it to come to a fellowship where no matter who I asked what was wrong with me, they all said the same thing. Do you know how powerful that is? Instead of one of them saying, oh, it's your upbringing and other ones saying, oh, it's your relationship and the other one is saying, oh, you didn't complete college and oh, you didn... No. All understanding the same problem all carrying the same solution. And it's amazing how powerful this program can be. And we take that for granted. Because do you remember when you were hearing that the problem was 8,000 different things? I'll go back to this. Don't confuse the already confused. And as long as we keep it this simple, we'll be okay. The minute we deviate from this and try to complicate it up and try make it unique for each individual one, look out and I'm so glad that you guys came and I am sorry we ran 10 minutes over but there was a lot to cover in a short period of time do you have anything else you want to add to this? no, I don't think so all right thank you thanks for listening I hope you enjoyed the podcast Sobercast is ad-free, and we'd like your help in order to keep it that way. So if you'd like to help us be self-supporting by pledging a dollar or two a month, visit SoberCast.com and look for the donate links. Thank you very much.