Maintaining a Fit Spiritual Condition – Wilson House Workshop – Part 5 of 5 – Dave F., Mark H, Chris R. – Dave Frederickson, Mark H, Chris Raymer

Good morning. How's everybody doing this morning? I'm Dave, I'm an alcoholic. As always, a little administrative stuff. The 50-50 is going to take place after the next break. So if you need a 50-60 ticket, buy it on the next break because as soon as we start the next session, we're going to do that raffle. You guys know Barefoot Bill? Where is he? He's over here. Barefoot Bell is another big book thumper and he's an AA historian and he's offered to donate a series of his tapes to throw it in there. So we're going to have three tape series raffled and then we'll do the big cash. I think it's like, I think we're running around $240, $250. So you're going get $125 for your half if you hit it. And the other half is going to a good cause to the sprinkler system here at the Wilson House to preserve this. Tickets are my wife Brenda right there standing there with my lovely wife Brenda. My best friend. What? Spokeswife, yes. And I would like to give her another round of applause. She's been doing the cookies and the candy. And even though they're not here, I think we should give... For those of us that are married and have kids, for example, my mother is watching my kids. I know there's a lot of people here that their spouses are watching their kids and stuff. Whoever's watching your kids, your dog, your cat, whatever, we should have some gratitude in our heart because without them, we would not be able to be here. So let's give them a round of applause. How's everybody doing this morning? I talked to several people. Some people were pretty blended up yesterday and came up and told me so. I hope that the whole purpose of this is not sadistic. That's not our intention. but that agitation that you guys feel really is the true message that this weekend was designed to draw out of you. It's like a bad tooth. Nobody wants to go to the dentist. Well, you might like your dentist, but nobody likes to go to your dentist because it hurts, but there's such a relief when you finally get that bad tooth pulled and the abscess has been there for a while. All we did was poke at it a little bit and now it's your opportunity to put in your own filling and with the help of God, you can do that. before we get started this morning I thought we might just get quiet because I know there is some agitation everybody's kind of I can sense there's an energy in the room so why don't we just get quite and we'll do a little meditation and then we'll say a quick prayer and start this thing off thank you for this opportunity to come together again as a spiritual body and we ask father that you help us to set aside everything we think we know is going to transpire here today and remove the fears what we might see about ourselves and we ask that you help us to have an open heart and an open mind for your guidance and direction to help us make sense of this agitation that we feel inside and to help use it as a springboard to motivate us to continue on this path that we may become closer to you through experience Father and we thank you for the grace in your name so today we're going to talk about 10-11 We're going to try to make some sense and put together the pieces of what we covered. All the exercises have been handed out. Some people asked some questions about, you know, do I have to have this all done by tonight? No. Probably, yeah, I should have been telling you this yesterday. I thought I did tell you yesterday, but lately I've been finding out what I think I say and what people hear are two different things. Those exercises are to be done at whatever speed you feel in your heart you need to do them. Some people are in a lot of pain. Well, if you're in a Lot of Pain if your hair is on fire I suggest you put it out pretty darn fast. If it's just a smolder you can let it smolders a little longer if you don't mind the smell. if you're just sitting too close to the heat source you might like the feel of the warmth and you want to sit there for a little while enjoy the warmth a little bit more before you eventually get to the point where you get up and move it depends on what level of uncomfortability you're in I would suggest that you don't put these down for too long I would finish them probably within a week for sure so that you won't lose the connection so you don' t pick up the sheet and go, now what were we doing? I don't really remember because if it means having to pick up the cassettes or the CDs or something and then listen to six or seven CDs to find where it was on which CD and then try to cover it most of us don't have that kind of energy to get to it and if we wait until you know we're in a real bind and we go oh that's right I got these great things maybe this will be my silver bullet that'll solve my problem it's too late you know continue with the process at your own speed somebody was asking me last night I think it's a great suggestion if your sponsor isn't here go home and say hey, you know what I had this really neat experience this weekend would you be willing to do this with me? You know share this stuff carry this message to others you know and share this experience that you've if you've had an experience I think most people here have had an experienced this weekend the big shift in consciousness has already occurred for most of us most of those when we hit that third step exercise there was a I don't know if you felt it but I felt a huge shift in the room and that is your motivation from that point forward sit down and take a look at the four absolutes I mean how well do you want to get and how soon do you wanna get well that's really what we're talking about it's personal judgment the people that really need this their minds are probably so closed that they're not willing to do this and they'll come back to this after they've crashed and burned it's the people that are in the agitated state They know they've missed something and they're sort of thinking about maybe it's time to go through inventory or whatever. Those are the ones who are really going to benefit from this seminar. At least that's what my feeling was when we started, and I think that's still true today. So that's my take on that. Do you have any ideas about that? He's just looking at me. He's sitting over there. Sure, I have a lot of ideas aboutthat. The Mark alcoholic. Good morning. A couple of you were asking me how Dave and I met, and I gave a short answer. He stalked me. True story. Yeah. I think he got a hold of some tapes or something. He's pretty persistent. Anyhow, we finally hooked up in Austin, Texas, I think in 1998 and maintained contact with each other, And then we got asked to do the Fellowship of the Spirit in New York last year. And so we thought it would be a good idea to rework the steps together and get to know each other better in swapping fifth steps. And so he flew in, and in our arrogance because we're so spiritually fit, we figured this would take a couple hours. We'd go out and have a nice lunch and get on with our life. Well, nine and a half hours later, we were still sitting in my house. and it was one of those fifth steps of laughing and crying because Dave said something that's important you know, I've done a lot of work with the staff since so has he and so I saw the benefit of he and I being able to sit down based on our pretty much a mutual experience and how important that was we were both really stuck on some stuff that we hadn't been able to get free of And it took sitting across from someone else with that kind of experience, if you will. And so, you know, ifyou ever swap fifth steps with someone, you know what happens is you have a relationship that's unlike anything you had before that. And I think off that experience, there's two fellowships in AA, you kno, and the one we experienced after that was the Fellowship of the Spirit. Dave and I are connected in a way, and will be until we die, that without that experience we'd have never been connected. And so since then, of course, we've just maintained contact with each other. So that's kind of how that came about between he and I. But what we're going to talk about today for me is the heart and soul of the whole program. The steps 1 through 9 are designed to catapult you into the spiritual dimension of the 10th, 11th, and 12th step. Way too much focus spent on the first nine steps. All they are is a bridge. that's all they are it's a course of action first three step considerations first step, am I powerless do I have an imaginable life can I do this thing on my power can I not drink, can I live life am I satisfied with my life and the realization that no so in the second step do I need power that's really the bottom line of the second step, do I needs power come up with a concept of that power that will make some sense and choosing that power is everything or nothing in my life. And from that position, then you have a third-step decision. Are you convinced your life running your will cannot and will not work? And my experience is, quite frankly for most of us, you really got to come face-to-face with that sober. See, you'll sit and you'll go in and you're going to say, and you look at your life when you're drinking. It's pretty easy to say when you are drinking that I'm convinced my life running my will doesn't work. The time you really need to look at that is sober. How are you doing sober running your life on your will? And if you meet that requirement, then the book really finally tells you what's wrong with you. It tells us some things we don't necessarily like. Number one, that all my troubles are my own making and that they arise from within myself and that the root of my whole deal is selfishness. And at that time, you must see the connection between your selfishness and dying an alcoholic death. Because if you don't, you won't do the rest of the work. See, at that point, the book has moved you completely away from the fact that alcohol is your problem. As a matter of fact, they even tell you alcohol is but a symptom. Mark, that's not your problem, this is your program right here. And they present you with an interesting concept and that is that the very thing that has created your misery and suffering and will kill you from drinking, you can't do anything about. At that point in time, it says you had to find God, You had to have God in your life. And they presented us with a proposition, are you willing to quit playing God? And we look at that and, well, how do we play God? Well, I know how my parents were supposed to have been and how I was supposed to be raised and how you're supposed to being and on and on иn on. And you begin to see maybe why life hasn't worked the way it is. And then you do that incredible third-step prayer. You know, you're offering all of yourself to God to build with you and do with you as God wants, not as you want. You know, it's kind of like for me I guess for 36 years of my life Ran around in self-will And you hit that third step And it's like God, I really appreciate it But you know what? I'm resigning here It's just I'm done I'm glad you let me romp around For a little bit Doing my deal Just hit all the walls I want to hit So from here on out I'm your guy Okay That's kindof the way That goes It's like I said For me The third step today Is very humorous I'm going to make a decision to turn my will and life over to that which is my will and life. So it's kind of that thing. And then you get to the nuts and bolts. I'm going to face and be rid of that which has me blocked from God. I mean, Dave's made the comment about getting closer to God. Well, of course, closer to god is an illusion. You know, we're like fish in the ocean swimming around asking where's the water? And that's the way it is with god. You see, where isn't god? So really what happens in 4 through 9 is I get rid of that which has me blocked from being aware of that, which is always present within and without at all times, conscious context, swimming in water, never not swimming in water. And that's all four through nine do you, you enter the fourth step with a complete sense of separation. You're fishing the water asking, where's the water? And these old timers tell you you're surrounded by it and you go, yeah, don't make no sense to me, you know? Uh, so that's the whole purpose of the inventory. You write a Resentment, a Fear, and a Sex Inventory. The purpose of those inventories is to see how your self-will operates, trying to get what it wants to make its arrangements. The book is very clear with you and I then why people don't stay sober. Resentament is the number one offender. It's why we drink. Every relapser I've ever worked with, we boil it down, we can finally drink behind the resentment. Resentiment, the spiritual disease behind resentment is I'm blocked from the power. and at certain times I have no effective mental defense. I don't have the luxury of being blocked. I must be aware that I'm swimming in water at all times and resentment takes me out of that so you write the resentment inventory and then we talked yesterday about the key to your future. You begin to see in that fourth column they're spiritually sick, I'm spiritually sick, where am I at fault? And the book does a wonderful thing which is it begins, you have to drop the word blame from your life and take responsibility for your life if you will You write the fear inventory, and you see the very fabric of your being is interwoven with fear. See, the greater my sense of separation from that which created me, the more I will be consumed with fear at all times. Fear, dis-ease of the ego. So you write the Fear Inventory, and then you write The Sex InventORY. Sex Invention is, again, a manifestation of my sense of separateness, if you will. So you do a fifth step. What's this whole function? The fifth step, you're trying to get pulled away from the ego. And, you know, as a matter of fact, the fifth step of the big book says it's life and death. Again, I think that's fairly important. There's some interesting sentences in there. And see, that's another topic. It tells you before the fifth steps, this is life and life. That's another, we don't talk about that sentence. What does the book mean? It says this fifth step is life or death. Those are fairly significant words to work with. my experience is it's the death of the ego and the life of the spirit that's what that's about so who I do fifth steps with is very very important if I go into a fifth step and you're concerned about how I feel you'll kill me see if I'm concerned about how you feel I'm useless to you you understand what I just said I'm worthless to you I've got to love you enough and get far past that the ego is not split in half by kindness you know so you do that fifth step and you get done and the interesting thing if you look at all the promises behind the fifth step those promises manifest because you get begin to get pulled back from the ego you know you get down to reading this inventory right and there's some incredible stuff in there it says you can be delighted you can look the world in the eye you can feel alone at perfect peace and ease your fears fall from you you feel like you're walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe the drink problem has disappeared And in the fifth step, the book is very clear. That's when you begin to have your spiritual experience and not before. The reason it says that is the extent to which you are still ego-bound, feeling separate from. You have no sense that there's a spirit that resides within and that's who you really are. And in The Fifth Step, you finally have an awareness, which is why those incredible promises are there. It's like it does when you spend an hour in review after The Fifth step. You thank God from the bottom of my heart that I know God better. How is it that I now know God? God better, because really the inventory for me shows me who I'm not. And I get to experience on an intuitive level who I am, which is why I know God better. The wave's a part of the ocean. The Wave has all the properties of the Ocean, but it can't be the Ocean. Yet the Wave knows it's a Part of the Ocean. That's a way for me to talk about what happens to me in a fifth step. You get done with that, and the sixth step is all you've done is made a list of the defects that your self-will has used to operate in the universe to get what it thinks it needs to be okay. And the horrible dilemma in that, of course, is that doesn't work. And so the question of the sixth step is, well, here they are. Seventh step is what do you want to do? We're the only kind of people, the sixth step, we ask a question, am I willing to let God take this? Only a drunk would ask that question. Let's see, this is what's led to all my misery, suffering. Let me think about this just i mean we're i'm telling you we're it's kind of like bitter end or door one door spiritual living well can i think about that you know other people would catapult through the door you know but uh not us and then see and then the seventh step could you explain the bitter end yeah yeah you know in the seventh steps you're offering all yourself to to god good or good and bad and uh that's that call it the asset liability line but basically it's just take all of me and because at that point that ties back into your third step build with me do with me as you want so take all OFME and you no longer concern yourself about your life and then of course in the eighth and ninth step is where you're going to begin to seventh step you're gonna connect to that power eighth and nine steps where you begin to feel your sense of oneness with your fellow human beings. So you make your list and you begin to go out and you make amends. What happens, based on my experience, is there's literally states of consciousness through the steps. And as you get to the ninth step, then you're going to basically begin to experience life in a whole other way. You're goingto have a sense of awareness of what I call there's a life beyond your life situation. Prior to me getting to the eighth step, I was consumed with my life situation where I worked and my job, blah, blah. blah, blah. That's all I ever talked about. Boom. And then something starts to happen to me, you know, and then at that point in time, of course, the book is going to begin to introduce us to the 10th and 11th step. And I'll let Dave start to talk first. The 10th 11th Step is new language. Yeah, it is not language of the intellect. It is not language of mind. It's language of spirit. You cannot practice a 10th or 11th step without having done some work in 1 through 9. It's absolutely impossible because what 10 and 11 ask you to do is literally it's a state of consciousness, it's things that will arise from within you that you cannot produce and I'll talk more about that. And so 10 and11 are practices to let me be aware of the fact that I'm constantly surrounded by the water, i.e. the power, the power behind the name, right? And to stay in touch with that you know incredible things so for years my first 10 years in a when i wasn't making this way of life 10 and 11 i realized now were words none of which i could practice i just couldn't practice them because there was still too much self intact so with that i'll let dave go ahead and share some of his experiences with the 10 11 how many people in here uh believe in coincidences i used to had way too many things that i can't explain you know and it doesn't really matter whether you believe in them don't believe in him whether they've you've it's your experience you know mark started talking about uh how we met and it's funny i really did stalk the guy um what happened was uh i i listened to some of mark's tapes and uh he and joe hawk and and And I'm a tape junkie by trade. And it's helped me dramatically. I really believe in, there's a ministry in the tapes and I belong to a Tape of the Month club and so I get a fresh tape because I travel a lot and no matter where, if I'm going to go to work, whether it's to the military or to the airlines, it's an hour and a half in the car. So there's the tape. So I literally, in the front seat of my truck, I have a case of tapes. And when you get to become a tape junkie, which I'm not advocating you hook up with other tape junkies it's just like dealing and you start trading tapes and it's like oh wow I got this great set and you loan each other tapes and it is a great source for resentment who the hell did I loan that set of tapes to they never give them back to me I got to get them back how do I get off on that tangent anyway because I had a prayer meditation life one morning I was in prayer and it just came to me, you've got to go find Mark Houston. I said, okay. And I thought about it for a little while and it came to be again and it come to be again and I've learned in my life that coincidences pay attention to that little inner voice. I'd been doing some workshops so I started talking to the people that do the taping. I called Glenn, I called several other people and said, I need to track down Mark and everybody said, well, we don't know where he is. He's disappeared. If you know Mark, He moves. He moves a lot. And it was at a stage in his life where things had happened in his life, and he explained it to me when I finally tracked him down, is he went on a walkabout. He put all his things in storage, and God sent him to go be with his mom and do some things in his life, and he was out doing his deal. And when he resurfaced, and I gave up after that point. I put the word out and I let it go. And I'm talking probably a couple years later, somebody says oh yeah you still looking for Mark I got a new email address for him here's his email address so great I fire off an email to him I said hey I'd like to meet you where are you and he said well here's my phone number give me a call sometime and I'm in Austin, Texas and the next day I had a trip that was going to Austin, TX and I said hey how about coffee do you believe in coincidences I don't so he comes by and picks me up and I am looking in this car going you look a lot different than I thought. You know? We went out and had coffee and the rest is history. It was one of those things where you meet somebody and you know you're on the same path and you connect. There's just that connection. And the same thing happened with a mutual friend of ours, Chris Raymer. There's a number of people in here that know Chris. Same type of deal. I just got this thing that said track Chris and I knew Mark knew Chris so I called up Mark and said Mark, I need a number for Chris. He said, oh, here's his number. Got his number, I called him up and said, Chris, I want to come see you. And he says, oh I'm out in... Kerrville? Kerrvill. I said, where the heck is Kerrillville? He says, it's straight outside San Antonio. Next day I had a trip to San Antonio Coincidence? I don't know. So I go to fly to San Antone rent a car, drive out hook up with Chris which was, that was an experience. We go to this little hole in the wall out in the middle of no place this used to be a road bar I think and there's a meeting in there And you walk in and there's, I don't know, maybe 16, 20 people. And you're walking in the room and it's like walking in The Wilson House. There's an aura. And you talk to them. You walk in, and you're home. And they start talking about the meeting. And it's thumping. It's big book thumping, only it's not big book thumping like they're trying to prove something. It's this is what we're doing in our lives. And we're changing. And they're talking about God. And you go, whoa! This is so cool. We call them pockets of enthusiasm. you know and so it became ever more apparent to me that wherever I go you have to create that which you crave create a pocket of enthusiasm everybody at least that I know of eventually you get on a little bit of a horse and you start talking to the old timers like they don't know what they're doing that's not the deal the deal is leading by example this is what it's done for me in my life and this is how I've changed and the people are like moth to a flame they just come and you create that which you crave it's a wonderful spiritual experience Listen to the little voice that's in your heart. If you've had a little voice go off in your heart this weekend that says, You know, I should probably start a women's group. There are no coincidences. But I don't know what to do. You've got the big book. You've Got Spiritual Experience. You've GOT a God that is all-powerful. Think about that. All-powerfully can do anything. You'veGot tapes. You'vegot access to any kind of tapes. I'll send you whatever you need if you need paperwork for email I've got reams and reams of stuff there's the support you need all you have to do is get beyond your fear and listen and if you're like me you'll get those little nagging voices and they don't go away they just get worse and if that's the case if you think you're making them go away you're just submarining them they're going to come back and get you twelve steps Mark talked about how people focus too much on four through nine I think people focus too much on and listen to the whole statement before you judge it I think we're going to I think that people focus too much on 1 through 12 we think that steps 1 through12 is doing the deal it is not we are broken we're broken machinery God gives us 1 to 12 to fix the machine all that does folks is get you to the starting line so that God can fire the gun and say bang now the race starts that's the deal it's going out and changing life for God and doing that deal. That's what this whole thing is about. Remember the question that I asked on the first step questions? Why did God get you sober? Most people write, I don't know. I don' t have a clue. Neither do I. But I know it's not so that I can selfishly do 1 through 12, 1 through 11, 1 through 10, 1 through 15, 1 through 20, 1 through 21, 1 through 22. Part of that is so I can do 1 to 12 and go heal the damage that I've done in the past. But that is just scratching the surface. There's so much more to that. It's to go make a difference. when you're dead in the ground nobody's going to care how much money you made that you spent that extra time at work you know and you got that extra nobody cares the legacy is left in the lives that you've changed did you make the world a better place you know that's what's really going to make a difference would you reign me in I keep getting all these tangents Mark, alcoholic yeah you know So these weekend things are a great time to have some new experiences. We all really came up here this weekend, I think, for Dan and Helen. Where are Dan and Ellen? Raise your hands. All right. Dan's got about what? You've got three months now? Yeah, February 19th. And he's been in and out and in and Out and In and Out and God really came alive in him yesterday. And another pal of mine, Tom, and I were out there talking. Dan, you know, I can always tell when God's just really zapping someone and Dan's eyes are just deer-in-the-headlights and he looks at Tom and I and he says, I have to do a third step with you guys. You know, and so Tom being the selfish drunk one to talk to me said, we'll be back in just a minute, okay? I've got to talk with Mark. So we leave, you know Dan standing there in his eyes and, you know, I mean, he's vibrating. So Tom and I go talk and we come back. So we come in here and the three of us sit down and I do a little bit of the review on the third step and then so we hook up hands and we say the prayer and Dan's saying this prayer and he's got my hand and he starts bawling. Of course, you knows, he comes from New York and top macho male and he can't control this and yesterday he was sitting there during the process and he was crying and his hand, by the time we were done, I didn't know if I had any bones left. And he's just sitting there crying, crying and crying, you know. And so we get down to that third step of, you Know, here's the three of us, three grown men, all kinds of crap going on. Here's Tom and he and I, and the power of God was so strong in him, I'm telling you, we may as well have just had a white tent over us, you know. And I thought to myself, Well, I ain't going anywhere until this guy lets go of my hand. That's obvious. So he finally lets go of the hand, you know, and stops. And this morning I'm talking to Helen who's been in and out and in and out, and she's out there this morning. And God came alive in her, and she finally had a first-step experience and realized that God must be in her life or she's never going to get the deal. But that's what's so wonderful. But for the rest of us, really what goes on is the impact of this weekend is what are you going to do when you leave here in your daily life from the time you get up in the morning until you go home with your family and at work and everything else. And that's really what all the steps are really designed to do. And the 10th and 11th step are the disciplines, if you will, that allow us to practice all of those kinds of things, not just in AA. There was a time in my life where my life was very fragmented. I had work here and AA here, and somewhere in the middle of this it just all blends and you begin to practice being present to the moment. And really when I think of 10 and 11 and all the disciplines and practices, really what they're about is ultimately demonstrating love. I went on a weekend retreat with a monk and a priest probably four years ago. It was funny because there was me and another drunk, and then there was two nuns and five priests. So it was an interesting mix. And he gave us a spiritual exercise at the start of it, and he asked that we remain silent. And me and the other drunk were the only two that could practice silence for two and a half days. But here was the exercise. He asked us when was the last time we'd been to a funeral. So we all shared that. And he took one guy in particular, and the funeral he had been to was a man who was about 40, and he was married and two kids, successful business. And so he made him describe the funeral. You know, a lot of people there, and he's up there. And then he started asking questions. He said, was his wife in the casket with him? And I said, no. Were his children in there? No. Was all his money in there ? No. You know. And at the end of it, here's what he made us sit with for two and a half days. He said, well, he said, here's my question. What did he leave behind that had value? He said I want you to sit with that for two and a half days. So we sat with that für two and half days and of course obviously I think what came to me was real simple is what he left behind were the lives that he touched because he demonstrated love. That's what he let behind. That's why we leave behind. So you do this work so that in essence you get to practice that. so 10 and 11 you get to 10 and11 when it starts to happen I'll talk about 10th step, a new language this thought the idea of I'm going to finish amends brings me to step 10 and begins to use some interesting words I'm gonna continue to take this personal inventory it says I've entered the world of the spirit you could take that sentence alone and meditate God what does that mean What does it mean that I've entered the world of the spirit? And my next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. In terms of what? Well, I have an awakened spirit now. So I'm going to grow an understanding and effectiveness about going through life with this awakened spirit and allowing the spirit to influence and guide my life. And again, I'm gonna say this, 10 and 11 is completely new language designed really to speak to the spirit. and then they begin to give you some tools to practice with, one of them is watch watch for what? Selfishness dishonesty, resentment and fear you've heard Dave say this you could take the word watch and work with that for six months to a year, one word what are you doing? You're watching yourself, can you follow me? and you're watching yourself for this selfishness dishonesty as you go through the day ask God to remove it at once because you're watch you're starting to be awake You're realizing what really begins to happen in 10 and 11 as a result of the work and you get taken to this is you're beginning to experience your life and watch your life situation. But you no longer are so involved in your life's situation, if you will. Ask is another spiritual practice of the 10th step. Ask, ask, God remove it. Turn is a spiritual practice when your mind starts yapping at you. You know, there's a saying, you know, where eagles gather where the mind goes. Turn, get that force, that force of self-will away from yourself. Turn to someone that you can help. Then you begin to get what I call the 10-step promises. There's four paragraphs in the 10th step in the big book. Most of the time, the only paragraph I ever hear talked about is the first one. I don't hear the other three talked about. And so here's the 10 step promises. Love and tolerance of others is a code. You all know what the word code means? It basically is a way to live. You can't practice love and talents of others as a code of life with self-will intact. It's absolutely impossible. You just can't do it. Then the sentence says, I've ceased fighting anything or anybody dash even alcohol. Imagine being able to live that. ceased fighting anything or anybody dash even alcohol, right? And then it talks about you've been placed in a position of brutality. You recoil from alcohol as though it's from a hot flame because what? You've been restored to sanity. It goes on to say, and by the way, you didn't have anything to do with that. It was a miracle. It was just given to you, right. And it talks abut is this your experience? It says the problem has been removed. I think Rick introduced himself the other night in a meeting here as a recovered alcoholic. It's because the problem, one day at a time, has been removed. That's why he says I'm a recovered alcoholic. What was the problem? The spirituality the big book talks about because the promise of the big books is when the spirituality is overcome I straighten out mentally. Meaning the obsession, my mind taking me back to a drink has been moved. That's done one day and a half or one day at a time. Then the 10 step talks to you about okay, now we've done all this it's easy to rest on your laurels My deal with laurels is what I did yesterday is what i did yesterday. I woke up this morning and today is a whole new day. I can't rest on what I didn't do yesterday, let alone a year ago. So I begin to do the things necessary on a daily basis to be in fit spiritual condition. And the book reminds me that I'm not cured of alcoholism. I'm given what? A daily reprieve based on fit spiritual conditioning. Here's the trap about the God issue. And that is that it's not God's responsibility to keep me in fit spiritual condition. It's my responsibility. There's a spiritual law at work. God won't do for me what I'm supposed to do for myself. I set my alarm clock. I get my feet on the floor, as Big Frank says. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. Disciplines. Disciplanes, right? God will not do for you what I am supposed to. My responsibility is to stay in fit spiritual condition, not God's. You don't... My experience over the years, The real things of 10 and 11 We don't hear much And this is my experience Drunks talk about what they're doing So I think there's reasons We're not talking a lot about 10 and11 at great depth Because I don't think it's being practiced Pretty much for me When I'm back and I'm not traveling 5am is just the time I get up And I do that 7 days a week And the first hour of my day Is devoted to me spending time with that which created me and beginning with some prayer and beginning my current meditation practice two times a day for 24 minutes. I've been doing that for almost 12 years. Why do I do that? Because that's what my book says I'm supposed to do to maintain fit spiritual condition. And the book goes on a little further in and says there's a prayer. How can I best serve thee, the vision of God's will? How can i best serve the thy will not mine be done? It says these are thoughts which must go with me constantly. it says I can practice my will along this line tenth step for me has become about what I call the line of the will God's will the line of the will you do the work in one through nine you die the death of self-will and now all you are is a manifestation of God the line of the will arises from within and all during the day what you're doing is is you're watching to see when you drift into self-willed for brief periods of time Call it flip-flop, call it what you will. But you begin to watch yourself. You get off track, ask God at once to remove it, back on track, line of the will all day long. It's in the tenth step. It says God has all knowledge and all power. And then the tenth steps says you have a new sixth sense. I'll throw out another topic for you to bring up in your meetings if they ask this question who has a topic. You raise your hand and say, I'd like you to share your experience with operating with your new sixth sense. Of course, they'll look at you like you're nuts. It's very real. It's fourth dimension. It's your spirit. You know, it's fabulous stuff. I could talk for hours on end about this new sixth Sense that was awakened in me. So the tenth step is an abyss of spiritual practices that you could do until the day that you die. So go ahead. Thanks. I want to read you two quotes. One's by Emmett Fox. It says, Your destiny is really in your own hands because it is impossible to think one thing and produce another. That's what Mark was just talking about. What we hear in the meetings is what people are doing. What's even worse, what we don't hear very much in the readings is what they're doing. This is what we hear from people who are doing as well. It's the real... Particularly with any time, if you've got more than a year or two under your belt, there's something that my sponsor taught me and I'll teach it to you and that is that you must And there are no musts in AA, right? But here's a must for you. It'll save your life. You must learn to bleed on the tables is what he called it. What does that mean? If you've got a problem in your life and you've Got some time, your ego's attempt to kill you and get you back on the barstool is not share it. You've got this image to uphold. Hell, I've got a couple years of sobriety. I'm looking good. I've Got a couple sponsees. No, what you have to do is go to the meeting and share it Does that mean that AA becomes a dumping ground? It does not. You don't just walk in and dump your problem and say, I feel better, and walk out. AA is not therapy for a buck. You'll hear that in meetings. Well, AA is just great therapy. It only costs you a dollar. It is not. AA has become a dumping ground and it's not what it's about. What you owe to the group as an old-timer, if you will, if there is such a thing, is to walk in, share your problem, and then come back to that group the next week and say you know what guys? Remember that problem I shared that I was devastated? Several of you gave me some great advice. And here's what I did with it. I went and I did this step, I did these steps, I prayed these prayers, I went made these amends and look what God did for me in my life. You want to change a meeting? Watch what that does. That is bleeding on the tables. I've tried keeping that stuff inside and it nearly killed me. And I've seen it take out, I can't tell you how many people I've see it takeout. 5, 10, 12, 15 years of sobriety. Bang! And you start talking to them, and there's usually a theme. They stop going to meetings. Always they stop talking about what's really going on in their lives. And the stuff they were sharing was not the truth. They knew they were living a lie, and they just couldn't live up to it. I've had people with a lot of time, I mean 20 years, come to me, and they'll whisper. They'll say, can I talk to you for a minute? I think maybe they want to make an amend to me or something. They've done something wrong. Would you be willing to take me through the steps? I've never been in through the steps before. And invariably their butt's falling off. Their whole life is, their wife's leaving them, their job is about to lay them off, they just lost their 401k and threw some get-rich-quick scheme in the market and now they're finally willing to take it. And they've been carrying this stuff for months and months and month and months and they haven't been able to share it because they've got an image to uphold. Our mental conduct by hour-by-hour thinking produces specific conditions that may be thought of as the weather of our soul. There's a spiritual barometer. When you're out of whack, you need to get in line with the will. Because remember the fog I talked about? 10 and 11 are the tools we use to start our day, to go through our day and to end our day with a review. And if your spiritual barometers out of wack and there's something going wrong, the fog comes up. And I use the term... My experience is what Mark says, that you can't get closer or further to God. I talked about that, about drinking. Most people don't relate to it. And the reason I talk about getting closer to God is because that's what most people's concept is. It's really an awareness. The whole idea about when I say closer to God, I'm talking about becoming more aware of the presence of God that has always been there in your life. But a lot of people look at me and they go, I still don't quite get it. What do you mean awareness of God? If they've experienced it, they know a little bit but they can't duplicate it. All that awareness really is is getting into the moment. When you can get into the moment, you're aware of your surroundings and God will appear. That's how you get that awareness. And then life becomes like a walking meditation. As you're going through your day, if you start to feel agitated, your barometer starts getting out of whack, you can go back and get back into that sense, that meditation. Believe it or not, I'm going to quote Bruce Lee. The past is an illusion. You must learn to live in the present and accept yourself for what you are now. When you lack flexibility and agility, you must make up with it with knowledge and constant practice. So here's what the alcoholics do. Oh, I need knowledge? Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge... Help, help, book. Give me another self-help book. Give me a spiritual book. We're looking for a spiritual silver bullet. A pill that we can take that's going to get us this enlightenment. Why aren't we willing to do the work to get there? There is a price to be paid for conscious contact with a higher power. And that price is discipline. Alcoholics are defiant. It goes against our nature. The part of us, from my experience, that doesn't like that discipline is my ego because my ego knows that if I start doing this practice my ego will die. it has to die for me to be in that conscious contact because it means I'm going to be in the present moment that's where the struggle comes from so everything about my alcoholism and my disease does not want me to do prayer and meditation because my ego's sole function is to get me back on the barstool because when I'm on the Barstool it's in complete control it's got me it owns me it's driving me at least that's the way I have conceptualized it in my head and it works for me alright Mark talked about responsibility 100% for some reason there's this underlying theme about responsibility we don't want to take responsibility well I grew up in an alcoholic household so what well I was raped when I was 5 years old terrible thing that's brutal but you're 25 years beyond that experience you've got a kit of spiritual tools you can survive there's hundreds of people that have survived that It's a terrible experience, but you can get beyond it. If that single event is still owning you, something's wrong. You're living back 25 years ago. Your life is on the line. You have to get into the present moment. Well, how do you do that? 10-11, 10-1. I take the pages 84 to 88 because that's where 10 and 11 are. I turn every sentence into a prayer. That way, my prayer and meditation life is constantly new. It's constantly fresh. Mark talked about, this thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to make new steps as we go along. I turn that into a prayer. God, please help me to do that. And I just repeat it. We've entered the world of the Spirit. Here's a question to ask yourself. Is the world of the spirit different than the world we've been living in? It is not. The problem is we haven't been paying attention to the world of the Spirit. Later on, there's 12 questions we're supposed to end our day with. It's called the Nightly Review. One of those questions is basically, and I'll paraphrase it, is have you been trying to cram too much into the stream of life? If you're walking around and you're feeling like, oh, I've got to get this and I've gotta get that. When you're in that state of mind, you cannot be consciously contacted to God. Just because whose will is that? I have to... Got a clue yet? But the second half of that sentence is extremely important for me. It was an epiphany for me, the stream of life. It wasn't a stream of life, there is one stream of life and it is the world of the Spirit. I can exist in the stream of life and be completely oblivious to what's around me. Doing my own little deal, my ego is running in my life. I'm being driven. My life is falling apart. And every once in a while I come up for air and I kind of go, this hurts. Something's wrong. You know? And then I start swimming even harder. You know, that great story in the book that talks about the actor and how we try to re-exert our will and try even harder? The whole idea is to let go. Well, for alcoholics, we have to be beaten down with the disease. Once we're beaten down, then we go to see God. Next thing you know, we realize we're in the stream of life. God's will is carrying us All we have to do is wake up to that and look at the view. Sit on the leaf, go down the stream and look around. You know, like a little ant riding on a leaf. And what can I do? What does God want me to do? Next thing you know, God sends that leaf into a little eddy over here and you do a little job over there and then the leaf gets back in the mainstream and you go for a little while and then it takes another tangent. If I have a plan, I'm going to be paddling like crazy trying to get up and go against the stream and it's not going to work. Does that analogy work for you guys? so until you can learn there was nobody to teach me how to pray and meditate my first sponsor he gave me a job because I was unemployable you know I'm 19 years old it'll be this time of the year you know 6 o'clock in the morning he'd pick me up we'd be driving the sun would be coming up the mist is coming off the river Carl would crank the window down it's 20 degrees outside and he'd be waving Carl what the hell are you doing close the window waving to God I didn't believe in God I thought he was losing his marbles so he led me like a little kid and that was my introduction to God you know then Carl disappeared and then I got another sponsor and over time each sponsor gave me little bits and pieces and it's something your prayer meditation life is an individual gift from God to you and it is something that is constantly growing and changing What I did five years ago will not work for me today. And let me tell you, Fellowship of the Spirit was a great learning experience for me. When Mark and I did that deal, after that week of sharing with you guys, he talked about how it affects you for a while. It affected me up until I came up here. My entire prayer meditation life shifted. I couldn't do what I was doing before Fellowship to the Spirit versus after Fellowship with the Spirit. My prayers changed. My meditation changed. My daily routines changed. I used to get up in the morning and pray and meditate for an hour and then go do life. And all of a sudden, I couldn't sit there for an hours. I couldn�t get quiet for an hr and do the prayer and meditation. It was not physically in me. So did I fight it? No, I went with it. But all of the sudden, I found when I was having a cup of coffee an hour later, I would do 10 minutes of prayer and mediation. And then when I get in the car, road rage used to be a terrible problem for me. And this Buddhist guy suggested that maybe before you get in a car, you say a prayer and when you get out, you say prayer. So I would force myself, before I hit the key, to spend 15 seconds and meditate. Just get quiet and envision myself driving without getting angry, without cutting people off in the slow lane. My God, driving in the snow lane. All right? Takes 15 seconds. And when I get to where I'm going to stop, turn the car off and before I bolt out the door, you know, it always agitates me because I will be out the floor and have the doors locked and my wife hasn't even undone her seatbelt. You know? That's just... My hair's on fire. That's my life. No, I need to slow down. I turn the key off and before I even take the key out of the ignition spend ten seconds. Thank you God for getting me here safely. Music has become huge. I've got this The Prayer of Jabez on a CD and it's all songs. I'm listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir if you can believe that. I'm singing hymns as I'm driving down the road. It's just different. I thought Mark was nuts. One time I heard him on tape and he's talking about driving down the road and just getting so overwhelmed with the power of God that you just start to weep and you can't drive anymore. And I'm driving down the road the other day and tears, they're pouring out of my face. I'm in a military uniform. And cars are pulling up. Now everybody looks at each other as you're driving down the highway. What are you looking for? I have no idea. particularly guys it really cracks me up they think they're going to get a date or something you know checking out the babes like oh hey honey she's really going to pull over and give you a number but I was okay just tears running down and people you know they're looking and people when you're in uniform these days people are beeping and waving and they're saying hello and there's kindness and compassion and they look at you and they see it's just joy there's a difference between weeping and crying you know Mark talked about those guys saying the third step prayer, I guarantee when it started it was crying on his part. I guarantee by the time he finished it was a weep. It was just the joy and love of God that had come into his life. That's what 10-11 is for me on a daily basis. You get going down that path and it just envelops you. It becomes part of your life. There are certain key words that trigger me. Love and tolerance of others is my code. That love is a key word. It tells me to go from page 84 back to page 83 where there's the nine-step prayer, the nine step vision exercise that I gave you guys. It says, so we clean house with the family asking each morning in meditation that our creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindness and love. When I hit that word love it says, don't forget the nine steps and then I think about my family. How am I going to be patient with my family today? And I go through each member. Patient, tolerant, kind, love. Short meditation takes 10-15 seconds. I do the gist for today at that point. What is the gift that I'm going to give to each one of the members of my family that's not going to get found out? or what has my kids been asking me for that I've been blowing them off I can't do that today I'll do it tomorrow dad would you fix this toy that's been sitting in my pile of things to do that I haven't done for three months that kind of deal that's the trigger I use then I go through later in there there's a thing that talks about sometimes we might want to memorize a few set prayers that's a trigger I used to remind me to say the third step prayer and the seventh step prayer there's another prayer that we need to get from page 164 that we're supposed to pray every day for the man who's still sick how can I help the man who's till sick at the very end on page 84 Christian 88 there's a line that says it takes action and more action the word action reminds me if I've done 10-11 I'm doing my deal what else have I forgotten oh action I've got to help another alcoholic that reminds me to add that in you know there's tremendous amount of information in this. There's a lifetime of practices in here. Start it. I guarantee there's one thing that's going to happen to you. When you start, it's going change. Alcoholics don't like change. We resist the change. Go with it. Let God lead you. Don't get a mental conception of what it's gonna be like. I'd like to read one more thing and then I guess we'll take a 15-minute break. Yeah, then we'll come back. I'd love to hear from some of you on a little bit of 10 to 11, some of your experiences. And I just got a few comments I'll make about the 11th step. I want to read this to you. And it's about meditation. And this... I was doing prayer and meditation and I knew the guy that wrote this and it had a profound effect on me when I went and somebody emailed this to me. And it touched my soul. It says, The love of silence will open up the capacity to hear in us. The highest level of prayer is not prayer for anything. It is a deep and profound silence in which we allow ourselves to be still and know Him. In that silence, we are changed. We are calmed. It is worth great effort. Prayer and meditation will reconnect us to our source. We have thought our ego is the center eternal power. In the silence, we always remember that God is. Our egos have never given us anything but the illusion of power in our lives. We can be taken by God through these steps to an experience in which every minute of every moment can be spent in the presence of God, alive and aware of His love. God is within us to be realized, not outside of us to be stumbled upon. We get to make a choice, remain slaves to the ego or actualized children of God. Through the steps we can awaken to the presence of God in all things, events and activities. One who prays for the presence OF GOD is already IN the presence OF GOD. So there is no need to pray for being in His presence. The person who seeks God has already found God. The steps allow us to change our appreciation for the presence of God in our dull mundane life. We come to realize that we do not find God. God finally gets our attention. The spiritual life is a grace with which I must cooperate. In failing to respond to God everywhere God is around me, I risk losing the power of God that is in me. The truth is that I have been loved to life by God and now I must love God back with my whole life or forever live in a living death the steps make me aware of that which is always available to me holiness is in the here and now become a holy listener we can get almighty god himself to sit down and talk with us whenever we want contemplation meditation is beyond thoughts and words we just simply are with god god makes his home within us at the heart, the center of our being. Daily constant work with the steps in prayer and meditation will have you always at the edge of new mysteries, joys, and experiences of which you have never even dreamed. Our answer is always still more spiritual development. If we take the action, then God will give us grace and reveal himself to us. The big book says on page 45, the main objective of this book is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problems. We don't have to worry about solving our problems. All we have to do is take the action to seek God. God will solve all of our problems. Take God seriously. Don't take yourself so seriously. Do you know who wrote that? Mark Houston. Changed my life. Now you can understand why when God tells you in meditation to seek somebody out, you damn well better go find them. I can't tell you the changes in my life, my family's life, everybody that I work with In AA, in work, everywhere. My whole life has changed because of my experience of God speaking through other people. God spoke through him. He changed my life. Hopefully I've spoken, God has spoken through me and I've been able to change your life a little bit. Don't miss this opportunity. It doesn't get any better than this. This is the real deal. You've got the tools. Go out and use the tools Thanks. Let's take a break. Thank you. ...done for us. Last session, we guarantee we will be done by noon. What we're going to do is... On the break, I had several people come up and talk to me. I'm sorry? Oh, we're going to have a conversation at the end. Several people have come up to me and talked to me about agitation and fear and how they're stirred up. Here's the deal. You are carved in the palm of God's hand. He's got you. That is your safety net. It would be absolute cruelty for us to come up here and stir you up like this and show you truth, and then just say, sorry, see ya. We have given you the tools. You've got the big book, but more importantly, your reliance, according to the big book is not on anything human your reliance has to be on god if you're going to survive so basically all we did was fled you we just kicked you out of the nest that little nest you know alcoholics are the only people that will fall into the pit and then want to decorate you know you know i always love to make the analogy it's like it's like we're we're sitting in a cesspool you know and it's nice and warm and cozy and the water's right up to about here and we're watching those big logs float by and we just want somebody to stop making waves. That's all we want. Well, the water is getting higher. The water is being washed and it's getting higher so that's all they did was just turn on the water. It's time to get out. It's a beautiful person that's sitting in this room with tears streaming down their face and it wasn't me that I'm talking about and they came up to me at the break and they said, would you please do what you talked about last night? Would you please do a love light meditation? So what we're going to do is we're gonna start out with a love life meditation. I'm gonna hand it over to Mark. He's gonna make a few comments about 10-11 and then it's your workshop retreat until it's time to go to lunch. You know, so just as a real quick refresher you just get quiet you sit upright if you got a spare tire Make sure you get it out over the top of the belt. Speaking from experience. All right? The key to imagine is imagine a bright light. If you have to, look at a light bulb for a second. Get that dot. Imagine the dot at your belly button. All right. And then I'll talk you through from there. Just pay attention to your breathing and imagine the love inside you, it's getting bigger. It's going towards your head and down your legs until it wraps your entire body with love. And you feel it hit the walls as it fills the room, and then it reflects off of everyone in the room back to you. And then imagine in your mind's eye, your hand, and you send the love from your fingertips out to those you love and you care about, to those you hate. Send the love back to God, and He sends it back to you. That's all there is to it. You should be able to feel the presence of God. I do that several times a day if I'm agitated, doubtful or indecisive. If I hate, if I'm angry especially if I am feeling hurt if the traitor is in my life I have to send the love because I have to unlock my heart before I can go to the other person and unlock their heart remember you hold both keys that's the deal let me turn it over to Mark Mark, alcoholic some things I wanted to mention the experience of the experience is more important than the explanation So when you leave here, I will encourage you not to speak about your experience. I'd encourage you to sit with it and make your prayer a prayer of, God, what would you have me do with what came to me over this weekend? And let that come from within you. But don't talk about it until you have a sense it's okay to talk about. it a lot of what happened here dave talked about we're a spiritual body so a lot of what happened here is not of your conscious mind if you will so consider that and don't don't talk about your ego want to talk about it i can assure you but my experience is you're better served if you don't you'll know when it's okay to talk about it but there's each and every single person here um there is something uh a course of action that i believe god will have for every one of you uh and let it arise from within you and point some of you it's going to be immense some ofyou it's gonna be reworking one through nine some ofyous gonna be really doing some work with 10 11 some of yours gonna be uh being more present to your family uh you don't get to make that call let it arise from within you if you will so that's one thing uh second thing i talked earlier about that internal self-dialogue self-loathing there's a great book uh if you struggle with that called the spirituality of imperfection have you ever heard of that uh the gentleman wrote the book not god you familiar with him uh i can't remember his name right now yeah i had a good fortune of I was having dinner with him in Detroit last year, and he wrote The Spirituality of Imperfection. It really speaks to the alcoholic. We're very broken when we come in here, but it's a fabulous book. It was very helpful to me in stopping that internal self-talk. So it's called The Spirituality of Imperfection Fabulous book He's a fascinating man This is a man who's made A life study of drunks He's not a drunk It's just fascinating to talk to him He's kind of short And kind of roundish And laughs all the time He thinks we're just incredible He loves being around drunks And he's been studying us For a long, long time started out he got moved to write I think it was a Ph.D. paper and I can't remember what it was on so that's how the book Not God came into being and then this as he kept working with us that's now the spirituality of imperfection so I think he's just another tool that God has given us to draw on third comment has to do with the disciplines of 10-11 some of you of course I know Joe Hawk. Joe, now his five-year sabbatical in India is over and he's in California and gave me a call about a week ago and said he'd like to come to work with me which any of you know Joe, work is not in his vocabulary. I was a little stunned and to make a long story short, he is. He's going to be moving to Texas and coming to work with me at the treatment center. And then he and I, I think, have been asked to do the fellowship in New York, Spirit of the Fellowship. And then I think in December Tom N. is here. Where's Tom at? Raise your hand, yeah. There's going to be another retreat at a monastery that we're going to do. You know, I asked the question yesterday of how many of you would be interested in a whole weekend on the fourth and fifth step. And that's what keeps coming up to me to do the entire weekend on that. So I'll talk with Joe, and we'll see where that piece goes. But back to the monastery, when Joe went to California, he basically started a group to create the fellowship he craved, a pretty radical group to say the least. But they do two retreats a year at a monastery in Santa Barbara called Mount Calvary. It's just incredible at night when you're standing up there. You literally can see almost the entire California coast. So at any rate, I remember last year I went out there to do one. And what's so funny is most of the members of this group have been going to this monastery two times a year for like eight years. And so the whole weekend was devoted to nothing but the 10th and 11th step. and I told them at the very beginning, I said, the answers about 10 and 11 you have been receiving for eight years and obviously none of you are awake to that. And I didn't tell them what that was until the end. And basically what happens in a monastery, how many of you ever spend time in a monastary? Some of you can. You notice they do everything at the same time. They never deviate. And I'll tell you why they do that. I spent some time working with some of the rule of St. Benedict, and Benedict was a saint who died and really is responsible for a lot of Western monasticism. And what he realized is that the human being was so full of defects that without some kind of imposed discipline, that human being could never come to know God. So when he set up the monasteries, He set up doing things at the same times You get up at this time and you pray and meditate At this time you eat, at this Time you work, at This time you study And he did that so that what Happened over a period of time As a result of doing that when Human nature being what it is Or sloth comes up It is such a habit The discipline is such A habit that you're going to Do it even if you don't want To do it And that's what I told the Drunks up at that monastery I said, you know, you've had this in front of you all the time. And so what you have to do is go back into your home and duplicate that in your home. And I told you I get my deals 5 a.m. I just like getting up in the morning. I'm not a night person. And as I begin to do that, that has stood me in good stead because in times in which I've gone, my life situation, for example, has changed and it impacts you in spite of what's going on. And those disciplines stay intact for me. I still get up at the same time. I do the prayers. I dothe meditations. I work with the tools throughout the day, do an evening review, do an even meditation. So I would encourage you to do that. You know, it's like I tell people, well, what's the most important relationship in your life? And they go, well, God. And I say, well then how much time are you giving God? You know? If you gave your wife or your children, if you have them, If you gave them the amount of time you gave God, what kind of relationship would you have with them? Well, not a very good one. So it's like, okay, see, if you want to know what you believe in, look at your actions. In my first 10 years, my actions told me that the relationship with God was not very important to me. And from that point on to this point, my reactions tell me that the relationship to God is very, very important for me. See, because here's what my truth is. When I was about 15 years sober, I was giving a talk. And what I shared from the podium was that there's times where I'm scared to go into a grocery store. Someone might say hi or something. And so this guy that long time sober was sitting out there, and he was sitting next to some young whippersnapper with about two years. And the guy turns to the guy 30 years sober and says, well, I hope when I'm 15 years sober I have a better program than that guy. and the guy of the 30 years turns to him he looks him dead in the eye and he said let me tell you something he said that guy probably truly understands why how much he needs God he's so terrified of life he can't even go to a new grocery store for God's sakes so see that's my truth I'm the kind of guy that I don't know why I just quite often I wasn't equipped to do life here unless I am so centered in God and life terrifies me And when I get centered in God, then I can do this thing called life. And I think that's true of every drunk I've ever met. Carl Jung talked about that. In his experience of working with us, his sense is that we had a deep and abiding spiritual thirst which we must answer, and if we don't, we'll go drink. And my personal experience is there's only two things that ever quench my thirst. One is a lot of God, and the other was a lot or whiskey. I certainly have tried many other things in between all of which were short lived I do what I do because I like the effect produced by it the love of God that has shown up that I get to experience is beyond anything I could imagine and I would wish all of you to have that experience to know that all is well regardless, to know that you're always in the water, to know that you are loved, to understand that so much of all this is a mystery and to stop figuring that out and to get real, real involved in your dull mundane life, the holiness of your dull mundane life. One of the exercises I give people around the 11th step is find God in the pots and pans. Of course, they go, what? Yeah, find God in the plots and pans and really it's back to what Dave said is I'm trying to get them to understand that holiness is in the moment holiness is in the moment, doesn't matter what the life situation is, doesn'T matter what you're doing see the ego is concerned with doing do, gotta go here gotta go there's a life beyond the life situation and spiritual living is about understanding that, what isn't holy what isn'T sacred, I had a person say you go to church and my response is when am I not in church, when am I not am in the presence of God? Are you asking me if I go on Sundays to some religious practice? Yes, I do that on occasion. But when am I not in church? You know, what isn't of God and you begin to awaken to that. And it causes such a huge shift in your life. You develop a sensitiveness to life. This has been a fabulous weekend for me. The spiritual thirst and hunger in all of you is just phenomenal. And God, as I've come to experience God, I'm sure is very, very well pleased. You know, I have felt well loved here. I mean, what a deal we get to experience. You know we're babbling, tongue-chewing drunks as Chuck C. used to say and you know we get the chance to show up and do this kind of thing. We get to get to experienced love for each other and go through life sober and, you know, so many changes and begin to be an agent and to change. You know, the power of one is phenomenal. See, if one of you gets this, your household will change and your block will change and your town will change and you see how it works because there's nothing but oneness. So, you Know, gosh, what a deal. So, guys, you know, that's really all I have. I want you all to know that I love you all very much and I thank you so much for having me here. Thanks. Why do we do this? Why did we come? there's a couple analogies that really made a difference to me one of them is sitting right over in that fireplace when you take a log and you roll it out of the fire what happens to it? it's burning, it's glowing but over time it slowly starts to die but you take that log and you put it back in the fire it almost immediately comes back to life same thing happens you take the fire you take this log that's not burning at all and you place it near the fire and magically over time it just radiates out and it'll catch on fire. Right? The other analogy that I like to look at is us as rocks. We're the logs and the reason we come up here is to get close. We're to get back in the fire so we get us rekindled. But I like to think of when I leave one of these places that I'm like a rock. You know, you take a rock and you put it out in the sunlight of the spirit and then what happens? The rock gets hot and anybody that's lived in the desert climate realizes that what you absorb, that sunlight, it gets hot during the day and then it'll radiate heat all night long. You know? We're the same way. We get around each other. We go through the steps. The sunlight of the Spirit comes into our life and it charges us up when we're hot. We go out and we help start carrying the message. If we don't recharge our rock and get back into the sunlight of Spirit, over time, the heat's coming off. Every time we're working with a sponsor, they're sucking a little bit of heat off. Excuse me, sponsee. They're sucking a little heat off of us. We've got to keep going back into the light to get recharged. Get refilled back up. Don't let your rock sit out in the cold too long. Get it back into the sunlight of the Spirit and it's an endless source. All you need to do is get in the sunlight. It'll get you back. You know? We hear in AA all the time what I consider to be one of the biggest lies floating around Alcoholics Anonymous. We just don't drink one day at a time. That's not what the book says. On page 16, second paragraph, it says that we have to live spiritually. We have to have faith 24 hours a day in us and through us or else we perish, we die. That's what this program really says. Big difference of just not picking up a drink. Just not drinking is not good enough for us. We have To Have Faith. which means in order to have faith we have to demonstrate the faith in us and through us to others that's why I do these weekends if one person changes their life it's worth all the money and all the time and all of the stress of coming up and doing one of these deals because it wasn't really me that did it it was God I was just listening to that little inner voice you know 12 and 12 I want to read two quotes and then we're going to turn the meeting over to you and it's yours um