Step 11 Turned His Hunches Into a Working Part of His Mind – Kenny D.

My sponsor just says, no, you keep going. You start showing up there, you're grand. My grandma said, well, why don't you come by once a week and I'll cook you a nice healthy meal. You know, a guy like you, you need a nice, healthy meal at least once a weekend. Healthy meal to her was like tons of gravy and a big, huge chunk of meat, you know, and potatoes, you Know, this is like the, you know, health food. And so she wanted me to come get some healthy food once a weak. And so my sponsor, you show up there and do it. and I started showing up at my grandparents' house. My grandfather would stay in the den and he wouldn't even come out, wouldn't ever come out. And I did that for a while and I told him, I told my, yeah, he's not coming out, he's no talking to me. I think I should just kind of not push this deal. No, no, you keep showing up and I would continue to show up at his house. And eventually he wouldn'T come out when I first got there but eventually he started coming out at dinner time. And one of the things that I realized is that I kind of held some things against my grandfather and and and my sponsor asked me some of those same kind of questions well what was his childhood like Kenny oh I don't know well why don't you know I think well I'm not sure I don' know he said I know why you don't know you don' because you don''t care that's why you don't no you only care about yourself oh geez so well when you're having dinner with your grandfather once you ask him a little bit about his life Ask him where he grew up, what his childhood was like. You know, I found out that his father was a really abusive guy. And I found out about what the Depression was like? I found, asked him, you know, what was World War II like? What was that all about? I heard all kinds of stories. He and his friends, now he'd lost, you Know, an uncle that was lost in the war that I didn't know about. And I asked him ,you know, well, just good questions. You know? I'd just think about it and I'd say, Well, did you ever think we were going to lose the war? And he was like, Oh. That's a good question. He said it was odd that I don't ever remember anybody even talking about that. We just kind of knew, you know, and I kind of started getting a picture of what this guy's life was like and the depression and kind of how he got to be this guy that was just kind enough to pull yourself up by your bootstraps because guys like me back in his day would have never survived. You know, I mean, you just, you needed to, you know I wasn't tough enough for what those guys had. You know I needed the pampering and the little oh we'll give you a little cod over here We'll nurse you back to health over here, and we'll pick you back. Oh, we'll loan you a little money and free food everywhere. And so I kind of got this great picture of my grandfather, and there was a time I couldn't make it, and I called and I talked to my grandmother and said, hey, I can't make It this week. And she didn't say anything to my grandfather about I wasn't coming over on this Monday night. And I came the next week, and my grandmother said, you know what? Your grandfather was waiting for you last night. He was like, where's Kenny? Oh, he's not coming over tonight. Oh, that's too bad. And he was enjoying our conversation. And it was maybe a year or so into that deal I was able actually to make the amends to him. And then we'd talk about all kinds of stuff. I got back into the same business working on boats and I still do that for a living today. Worked for a commercial fishing company and I work in management. I don't go out on the boats anymore. But I still do that same thing for a living that, you know, he took me under his wing and taught me all that stuff all those years ago. And, you Know, my grandfather got sick. He actually drove to my house to tell me in person, called me up and said, there's something I need to talk to you about, came over. You know, just in kind of his hardcore way, he just, well, whatever they found a little spot on my lung and he was a chain smoker and worked around asbestos for years in the shipyards and that kind of stuff. And he said, well, I found a little spot on my lung and whatever will be, will be. But I want to drive over here and tell you myself. And he started getting sick and he needed to move into a smaller place. He was a guy that always worked with his hands. And this was a family that I hid from for years. I did not want them even to have my address for fear they would drive by and see what kind of squalor I was living in. And when he moved into a small apartment because he and my grandmother couldn't maintain this, I had just bought my first house. And I had a garage there and he would come and tinker in the garage and leave his tools there and he set up a little smoker, started smoking salmon at my house and he was around all the time and he had keys to my house and it was a beautiful thing because there wasn't a thing in my house that I would be afraid for that man to see. Nothing. And it was just a really great deal. And when he did get sick, you know, I visited him in the hospital many times and he did pass away and, you Know, I promised him that I would take care of my grandma and I continued until my grandma died, I continued going over there once a week for the meals and getting the health food. And his best friend in life came to see him. and I always thought this guy was my uncle when I was growing up he was always introduced as I just thought he was my uncle but it turned out he wasn't my uncle at all he was me grandfather's best friend but he was part of the family when I was growingup and he came to see my grandfather they were the same age and it was just two old guys saying goodbye to each other and he called me at my work and said hey I've just come from seeing your grandfather and I'd like to come have lunch with you and I said well that would be great so he came to my work we went out to lunch and he said you know i was visiting your grandfather today and i'd really like to get to know you because your grandfather told me that he considers you an extension of himself that's an amends isn't it from a guy that didn't want to even come to see me telling his best friend that i consider kenny an extension to myself and you know it didn't happen overnight And I really have softened, I think, in the amends process a bit that I don't think, I mean, maybe there is such a thing for some people as finishing amends, but it's not an idea that I particularly am fond of these days because just for myself, it was a message that was kind of a little harsh for me. And I told you I quit working on those boats and I didn't get sober for three years. Well, during that three years, I don't remember a lot of stuff that I did, but I can stand here honestly and tell you that I didn't. I did something every day during that 3 years that I owe an amends for, and a lot Of it I don' t remember. I sponsored a guy that did these cross-country crime sprees, and he went from one end, from the west coast to the east coast, and from the east cost to the west cost, and from The west coast To the east Coast. And It was a crime spree all the way across the country, the whole way, and He did that stuff for years. And the idea of finishing amends, I think it's really become kind of none of my business. I currently, as I sit here today with you all, I don't have any cards. I did get through all of my cards and it took years for me to do that. I had a lot of financial amends. I had a lot of criminal amends there was a lot of stuff I couldn't completely take care of and I had a family by this time. There was some things that I had to consider my family on you know there were some things that i had to talk to my wife about there's some things i didn't even need to talk anybody about i just knew the answer would be no you're not doing that you know we need you here we don't need you in the penitentiary right now and so i've had to find some other vehicles to take care of some of these things. I, um, some, you know, some ways to, you know, I had money that didn't belong to me and I had to find ways to get that back into the hands of, of, uh, of the spirit. And so I've donated a lot of money. I've made some direct amends. Don't get me wrong. You know, I made a direct amends to a dentist office that I, that I ripped off and that was kind of an intuitive thought. I just was a place that I kept going by and going by and going buy. And I finally decided I needed to call the guy and it was a great amends, uh I've made an amends and went knocked on the door of a house that I burglarized. I've went to all of the stores that I shoplifted from that I could remember, every one of them that I could remember. I have called and I was instructed to call make an appointment with the manager because this guy's a busy guy and he doesn't want you just walking in in the middle of his day you know call and explain get an appointment with the guy and go in and make the amends and take some money with you. And so I have done those amends but there's a lot of these other amends I absolutely don't remember some things you know and but I know I own amends so it's none of my business really when this gets I suppose someday it will get to a place where it's going to be I could call it tithing instead of calling it amends I suppose it might get to a place were I would call it where I might call it a desirable way of life instead of amends just this idea of you know that that you know this giving is a part of receiving that both hands need to be open to idea. Maybe that'll stop being amends for a while but I really look at amends now as a way of life. I think this is a deal that's going to be a lifelong journey for me and I've just recently in the last year I came up with two amends at 17 years sober that I totally forgot about two amens. I took my daughter to a train to go down and see her grandmother my mom and I was in a store where the train was late. We were downtown. They were like, oh, the train's not going to be here for three hours. So we went and checked out this little store. And I was in the store with my daughter and I remembered, my God, I used to shoplift here as a kid. We used to take the bus down just to shop lift at this store because it was so easy. And I had totally forgot about ever doing that. And so I got back and I wrote a letter to the guy and asked. I called at one time and no, the owners weren't available owners weren't available so I wrote a letter but you can write them a letter I explained the situation I sent this letter and I got with my phone number and stuff from the guy ended up calling me back and I was able to take care of that amends and it was just one of those ones I had never remembered and I had another amends the owner of that that company that I worked for that put me through treatment twice was a family business and I'd made direct amends to him but I'd never made amends do his son who was really an owner in the company I I mean, he was kind of being groomed to take the company over. And he didn't because of his own drug problems. But, you know, I'd made amends, but I'd never made amens to the son. And I was having a conversation in business and somebody said, oh, have you ever seen old Steve so-and-so? And I said, oh, man, I hadn't even thought about him for a long time. But, yeah, I had never made an amends to the father. But, no, I absolutely owed that guy an amens. I mean he was one of the family members that kept me on and helped me out many times. And there were several times when that guy loaned me money out of his own pocket. And I was able to think about that. I hadn't seen this guy in, the whole time I'd been sober, hadn't see him one time, 17 years, hadn't seeing this guy one time. And I thought, well, I made two cards out. I made one card out for that, for the yield curiosity shop, that store. And I made One Card Out for Steve S., this guy that I used to work for. I went and made that amends at the curiosity shop. I was at this little remote airport out in the Aleutian Islands up in Alaska which is way, way it's a little piece that comes way out in the middle of nowhere and I'm in the midst of this deal in this little tiny airport and who do you think I see at that airport? Steve first time in 17 years I'd had that card made out for probably two weeks and I run into Steve and that's the way that whole deal has gone I would actually like to open it up for a few minutes here it's actually it's 2.30 I guess we'll go maybe about 5 or 10 more minutes and just kind of questions and comments and we'll kind of talk a little bit more people can ask questions about amends or make comments about amens and we will try to take so with that Yeah. Anybody? Yeah. Erica. Erica, I've got the microphone here. Thanks. I'm Erica. I'm an alcoholic. I had to share this because when we were having lunch, I was sharing with Kenny that during the meditation that this place that I went to was someplace that I used to go in college. And I have never gone there in a meditation before, and I was really surprised because of the way that the air smelled, and it was a fall day. And I was walking from campus to the music hall at Bennington College where I went into college. And, you know, I'm starting to make my amends. I thought I had made my amends and slowly but slowly more of them are coming to me and the biggest ones are coming around finding that I am not the same person that I used to be and that the way that I use to make decisions is really frightening to me, that I was that person I don't know how I made decisions but it certainly is not the way I do it now and when I was coming back from lunch I went to check my messages and my first true love from college called me and left me a message I haven't spoken to him in about 30 years and I owed him an amends and I don't know how he found me he called me to tell me that someone that I know died And so here's why I'm saying this. It's because, you know, this morning, like most mornings, I asked God to show me that you're there. I just need some evidence today that you've taken care of me. And that's what I needed. And, you Know, I've been praying to become willing, to be willing to make amends. And all of a sudden I find myself extremely willing. I called him back right away because I knew I couldn't be here and be present without doing that and both of us just cried and it was extraordinary that's all somebody could flip that switch off does that microphone need to go to anybody else? Can you pass the microphone over here this way? I'm an alcoholic. Kenny, if you would just clarify one piece. When I first got sober, and this may just be my perception, I don't think it was, but I used to hear in the rooms of AA that if ever someone did mention the ninth step, which is very, very rare in meetings I would go to. But inevitably someone would say, well, you know, the step reads, except when to do so it would injure them or others. And my sponsor told me, I'm others, so if it's going to hurt me, I don't make the amends. And I heard that and I thought, well every amends that I was going to make would hurt me so I don'T have to make them. And I remember I had been doing the work for a while I was leading a meeting at our club in Santa Fe, and I shared that my topic was, does not finishing my amends have anything to do with whether I stay sober or not? Because I always want you to put out a topic. That was my topic after I'd shared for a while. And an old-timer, a guy with a lot, a lot of years, who's kind of a high-profile guy, said in the meeting, He said, well, you've got to watch out for some of these sponsors because they'll have you go into jail. And our book says we don't go to jail. And it sounded like fingernails on the blackboard, but I didn't have what it took at eight years sober to contradict a guy who had like 30 years sober or something like that. But when I read the big book, it says we have to be willing to go to jails. But we don'T rush off to jail and leave our family to starve. but could you kind of elaborate on that a little bit? I think it needs clarification. Yeah, I appreciate that, and I think you're right. It probably does. You know, our book is very clear that when dealing with these things that we are not others. I think that's very clear because it ends up saying, you know, no matter what the price, we have to be willing. And it does tell us, you know in several places that and i warn people about this because and i work with a lot of people that have some heavy duty amends that we don't fall on the sword in amends they tell us that in the book oh it would be really uh i don't remember what the word they use it would have been really great if he would have just went to the courts and said here i am and this is the example they give in the big book but uh but they said no we thought maybe we'd handle it a little bit different way and we had him actually talk to his wife and and there is an amends of a guy that actually goes forward in the church and admits to all this stuff, but he got permission from his wife first that this was okay. And then he went and got permission from his business partner first. The mother of my daughter was with me when I was making my first round of amends. One of the amends I needed to make was to that family that I had done all that damage to that had employed me for all those years. and they had actually just hired me back. They hired me about six months sober and they always said they would. They said, listen, if you ever get your act together you can come back here but just don't come around here until then. So about six weeks later six months over I went back and they said, well we can't give you your old job back we canít really pay you what we were paying you before but we can keep you busy around the yard youíre just kind of cleaning up and doing a little stuff on the boats and so I wasnít going to be a chief engineer I was going to just be kind of a yard guy hourly but oh yeah, I was happy to take it and she was pregnant, so I had to get her permission. I wanted to make amends to those guys, but I thought if I make amens to them and tell them that I was the guy that robbed the medical chests off the boat, I was a guy that stole all that scrap metal because I would sell the scrap metal out of the scrap medal bins for cash and then the cash would somehow never make it, made it to the dope dealer, but it never really made it to the front office and I did that a whole bunch of times. So I owed these guys a considerable amount of money and I came with a total, and I got permission from her first. And she knew what I was up against. She knew I was in the search for freedom. And she said, well, if you lose your job, you lose your job. And I didn't. I made that amends to those people. And, you know, I had very little money. I was going to say, hey, can you maybe take some out of my check or do something? And the guy actually ended up saying that, he ended up saying that, you know, hey, I have millions of dollars and, and, you know, I don't want to take your money. I really don't. And I'm just glad that you came here. And he said probably the person, just intuitively, he said, you know, probably the first thing that you really need to make an amends to is your family. And just, it was just a great guy. He did ask me a lot of questions about alcoholism and drug addiction because I think my son has a, has a problem in that area. And his son did and I knew it. You know, his son had a big, big problem. The same guy that I made the amends too up in Alaska. but I was able to kind of help him out a little bit with his son but that's the important thing if somebody comes to me with a crime and I'm dealing with a guy right now on this deal that destroyed some personal property but it's to the tune of a huge amount of money and you know I've told him you have a right to defend yourself even when you're guilty that's how things are here We have a set of laws that allows you to mitigate the damages even if you're guilty. We don't fall on the sword, so I've had him go find an attorney first and then he's going to find out really, get all the information on exactly what the story is here and then talk to his family about it. And I give that advice to a lot of people, to go find a lawyer or a lawyer to help you out. Find an attorney if you want advice on how to set this deal right. Make sure you're talking under privileged conversations here and then just tell them what it is you've done. So I hope that clarifies it a little bit. We do seek permission. We do make sure that it's not going to harm others. Oftentimes, it doesn't serve a good purpose. And the book tells us this, that it'S not going tO serve a gOod pURpose for this guy to sit in jail because he won't be able to pay his alimony if he's doing so. For him to go sit in gaLe would hurt his kids and that's a story directly out of the big book. Wouldn't work for him. it's going to harm his children if he sits in jail. So he had to find a different way to make the cements. It didn't mean he didn't have to pay the money back, it just meant he needed to find away where you could get that money into the hands of his ex without going to jail. Yeah. Tony, do you have a question? Comment? My name is Tony, I'm an alcoholic. Hi Tony. Thank you. The two things I wanted to just share a couple of experiences is um the first experience i um i'm a muscle recovered drug addict i'm an alcoholic and i i kind of just don't remember a lot of stuff and um i have a lot of cards i had quite a few cards of people i actually even remembered their names you know like i remembered their first name and and i kept those cards i mean i have no idea where to find them i have no idea like any of that um but i kept the cards and um the one thing i got asked to do this time is that and i think we got it from don is that to sit in readiness and in prayer and envision these people like they're there like they'RE there and do the amends just do it like right there with god and say you know what here's a deal and and lay it all on the table and whatever that amends is specifically that I make that amens to God, to the Spirit and if there's any money the money's always got to go somewhere in my experience and if people won't take money if you insist on it, it's been my experience if you tell them listen, it has to go somewhere. It can either go to you or to charity you can pick the charity, whatever and they seem to be more willing to take it that way But so I got that instruction this time because I've been holding on to those cards. I've be holding on them and like, you know, like, listen, I really want to make these amends. I'm ready to. I'm willing. And if I ever see these people anywhere, I mean, and that's – I'm will to make that right. I'm going to do whatever it takes. And the second story is that my family, my sister, she – I went and made amends to my family. My immediate family and my stepdad and my sister and my brother. My mother didn't want to see me, but I wrote her a letter. And I went to go see my sister. And she was – she freaked out. She yelled at me. She swore at me。 She says, I don't want you to hear those dang amends and blah, blah, bla. And I said, okay. Fine, I won't tell you. I don't need to. But I kept calling and I kept sending the cards and I just kept doing this thing. Last week she called me on the way I was going to Denver and she may have cancer of the uterus. We just talked for a while. It was like, I have just tried to be a good brother today. We had the best conversation I've ever had and I said, I really want to talk to you for a minute. And she's like, you're not going to make one of those amends, are you? And I said, no. I'm not going do that. It's real obvious you don't want to hear it. But I just said, you know, I really like hearing from you. I love you and I appreciate it. And I want to be in your life if you're willing to do that and, you know, and I don't know. But it was, I felt free though. I felt three. I felt like there was no weight on it anymore for me with my family, with her specifically. Yeah, I mean, I think that's all because of the amends process and there was a lot, a lot more amends but anyway, that's it. Thanks. Thanks, Tony. I think we'll kind of wrap up. We've been sitting I think maybe a little more than an hour now. It's probably a good time. I will say this that one of the things I did and I didn't mention that in this amends and we can't hit on every little thing, but Tony kind of brought up the thought for me. You know, there's the deal that says there are some people that cannot be seen. That includes people that have died, people that we can'T find, people that WE don't remember, those kind of things. I had some cards that were just like, you know, the guy from Milwaukee. You know? I mean, I didn't... I just knew that I'd burned this guy, but I had no idea. And, you know,, I wrote a lot, a lot of honest letters and I used to take them to a, I would just put the guy from Milwaukee on the envelope and there'd be a letter but I included all those things in and I did that same thing Tony talked about. I tried to envision that person in my mind's eye and tried to vision myself saying those things and I would write all that stuff out, what I'd done, if there was any way that we could ever come in contact I'd make this mention in person that if I ever see you I stand ready to do this that if there's anything I need to do to make this right I'd pray that God would make me aware of those things. All that stuff and I'd put it all in a letter form and I would put it in the envelope and I used to put it in a post office box and then I told somebody what I was doing and they said well now you owe the U.S. Post Office an amends because when a postman finds something like that he can't just throw it away he's got a whole procedure and paperwork he's gotta do for that piece of mail so I quit doing that and I started just throwing those in the recycling but I actually have a belief in that I mean, I actually do have a belief that in the spiritual world when I really do that and I think about that person that it's, you know, I don't think it's a remote possibility. I think there's a possibility that at that moment that I mail that thing off and that I send that that that person has a thought, you know I think I'm done being mad at Kenny. I think i'll let that one go. You know, i really do think some of this stuff does take care of it but it does talk about writing the honest letters And I wrote dozens and dozens and Dozens of them for this kind of stuff So You know there I haven't come across An amends yet I really haven't I've had some where I had to tell well listen let me think about This and get back to you I've got a lot of those But I haven'T had an amends Yet that I can't that were just Kind of well there's no way to make an amens for that There's always some action To be taken To help to restore Some balance to the book So yeah Tom question how about graveside amends do you have any experience with that i do i made several like that you know uh uh i had a a really good friend one of my best friends that died of a heroin overdose and and i always felt really horrible about that and the last conversation he and i ever had was a conversation about uh you know he was in aa for a while and got sober and then i was in AA and we never were the last conversation we had with each other it was I was sober and he wasn't and the conversation was man wouldn't that have been nice if we could have just had a little bit of time where we were both sober at the same time would have been really nice and then he died and I owed him some amends and I went to the place where his service was and I also you know I have a belief in the spiritual life that you know i made that amends to Jim and I made my amends and I clearly you know heard him I wrote the letter, I read the letter to him and I clearly heard him saying that he was in a better place and that he wasn't going to kill me. He was glad I was clean and sober and I had several of those kinds of intuitive thoughts. A guy that I sponsored died and I'll tell you more about that story but a guy that in the 12 Steps, it's a really powerful story, I'll telling you tomorrow morning, this guy's name was Gary and he died while I was sponsoring him and, you know, I had some amends to make there. I had done some things in sponsorship that weren't really very kind and I felt horrible about it and I went and did a graveside amends with Gary. I did a grave side amends with my stepfather, my stepmother I told you about and I had som amends to make their and they were very, very powerful amends and I treat those in that light of some people cannot be seen with them. and we write the honest letter and take that letter to a place. And I'd encourage everybody to do that, you know, if you have those kind of amends. Write the letter and go to the grave. And, of course, a lot of people don't use graves these days. But go to a space where you remember the person or there was a special place to that person or a place and make those amends because those are... I'm glad you brought that up. Some of the most powerful experiences I've had is making the amends and reading the letter, but the really powerful thing is the listening. You know, that's a big powerful part of amends, but the listening part. I mean, you will be amazed at what will happen if you'll put yourself out there in the spiritual life a little bit. It's really cool. So, yeah. so um we'll go ahead and stop the the burning person portion of this and what we will stay for a second and uh talk group conscience just for a second okay welcome back everybody we're going to have one more session here today tonight and then we'll have an open meeting tonight as we talked about and then we're gonna have a couple of sessions tomorrow morning will end by 1130 or so and I think we'll start again tomorrow morning around nine o'clock and tomorrow is going to be entirely devoted to step 12 and so we're really doing good what we want to talk about here in this session that we have and we'll do our very best not to make this a really long drawn out session so I'm going to get to some points the stuff that's up on the board you can kind of allow it to make you a little nervous right now but you don't have to worry about it too much and we will get to it eventually but this says sex, security and society and these are kind of this is kind of some 12 and 12 woo woo stuff that we're going to gets to just because I thought for this group it would be something that's a little different than and it might be kind of something fun So we're just going to approach it from that standpoint. One of the things that was kind of a real focus point for Bill at the time of his life when he wrote that book was that a big part of the problems that alcoholics have outside of drinking, and I would guess this is true for Al-Anon's too, is this idea of kind of these God-given instincts gone awry. That we're, you know, we have a God-driven instinct for sex and we have an instinct for love. We have a good-giver instinct for security which means that there's a God given thing that we'd have a home, some friendship, certain amount of money, these kind of things because if you don't, you'll freeze to death. You know what I mean? It's a good given thing And society is we have a God-given instinct to kind of circle up and to get with a group of people. People will kind of find groups of people to join and join in community with and family and those kind of things. But one thing that I can say for myself is that well into sobriety, I find myself demanding way more than my fair share of these things. and this is really this idea that that bill had that we always want more than our fair share of these god-given instincts i want more of my fair share of sex security and society and those are kind of the three things that he actually calls it in a 12 and 12 he calls this last one society calls that prestige and he uses both words but the prestige uses primary i kind of like when he uses the society word for these instincts but prestige, and he kind of gets into that. So we're going to look at some of this stuff from this avenue of the 10th step being the step where we continue to take personal inventory. When we're wrong promptly admitted, we're gonna look at some of the beautiful things that the big book has to say about step 10 and 11. And we're gong to look at this outline as a way to kind of write some additional inventory maybe after you've been sober for a while and after you have gone through the steps so you've come out the other side, maybe there's a few more things that you can look at in your life that will be helpful. If this is helpful for you and you can write it down, then that's great. I want to make something really, really clear here that I absolutely believe and that's that when we sit down with a new person, we take them back to the foundation which is the big book. You know, that was the... And I said this Friday night, it's the grandmother of all 12-step material. It doesn't matter what fellowship you're in. You know, this is where we start. So when a new guy comes to me, we don't do any of this. We don't doing anything else. I'm doing this because this group is maybe ready for it and it's going to be something a little different and fun. And the 10th step directs us to do these kinds of things in the big book. And I'll show you where I get this idea from. But we're going to open the book up a little bit. We'll look at page 84. If you don't have your book, you know all... but it talks about that after step nine, it says we vigorously commenced this way of living. This is about the middle of the page. As we cleaned up the past, we have entered the world of the spirit. As I'm making amends, I've done this. Remember, we're headed for the spirit's awakening as well as the steps. We've entered the word of the Spirit. You don't enter the world to the Spirit three after you get through the stuff and you're starting to make amends and that was definitely my experience experience that in step uh in step 10 you know i had entered the world of the spirit my life was different i was on different terms and they kind of give us some of these promises down at the bottom of 84 and 85 that we you know I think this is pretty common stuff and most people read this or you you don't get to be around a very long hopefully before you hear some of These 10-step promises because they're as beautiful or more powerful uh a lot of people think than any of the promises in the book. And that's at the bottom of 84. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol, for by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor if tempted we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we'll find that this has happened automatically. We'll see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That is the miracle of it. We are 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 had not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. 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 fit spiritual condition. And then it parlays into this idea that it says it's easy to get in that place and rest on our laurels and if we do, we are headed for trouble because alcohol is a subtle foe and that insanity of alcohol can return. So what we've really got here, it says, is we've got this daily reprieve. We are not cured of alcoholism. I'm in the middle of 85 now. What we really have is a daily repieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. And then here's a sentence that I want to really use as kind of our focus for this session here. Every day is a day we must carry the vision of God's will into all our activities. How best can I serve thee? Thy will, not mine, be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line and all we wish it is the proper use of the will. And it goes on. They use a lot of words in here. If you go back and look at this, they use words that are called inspiration, the intuitive thought the decision they use a word in here called the vital sixth sense if this comes to play once you've entered the world of the spirit this vital sixth sense so what are the five senses somebody just name them for me real quick the five big ones Cyrus Cyrus Silas what was that again yeah he's got all five touch taste sight feel and hearing so there is the the sixth sense you know this is these are the things that we use to perceive this world around us they're the senses that we used as our sensory perception this is how i sense what's going on in this room i'm using all five of these senses at the same time right now and I use them all to kind of sense what's going on and what's the people around me. I can use it to sense danger or smell. You know, I mean, I can use these senses and then there's, they said, but now we're gonna start using this vital sixth sense and that is, you know, some people call that intuition. Some people call that spirituality. Some people called that you know there's a women's intuition they call it. So how many people in here would say that they are in touch with this vital sixth sense. Yeah, yeah, somewhat, yeah. And that was most of the people that raised their hands. A few that didn't, but everybody will raise their hands when I clarify what we're talking about here. You know, it is a capacity that we all have. It's a capacity to be able to say, it's a faculty that we also have. And it's the best one, and I think that's the reason that this term, you know, the women's intuition has come along because, you know... To give people the... I like to use the most clarifying example that I can when I'm talking about stuff. The most clarifing example of this that I can think of is the mother. She's got her back turned. The kid walks through the room. What's wrong? Nothing. No, no. No,no,no. Right? And we all know what that's about. It wasn't the five senses that she picked up on. it's the sixth sense my kid is in trouble right and that capacity we all have that capacity you enter into the world of the spirit you start getting that with the people that you work with or maybe you get an inspiration in a group like this you get a feeling like maybe I should say something about this or maybe I shouldn't talk about that you kind of get to where they say that we start you know using this vital sixth sense says we come to rely on it we come to rely on it right before that they said the sentence that we're going to focus on and the reason I wrote some of these down to give people an idea where we're Going Here, it says that every day, and there's two musts in that paragraph, every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will for us into all our activities. So if there's something in the 10th step that I must do and it's this vision that I have that I'm not going to do but I must carry into all my day's activities, I think it would be wise to have a vision of God's will for me what is vision what is God's Will for Kenny and it seems like a big question but really it's come to my experience that it's really not as hard as it seems we talked about this a little bit on Thursday night at the potluck that we had at Tom and Juanita as we kind of got a little discussion going started talking about the heart's desire a little and I said well I'll touch on that at the retreat. The heart's desire is God's will for us. You know, I really believe that. I think there's more to it than that. The heartís desire, you know, my friend Emmett Fox says that itís not a secret. People like to say, ìOh, I don't know. I donít know what Godís will is for me.î ìAh, no, no.î He says, and the fox says, you know. You know it's that very thing that you don't want to tell anybody. It's that every thing that you don't wanna stand up and say that this is what I'm gonna do. It's the very thing that causes all this fear in your life. No, he says, you can't hide behind that deal. He says you know, you know, and he says it much more eloquently than that in his, you know he's got a little book that he, and it's called, just a little 10 or 12 page pamphlet and if you ever see it around you can pick it up. It's called Your Heart's Desire. by Emmett Fox. And so, you know, my deal is pretty easy. It's pretty easy and I got quiet, got placed on this path a long time ago by a great sponsor and, you Know, I got quite and I thought about it and, You know, it's an easy deal for me because what comes to me when I think about my heart's desires is I love working with drunks. I just love it. So I didn't have to really go very, very deep. It was... I got past the, okay, being a rock star. Well, you know, I had to run that by my sponsor and he says, well, Kenny, you don't play the guitar. You can't sing with a crap. You're not very good at writing poetry, so maybe you need to look a little deeper. And I'm just kidding about that. I actually didn't come up with that. But, you know, I mean, you do need to kind of think on a deeper level, like is this really God's will for me and search? But it shouldn't be a secret. You know, people have these inspiration, intuitive thoughts. You know my wife loves being a mother to my daughter and to our son. She loves being in a wife. She loves working with alcoholics. I mean she's kind of found her heart's desires is pretty simple. She's pretty simple, likes to live a pretty simple life. And when I looked at that, the good news for me is that there's no shortage of raw material when it comes to my heart's desire. It's not too hard to find hopeless drunks. And, you know, the reason that kind of choked me up when I thought about that is that I have a job, you know, unemployment. And it's actually a fairly big job. You know, I manage a big company. We've got about 75 employees. And,you know, it keeps me very, very busy. And I love doing it. And I'm of service to a lot of people. You know these guys that I work with, they love me. they really do they don't come out and say it but you know I get hugs from the guys that I work with and these are big gnarly fishermen, Alaska fishermen you know and when I come up and see them and the boat's hitting the dock man these guys are happy to see me when I fly up and see em and they want oh what's going on they want all the information and I got sick a couple years ago I needed to take a little kind of step back from my job a little bit and get some treatment for hepatitis C And I told one of these guys, they cried when I told them what was going on. So I got a really great deal with my work. And my family is just a huge part of my life. And I'll talk more about my family. But my wife never had any children. And she desperately wanted children. She prayed for children. and then she met me and my daughter came to live with us just a short time after that and then She was like, God, no, I want one of my own children and we tried for about a year and that's what we decided. Well, if it's God's will, we'll try for her about a years and my wife is, I don't know if she'd like me to say this or not, but my wife ist 46 and so we didn't have a lot of time but we did try for a period of time and we weren't able to have our own child and she was still praying but she wasn't specific in her prayers. And God gave us this 220-pound bouncing baby boy, you know, this 15-year-old kid that came to live with us. And that's been five years ago now. He's 20 years old and he's just a great kid. You know, I have this vision of family life. But the heart's desire and nothing, there's nothing, you know I just have a great life in those areas. But I'm telling you when I am, and there's people that know what I'm talking about. I just caught Tom's eye there. and I just know that he and I are on the same page, Juanita and other people, that people are on this same page. Man, when I'm working with a drunk and it's working, shit, there's nothing better than that. When it's really working, ah, it's just such a great thing. It just really just, you know, I mean, I got this purpose in my life. It's just such a great thing. And the book tells us to do this, to look at what is your heart's desire? What is God's will for you? And the other thing that Fox says is he says, God doesn't play tricks. This is not the God I believe in. He doesn't put something in my heart and then not give me the ability to accomplish it. If that's there, it's there for a reason. These things are there for reason. And so it says we have this vision of God's will for us. And that's what I've done here. People, I think, here know what the new ideal is when we write our sex inventory. And for those of you that don't, we kind of write this sex inventory and then he says, well, we go back and look at it and we use this as a basis for a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. And my sponsor actually had me write that out and bring it as part of my fifth step, this new ideal that from now on, you know, this is the type of person that I want to be in a relationship that I'm going to get to be friends first with somebody before I have sex with them. And I'm not saying, I'm nicht putting any morals into the deal because, you know,, everybody write their own new ideal and I'm niet the judge of what should go into that. But there's just a couple things. So with this, we kind of do the same thing and we come out of this with a vision of God's will for me in all my day's activities. sex is an area that i need to to look at and there's some different areas like like can i break it down and so you can write three three and three there'd be nine new ideals if you wrote this inventory and this is an inventory of just looking at what my vision of god's will is for me so i have something to carry in to all my day's activities sex for pleasure and like i said we got to be comfortable talking about sex and i'm not entirely comfortable probably not as comfortable. It's like, what's the lady on TV? Dr. Ruth. You know, I'm not like a Dr. Ruth here, but we got to get comfortable because this area, you know, every person that we ever sponsor that comes to us is going to have problems in this area and this is helpful. You know where am I with sex for pleasure? You know I have to like write a little new ideal about that. Don't get carried away with this. Just do like one or two sentences. Sex for pleasure and i'm not we're not saying what's right or wrong just what comes to you you know i'm i'm married so mine is going to be different than a person that's single you know uh uh a person that's you know their their sex inventory that these new ideals and this vision of what god's will is for them and all their day's activities and look different than mine because you know a single person in aa is probably going to date a little bit maybe before they find mr and mrs right. You're going to date a few people, and this idea of sex for pleasure is going to come into the factor. Where am I with that? Well, I'm okay with that as long as my wife is. I don't want to try to be selfish and self-centered about this, so I have some ideas on that. This is a big one, reproduction. If you're going to be partnered up with somebody, it's nice to have a vision of what God's will for you is in this area of reproduction. For me, now I know You know, I know that we are not going to be having any children. So that's an easy one. But for a lot of people, they kind of, you know, if you're going to be having sex, you should think about what is your idea of reproduction and where does that go? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This last one is called release. And these are just three areas that actually my current sponsor had me look at. This idea of release can be, you Know, if You have a real lot of pressure at work or something and You come home and You're using sex as a way to release or sex as a way it can also be masturbation you know where am I with that and a lot of people get hung up about that issue you know what is compulsive what is not you know if it's five times a day is that compulsive you know which my what's my idea here is it is yeah no no no yeah so this area of release is the idea that people that And we all use sex as kind of a release from the, you know, I mean it's a way to release tension and stuff in our lives and it can be sex with another person or it can be masturbation. But, you Know, it's an area that we can look at like what's my idea, this vision? And then security is, you Now, I broke that down into financial, emotional, and health. A vision that I can have every day that I take into every day is that all my days activities. Financial is important because I have realized that I went out and got a guy that knows a lot about finances and he did all these spreadsheets for my wife and I and he told me I can't retire for a long, long time and that I gotta keep saving, saving and we gotta plan and financial security, where am I at with that? Emotional security. What is my... I wanna become more peaceful, I wanna be... A vision that I carry into everyday's activity that I want to be more peaceful, more accepting, more open-minded, more relaxed. This is a long-term deal for me and the deal that I've realized is that... I'm thinking of an example here, but I think it was Don about 34 years sober when he died? 37 years sober. 37 years when he was sober when He died. You know, He's a very peaceful guy. Very peaceful and calm. But, you know, and I've met a lot of these guys like that. And you know what I think brings that about is they are doing this work that we are doing, but they've been doing it for a long, long, long time. So I don't reasonably expect to be as calm and serene and peaceful as Don at 17 years sober as he was at 37 years sober. I just want to carry this vision of God's will that I want to continue moving in that path emotionally. And there's a lot of talk about this in the 12 and 12, this emotional sobriety. Where do we really, you know, what's my vision of God's will for me in this emotional sobriety? He talks about emotional hangovers. I mean, you ever lost your cool with your kids? Huh? Yeah, me too. And there's an emotional hangover that goes with that. I mean I'll beat myself up really bad and I'll feel guilty and terrible the rest of the day. You know, emotional hang overs. It's from not having a clear vision vision of what God's will is for me in all these days activities and and uh and my daughter tells me that now she tells me you know you're you're much calmer than you used to be you know I mean she's 15 now she's seen this progression in my sobriety and uh it actually has been a long time since I've lost my cool I I was out in our back this was several years ago but I was out in our backyard and I come home from work and instead of this idea that I get to come home and mow my lawn, the idea was what? I have to come on my own. I have come home and mowed this god dang lawn. After working all day and I came home and here's the boy and he's laid out on the couch with my couch, my clicker, my TV that I got for Father's Day right there and he is watching it all kicked back. my daughter's on the other couch, my wife is kind of cooking and I think she's probably gone up and got her nails done today and went to the gym and I've got to come home after working all day long and try to get this lawn mowed before it gets dark and my lawnmower wouldn't start and I was getting madder and madder and mader and I beat the crap out of this machine with a rake. I mean, I just... and i just beat the crap out of this lawnmower uh so then not only to have to build no lawn but i had to try to patch all these parts together to get this thing to run again but i came up for dinner and everybody in the house was just and i and i turned to shannon and i said did you guys hear that oh yeah oh yeah yeah you know and the whole family was like that just everybody was just like don't talk to Kenny for a second you know and uh and I don't know that's the last time that I'll act out in that way but it's been a while and the thing about that story is that uh you know it's the this says in here what we just read it should continue for a lifetime this deal continue for A Lifetime and that's really what I believe about this process continuing with the men's and this process of continuing to go and look at what vision of God's will is for me in all these days' activities. I've got emotional health. What's my vision of God's Will for me for health? And I'm sure that, you know, I can lose some weight. I can go to the gym. I went to a recent... I am good about going to my doctor's appointment and getting, you now, things checked out. I do have a liver deal I watch closely. And, you kno, the health is something... it's something, but I'm taking care of things for the most part. But I went to my last deal and the doctor basically said, you're fat. You know, you need to take this weight off. And people, you know, this liver deal is kind of, you know, it's kind of the national disease of alcoholics anonymous or whatever. I mean, it'S a very prominent thing in AA, so a lot of people have this condition and and people haven't know that you know you can't there's a lot of medicines for like high blood pressure and overweight and stuff you can't take that when you got a bad liver so you guys got to take care of yourself you can get to that point where you need those kind of medicines because those medicines kind of fry the livers of people that have drank too much and so you know I've got this I've got this deal written out and I've some with me here and I would share it with anybody want to see what I have written but I do have a written for all these things written vision of God's will for me in all my days and my vision for health is that I eat better that I exercise which I'm not doing a great deal but I went to the stocks when we told me yeah you're you're overweight Kenny you know you gotta kind of take care of this and and I told them well God my wife's in the gym every day you know he's dead it's not not doing anything for you you know your wife is working out but you know you you maybe have to go to to go yourself so I've got some work on this but I know what the vision of God's will is. And then in society, I've got three areas here. Family. My vision is that, you know, that I'll be a loving father, that I'm going to spend time with my children, that I will be a, a loving and faithful husband. That, you now, I have got a lot of things. I spent time with kids, you kno, try to do family vacations. I have go a lot things that kind of came out when I had this new ideal for my future family life. My work life is that, you know, I really believe in this idea that when I go to work that I go there to be of service the same way I go to an AA meeting. That I go like, what is it that I can bring to the table today? What is it that I could do that I would be able to get to the table today. My current sponsor, Tim C., he's a real hard guy to talk to about this stuff work and stuff because Tim is a janitor at one of the big Native American casinos up in Washington. Night janitor. And he tells me that his vision is, you know, when he walks in there, he says, you knows what, Kenny? I own that casino up there. Oh, you do? Yeah. He says, I own dat place. When I go in there every day, I own that place. All these other people are working for me. He said, you know, that whole deal is all designed to give me a paycheck. That's why they've got that. The whole thing is designed so that Tim gets a paycheck at the end of the week. He's a really humble guy. So he just cruises around and sweeps up and does his thing. And he says, oh yeah, I've got other people that take care of all this other stuff. I don't have to worry about any of it. Other people are taking care. I just worry about this one little thing here. And, you know, that's his casino up there. That's his casino. So he's kind of got that vision of what God's will is for him is to be a worker among workers. In the big book, or the 12 and 12 talks about that. You know, are we trying to play the big shot? Are we always trying to get to the top? Or if we can't get to top, do we play the martyr and just kind of all the way to the bottom? Like, okay, well then I'm just not going to do anything. It's not my job kind of stuff. Or am I a worker amongst workers? so we come up with that I mean I go to work five days a week at least and you know I better have a vision of what God's will is for me on the job or it's going to drive me crazy and I don't mind telling them at the end of the day that I'm going home I know there's a lot going on here but I'm gonna go home be with my family you know they know and support my AA work they know that that's a part of the requirement for me to be there is that I get some time off to do some AA stuff. Community is where AA falls, and not just that, but the big book really talks about this a lot, that we might start paying attention to other things in the community, people who are not alcoholic. But the community is kind of 12-step work. It's, you know, one of the things that I had resentment about, and we won't get political here, but I had a resentment about politics and stuff. And, you Know, the thing was is that Yeah, I was mad about stuff when I wasn't involved. You know, I did at least vote, but I didn't really do much. And I'm doing a lot more of that stuff now. I'm trying to educate myself about how things work and educate myself more about politics and what it is that I might be able to do to get involved in the community. And, you know, we have a homeowners association where I live, and so we participate in that and send our check off. I don't go to the homeowners meetings, but my wife does. but it's probably the same thing as, maybe that's the same things as the health. But I do participate in that and I support the things that they come up with. So this is just kind of a short, fun thing that we can come up to give us this idea that the big book clearly says that every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all our activities. So I better know what those activities are and this is a pretty good way to break them down into sex, security, and society and to look to see are my instincts gone awry in any of these areas? Am I trying to strive for prestige? You know, a great guy one time said this and it's a little flattering and I don't mean that to make it that way and I would tell you and I hope people realize this and recognize this, not just for me but for anybody, is that if anything I say here or have said here this weekend, comes across at all arrogant or egotistical. I hope people will just recognize that as a shortcoming and a character defect on my part and not a part of this message that I'm delivering. And I hope that you'll take that to heart with all of the people when you hear people in meetings and stuff. That I have that character defect just as much as anybody. And the reason I say that, to clarify this a little bit, a guy that I have a great deal of respect for told me one time, he said, Kenny, you know, you have a real gift. But the problem is you have a gift that kills most of the people that have it. And it really humbled me a bit, and I try to remember that. A lot of people in AA that get to where they're sponsoring a ton of people, these people get drunk just like everybody else. They don't... A lot them don't stay sober. They get carried away and pretty soon they start believing their own stuff and they're preaching more than they're actually doing their own deal and the insanity of alcohol returns. One of the biggest things that I think happens is that, and I've noticed this with people that I've sponsored that relapsed and stuff. One ofthe things that really happens when somebody relapses and they come back and we talk about what it was that happened, almost invariably, almost without exception, there was something going on in their life that they weren't telling people about. They were cheating on their husband. They had a gambling deal where the gambling deal was way out of hand and they were hiding money. They had sex addiction of some kind where they were into pornography or something like that. There was something goin' on where one of these areas had kinda gone awry and they weren't telling people about it. And they werenít being honest. They werenít tent-stepping that stuff. They weren't getting it out there. The tenth step is to continue to take this inventory. So weíre going to move on in a second to the eleventh step, but once we have this vision of what Godís will is for us and all these daysí activities, the beautiful thing about that is when you look at the eleenth step, prayer and meditation stuff, thereís a bunch of questions they ask us on there where we review our day and then we consider our plans for the day in the morning and when you're reviewing your day you can say, well how did I measure up to this? Was I way off in this AA deal and I haven't spent time with my family? Am I way of in the financial deal? Big Book warns us about that one. You know it says in the family afterward that people that get sober will take one of two tasks. One of two. Either once they get sober they realize, man, I can really make a lot of money now that I'm not drinking and drugging. And they go headstrong into business of some kind and they start making tons of money and all the A stuff kind of goes aside. They try to repair all this financial damage in a month or two months or a year. And people, you know, I mean, how often people get sober, they're sober a year, they've started a business, they got four people working for them, they're working all the time and it says that for those people it's really hard on the family because now dad was drinking but now he's working all the time. The other way a guy goes, they say the other tact is a guy might just go headstrong in the AA and they say that he drives the family nuts because he's telling mother who's been religious her whole life about you got to get spirituality and you got my brand of spirituality now and he's talking about God morning, noon, and night and he has got these drunks. Either way the family is suffering here. But they said that the former is preferable. The big book talks about that. It is preferrable. It says let him have his way if he is working with drunk. If he goes this financial route, he is headed for trouble. Yeah, Tony. Is there a specific practice Yeah, no, I think was that okay? Did that come through all right? The question was is there a more consistent practice and the answer is yes. You know, the 10th step, this kind of sets us up to give us an idea of the kinds of things in our lives we should be looking at this vision of our will. And then in 11, some questions come up. And one of those questions is exactly what Tony is referring to. Is there something that needs to be discussed with another person at once? And that is direct 10-step accountability. And we are very big on that in my group. We're accountable to each other. I'm accountable to the people I sponsor. I'm responsible to Tim who is my sponsor. I'm accountabl to my family. I mean, this 10-step practice. Currently, my 10-stepped practice is if something comes up, I will talk to somebody about it. Some of the people that I've sponsored actually do daily 10 steps and they'll set it up with each other where I'll call you or you call me every day at 9.30 at night and we'll kind of 10- step together. And that's a 10-stop practice and it's a very efficient one. I have a group, all the guys that I sponsor, we get together once a month at my house and one of the things that we do is we circle up like this and we go around the room and we tell on ourselves and we say well this is what's been going on with me these are some things that I've seen that I'm not you know I'm off on this or I'm working too much or I won't share much more part of what our group is is that we don't talk about the group that's part of it is that we don'T talk about I can tell you about the format and stuff but nothing that's in that group is ever talked about outside the group. We don't even talk to each other about it. I mean, if somebody comes to me and they want to talk a little more one-on-one or something, we will, but if we're out eating or something we don't say, well, what did you think of what so-and-so said? And then they'll remind us, oh no, we don' t talk about that. So, and that's definitely a 10-step practice that I do and encourage all my guys to do to stay accountable to each another even after I'm not working with them on a regular basis. So, yeah. So that, you know, the continuing to take personal inventory part of 10, and I think this is what Tony was alluding to, is kind of worthless if you don't fist step on the other side of that. If you're not being accountable to anybody, then it's just me helping me again and that's kind of led to a few problems in my life. So, yes. Did you ever hear of Mark Hinton talking about the steel-on-steel group? No, I don't. I'm not sure I have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and those are exactly the questions that we do at my group too. We ask, and we didn't get it from there, but we just kind of came up. We ask... You know, one of the things we do when we go around is we say, you know, what's our current home group? What's our service position in the home group? These are the guides that I'm working with. And, you know, we have a couple other things, but just kind of get accountable and make sure we're solidly on all three sides of the triangle. And we're currently working a program that includes all three legacies. And then we go from there. We have a format. And one of the guys in the group, every week, every month, somebody different in the groups will kind of bring a format to the group. So they'll bring a spiritual book or something they're reading and kind of offer like a lesson for the month. And then when we're done with that, then we go around and do the kind of the admission of faults and stuff. It's really a great, great thing. It's a really neat deal because when we do sponsor people, you sponsor people. You take them through the steps, and then you usually open that time up to work with some new people. And you're not meeting with those people every week anymore because they're working with others. And it's nice to just have a time that you kind of get back together and remain accountable to each other as a group. So the people that attend this group that I'm talking about are guys that have all been through the steps already. You know, I don't have them start coming to that group until we've finished the step work meeting one-on-one and then I'll say, okay, well you start working with other people, give this time and come to the meeting. With that, step 11. I look at this and we break this down into three parts or four parts actually there's when we retire at night three parts when we retired at night upon awakening and those two are both on 86 the first few sentences I just have my guys highlight that you know I go through it sentence by sentence but I am highlight that and then I have them look at that part at the very bottom of 87 it says as we go through the day we pause so there's kind of three parts to that 11th step and it should be a daily practice and I like that word practice because they do tell us that eventually this becomes a working part of the mind and I will tell you that that is true I mean it has come true for me that when I wake up generally the first thoughts are this upon awakening stuff You know, I start thinking about my day and thinking about, uh, um, my day ahead and asking some of the upon awakening questions. And I have a morning meditation practice when I retire at night. I, when I lay down, I review my day. Some people like to write this stuff out. I don't particularly, so I don'T tell other people to do it, but I'VE heard people that said they got great results when they really got the pen and the paper out and answered those, those questions. the real thing is that we've got some kind of a measuring stick here because the 10th step told us that we have a vision of God's will that we carry into all our day's activities so how did I measure up to this stuff and they give us a list of questions were we resentful, selfish or dishonest do we owe an apology we won't read them all here but it goes on what could we have done better were we thinking of ourselves most of the time or what we could do for others of what we could pack into the stream of life. There's a deal on the bottom of 86, and I have to say it's probably the instruction in the book that I miss the most. And it really refers to this deal that we talked about on Friday night, the door to the soul opens inward. You know, all these doors are exits, and you've got to push and you can get out for panic. But in the spiritual world, you've Got to relax. And it says, this is the instruction I say that I miss the most of all the instructions in the big book. And it's a simple instruction. It says we relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. It's a long... I think that thing takes a long time to get that. It must. Because I've been trying for a long time just to realize that if I need an answer and they use those words again here a number of times in here at the bottom of 86, those words inspiration and intuitive thought or a decision are used again. The top 87, what used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind that's at vital sixth sense. They use that word inspiration again at the end. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We've come to rely on it. And I talked to somebody, I can't remember if I was talking to somebody around lunchtime about that, that maybe it was Karen and Juanita, but this idea of, or maybe it Was Erica. I can't remember. We were all talking. But the idea was that we could kind of come to rely on this stuff, kind of comes to rely on these situations. And I've kind of liked to leave behind, like, you know, I have to know whether this is the true one and only way and stuff. I'll just tell you that, you know, Bill uses that deal in the second step. We're kind of at odds to tell you why it's better to believe than not to believe. But here's a few reasons and stuff and, but I can tell you, you know, my, I just, it's a happier way of life for me to believe in this stuff. You know, I don't need any more reason than that. I have, I'm a happier person by when I look at a coincidence through the spiritual eye, and I see that this is part of God's big plan that this person was placed in my life. When I don't, you know, when I see somebody I know, I'll stop and figure out, well, why is it that our paths are crossed? I'll say, hey, what's going on? Instead of just, oh, that guy didn't see me. I'm in a hurry to get to the meeting so I can talk about the spiritual life or something, you know? And I just pass this guy up that I haven't seen in a couple years instead of stopping and finding out. when I start relying on this stuff, I live a happier life doing that. You know, when I start getting cynical about the spiritual life, it's a bad thing for me. I'll hear somebody talk, oh, this great thing happened and I'll be thinking that's not, that's just a coincidence, you know. You know? I'm in spiritual trouble myself and I don't care what people think whether it's true or not true. I'm telling you, my life is a lot happier when I believe in this stuff than when I don'T. and when I start relying on this stuff and I've had it over and over and over again these ideas of just when I had the thought of the you know that I owe this person amends that phone call came like Erica talked about or I had the intuitive thought or the inspiration to say a certain thing and it's really really vital in 12 step work to have that I mean I think that's really the point of working these steps is to is to try to get in touch with that inspiration intuitive thought so that we can be more on the plane of inspiration when it comes to working with others and the I'm going to just go back for just a quick second just tell you like a you know a story of life not being inspired and not relying on inspiration and trying to just stick to the hard and fast rules I'll tell you another one of of these that that you know these these deals didn't just come to me you know the I some of these were you know hard lessons for me one of them is my friend Bob who's still a member of my group he still comes to my my monthly meetings I still sponsor him and uh and he's found in his heart to forgive me for what I did to him but uh he was a guy when I was going through the amends I owed a lot of money and when I Was in early sobriety real early sobrietty like a month or too sober i just went to the you know the 125 bankruptcy or divorce guy and and he was like well is it what is it you want bankruptcy or divorced i'll say i'll take the bankruptcy today thank you and here's my money and and okay here's how it works he says you can take the kind of bankruptcy he said