Katie P. at the Big Book Experience Weekend – 2025

Hold on one second. Don't start it yet. Did you already start it? Okay. Thank you. Good. Very good. Hi, y'all. I'm Katie Parker, alcoholic. Chad, would you back it up just a touch? Or maybe I'll move this. There we go. know yeah that was a thank y'all for coming and rescuing me I for a minute there thought I'd have to kick someone's ass okay I'm out of that business now that business is not mine you know I said just enough to upset him terribly so that's Charlie's like that that's my wife yeah Yeah, that's perfect. Oh my gosh, it's so exciting. I just love doing this. And I got Chad with me for you guys that weren't able to make it last night. Most everybody knows we lost Charlie. And I love doing big book weekends. I'd much rather do these than my hour talk only because you can absolutely change people's lives because that's what happened to me with Mark Houston. And I need to make that clear. Mark Houston did not touch me or change my life he did Charlie and Charlie drug me because that's the only way I was going to pay attention because I I have such an incredible ego is there anybody in this room that has the ego like I have thank you well what I love about you guys is it's right here right here baby at 2 yeah that's me who I am now the rest of you I'm not quite sure where you land, but one of the things that is so interesting is that when we were in the presence of Mark Houston, which he was almost a mystic. There's heroes in AA. There just are. People have them. We're human. We fall. All of that stuff, but I've heard people say, well, you're not supposed to whatever. These are people that have changed my life and I'm carrying the message and hopefully changing people's life. That doesn't make me any better than or less than, but Charlie knew how stubborn I was, and I had done a tremendous amount of codependency group therapy. It was very happening in the 80s, and it was all alcoholics and Al-Anons, and it Was intense, and It was deep, and we did it for 10 years. So just take a minute to realize how effective that was, but the only problem is it didn't treat alcoholism. But I learned everything I could learn about myself. self, and so it was valuable for me, but it wasn't treating my alcoholism. So when I was watching Mark Houston, and he's reading out of the big book, I'm like, thing is written in the 30s, for God's sakes, and keeps using all these mortar, you know, this is the keystone, and you know all of this stuff, and I just didn't, I thought he was handsome, that's about as far as I went for three days, you know, asked him a question because Charlie was the problem. And, you know, he'd been my best friend for 20 years, so I knew Charlie Parker's life in and out. And I was telling Mark something. He was standing up against the wall smoking a cigarette, and that man could pull a coal on a cigarette like that. I mean, he was a real smoker. And I said something to him about fixing Charlie, you You know, we'd never met the guy. Fix and Charlie. And when I said it to him, he goes, ho, ho. And I thought, I'm out of here. That's all I needed. And I told Charlie, I went, I am leaving. I tried to leave three times. We were on a, you know, in a Girl Scout camp, for God's sakes. But that is how hard-headed I am. That is how stubborn I am, my brother and sister are exactly the same way. I don't know what happened in our household, but we are very very very hard to convince of anything unless it's our idea So when you're looking at how self shows up for you The problem here is since you don't have what I have. You don't think you have it Did you absorb that? Everyone in this room has an extreme example of self will run riot it, though they usually don't think so. And so it could all be in your thinking and not even in your actions. But what we're waking you up to is at least just looking at it, just peeking behind the curtain and seeing how I show up. And I got to get a feel for the room. So how many people, raise your hand, are under five years? Oh gosh, congratulations. How many are from six to to 12? Okay. How about 13 to 20? Impressive. How many are between 20 and 30? Good deal. Anybody over 30? Wonderful. Wonderful. So you guys are the class of 84 too, right? Or Or the class of the 80s, 70s, 92. Oh, I'm not doing very good math, am I? Well, that's another area I was just not paying attention. That was when real weed was out there. I don't know what these kids are smoking. Oh my God, I got a story about that, but it's got to be knee-to-knee. I'm going to put it on CD. So you've got to ask me about that one. They put Charlie on medical marijuana. It's a long story. You know, it's interesting. Dr. Bob made a statement that I thought was so profound. He said, you know, the directions are clear-cut, but everybody has a different experience. And one of the reasons I want to make this point is because I get a lot of calls from all over the world. And so it's just a drunk talking to a drunk, right? We're not people in my home group. It's just an experience. It's not just a drink talking to another drunk. And they say this a lot. I was wondering if you've had this experience. experience and to me it took a while before it settled in that you think you have to have the experience to help somebody. That's just not true. Now rape and physical abuse fall under complete different categories and losing a child. Those are a bit different that you might need to talk to somebody who has had that horrific experience but I don't have to Have been fired, divorced, any of that stuff in order to help Somebody. Sometimes if you have kids and your sponsor doesn't have kids it can get a little muddy. But otherwise I think it's important to just let that settle in and realize you don't have to have had that experience, you don' have to sit in a meeting waiting for somebody to share your drinking so that you can understand if you are in fact alcoholic or not. There's so much more clear-cut directions that the book tells us. I also like the fact that the Library of Congress made the big book one of the 88 books that shaped America. I mean, that's impressive, and that's what we have. We've been pulled out of the gates of hell and given this amazing life, and I didn't touch that book for 17 years. And, you know, I said this one time in front of about 2,500 people at a conference, and there was a collective groan, and i went, oh, like you've been nailing the book since day one. really come on I mean you know sure there may be a spattering of people that have but most of us came in here our hair on fire we did a a weak inventory we did the process we were supposed to do and then we just rocked on and and you can you can buy a lot of time doing that I never even knew what the root of my problem was chapter five how it works the most most read least listened to piece piece of literature in, in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's like, oh my gosh. And, and that, I actually did a workshop on just how it works. There's some profound stuff in there. You can really get some depth. This, and, and the term, whatever you, whatever you choose to call this, Charlie and I called understanding the third step, the second surrender. Some people call it emotional sobriety. You You can call it whatever you want, but I like it being a second surrender because I had no idea. I thought not drinking was the end game. I really did. And then go get counseling, learn more about yourself, try to figure out how to blend in, those kinds of things. And I did really well, incredibly successful businesswoman. I was kind of like the Ray Donovan of the world in my company if they didn't like somebody. Okay, let's get this scenario correct. correct. Is there anybody at work you don't like and several other people don't like them? Okay, yeah. We got that guy. So what they'd say is I'd be the hit man and my job was to get rid of him. Any way I could, get rid of him without murdering him. And then everybody would pat me on the back and tell me, you know, God, unbelievable, Katie, I don't know how you got rid of it. They were such a problem because we were in a franchise situation. And I ended up going back and making amends to about 18 people I did that to. No consideration of their life, no consideration of their families, nothing. And there was one woman that had a really hard time when I saw her at a big event. There was probably about 8,000 people there and every time I'd get even from here to the door she was like, well I'm out of here, you know and she just scored out and I just made her life miserable for a long, long time and I thought that was a good thing. You know, when you really start to wake up and I'm not saying everybody in this room is asleep, but if you can pull up some things, you'll be pretty surprised. Allow God to, I mean, you're here to learn more. Allow god to open up storylines in your world. Back in the 80s, what we were doing in recovery was, you know, you'd say to somebody, so you think you're alcoholic? They'd say yes, and so you'd Say, okay, I, I wasn't really even identified. I didn't, physical allergy, mental obsession, none of that was done in 84, and then they say, They go, how do you feel about God? Eh, no big deal. And then we moved on to the third step and we just went down on our knees and did the third-step prayer. There was a complete over of the third steps. Never touched reading the third Step. And Charlie and I did a lot of Joe and Charlie big book studies. I don't know how. Charlie liked to say he was sitting there thinking about potato chips. Potato chips are girls, but when I was with him, he wasn't thinking about girls. But it was like, oh my God. You don't even realize how asleep you can be in the world. And it's interesting once you start to wake up. I think the second surrender, it's easier to get an alcoholic to stop drinking than it is to get one of us to quit playing God. And then remember, it's getting ready to tell me even behind a kind motive. So that's where it gets tricky. See, I don't think too much of myself or too little of myself. All I think about is myself. How is this going to affect me? What's going to happen if? and it just swirls like that in our heads. Page 60, and I think this is interesting, it starts out by saying we were at step three and that's in italics. Now here's the interesting part of that. Over on page 63, right before the prayer, it says we were now at step 3 and it's not in italic. I think, and once again this is my assumption, I think the italics are getting ready to explain what the third step is And on page 63, it's just affirming the reiteration of the prayer of what we just looked at. So the prayer is a beautiful prayer, but it is by no means the third step. And it's going to break it down really tough. So back on page 60, it says, which is where we decided to turn our will and our life. It says, which is our thoughts and our lives are our actions over to the care of God. So you're saying turn your thoughts and your actions. That's a lot to swallow. So just watching your thoughts. I asked you guys to do a little practice when you left last night, just watching Your Thoughts. Did any of y'all remember to do that? Okay, raise your hand if you did. Oh, I'm impressed. And then the rest of you guys were just thinking about where you needed to go. Let's get from point A to point B, baby. Oh, that's right. She did suggest that. Were you surprised when you started watching your thoughts? It's a really interesting thing because, I mean, that sucker never stops. It's just rattling away up there. It's thinking about what I've got to do, where I've Got to go, what if they call, oh, I forgot to do this. It's Just a mumbo-jumbo, and that's a part of life. The only problem with us is we have an extreme example of it. And so it's a cause and effect, right? My life is a demonstration of my inward condition. see I always thought life was coming at me it's coming from me and we are creating almost everything in our life that's that's going on we really create it we bring if we have a tremendous amount of fear we bring that fear to us because I'm scared to death I'm not going to you know get this job I get the job now I'm afraid to death so I'm going to lose it so I am in this constant flux of fear and your fear could show up like resentment that's what mine does it's gotten gotten better, but it's still pretty difficult to identify fear for me. And even at 40 years sober, I can identify it. You know, the gentleman that stepped in the room, I thought, oh, no, this is not happening. And it was a bit disturbing looking. Did anybody glance back there? It was a little disturbing. And at one point he was so dismissing me, which Charlie will tell you, you really don't want to dismiss my wife. It's going to get ugly. And I looked at him. I I said, okay, buddy, let me just be real clear with you. This is creepy. What's going on? Creepy. And that was it. And then all of a sudden, I had pushed him over the limit, and all you guys came in. Thank you. Thank you, kids. Get the bronze back there, you know. But to me, it's like, oh, that's not going to walk by me, and I'm not going to say something. It's like oh, no, no. No, no ,no, no . But that's how I've been all my life. Charlie was in the airport. This was a really, really perspective that I did not have. His mother is real far away. She's an older woman and we're in the California airport and they have brought her down in the wheelchair. She can walk but she stands up and this huge group of people are coming through in purple shirts. I think they were from another country and they're just coming through and there's one guy who's about this big and he's all pissed off and he'm just barreling through the crowd and I see and so does Charlie. This guy's going to run right into Ruth because he's just barreling, and when we realize what's going to happen, we try to beeline it over to Ruth. I mean, she's like 97, and we get close to her, and right when we get closer, sure enough, the guy sure bumps her, doesn't knock her down, and Charlie goes, buddy, and he grabs him by the arm, and he says, you just ran into my mother, and this guy just shoves Charlie, and Charlie's a big man. This guy was really big, and I swear to God, what I do, I get in the middle of love it. And I mean, I look at the guy and I'm screaming at him. I go, listen, mister, I don't know what your problem is. I'm just like that little bird on a foghorn leghorn with the rolling pin, you know? And I'm yelling at this guy and he's just, and then all of a sudden he takes off. Well, when we get in the car, I want to talk about how impressive that was, right? I said, oh my God. I goes, Charlie, I can't believe you're not talking about this and Charlie said what the way you emasculated me I didn't did you see that I didn t see that and I swear when he said that so then I called my sponsor and I said Marty oh my god I did something cuz see I'm a hair trigger girl I jumped a house is burning I'm going in to get somebody I mean that's that has been all my life there is no pause on that thing and when I called marty marty said okay let's play this scenario out that it went different what if that guy would have punched you and your husband would be in prison right now for killing him i thought oh my god this thing is really going poorly i i was just so god dang excited i broke the fight up you know what i mean but see if you if you have self the way i have it you step into situations because you're trying to be helpful you're just trying to break stuff up you're kind of whoa whoa whoa whoa, this is not going to happen, and it can go very poorly, but that never crosses my mind. I always come out with a victory in my mind until it doesn't. So the book says, and this is really interesting, it says just what do we mean by this and just what did we do? It's getting ready to spend the next page and a half telling us what do мы mean, and then it's going to tell us what we do, right? So right now we're going to talk about what do WE mean. Explain to me what the the root of my problem is. It says, page 61, is the first requirement, is that Katie has to be convinced that any life run on self-willed can hardly be a success. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I am not. Remember, I mean, you have pretty much figured out who I am. My life is very successful. I'm a successful businesswoman. I m all, I m a good mother. I, I, you know, good in my neighborhood. I am this. I Am that. I M all these things because I m evaluating me. so I don't even agree with that line the first time I ever saw it I thought I'm not I'm not self-will run riot but I don t even get that and it says we're almost always in collision with something or somebody even though our motives are good so that's the that's kicker line so how many of you guys are out there and you know we become a part of AAA so we're gonna be a part of the community we're going to just do whatever they need we need to have we We need to get a group of people because we've got to clean up our neighborhood, so I'm going to be in charge of the neighborhood cleanup. And before you know it, everybody's bugging me, everybody. Because behind a kind motive, the new guy comes in. We say, hey, we need you to set up the room. We need you have you do this. We give him the key. He's so proud of himself. God dang, they trust me. This is great. And he comes in and he's doing this. And after about six months, he's looking around going, I'm the only one doing this Nobody's helping me, right? Behind that good feeling, that kind motive. So I think that's where we get lost because most of us know when I'm really working an angle. I know when i'm working an angel and I'm still working an ankle. Don't I am by no means perfect but I feel like I'm not going to hurt anybody with my angle. So work in an angle I know what I'm doing but behind a kind motive that's a real kicker. See and here's the tricky part about a kind motif. I don't even know I have it until you don't do what I want you to do. And I use these examples. I need some new examples, but it's like letting somebody in traffic. You know, we're in the south. You get one of those. In Texas, they're obsolete. I don'T know what happened to the hand wave, but It has gone. It has turned more into a finger. You know what I mean? You're like, if you're going to look at your phone at every stoplight, I'm blowing my horn, and I'd appreciate a wave that says thank you. I'm sorry I didn't see that the light turned green. Something like that. But that is, are they doing that in the South? Are they waving? It's gone. What has happened? What has happen? Oh, that conversation is being lost. I would strongly have you guys pray that that come back, that conversation come back and that our devices don't take us away. way it really needs our prayer because for whatever reason you know god felt like alcoholics got a lot of uh they get a lot extra dose of something if you ask me i really do believe that i believe we have amazing experiences in life and i don't know that the rest of the world has the same experiences we're having so don't ever question your prayers but we got to bring the art of communication the art of kindness the holding the door right and i'm expecting you just say say hello but you zip through that door I mean I really do want to trip you I'm like you can catch that back leg when it's oh and if when we were kids man they catch the back leg and you're down uh but to me uh it's got nothing to do with sex I don't I don' t I hold the door for anybody it's common courtesy that's all it is so those are the kind of things that are ways and then and then if you're out out and about so I go to the hike and bike trail every day and if you're up there and and you see a plastic bottle, you pick it up, but you kind of give it one of these. I'll throw it away. I got this. Don't you worry. You know, that's just the nature of it. Now, if you're having a hard time hearing these things, open your mind a little bit because you've got to have it somewhere. You are not without self. That's what we are made up of. We are madeup of self, and if we're not careful, it will get the better of us. See, when I have good intentions, I didn't mean to hurt anybody, and I've upset plenty of people with my good intentions then it says where the actor running the whole show is forever trying to arrange the lights the ballet the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way see I thought all of this was when I was drinking surely this is not sober no way no way mm-hmm and so remember I said I'm the sheriff I'm the first responder there's a lot of injustice in the world and I need to step in and do it now you could be the person that remember the ego turned inward is no less self-centered than I am you just keep it all in right it's an it's imploding experience and one of the tough things about the ego turned inward is that the darkness is so dark it's it's really it's I love when I get an ego turned inward sponsee and I can pull them out of some of that darkness I thought that door was opening our little guy was coming in It's like, these are lethal weapons, buddy. Yeah, that shook me up a bit. I haven't done a lot of that. And, you know, I'm so used to not that Chad couldn't kick his ass, but I'm still used to Charlie always watching. It's, like, oh, my wife, she'll step right in the middle of something. I've got to be her little bodyguard. I'm, like ,I've got this. But, you now, it's really interesting because the ego turned inward. You could be an in-between of both, right? You could at certain things, you mess with my kids, Oh, I'll take you out. You know, but then there's other places where if I'm out of, like, if I'M in an educational situation, I know very little. I know Very Little Here and I'm going to embarrass myself. The level of watching is the greatest gift you could ever do. And let me, trust me, it is extremely difficult to do. Watching your thinking, I encourage you to do it for 15 minutes. Set a timer on your phone and just, you're going to be in the grocery store, you're not sitting in meditation. I'm not talking about that kind of watch. I'm talking about watching going through life and just keep an eye on this thing and it'll blow you away. And then the next thing you go is, wow, where do I go with this? And what's the point? I was completely fine asleep. I like being asleep until somebody startled me awake. wake and and then once you start to wake up what you get is all the people you've harmed and you see things totally different god's constantly trying to wake us up and it says we alcoholics are undisciplined he disciplines us in this very way and uh i i was no one was more shocked at how asleep i was than myself when i woke up and uh and and it was tough because Because Charlie was a tough bird to wake up. Charlie liked being just Charlie, and he would give it his best college shot. But wouldn't you say, Chad, he struggled? I'd look at him and go, have you written inventory on that? He'd go, no, I haven't written inventory on that. I said, yeah, not yet. I was like, okay, well, okay. I pity the fool that pisses you off at Sam's, because it's going to squirt out somewhere. and then it says if my arrangements would only stay put if everyone would do as I wish the show would be great everyone including myself would be happy life would be wonderful you see it's my utopia over here I am the actor running the whole show, I am not the director but I am The Actor and events like this if you have anything to do with these events there's a lot of evening review and inventory written people are bugging me And Charlie and I would put these events on, and we would just bring in a handful of sponsees to help us. Even Chad and I got in a pretty doozy of a fight. Yeah, well, he wrote the inventory on it. And then when he told me who he read it to, I went, you are kidding me. So air my dirty underwear in front of somebody like that because it was terrible what I did. But that's what happens, man. I'm better than I've ever been. so you're seeing the new version, okay? And Charlie's death did not help it. I backpedaled quite a bit. You know, normally I would have walked past that young man and taken the high road, and I'm a little vulnerable these days. So it's katytopia, right? In trying to make these arrangements, our actor may be sometimes quite virtuous. Now, here's what we call the toolkit of self-will. May be kind, considerate, patient, generous, modest, even self-sacrificing on the other hand if I don't get my way I mean egotistical selfish and dishonest now just in case you're having a little trouble swallowing and digesting this fact it's trying to tell you that you have to examine and look at every part of your being Charlie and I were so much alike uh the yin and the yang and so you know we're fighting to get to the hostess table first right I mean everything was competitive and some people go oh I could never do that well well, you didn't have to. We did it. And, you know, it's kind of one of those things in relationships. So we're at the Southwest counter and we flew a lot. And Charlie was always a big deal. A-list preferred, companion pass, the whole nine yards and when we get in there and we're always, you know this really outgoing couple talking and everything and this woman, you know we're next and we'd never seen her before at Southwest and when I got there my bag is always 52 pounds. I don't care what you suggest. I can't get it down. It's 52 pounds. Charlie's bag is 51 pounds, okay? And this is for just a weekend. And so we're standing there and we're shucking and jiving because this woman has never met the Katie and Charlie show. And so I put my bag up there and she goes, oh, ma'am, that's two pounds over. And I said, I know it. I worked so hard to get that two pounds. I can do it. And she goes well, that is going to be a problem. we are like excuse me and she said that's going to be a problem so I'm like so you want me to open my bag and take two pounds out of there she said yes I do oh Charlie is livid livid and I thought oh no let's not lose our shit we're going to speak somewhere and try to tell people that we're all together right so I I do not unzip my entire bag in an airport I just won't do it I I don't know. If you can do it, rock on. I ain't doing it for the world to see. So I unzip it. I reach in there and I pull out a curling iron that unbeknownst to me was a pound and a half. And I put it in my bag and the cord is still hanging out the back and I am pissed. And we fly southwest all the time. So then Charlie, she lets that half a pound go. Charlie puts his bag up. It's 51 and he's already been a real butthole, right? So she's not giving his pound anything. She goes, sir, you're going to have to take that out of there. He goes, you have got to be kidding me. Now these are your two spiritual speakers, okay, coming to tell you how to change your life. He reaches in there and he pulls out a loafer and he puts it in his briefcase. And she takes it and we walk away. I go, I am never going to her booth again. I'm telling you that. And we're just talking and chattering. And I just all of a sudden realized it was the toolkit of self-will. I mean, we walked up and we were just the swell show. And when she didn't do as I wished, it got ugly. And see, that one was the one that really got me. I mean my cord's hanging out the back of my bag. Charlie's got a loafer on the top of his briefcase. And we're getting on the plane with that. I mean it's just the more of this stuff you put in your mind and absorb, the more you wake up. And Mark Houston was the only one who said, oh, don't fool yourself. yourself. He, you know, three-fourths of Alcoholics Anonymous is asleep and I remember thinking that's a little aggressive. Well come to find out a lot of people didn't understand like I didn't understand what the steps were about. I really didn't. You do your first you know cleaning house cleaning when you come in and then rock on right through those doors so it's really you know it's really a tricky little dance to do and it's a tricky dance to wake people up because if you're sitting here bucking what I'm saying, be careful because that's just what happens. The mind doesn't want to hear anything. I'm fine. My life is fine. I am fine. So what usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. That's where the self-pity comes in and self-pitie is available for everyone in recovery. He decides to exert himself more. This is where I'm driven by the fear. He becomes on the the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, there's that toolkit of self-will. As the case may be, still the play doesn't suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure others are more to blame. And one of the things that I like to caution people on is the term my part. My part is a dangerous two words because it would assume somebody else has a role and it's 100% mine or not. Charlie used to play this little game with himself where he'd say If I have 10% of the beef, I'm going to take 100% of my 10%. Well, that's a given, Dodo. You're just saying you got 10% and I'm going to own all of it. But that still allows hoping the other person is going to say they are sorry too. And I don't know about you, but if you've gone and cleaned something up and somebody doesn't say they're sorry, it's disturbing. And you've got to be free of that. that. I just went through something that I can't talk about on CD, but it was deep, dark resentment. I could even go to the word hate. Deep, dark. And I was so blocked. And some people want to call it a justifiable resentment. There is no such thing. It's called forgiveness. And I don't do forgiveness well. I really don't. I like to make you pay. Iike to see justice. Justice, I want to see you hurt, and then maybe I will cast a little pity on you when I get that ugly. Right? And everybody's capable of it. Kid being killed in a car accident, drunk driving accident. There's hundreds of ways that the wrong is so horrific, you have to forgive. And I was talking to Stephen Long, and Stephen Long has a way of just regurgitating Mark Houston in a way I've never seen anybody else do it. And he told me, he goes, Katie, you've got to go to forgiveness on this. And I mean, I instantly went to forgiveness, sent a text out, and got the response. I took 100% responsibility. I said, I'm sorry if I've caused you any harm. And I really hadn't, but I did that. And with all my earnestness, it was gone immediately. Now, I'd love to tell you it stayed gone. It came back about after two months, and I'm still working on it. and thank God for a sweet friend of mine, Randy. Where are you, Randy? Yeah, there she is. She was at the house last week visiting from San Francisco and I was just ragging on this situation, ragging on it. She goes, and you said you have written inventory? I said, thank you for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much for that consent because I need to write another inventory. I need to repeat the process because I mean to tell you, I couldn't believe how quickly it slapped right back on me. And it affects every area of my life. Everybody's bugging me driving. People at the grocery store irritate me. See, that's what happens with a resentment. We get blocked. And once you're blocked, you're in trouble. You're in more trouble than you think. I can speak for myself on that one. So it says, so we take away my parts. It's my faults and my mistakes. My faults and mine mistakes. He becomes angry. There's column two. Indignant. there's column three and self-pity column four the third step is setting us up for inventory and i tell you i'm an inventory right in full but when uh randy said that to me i had not put pen to paper on this one it had made my evening review but it was justified anytime i'm justified i'm in trouble and uh so then it says you know the and remember guys in recovery high-end problems are a problem for a drunk you know if the if the pool boy put too much chlorine chlorine in your pool and you're pissed off at the pool company, that's still a resentment. We hope you have high-end problems. We hope after you've been sober a while, you're living in a nicer house. Things are getting better for you, right? This is the nature of it. So don't fool yourself. A problem is a problem. You don't go down to the drunk tank and tell them that the pool boy put too much chlorine in your poo, you know, and these people that are really down on their luck. But you do need to use that with your sponsor. We don't get to pile up four or five things that bug me and think that I'm going to be unblocked by them. They're required in this deal. Then it gives us the paragraph that is so profound, selfishness and self-centeredness. We, that we think is the root of our trouble. And remember, the we is the first hundred who wrote the book. Now, I thought it was stingy and conceited. That's what I thought selfish and self‑centered meant. I think too, and maybe it's just my whole learning thing. But if I hear a word, and I don't really exactly know what it means, I'll tell myself what it mean, and then I rock on. And I'm off the mark, right? I do not know selfish and self-centeredness. I was most likable four years in a row in high school. Clearly, I'm not it. Charlie was my best friend. He was so goddang self- centered, it was painful, right, 20-year best friend, and it was like he's got it, I don t. I remember those thoughts 20 years later, and it wa just like wow. wow. Then it says we're driven by a hundred forms of fear. Now, it could have said a thousand forms of fear, right? Not just a hundred. So when somebody is having trouble, the new term that people are using, and I really discourage changing the verbiage of the big book, they use the term triggered. You're not triggered, you're driven, right, and be cautious of the words that you choose to use with people because you can't relate them back to the book, and the book is is literally the prescription for alcoholism. You can use Triggered all day long out in the world with the rest of the people, but for us, we have to really watch our words. We are driven. And then it says self-delusion, right? I could go down a hundred rabbit holes. So all it has to take is one thing that bugs you or scares you, and then watch what the mind does. It takes it, and it hasと go to solution. It has to figure it out. It's got to know what it's doing, and it could be this. And oh my God, I could tell so-and-so walked past me didn't even say hi to me this morning at work. What did? Oh, I told somebody that he was bugging me last week. I bet they told him. And I mean, and this is not, this may not be a big deal. I'm just trying to illustrate how the mind works when somebody has ignored you. Not, God forbid they'd be in their own world and just didn't see me. but it's like hey I didn't get my normal hello and so then it says we self-seek right because now I got to figure out what's going on that's that's a mission to figure out what happened what is wrong with them why are they feeling this way how do I need I got a get here I gotta get there I gotta figure this whole thing out and then and I can't believe then we go to sell pity I can believe people people think that of me. It's like, well, I tried just to give her, just to give her. Right? That's what Marty used to love that one. You know, people pleaser. Lorenz was the one who gave me the approval sucker. Let's just bring all the people into this room and line them up and see how much they value you in their life. Right. Could you imagine doing that at work and being on a two way glass and saying, okay, you 10 people in this room, we're just going going to kind of get down and dirty right now. So what is it about Katie that bugs you? I have a feeling they could all come up with something pretty quickly, you know. She's this, she's that, she's this. Heck, you're coming up with stuff, and I'm just standing here, you know what I mean? I mean, that's just the nature of it, especially if you're giving pushback to something that I'm saying. It says then, you know, we step on the toes of our fellows, and they retaliate. And that's why the inventory process is so important. If you write a piece of inventory and you are completely justified that this person in column one did you wrong, and I like to use the example of a boss. So a boss, you're having a morning meeting and the boss calls you out and really gives you some grief in the meeting and you can't believe it. And you call your sponsor to say, this guy did this. What I'm on is a fact finding mission. I am going to walk the dog backwards to figure out how that boss got so so pissed off at you that he felt necessary to do that what did how did you step on his toes see this is the key to everything because otherwise we're just done wrong all the time in life it's just not fair people don't treat me right this is not the way it is and this is where it gets problematic so it says we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate seeming without provocation but invariably we find that at some time in the past we made a decision based based on self, that later placed us in a position to be hurt. I was listening to a piece of inventory on this young man, and I pulled out so many moments that he goes, and he's been sober a while, he goes stop, Katie. How do you find these moments? And I said because I'm not in the picture. See, I'm just watching. I'm like the director says we need you to step over here, we need você de fazer isso. When you're listening to inventory, I am watching this whole situation unfold. And he seems to get himself in these pickles, right? Well, what is happening? And these pickles are typically with the opposite sex. So you got to go back and see where you made that decision and then operated from it. And once you hear the decision, you're like, oh my God, I was walking down the hall when it came to me. And I thought, I know what I can do. that's the one that gets you in trouble. See, and so waking up to that, waking upto watching your thinking is the greatest gift that the program is about. And I was talking to Gail LaCroix. You guys may know her. She's an amazing woman. And she's taken over Akron and all of the archives and everything. And Dr. Bob's, you know, they bought another house and all kinds of stuff. And she said, Katie, we are finding that Dr. Robb and Bill were deep, deep into spirituality. spirituality, all on the consciousness. See, because if you look at the big book, it is divinely inspired. Are you with me on that? I mean, the depth of that, and then unfortunately, and I don't want to say unfortunately, I mean the 12 and 12 is a good piece of literature, but people feel like Bill had 15 years so he knew more. That's not at all the case. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of pressure to get that book out, yada, yadda, yedda, but Bob and Bill, she went into this thing about their consciousness. Carl Young, keep in mind it was the Depression, World War II and Prohibition and we're just whining about the current state of affairs right now. I mean first of all take away the booze, holy smack and mollies. That's just baffling to me you know when you're drinking something that could kill you and you're alcoholic alcoholic, and it's just death is an option. It really, it blows me away when you think of how divinely inspired all of this stuff was, and we don't give the big book the energy it needs. I know at least I didn't give The Big Book the energy its needs. You may be around a lot of big book thumpers here. So then it says, is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? We manage a lot. We just don't do it well. And so let's break that down. Is he not a victim? That means tricked or duped. We use a 1935 dictionary of PPG, tricked or duped by his delusion. Now ready for the definition of delusion? An impression that it's not denial. Please do not get lost on alcoholism. There's no denial. It's all delusion denial is once you see it, you no longer can believe it, right? right? Delusion is you make up a story that'll fit for whatever you see. So delusion is an impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is accepted as reality. Well, that's interesting. And then it says typically a symptom of a mental disorder. There you have it. And, uh, uh. And and happiness. So people say, well, would you rather be right or happy? When I'm in a really bad spot in early, I would say early Friday, up till 17 years, someone, I was bitching about something at a meeting, and they go, well would you Rather Be Right or Happy? And I thought, you want the truth? I'd rather be Right. If happiness comes, lucky me. But oh, happiness ain't it. I want to be right. Do I have a room full of people who want to Be Right? Okay, I'm I'm beginning to worry about you guys here. It's like, I know we're not up to the Mason-Dixon line, which I'm not even quite sure who Mason and Dixon are, but I want to be sure that I'm with people that are getting it. And Charlie used to say, Katie, you make people think deeply. They're not thinking, shut her up. They're thinking, interesting. So I'm trying to believe what my husband would tell me. So here's the thing about this whole being right or happy, or have you ever talked to somebody and you're really having trouble? trouble. And I realized that they didn't know anything more than I knew at the time, but I'm really having trouble. They go, well, I don't hear God in any of that. No kidding. I am so blocked from God. He's not even on my radar. Did you not just hear my problem? You see those, that's where I think those questions, I understand them, but they're incorrect. There's a chick at a meeting I was at. I had just stopped by this clubhouse, and she was crying about a boyfriend. It was a mixed meeting, and it was very emotional. She was. And of course, the sensitive individual I am, I'm like . And at the end of the meeting, she probably had 15 people hug her and pat her and everything, and I looked at her and said, you got a minute? And she goes, yeah. I said, let's go out back. So we go out back, and I didn't even need her to write it. I said, let's just, I want to take you through an inventory here. And by the time we were through with that inventory, she looked at me, and you can do it in 15 minutes. She looked at мне, and she goes, oh, my God. And it was just this amazing gift that God has given all of us to be able to hear inventory. It's a gift, and it takes a little while to learn it. But once you learn it, you know what you're looking for. And about a year later, I ran into her, and he came up to me, And she goes, you absolutely changed my life that day. She said, I had no idea. I said, well, what really got me is that everybody patted you and said, it'll be okay. See, that's not, that just, we don't have a message. I could have been the same person years before and patted her. But today I have a Message of Depth and Weight. Call me with the 10-step. We'll take it down. Now, I've got to warn you, now that I'm back on the road and I'm at home by myself, which sucks, poor Chad has to get some of my calls. I'm like, Chad, you're not going to believe what was out by the garbage can. Just got to tell somebody. There's this incredible raccoon by the garbage can earlier. Yeah. And then there was a dog fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he just listens. Sorry, need to tell everybody something. He just walked through the house muttered, you know, talk to the dog. How are you, Izzy? Good. Okay. It's still quiet. But so one of the things that I What I love is since I'm back out speaking again, I strongly encourage you to call me with the 10-step. I can do everything but sex. I can't talk about the physical act of sex. I keep it very PG. People are calling me and so I love talking to you about inventory. If you're wondering how it's done, the best way to watch how it is done is to write a piece of inventory. When we get down to the fourth step, we'll be breaking down how inventory is written. And I'm telling you guys, it will change your life. The whole thing between would you rather be right or happy, I swear I'll kill both of us. It's like, okay, boom, boom. We're both gone. I mean, there is such a level of in my family, if you could talk to my brother and sister right now, you would go, my God, that Austin Miller gene runs deep. I mean my brother's like Jesus Christ. And you're like, Mike, you need to have some air in your throat, man. You don't even get enough words out to get a suck of air in there, you know. Then you call my sister and you get the same thing. Do any of y'all's family members just kind of blow you away? You're like, whoo, we got a lot coming at you, a lot going at you. Then it says, isn't it evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And don't his actions make each of them wish to snatch and retaliate everything they can out of the show? Let me give you that scenario. Have you ever seen somebody work in an angle at an AA meeting? Yeah, that's not hard to see. And you know exactly what they're doing. So you are the one who says, and don't his actions make each of them wish to snatch and retaliate everything they can out of the show? Well, that is opposite when we're working in an angel, but we don't see it, right? But everybody else sees what you're trying to do, and that's the tricky thing. Like have you ever had a meeting, you know, you raise your hand and you're really talking at somebody, but you know you can't cross-talk. So you're trying to just get your point across. And I mean it's evident to everybody, but we think we pulled it off smooth enough to where... Thank God my pearls of wisdom got out there because that guy is in trouble. In the inventory process, this makes column four turn column two into a lie. and when we're writing column two it's a fact until we get to column four because once you get you know columns one two and three are all about us and the fourth column and I don't know about you guys but I mean I was so willy-nilly when I came into AA that I didn't even write a fourth column all I saw was three columns remember I'm not I'm NOT a book girl you don't give me a book and expect me to learn anything not gonna happen but those three columns I saw so when I did my inventory with my sponsor at the time she didn't even act like there was a fourth column either so we're hoping that we're giving each other everything we got and don't get me wrong I stayed sober I'm not knocking anybody man she did a great job it's sponsoring me but we were sponsoring like a life coach you know run your problems past me let me hear him because I'm emotionally connected and I'll tell you what you need to do I remember listening to a piece of inventory before I came out of untreated alcoholism from this chick and when she read me all the columns I said well you need to break up with him oh yeah it was like who so that's what he did to you in column two oh we don't even need to go any further remember saying remember where I was sitting when I told her that and oh my god the book says we're not the arbiter of anybody's sex life unless it's me listening to the inventory from you so i mean when when when we started waking up to all of this ppg our home group meets uh in person chad took over the online one but when you break the book down it's remarkable way to learn i don't think i could have ever learned the book any other way but just because of my whatever it is i've got and uh for some reason text jumbles on a page to me you know if you give me something to read I'm incapable I can read but I can't comprehend what it just said I can't read the whole paragraph but if you said would you just read it's like a lot of words a lot of words oh and it catches up with me from time to time but most of the time I just laugh it off I mean it really is comical because my self-worth I know I'm an incredibly successful businesswoman I was in business for myself for 30 years I know I'm all that and a bag of chips, but I just can't comprehend well. So that does not snag me, but I also don't run with people that are big scholars because I find them very boring. It's like, oh my God, are we gonna talk about the summer solstice? Is that even pronounced correctly? And Charlie's entire family were educators. I was stuck in the car in Hawaii. I have learned you can be miserable in paradise because I was. In the car with them, and somehow somebody said something about Hawaii's history. And the next thing you know, we're talking about the 1500s. And I want to just pull my eyes out of my head. And I'm thinking, oh, my God. Charlie's mother was a first-grade school teacher for 100 years. And, I mean, they're just big on education. It was painful. And I called him, I said, well, just FYI, you can be miserable in paradise. Because I was. That was really, I wanted to sit on the beach and just watch the water. That to me was just the thing I want to do. That wasn't where we were going. So then it says, is he not even in his best moments a producer of confusion rather than harmony? And here's the tricky thing, guys. If you're sitting there thinking, that's just not me. I don't have any problems. problems. I get it. I did the same thing. I did the exact same thing, I like who I am, I'm successful at what I do, I've raised my kids, I taught my kids how to have a marriage, that was one of my big things to teach my children. My daughter's been married 21 years, my son's been married 17. I taught them that marriage is tough, don't fool yourself, this is not just we walk down that aisle and everything went great and groovy. be I mean it was I could not see that I had any problems like the book was telling me and during the during Mark Houston's uh talk okay now keep in mind we're at a big book weekend and it's Mark Houston and another guy I'd never done one of these before in my life and the guy said and it wasn't Mark talking and I won't mention the other guy's name the guy I said, he said, you know, when I came into AA, I had a woman sponsor because I manipulated her to get her to sponsor me so I could work an angle. And he said but I'll be honest with you, I do have to sponsor women sometimes. And I have never had anybody raise their hand at a big book weekend. So don't fool me and do it, okay? I'm like this and he goes, Mark looks at him And he goes, yes. And I said, buddy, you manipulated that woman. These women are manipulating you just like you manipulated that woman, but you're falling for it. And I mean, you could hear a pin drop. I said am I the only one that heard that? Because could I get an attaboy, Katie? Yeah, you nailed him. And at the very end of that talk, the taper comes up to me and goes, goes, that was incredible. And I've never been to one of these things. And then I run into Chris Schroeder about two years later and I'm telling Chris, you know, I said, oh, tell him about when we met Mark Houston in that weekend. He goes, oh my God, were you the woman that asked the question? I thought, oh yes, that Was me. And, and then his wife came up to me and said, thank you for saying that. I thought、 oh my god, am I in a room full of people that didn't hear that? Because it was so so obvious to me, and surely it's obvious to you guys. You may just not say anything, but I mean, I am driven. Yep, that arm's up. Yep. We're up. We are going to be talking, and for whatever it's worth, it was clearly a moment in my life, and Mark was like this. Well, you are getting ready to meet Katie Parker. Okay. Here we go. Now remember, is he not even in his best moments a producer of confusion rather than harmony? This is where the amends comes in to play, and I think sometimes we get lost on amends. We think that the situation has to be like our first amends, the horrific stuff. Oh, it's so easy to clean up something and just say, hey, look, you know what? I realize what I just did was thoughtless and inconsiderate, and I know I made you feel uncomfortable, and don't let me off the hook. Talk to me about this. And then you just shut up, and you let them talk about, well, it really was. It was pretty frustrating. and I, you know, I just blah, blah, blah, bla, blah. You know, you gotta do the whole circle of everything. 95% of everything has an amends on the end of it. 95. And the different ways that self shows up. In Charlie's life, it was bad. It was story stealing. I know you guys have heard story stealing like crazy. We got another few minutes so hang in there. Story stealing. One of the things about story stealing is in AA we talk about our experience. So the chairperson gives us a topic and everyone in the room is thinking how they can relate to that. That's the nature of it. Well, what happens with us, especially alcoholics, is that the minute you get the topic, you want to share what you got, right? Oh, I know what I got. So Charlie and I are standing there at a big event and this guy comes walking up and he goes, oh my God, I was in Switzerland. And Charlie immediately goes, Switzerland? I've been to Switzerland. He just steals the guy's whole thing. We didn't even get 15 words out of the guy and Charlie talks about his whole Switzerland experience and then he walks off. And I look at the guy, I go, I'll listen to your Switzerland experience. And he goes, wow, okay. And you know, that was just a wow. And so I try to point this out to Charlie. Charlie, in AA we are terrible story stealers, terrible. And i said, I don't know exactly what the root of the problem is if we're sitting in AA so much that we're looking to relate or whatever. But And I said, so at one conference, it was in Arizona. I said so try to become an active listener. I'm telling you what, that's going to feel like you've got handcuffs on you. You know what I mean? And the whole time you're like, oh, Jesus, are they still talking? But an active listen would ask three questions, right? That's how you're dying to tell your story, but you ask three question. And at the break, this guy comes running up to me and he goes, what are the three questions? See, you should be laughing right now. They say, one person got it. I said, well, you big dope. It depends on what they're talking about. What do you think? I got three pat answers. You know, they're talk about a car wreck. You go, you got any children? I mean, and my buddy said, so I said it when we were in Canada, and about five people chuckled. And my buddy came up to me and said, Katie, they are not getting it. They are waiting for the three questions. And I said I'll be darned. It's an art of listening. The art of listening. And believe it or not, people are actually fascinating. Now you can let somebody go a little bit too long and it's too much, but Charlie could not. His family was off the chain with story stealing. It was painful, painful. We're at a conference and we're sitting around a table and there was a woman who wasn't Al-Anon, no disrespect, very much the ego turned inward, very quiet. And there's about six alcoholics that are all loud and we're talking and Charlie behind a kind motive is gonna go he goes so Mary where'd where are you from and she starts to talk like this and at one point 15 seconds into it Charlie goes so Bob what are you going to do and I see the whole behind a Kind motive thing and I slept trying on she's still talking you're the one who brought her in dude now we all got to suffer okay oh I swear word of God. I could not believe, I mean, it was just like he went, oh boy. Okay, so Charlie had a lot of those and don't get me wrong, so do I, but Charlie's were just so damn funny. And that's the other great thing. He and I could laugh about all this stuff. You know, we could fight, don't gets me wrong. There's no one guy got up one time behind a podium and said, my wife and I've been together 47 years. We've never had a fight. And I thought, Charlie Well, he goes, I can't even hear a word he's going to say. Somebody's paying a price in that house, I can tell you that. You may not say peep, but that is some thick silence. And then the other way we do things is we self-talk. So we do a lot of self-talk. And this is, of course, when we don't have God as the center of us, which that takes a lot of work to get there. Don't get me wrong. To really want to hear the intuitive voice of God God requires a lot of being unblocked, and so I would say things like, you know what, Katie, just walk in there. You know you're going to see so-and-so. Everything's going to be fine, and I did a lot of self-talk because I thought that was normal. Now, I'm not saying it's good, bad, right, wrong, but I'm just saying when you get unblockged, you've got a lot more prayer talk. Thank you, God. God, be with me. Speak through me. Tell me what to say. I used to hear that when I was in untreated I'll close them, and I'd go, oh boy, one of them. You know, this whole God thing, you know, God, God God, and today I understand what it is but I didn't know how to get there There was a moment in time where I had my son-in-law God love him, he's an only child, and he's so easy to get, you now, only children, I'm sorry if you're an only child, but if you came from my household, we are going to do all kinds of stuff too, because you don't even see it coming right i mean you didn't have anybody trying to you know eat the last popsicle or get all the mashed potatoes before they came to you none of that stuff and he was we were at a restaurant and something got stuck in his throat he has this weird thing that his throat like wants to close up and all of a sudden i said dev you okay and he goes no i'm not and so i told charlie i took the grandson over to the claw machine and i said you know work with him so that he doesn't flip out. Maybe he's going to get it unstuck or whatever. And so, and I love that claw machine. I mean, I will put a hundred bucks in one of those things for a $5, a 50 cent toy. And, uh, so, you know, Ryder and I are doing the claw and I mean I am almost getting it. And Devin comes walking up to me and goes, we need to go to the hospital. And you know what I said? Can you give give me one minute. And I would love to tell you that I heard it, I saw it, I couldn't believe it. And so what I did is I immediately left the claw machine and I went outside and I didn't want to fall on my sword because that's the other thing we'll do. I am so sorry. That was so thoughtless, so inconsiderate. The guy is like this. AndI just looked at him and said, said, Dev, sorry, I saw that. That was it. I wasn't going to fall on my sword, but I did go back to the claw machine the next day. I whipped to try to get that toy. I mean, I'll tell you what, when we're driven, we're driving, and there's so many things. When I had a tooth taken a left, and I'm not okay with my tooth taken left. Some people got no problem with it. I didn't like it for me, and so I go into this orthodontist office, and I am going to get the Invisalign and this guy was a cyclist and very fit and I've been an athlete all my life and we're just talking away and I mean talking away next thing I know this whole room of staff kind of come in and I'm thinking they think we are so fascinating it's my thought you know because I'm watching my thinking and he and I are just having a ball talking about this and all of a sudden I left and you know said goodbye to everybody I hope you enjoyed that That conversation, it was really good. And I go out to my car and I realize, oh, I need to go in there and get a plastic fork because I was going to eat my lunch in the car and I go running in there and the entire place is closed. Lights out, they're gone. You think they were interested in my story or were they like, when is this woman shutting up? We need to get out of here. Had I never gone back, I would have thought, I can't wait to see them all again. I'm going to be more fascinating this time. That's what we do. We don't even see it. A lot of stuff just passes, and I can see it in others, but I'm blind to it in me. I mean, that's the beauty of sponsorship. I mean Marty will bring me stuff that never even crossed my plate. It's amazing. I also like to use terminology that's not current catchwords. I like to used the terminology out of the book. We use the term codependent. This is not codependant. it is the actor running the whole show, right? I'm going to tell you what you need to do. I'm not dependent on that, not codependent. Very dangerous. Manipulative and controlling is a self-seeker. Expectations are ambitions in the book. Belief systems are old ideas, prejudice, and values. And I think it's so important, guys, to use the verbiage. And there's a new term out that is about to make Charlie and I both crazy. It came out while he was still alive. is gaslighting. That one is bugging the crap out of me, and let me tell you why. Gaslighting has a lot of mental illness. If somebody is messing with you, they're just manipulative, right? They're controlling. They're all those things, and if this person's not an alcoholic synonymous and not alcoholic, gaslightning, watch the movie Gaslighted. It was mental illness and the guy across the street was making the woman crazy. The term disturbs me badly, that and triggered. To the rest of the world, that might work but gaslighting, I don't know why the younger generation is finding that one and everybody gaslights. Because everybody's self-centered. I want to get what I want, period. If it's at the the cost of running over you, so be it. And if you're the ego turned inward, you'll just sit there quietly and figure out how to do it in your head and you'll never do it, right? But you'll be judging the heck out of them. So then it says, so our troubles, and that's only if you want to be free. So our troubles are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourself and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. That comma is a big comma so once again if you're if you struggling with this because this is this is a lot of information coming at you this is swallowing and digesting you don't ever arrive I also thought that I thought it 20 plus years I had arrived I do not have these problems thought well if we got your family on a two-way glass and said how's Katie in your world I think it would be interesting be an interesting exercise says above everything we must be rid of this selfishness, not alcohol, selfishness. It's interesting. We must or it kills us. God makes that possible and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid which is required on 10 and 11 and 10 and11 are going to just come alive. Then it says many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, right? I told you I slapped my kids. I couldn't believe that we tried to bribe the doctor. Neither could we reduce our self-centered as much by working on our own defects, right? We cannot do that. We cannot just say, by golly, I'm going to be less selfish. It doesn't work. I wish it did. You may be a little nicer in the grocery store that day, but you didn't do an intent. You intentionally planned to be nice to people. And have you ever realized you're going to try to be super nice to people and they're not nice back to you? And you go, oh, this is a terrible exercise. Forget it. self-knowledge or awareness are important to see what's driving me these values and these old ideas that third column is profound for your old ideas that's what it'll all come out self-esteem pride ambition security deep-seated personal relationships remember if you got sober when I did it was the check marks right remember you you go oh yeah it's my self-esteem I don't really know what that means but surely it was that and then it was this and this and I would have never ever known what self-esteem meant are you thinking what I think of myself am I are you thinking what they think of me I mean you know and then I thought it was a feeling I am angry I am hurt I did not realize that this this really took some took some meat on the bone and then otherwise I go into self-reliance trying to fix everything with no God and now here's the beautiful part of uh we just finished what do we mean now this is what do do we do? We had to have God's help. This is the how and why of it, right? And I love the books tell you when to take them, how to take him, and why to take Him. Those are three points that are so important. First of all, we had to quit playing God. Why? It didn't work. That's me needing to know everything. Next, we decided, and here's the decision. The prayer is a reiteration of the decision that God was going to be our director. He's the principal. We're His agents. And I like the word agent i'm empowered to act on his behalf i can go do a 12-step call with 100 confidence i am carrying a message of depth and weight remember last night when i said that i read that part that said living along spiritual bases or uh drinking to the bitter end and my buddy said what and the truth of the matter was is i was bringing god into a 12 step call all. That's not at all what you do on the first visit. You don't, you know, you want to turn an alcoholic off fast, go, and then there's God, the God of your understanding. You know, you're trying to get physical allergy, mental obsession. We're not, we don't even bring that in, and it tells you in working with others when you bring that in. I came right out of the gate with it because I didn't know what I was doing, but I tell you, I still did it. That is the beauty of AA. We still do it. I had a message of depth and weight, the facts. I did not know that at 17 years sober uh i i have made so many amends in untreated alcoholism i i just can't even begin to tell you that were remarkable and had i not woke up these people would just have a very low opinion of me and they had every right to uh page 46 says god does not make too hard of terms for those who seek him says we had a new employer being all powerful he and here's the terms he He provided what we needed if we keep close to him and perform his work well. Well, in order to keep close him, I've got to get close to them. In order to get closer to them, I have to get unblocked. See, these little things are like granules of sand. They just block me away. I caution people with these phones. These phones and alcoholism, I think your phone should be turned off while you're in here unless you've got a little kid at home by their cell. Otherwise, or somebody's waiting for a liver transplant. you know other than that turn that sucker off because you're going to be driven to pick it up and the minute you pick a phone up you don't hear a word I say you cannot do both the brain doesn't work that way and this new apple thing here on your room makes me crazy makes me crazy and I'm talking to my girlfriend and she does this and I just I stop and she goes no you you can keep talking. I go, no, I can't. You just read a text. You won't hear a word I'm saying. You're just going to get the gist of the conversation, but you're not good. Why must we answer everything we see on our phones? I encourage you. It's a big, big problem for alcoholics. Rest of the world, do whatever you want. But for us, and we play these little games, we don't ever sit in that stillness very often. We got to keep it busy. I got to keep it busy. I got to keep it busy. Bench watching, oh my God. I'd always prided myself on not being a bench watcher. Well, I lost Charlie and let me tell you, I watched the program Elementary that is apparently Watson and Sherlock Holmes and I thought it was only one season and I thought, you know what? I'm dark, I'm frustrated, I'm hurt and it's seven seasons. since seven. And the dope fiend alcoholic of my variety, I watched all of them. Oh my God. I got nothing done. My house was a wreck. It was painful, but I could not stop it. See, I mean, I'd love to tell you guys I'm spiritually fit enough to stop it, but my world is so torn upside down. I'm just not, I'm not on my game anymore. And it'll eventually come back. But now I did, I could have watched Landman until 4 o'clock in the morning. But I've got to be honest with you. His ex-wife, I was grateful Charlie wasn't around to see that. That's a little uncomfortable for me. I'm like, are you looking at her? Because that's kind of bugging me. His ex wife was something else, right? Did you guys see Landman? Yeah, Midland. And a lot of that is really not true. All of us in Texas are like, that is not true! They wouldn't have gone out there with that wrench. Oh, it's so funny to hear people do it. Then Facebook. If Facebook bothers you, people on Facebook bother you, get off of Facebook. That's like not drinking. I mean, that's really challenging. People have such strong opinions on that. And it says, as we discover we could face life successfully. That's turning statements into questions. Mark used to do that. Ask yourself these questions. Can I face life successful? Am I really at peace most of the time? don't answer that question too quickly till after the weekend and just get get some of this because if it says if we've disturbed the alcoholic about his alcoholism this is all to the good this I was very disturbed it says as we became conscious of his presence we began to lose our fear of today tomorrow and the hereafter, we were reborn. Thank you guys very much.