I Don’t Remember Telling You to Think — Sandy B.

Don't you love that? And something else we say at my home group is that you take your problems to your sponsor. You take your solutions to your meeting. We're having better meetings since we got to that. Talk a little bit about step 10. We're on page 84. Middle of the page, this thought brings us to step 10, suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes. I think as we go along is the active phrase here. i personally separate steps 10 and 11 this way for me the morning half of step 11 is checking in with god and the evening half of Step 11 is Checking Out i have a new employer i clock in i clock out step 10 is as we go along it has to do with staying present in my own life moment by moment through the day that's the difference i don't do a 10-step inventory at night i do 11 step inventory at night i do 10 step inventory during the day and i think there's a slogan that applies to that and that's easy does it because when i'm running mach 2 with my hair on fire i don't notice it as i make the mistakes and and also it talks about on the on page 59 the short form of the step says continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it if i wait till 11 15 tonight to take the inventory i can't very well promptly admit it Now, can I? So it's about being present in my own life moment by moment. That's what this is about. And I have to slow down if that's going to happen for me. And I thought Bob made a great point about the when. It's when we were wrong, not if. We are not saints. Further down the page, our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I believe this is the first time they've asked me to understand anything. A friend of mine tells a story of calling a sponsor one day, And he says, Sponsor, I've been thinking. And it clicked. He said, Oh gee, we got cut off. So he dialed the number again. He says, Hey Sponser. He says yeah. He says I've bee thinking. It clicked. Called back the third time. He says wait a minute. I don't remember telling you to think. That wasn't your assignment. This hadn't been about understanding yet. And now it's telling me at this point I can begin to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I think it's because I've taken the trash out by now. I've dug the poison out of my soul, the hatred in step four. I've douged the old anger out, the resentments. I'm in the process of outgrowing the fears. I have a new sexual ideal that I'm living up to. I'm prepared to make the amends. I've invited God to take all of me, good and bad. I have an idea I have done everything I can to make those amends so I've taken the trash out and we're going to offer this thing to God. Let's clean it up first. The book doesn't say anything at all about God doing for me what I could have done for myself. So I have to do my part. And now at this point with the trash taken out, I can begin to grow in understanding and effectiveness. It's not an overnight matter. It should continue for a lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. We chased that one through the book earlier, but I find that on about eight or nine different pages. And then it says when these crop up. That's not if. All right? That's when. I want to talk too. I know there are a lot of people here under a year. I'm really thrilled that you're here. One of the things I was taught in early recovery is what I was going to say when someone offered me a drink because it's not an if question. If you take that as an if questions, it can leave you kind of shaky. And I came up with an answer, and the answer that I give is no thanks, I've had enough. Now there's a danger with that one that happened in a business situation one time. And some people who didn't know me were myself and my business partners, and we were in a bar waiting for our table in a restaurant and everybody ordered a drink and I ordered an orange juice and this other guy said, well, wouldn't you rather have a drink? And I said, no thanks, I've had enough. And my partners came apart laughing and we had to tell them why. And it didn't hurt us. I have never have found a place where being in recovery has harmed my business. Nowhere has it ever harmed my life. It's not my business to harm my business So when these crop up, what's the series of events I'm supposed to take when these drop up? Item one, pray. we ask God. This is the first of two prayers in step 10. We ask God to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately. I would think a sponsor, a spiritual advisor, somebody else that feels to you like they're solidly on the path. Make amends quickly. Can't do that if I wait till 11 o'clock tonight. If we've harmed them and then sit and beat myself up? No. It says then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. The prescription for helping me is to help you. And I'm not going to read them all, I bet there's a hundred references to this in the book. Just a couple of them. Forward to the second edition, Roman numeral 16, XVI. Forward to the second edition. Last paragraph at the bottom of the page begins with this physician. Count up four lines from that. It says, He suddenly realized that in order to save himself, he must carry his message to another alcoholic. Newcomers, we need to sponsor you. Can I see a show of hands of the people in this room who are not willing to sponsor but eager to sponsor a newcomer? We mean that. If you're new and don't have one, please, please, do someone a favor allow them to sponsor you. Next page at the top. X-V-I-I. It also indicated that strenuous work, that's not occasionally when it's really convenient and there's nothing on TV I want to watch. Strenuous Work, one alcoholic with another, was vital, you know, once he has a death threat, this is the only thing you want to live, vital to permanent recovery. Page 14. Last paragraph at the bottom of the page. My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity. I wonder how important that is. The absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. And then the one I quoted earlier, the last line, for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive. That's another death threat. The certain trials and low spots ahead. We promise you trials and no spots. And I love this next paragraph. Here's my life encapsulated in a paragraph. My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm, this is Bill's story, to the idea of helping other alcoholics to a solution to their problems. It was fortunate for my old business associates to remain skeptical for a year and a half. Okay, don't think the people around you are going to be impressed by a 60-day chip. It may take them a while. Don't let that bother you. Stay on the path. He says, during which I found little work. I was not too well at the time. I was plagued. How do you like that word? Plagued! by waves of self-pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Many times I've gone to my old hospital in despair. How do you love that? Despair. This is the prescription for when you have depression. Despair, go to a hospital, take a meeting into a jail, get into a treatment center. I'm talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and sit on my feet. It is designed for living that works in rough going. Page 20. I'm just going to get a few of these, but I think it's important to hammer this one home. Top of page 20. First line. Our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. On page 62, it had said above everything we had to be rid of this selfishness. They're saying it in different words here. Page 70. We covered this one in step 40 last night, but I hit it again in the middle of the page. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge when to yield would mean heartache. I'll do one more, page 89. Very top. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Back to page 84. So what it says, the series of events when these crop up is ask God at once to remove them, that's pray discuss them with someone immediately probably a sponsor make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help that's the prescription now we know what to do with our mistakes we have a very very clear set of directions what to doing when we make mistakes it says we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol page 113 I'm sorry, 103 italics at the bottom of 103 after all our problems were of our own making bottles were only assembled besides we have stopped fighting anybody or anything we have to I've got to get out of the fight got to go got to give it out back to the bottom 84 for by this time sanity will have returned boy there's a promise we will seldom be interested in liquor if tempted we recoil from it this from a hot flame. If your history with booze is like mine, that is a sane reaction. Now I think I'm told there are two kinds of sanity. There's sanity of mind and there's sanity of action. And I think sanity of action is the important one. My sponsor told me that in the history of this planet no human has ever been put in an insane asylum for being insane. It's never happened. They put us in there for acting insane. And nobody's ever been let out in one of those places for being sane. They let us out for acting saying. Yeah. So on the days when the squirrel cage is spinning up here, then you've got all these wonderful ideas. If you don't act on them, they won't know. And you can walk around on the street like everybody else. Sanity of action. We'll find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude to liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. I think that's easily misunderstood. If you've done everything we've talked about to this point, you will have put in tremendous effort. But the observation is the effort hasn't been involved in booze. It hasn't bee involved in changing your attitude. We haven't been focused on the problem of booze because the effort hasn't be involved in booze It hasn' t been involved in changing our attitude We haven' t be focused on the problem with booze because we have put no effort on that. Our effort has been toward, I was saying earlier, taking out the trash which is part of the spiritual awakening process. That's where we've been focused on. We don't focus on the problem. We focus on this solution. If the solution were contained in the problem we would have found it already because we've being focused on the program for decades. Yeah, so it's a change of focus. Next paragraph. It's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We're headed for trouble if we do for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve. A reprieVE if you look it up as a stay of execution. A daily repRIEVE contingent that means based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. I spotted that when I was about six months sober. And I said, alright, there it is. What I'm going to do is to find out what that spiritual condition is. I'm gonna attain that and then I'll be able to get what I've always wanted and that's to take the rest of my life off with pay. I thought, I'm going to get that and I won't have to do anything else. And I searched for over a year before I found the definition of that spiritual condition. It is, by the way, the next sentence. I didn't think to look there. Every day is a day when we must... There are no musts in the program. You'll hear that. This is one of them. Every day as a day when we most carry the vision that's the best I can see of God's will into all of our activities. Well, there aren't any holes in that, are there? I don't get any days off. I don't get any activities off. That simple. And it's not something I can detain. It's continuous. Page 164 for just a second. Four lines from the bottom. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. It doesn't say to. It says of. The road is the destiny. It's today. This is the happy destiny. Don't look for it out there. We're not on the way to it. We're living in it. Back to 85. And then here's the second prayer. How can I best serve thee that I will not mind be done? These are thoughts, so that must be a silent prayer which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, Bill did get directions in here, didn't he? Yeah. We've begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we become God conscious. How's that for a promise? We've began to develop this vital, there it is again, vital sixth sense. I heard a fellow with six months say, if I'm still using my other five senses trying to get my will, I won't develop this viral sixth sense that's a pretty good piece of information but we must go further and I'll go ahead and start just a little bit on step 11 before we take the break turning the page top of 88 the evening inventory to retire at night constructively review our day I don't have permission to bash myself here, constructively review our date, where were we? resentful, selfish dishonest, afraid, there's that There's that list again. Do we owe an apology? Kept anything to ourselves we should discuss with someone? The question is, what could I have done better? Have I done harm I need to repair? And what could I have been able to do that I have done better and it's really that simple and it needs to be the last thing I do and I'd like to note too do y'all use the term around here next right thing? Do y'All say that? You need to do the next right think? I discovered a last right thing. Each day there's a last right think. For me it is to go to bed at an hour so that I can get a full night's sleep and be able to get up in the morning in time to start my day on a spiritual basis. I need to read my two pages in the big book I read from non-conference proof spiritual literature. I do prayer and meditation. I need time to do all those things. And if I don't do the last right thing tonight, I won't be able to start tomorrow morning with the first right thing. Yeah. Next paragraph. On awakening. I'd like to observe what it does not say. it does not say after a shower and shave a half a pot of coffee too over easy with ham and reading the front page it says on awakening that's right now I got a friend that says his disease gets up 20 minutes before he does every morning, does some push ups, some jumping jacks wakes up on the headboard of the bed as soon as his eyes open he goes and jumps on and he wakes up with untreated alcoholism and I have to start on awakening I've got a good friend. One of my mentors says that it's on awakening because I'm capable of making life-devastating decisions between the bed and the bathroom. So I've Got to Treat It Right Now. I've GOT TO TREAT IT RIGHT NOW. I think that's important. I bought this exceptionally ugly watch. I have better taste than this, and I want you to know that. But I boughtthis watch because it has a function I can't find anywhere else. It has multiple alarms. This morning, I had them set 10 minutes apart. And usually, I'll set them anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes apart When the second one goes off, it's the get-up time. When the first one goes on, Ms. Linda and I cuddle and we do our morning prayers in each other's arms. Let me tell you something. I think if the whole world started their day that way, it would be a better planet. It really would. And I'll grant you that there are mornings when that second alarm wakes us both up. I'll give you that. That happens. It says sought through prayer and meditation. It does not say achieved through prayer or meditation. I'm responsible only for trying to take the action. That's my only responsibility. And I'm telling you, I sincerely believe that those mornings when the alarm goes off the second time and wakes us Both Up and we slept through our prayers are every bit as good as the mornings when they don't because we saw it. And that's all we were responsible for doing. We saw it. Typically, we get up on the second alarm. I get a shower and shave. She starts the coffee. We meet on the sofa. She does her reading. I do mine. And we do morning meditation together. And we close our days in a similar fashion. A lot of times on the close of the day, we name individuals. We'll lie in the bed and pray. And we'll name individuals that we know that seem to be in need of some prayer. a sponsor fellow whose brother's name is William who's missing in action. One of us one of us missing in alcoholism action. If you get the chance to pray for William he's somewhere in London we think we appreciate that those kinds of things people around us that are in need of prayer energy and we don't instruct God on how to fix them. I don't do that. I just hold them up in love and part of what I do too and I learned this also from Miss Linda if y'all have not heard my wife you need to do yourself a big favor She is something. I learned that I can send love. Love is a commodity that can be transmitted. And I sent love this morning to the room I was in. I sent it to the restaurant. I sent It to this room. I filled this room flat full of love. Lying on my bed this morning between the alarms. My trip to the airport, at the airport On the plane and home The trip home and at home. And I send love to the places I'm going to be today. I also send it to places my wife's going to meet. And I send it there so there will be some there when I get there. And if you haven't tried that, you might do yourself a favor. I'm going to tell you a story. I had an assistant for a number of years and she was a very, very spiritual Christian woman. And she and I found ourselves talking bad about a particular person we had to deal with on a regular basis. Had a lot of power in our lives. I'm a manufacturer's rep. I'm multi-line rep. And there was a power broker at our biggest factory represented a third of my income and I guarantee you that woman was something if there wasn't a broom parked in their parking lot I swear there had to have been and uh and she and I finally caught ourselves talking bad about this woman and said wait we don't believe in that and we decided and we started the next morning and we opened our office with five minutes of prayer sending love to this woman the way I do that is I get a mental image of her suspended in space God's love is flowing down through me and out my chest and swirling around her this wonderful white stuff. That's just what I do. What you do, I think, is perfect. And we started doing that, and three days later, this woman is calling our office to chat to find out how we're doing and, gee, aren't you guys fun? Three months later at the National Trade Show, I walked into the meeting. There were 200 people in the room. She was knocking people down to get to me to tell me I was her favorite rep and how great it was to do business with me and Sheila. Yeah, yeah. Don't doubt the power of love and don't doubt that you're going to get a chance and don' t doubt the ability to send it. I'm going to share another gift from my wife and she tells us better than I do but this is her third marriage, my second and we have had a problem with ghosts in the bedroom. Alright? You understand what I mean? Okay. And she prayed about that and she was given a gift. And the gift is, before we're going to have what she calls a physical exchange, she prays this prayer. And she says, God, help me stay in the moment. That's all. Just help me stand here right now. And it takes care of all of her history and mine. And it take care of wondering about tomorrow morning as, you know, was it really okay? And, you notice I've gained weight and all that kind of stuff. It just takes all that away. It takes all of that away and I share it just in case somebody can use it. I'll tell you one more story and we'll take a break. When I was, I guess about five years ago, a young fellow that I sponsored came into my beloved home group, The Back Room in Nashville. They meet on Saturday and Sunday mornings to be there. And he'd just come back from his grandfather's funeral. And he told his grandmother at the funeral, he said it occurred to him, and he told her, he said, I think you were a fabulous wife to my grandfather. And she said, I should have been. I prayed to be that every day. And, boy, that hit me hard. So I thought about that and I started the next morning and I don't think I've missed a morning since then. And the prayer that I use is I ask God to help me treasure Linda today. The word treasure is mostly used in the English language as a noun. You understand it as a verb, but we don't use it that way too often. And I started that within two weeks. I was walking through the den one day and she was talking on the phone and I heard her telling someone, Scott treasures me. When I ask God for what He wants me to have, I get an awful lot of help. It's always about me getting to the right question. He's got the right answer. It's also about me. It's almost about me getting to know the right person. We're going to come back at quarter after. Still Bob, still alcoholic? Like, when I was talking to someone during the break and we were talking about amends, just briefly before I get into 10 and 11. How do you know who should be on your eight-step list? Well, the book says it's the people from our fourth step. But I'll give you a good rule of thumb that's... If we're talking about mending separation between me and God's kids, Then a good rule of thumb is if you look back over the people in your life and anyone that you can't picture sitting in a car with, driving cross-country for eight hours, if the idea of any individual spending that kind of time alone with them makes you crazy, they should be on your eight-step list. Right? Because there's some separation between you and that person. Now, sometimes the answer isn't. Sometimes it's paying them money. You owe them something. Maybe you owe them some... You have a debt to them. You have unresolved business. Maybe it's just to forgive them for being who they are, allowing them to be what they are. Maybe it starts... Maybe it is just simply saying some things to them that you have never said to them all. Somehow you are not even with them. So there is a state of... separation. Do you ever take those two magnets and turn the one around and try to put them together? That's what's going on. That's how it works. That's what's going on, right? You can feel it. Do you ever go into a meeting or a family event or something and there's a person there that you're not even with? You know what I do? I have this blank spot right about here and I will always keep them right there. I sat in a meeting. I stood at a podium in a meeting telling my story one time and there was a girl in that meeting that I owed an amends to and I had to go like this the whole time because I couldn't, I had it made me crazy and then after the meeting I hadto go up and make the amends for her and I didn't realize I owed the amens until I caught myself halfway through my story and realized I'm not even, I'm chattering to myself in my head about this situation right as I'm trying to share my story. Because there was separation between her and I and it was all involved is me being vulnerable and telling her some things I didn't want to tell her that I felt embarrassed about and just clearing the air and expressing honestly my regret about something that had happened and, you know, owning it. Step 10. I really liked Scott's comments about when rather than if. You know, this road of happy destiny, you can be on the right road, but if you just sit there, you're going to get run over. You know what I'm saying? Right? So this is an action. And this chapter is into action. It's not into hanging out or into thinking. It's into action, and one of the things that should happen and I think does happen in most of us, by the time we get to step 10, inventory has taken on a new light. Now it's not looking to see how we're bad or wrong or any of that stuff, really. it's just an honest recognition of who and what i am i know that i'm a guy with an inclination towards selfishness and self-centeredness i am a guy that gets afraid often i'm the guy who gets judgmental and builds cases against people i'ma guy who's driven sometimes by self-pity when god or you don't do things my way i'maguy who does all of that i've a guy who who alters reality and blows it up and is creative with the truth, I'm that guy. And because I get it that I'm that guy, I'm the self-centered, fear-driven guy and I will always have that propensity. Then step 10 and 11 is not about beating myself up for not being perfect. It's about an honest recognition of these are my tendencies. Let's correct the course so I don't get so far out that I destroy myself so that I can keep to my purpose here, that I could keep close to the decision I made in step three. Not perfectly. The book reminds us in chapter 5, no one among us has been able to maintain anything like, that means you're not even going to come close, anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We're not saints. But the point we have here is that we're trying to grow along spiritual lines. I must try to grow along spiritual lines. I'm an avid scuba diver, and over the years I've had to learn a little bit about sharks, which is naturally for scuba divers. And there's types of sharks that the way God designed them is that they bring oxygen into their systems by keeping a flow of current over their gills that oxygenate, then the gills are able to get the oxygen out of the water and that's how they sustain an oxygen level in their blood. But in order to do that, they can never stop. They must constantly be moving forward. They can't stop because then the flow stops and when the flow starts, they start to suffocate. And I think I'm that way. I think if I stop growing along spiritual lines then the flow of god's spirit which must flow through me will stop and i will become stagnant and i Will start to suffer and my spirit will start to wither and die and we all know what that's like and you know when your spirit gets withering and dying enough and the pain in the heart is enough we always remember somewhere in the back of our mind like times we've been like that years and years ago and how five shots of Jack Daniels could fix that. So I must keep my spirit healthy here and this is how we do it in step 10 and 11. A couple I do this because I leak. I am not, this is the weakest area in my personal program is step 10 and 11. And I'm here to tell you that really just in the last few years I've gotten a little more disciplined about this. But I'm still nowhere near where I'd like to be. On the bottom of page 85, in italics... Oh, one more thing about step 10. Step 10 is a lot like a teabag. It seems to work better in hot water, right? When I'm in hot water, step 10, I'm a serious step 10 guy. When I've got hot water I'm kind of a slough off the guy. Where have I been selfish? Not today, let's go to sleep. now that's you know that you know truthfully let's face it there's never been a day i've been alive or i haven't been selfish to some degree self-concerned self-obsessed worried about me my feelings my life there's Never Been A Day I'Ve Been Alive That I Haven'T Been Like That To Some Degree There'S Never I Don'T Think There'S Been A DAY I'VE BEEN ALIVE THAT I HAVEN'T BEEN DISHONEST TO SOME DEGREE ABOUT SOMETHING THE LITTLE KIND OF PETTY DISHONESTIES LIKE Like I buy a new car. I pay, say, $36,748 for it. And you see the car and you say, Bob, that's a nice car. What did you pay for it? Well, depending upon what I think of you and how I think you'll be impressed, I might tell you, I paid $40,000 for that car. Because you'll think, oh, Bob's a big shot. He paid $ 40,000. He paid about $40 grand for that card. If I think he'd be more impressed with a guy and get a good deal, I'd say, oh, I spent about $30 grand forthat card. And you'd think, boy, Bob Smart, I already got that car for $30,000. But to say $36,784, there's no edge to that. There's no leverage on that. You don't get no torque in your life with the truth. Right? Right? And when you come from a place of vacancy and not enoughness, you need torque. You need leverage. And I'll tell you, this is a little sidebar. I think one of the worst things we do in Alcoholics Anonymous is try to act as if our own inadequacies and vacancies are something we should grow away from. I think it's the greatest thing I have going for me. It's what brings me to the table with God. Because, you know, and you'll hear stuff in meetings that implies that this is something I should grow above, that I should not feel inadequate, that I Should become whole. No. That whole is inside. The vacancy is my God vacancy. And if I lose that and I ever get secure unto myself to not have that vacancy, then I've just pulled myself out of the ballgame. Right? I just put myself on the bench that's what brings me here it's what bring me to my sponsor it's my knees in the morning and at night to pray it's step 10 and 11 the greatest blessing I have is my vacancy my not enoughness my inadequacy my incompleteness in Genesis it talks about in creation of the world. It talks about God on the first day created this, this, and this. And in the Hebrew it says and it was tov. And tov translated in English is good. And it was good. But it's not really. Tov really means and it Was Complete. And it Was Completely. And then He created on the second day this, This, This and It Was Complete This, this, this and it was complete. And it gets to man it doesn't say complete. Man's not Tov. Man was never created to be Tov, man was created to struggle towards his enlightenment, towards God. Man was created with a God whole and a vacancy that no other creation has. See you'll never, deers dogs, cats rabbits birds they are tov they are complete they cannot misinterpret their vacancy because they have none you'll never see a deer in the woods with a brown paper bag and a cigarette coming out it's like look at it looking at pornos right you'll ever see a dear doing that because a deer is tov a deer has no illusions of filling holes that it the deer is toe there is complete you'll see people like us doing that stuff right you're trying to misinterpret this god hole trying to fill up something with uh what's that old country song we looked at love for love in all the wrong places right the god hole um real quick and i want to i'm running out of time step 11 in italics suggests prayer meditation we shouldn't be shy in the matter of prayer better men than we are using it constantly it works if we have the proper attitude and work at it it would be easy to be vague about this matter yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions okay the book says step 11 they're about to make some definite and valuable suggests and then they go right into what i love what scott called it the 11 step inventory this confused me for a long time because i couldn't i didn't get it till i found this passage in the 12 by 12 and bill in the 12 by twelve explains why they're connected why when he's talking about step 11 he's talking about inventory process is an integral part of step 11 because he says in the twelve by twelve that self examination prayer and meditation when taken separately can bring much relief and benefit but when they're logically related and interwoven they create an unshakable foundation for life and you see 10 and 11 are meant to be logically related interwovens you can't separate them if taken separately as i tried to do for years i got much benefit and relief but there's a big difference between relief and freedom and i'm here from for freedom i'm hier because i have to have freedom and there's only one thing i need freedom from the bondage of self i need to carry out the decision i made in step three or i'll die we must be rid of this selfishness we must or it kills us and that's when when we interlock when we inner lock step 10 and 11 it is unshakable and what it's very similar to when you when you combine the two exercises that are on 86 and 87 It's very similar to what a sailor would experience. Let's say you were to go down here to one of the harbors on the east coast of Florida and you were going to go to the harbour and you had to rent or buy the most expensive, best equipped sailboat you could find. Money is no object. And you were able to go to a nautical library and you made a decision The decision is, I'm going to sail to the island of Bermuda. And you went to the nautical library and you went through a nine-step course on setting a perfect course for the island of Bremuda. What would occur is no matter how perfect your boat is and no matter how perfect the course you've set from the east coast of Florida to the island of Bermuda. It's just going to come to pass every single day that the winds and the tides and the currents are going to blow you and move you off course. It is not because you have a bad boat. It isn't because you played with your tiller too much. It has none of that. It is just the way it is. It doesn't mean that you have done anything wrong. It is the natural condition of the realm of the spirit because what we bring to the realmof the spirit is a person with a propensity to self-involvement a person who's had an inclination to play God and that's what we're bringing to the table here so every single day a sailor must get out his compass and sextant and all those tools and take an honest honest inventory and he cannot fool himself about values an honest inventory of where he is and then compare it to a vision of step three a vision of self-abandonment service a visionof Bermuda and readjust his course back to where he was going so he can go there once and for all no, because the next day he's going to have to do the same thing again right and if you don't do that I'll tell you what happens is all of a sudden you're sailing along and you're wondering why you're running into these chunks of ice with penguins on them on the way to Bermuda. And if you're really a truly self-delusional alcoholic, you'll start saying, well, you know, they must have populated Bermudas with penguines. And what happens to us is we get so far out we can't get back. And if You've Been Around the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous for any sustained period of time, you've seen those guys and you'll see them once in a while that they build this tremendous house of cards out of all kinds of gratification stuff and material stuff. And then it'll collapse on them. And they have not done step 10 and 11. They do not, they're not current and connected to no power source in their life. They're not connected to their sponsor or anything else. And they will run into a discussion meeting frantic. And the chairman will say, does anybody have a problem, and they'll go like this, and they'll dump this mess of their life that is unmanageable out on the table for help. And they'll unfortunately, if you've ever tried to get help or advice in a discussion meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's like trying to take a drink of water from a fire hose. I mean, it's just... And they're sit there, and after about 10 people have shared at them, they bolt out of the meeting! They bolt And then the rest of the meeting will just be spinning about a problem that's left. Right? And you can get so far out, you can't get back. You can't give up. You can never get back because now you're too entrenched in being right. You're too entrained in how they screwed with you. You're two entrenched in your judgments. You're to entrenched in your will. You are the center. You're running the show. You are right. you're not the guy who can be wrong and I tell you if you can't be wrong sobriety is going to be hard because from step four all the way through it's about how I'm wrong in my perceptions, how I am wrong in my judgments if you cant be wrong here you are going to have a hard time so that's really what this whole thing is about actually it's time for me to turn it over to Scott, and I'll talk a little bit more about 11 when I get back. A couple of more quotations that have meant a lot to me. This is a gift from a good friend of mine that really changed my perspective. He says, I worked this program to the best of my willingness. I don't believe I've ever worked it to the rest of my ability. Ah, boy. This is as a gift for my wife. Anxiety is really just low-grade atheism. another one from miss linda now this one has nothing to do with recovery i'm just going to try to make you laugh that's all this is uh miss lindy is slightly dyslexic and and she's not embarrassed by it but we do get some funny things out of it and she we were i was watching the u.s open golf tournament on tv she was being with her husband and um you got it that's anonymous giving us what that is all right it really is and uh this oriental fella i think he was japanese was in contention he may have been in the lead at that time he hit a particularly bad shot and the camera comes in close and i mean you just see he's in anguish and miss linda says oh i hope he doesn't commit karaoke I hope so too I've been there when people have committed karaoke it can be a terrible thing it can last a long time one of the things you may have notice is that Bob and I give our last names here. We do that in keeping with our tradition of anonymity. If that didn't make sense to you, I'd like to recommend the pamphlet Understanding Anonymity in the book Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. Really, really would. And I want to tell a story about anonymity isn't just about press, radio, and films, and we do that so that the newcomers can come in. Anonymacy also has another level, and that is the level of doing something good for someone and not being caught. Now, that's not my style. I'm just a little bit into the applause myself. But I had an experience a number of years ago where I had the chance to do something good for someone but not get caught, and I did it. And what happened was, I don't mean to sound poetic, but I can't describe this any better, and people are going to nod and grin when I say this, but it was like there was a piece of sunshine about the size of a golf ball that lodged itself in my chest. and I could think about what I had done any time of the day or night and this thing would glow and send light through my whole body. See, I'm nodding? Okay. And it just didn't matter. Whatever was going on, I could just think about that and it would just light me up. And boy, I never told anybody about it for about six months. And when I told, that thing got out. It's gone now. And because there's another lesson in this story, I'm going to tell you what it was. I'm a salesman by trade, and it was one of those days where I got a full day's work done in a half a day. I had my fishing tackle in the back. I was near a city park. I'm fishing the stream, and there was a family having a picnic, and they had about an 8-year-old boy. And, boy, he locked on my leg and wanted to fish. So I'm showing him this thing and got to talk to the family. None of them fished. Eventually, I took him on a couple of short trips and got another family. And the Buffalo River in Tennessee is a national scenic river. And it's full of fish. And with his parents' permission, one day I put him in the front of the canoe. We floated five miles of river. And we floated ten hours and he didn't get enough and I didn't either. And we caught over 100 fish that day. Yeah, the little guy caught a four-pound smallmouth bass, man. He got my fish! But I'm okay. and about a mile from the takeout the banks are steep and there's really no place to get out of this river and suddenly the sky darkened and we're fixing to get it I'm hearing the thunder we come down kind of a chute and we did what canoes call eddy out there's a little backwater you can count a parallel park in one of those up under the trees just before the bottom drops out of us baby, there's going to be raindrops the size of my thumb just beforethe bottom drops I'm sitting in the back of this canoe and I'm just about to give God a little piece of my mind. Have you not noticed St. Scott down here with the little boy and he caught my fish just about there? And this beautiful little boy looks over his shoulder at me and says, is it okay to fish here? I forget. I prayed that third step prayer and I meant it. And I forget that. And when the skies in my life darken and the thunder's coming and I don't know what's going on and I can't catch it, It's the only thing I'm supposed to say, Father Is it okay to fish here? Because that's my job That's what I signed on to do A friend of mine got in a 24-year chip A couple of days ago And he said He said, I've got to remember I don't own this business I just work behind the counter Yeah, I just worked behind the corner And that's the question I'm suppose to be taking My God Is it ok to fish there? It's a great question Step 11 In the short form On page 59 has an implied promise, I think. And a beautiful one. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact. If I'm going to improve it, I must already have it. So I believe we're promising you if you'll do the first 10 steps with a sponsor who's already done them and do them right out of this book that by this time you will have a conscious contact with God as I say of my limited understanding. Isn't that wonderful? And then I get out of the business Of coaching God Of telling him what to do And ask just What would you have me do Is it okay to fish here That's the question Sixty Twelve Having had a spiritual awakening As the result Doesn't say a Says the We promise a single thing Spiritual awakening And spiritually awakened people Don't drink beverage alcohol And they don't get thirsty I'd like to report That my wife An eighteen year member of Al-Anon does not drink alcohol. She chooses not to. I can't choose not to page 25 tells me that very clearly she chooses not to so that her husband who she loves dearly doesn't have to come home and kiss burgundy wine or a martini or something on the lips coming home from a day at work y'all might think about that it means an awful lot to me that she does that and to me the 12 step breaks into three parts promise of a spiritual awakening and then I'm not sure the rest of that is telling me what to do so much as describing who I'm going to become. Tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all my affairs. It was my experience in step five that when I told all those things about myself, they became lighter. I've got some pretty ugly stuff in my past. I've shared it with some of you. When you hear me say that I don't have the power to make a mistake, God can't turn into something magnificent, I want you to know that the Master has used the worst things I've ever done as tools to help people in this room this weekend. A lot of them. I'm not taking any credit for that. I'm saying we have a powerful God who gave us a powerful program, more powerful than the worst things I've ever done. So I still carry those things. In step five, I think I became God's caddy. I'm still carrying those things, but they've lost their weight and stench. And part of what keeps them clean and light is my willingness for Him to use them. I think if that ever goes away, then I'm in trouble. I think the weight and stench will come back. I don't know that, but I think that. The other thing is I'm an apprenticed messenger. It says we tried to carry this message. It doesn't say we carried it. I think If I was a messenger, it would say I carried it It says I'm trying to carry it. I think That makes me an apprentice. And if I can hold that attitude I'm God's caddy and I'm An Apprenticed Messenger When I hold that in my heart, I do a really good job. I can be a really good channel. I'm not the living water. I'm the pipe. On a good day, I'm a plumbing fixture. That's what it amounts to. And so it describes me. And now I try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all my affairs. To live a principled life irrespective of outcome. I'm responsible simply for my actions. I think it's important. I want to talk a little bit about this chapter, Working with Others, and hit just a couple of points, and then we'll take another break. Page 93. This is, for me, really important. I wantto describe something to you first. I sponsored for a while, and this is no offense to any religion or anything. I'm simply going to talk about something that's been in the news and my experience personally with it. One of the major churches had a problem with clergy and pedophiles. I sponsored one of the boys that was a victim of that. And if someone had been using specific religious terms in his first meeting, he would have hit the door and alcohol would not have driven him back and he would've died on the street. I today still sponsor, and I have permission to tell these by the way, I still sponsor a fellow who was sexually abused by a deacon of a church in the church from the time he was six until he was about eleven. And if someone had mentioned some specific religious terms in his first meeting, he would have hit the door and would not have come back. Page 93. First full paragraph. When dealing with such a person, you had better use everyday language to describe spiritual principles. There is no use arousing any prejudice he may have against certain, that means very specific, certain theological terms and conceptions about which he may already be confused. I think they were. Don't raise such issues no matter what your own convictions are. Alcoholics Anonymous is no place to try to sell us your religion. I don't want to talk to you about mine. If you ask me one on one, I'll answer any question you have. I'm not hiding it. This is not the right venue for that. No offense to anyone who has a child or knows someone who's needed this, but I have a friend that calls AA Spiritual Special Ed. It really is. I mean, this is spiritual kindergarten for guys like me that weren't getting it anywhere else. I have a learning disability known as alcoholism. There's got to be a learning disability. I mean how could it have taken me 41 years? So I've got to be careful that my own beliefs don't take away somebody else's chance to get this thing. That's why I said that thing about voting. I vote by secret ballot. We've got to keep that away from here. outside issues and specific religious terms are outside issues also let's be careful with that when i was sober about five years i was sponsored by probably the most spiritual man i'll ever know i must assume so and i called him one day and i said mike um i got this question about this guy i'm trying to sponsor what should i do and he says drop him and i said mike come on i'm serious he couldn't have meant that he said no no i do mean it drop him i said now come on now he says i'm seriously dropping i'd rather have you on the golf course than working with him be better for your program i said i don't understand that and he said what are you asking him to do that he's not doing and i say well uh call his parole officer, look for a job go to a meeting every day open and close his days on 86, 87 and 88 and start his four step he says you're not doing any of that? I said no he said you are not his sponsor he is you are his fire chief and when his tail feathers are ablaze he calls you and siphons off some of your serenity and puts out his fire and goes right back to doing it his way and you're not helping him you're actually co-signing a lie he said could you stay sober on the program he's working I said no he said can he I said I doubt it he said you are probably right and when he drinks again you're going to have to be able to sleep knowing that you told him the truth because the truth is he may be in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous but he's doggone sure not in the program and he doesn't have a sponsor and you have to do that so you can sleep because when he goes back out he could kill himself or somebody else or do a long stretch in prison and you're going to have to sleep knowing that you've told him the truth there's another reason oh and then he said how do you feel