Making Amends – Big Book Workshop Retreat – Edwards House – Part 6 of 7

Good morning, everybody. Ooh, that's nice and loud. How about if we do a little three-minute meditation? Let me get this set up, and then we'll get rolling. I should have prepared this before. I apologize. Thank you. you . Thank you . . . . . . you . . . . . you Thank you. Go until 9.30? 9.45. Okay, I can't read. I don't know why I was trying to look at that. Um, thought that I had is, um, 11 is kind of the second half of this time. But I just wanted to, while it's in my mind, if you've not have or don't have a meditation practice, uh, I just want to tell you that you've meditated the last three days in a row, if you've been here. And I'll get to it in a minute, but I didn't meditate for the majority of my sobriety and I've meditated pretty consistently and I can't put into words what it's done for my life. My mic's off. Are you sure? Do you just need me to yell? Okay. So my hope is that you'll continue that and we'll talk about that in a minute after 10. We do have an ask it basket question how do you make graveside amends? Which is your favorite step and why? I'll answer the last question first. I think my favorite step is step 10 but it's also my least favorite we'll talk about that in a minute so that question will get answered and graves at amends I have a great graves at amen story I did um my uh favorite aunt passed away and I heard that she'd passed away like a month after she had passed away that's how functional my family is and I was devastated that I didn't know So I went back home that following summer. She died around Christmastime, and I went back the following summer, and my cousins and I, they took me to the grave, and they were like, why weren't you here? Of all the people that should have been here, we thought it would have been you. And I was like, I didn't know. Nobody called me, or would have been here. Interesting side note about her, her and her brother, she was a nurse and her brother, their dad got sick and she'd been working on him to get to the doctor for a long time. And grandpa finally went to the Doctor and he was diagnosed with cancer and he died like a few weeks later. And my uncle blamed my aunt for that, that it was her fault that grandpa died. and uh so they got this huge argument and aunt hazel said to to him at the end of that argument that i will die on your birthday and she did she died on his birthday and um so like there's like this thing in my family of like we are vindictive and we will we will hold, hold those promises. And so I, I went back with my family and then I planned to leave early in the morning, the next morning. And I, I drove to the graveside. I went and got some flowers. I drove through the gravesite. I got up and I actually didn't buy flowers. I picked some flowers, so I was there and I did the men's And I just started to weep And I was just crying And I'm walking through this graveyard out It's in the Midwest, there's like nothing for miles I walk over, I'm picking these wild flowers And I walk back and I'm just sobbing And I lay the flowers down And I clean the grave off And I take a minute And I kind of wipe the tears away from my eyes And I was at the wrong grave I like started at the right grave But when I made my way back to the right graveyard So I'd like clean this grave really nice, and then I was like, I'm so sorry. I don't even remember what their name is. I'm sorry, and that's how you do it. I mean, you write a letter. You write an honest letter, and you read the letter, and you make your amends, and you try and live your life differently as best you can, and that is my take on it. I don' t need to say the same thing twice. And what I would do is just to add to that, kind of similar to some of the scenarios we were talking about yesterday where you can't necessarily make the amends but you know you owe it. And oftentimes it's really necessary and really the only way to work out the wounds that still exist from that with God, right? Because if I'll never have the opportunity to speak to the person again, I still need to pay attention to those wounds within me and be sure that I ask God to help me to move through that. However he sees fit is how I've handled it, you know? That's great. So step 10. Oh, did you want to tell everybody your favorite step? Is this a trick question? I think it is, right? We're supposed to say they're all our favorites, right. But I would agree and I mean, this is I'm glad we missed this yesterday afternoon, which I'm assuming we did because we just saw it this morning, because it really is a perfect segue. I think the 10-step, based on the way that the 10 step lives in my life today from what it used to be, the 10 Step has without a doubt revolutionized my world, my program, my connectivity, my ability to be vulnerable. And when I first was introduced to doing a 10-Step in a way that we'll talk about here in a second, it changed my life and has forever. So I would piggyback on that with Chad that, and maybe it's just in the spirit of what we're about to talk about, but I would go with the 10th step too. So when Mickey started sponsoring me, he asked me in that first meeting, he asked us to do a little bit of a talk. He asked me about, and we meet by phone, by the way. I've had people ask me if we Skype. And the truth is that Mickey and I don't want to see each other that badly at 5.30 and 6.30 in the morning. There's no Skype involved in our sponsorship. But I will tell you, the thing that is really kind of cool about that is that when I see him, it's like seeing Santa Claus. And I don' t mean that derogatory. I mean, like, it's like a really happy time for me to just lay my eyes on him. And there's times that I've been able to go back there or he's been able to come out and we just hang out. Like, I don't want to do anything. I just want to be with him and be in his presence and just do normal stuff together, you know? Go grab coffee and overeat pizza or whatever. So we get to do that and it's a lot of fun. but the other thing that he talked to me about was the 10th step and he asked me to read it out loud to him on the phone and um so i'll just read it and i'll talk a little bit about it this thought brings us to step 10 i'm on 84 for those that care and i hear a lot of people talk about um that they get their sponsees doing 10 and 11 pretty early in sobriety and i don't think there's any damage that can come in that. I think it's really good practice. It was never a practice that was given to me early. To be honest, there was a large part of my recovery, I was really confused about 10 and 11. I would call 11-10 and 10-11. And you know, and I'd hear people go, oh, I had to 10 step it, you know. But I'd also hear people say like, oh, I've got to get a tenth step on that. And what that really meant was I'm going to call my friends and bitch about my wife, right? And then they're going to co-sign my stuff, and then we're goingto move on. That is not the tenth step that I know today, that I practice today. So this thought brings us to step ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we clean up the past. So it says we don't complete nine before we go to ten is what it's saying. We get our instructions on nine, we start moving into nine, and we move on to ten. And we kind of do them continuously. We enter the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. So it tells me right there that I'm supposed to continue to grow spiritually. continue to watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear when these crop up we ask god at once to remove them we discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help love and tolerance of others is our code there's a sentence in here that they added about eight years ago that wasn't in my book before. It might have been in yours, but it was not in mine and I swear to you I never read it before. And it was we discussed them with someone immediately. That's a direction. It's not a suggestion. It's a direction. That's the 10th step. I call someone and I go through the 10 step. But I completely missed that in reading the instructions for the 10th step until I read them out loud to Mickey. And I swear that that was not in my book before. And he assures me it's always been there. but see um for a long in the early years of my sobriety like the first five years of my sobrietty i would in seattle we have these sign-in sheets you know where you sign your name and uh your home group and your sobriete date and who your sponsor is or what i mean it's just ridiculous in my opinion but i put god was my sponsor for the longest time because he's like no human and possibly like i don't believe in god but i'm gonna go straight to the source so in the same with the 10 step like but there's something about going to uh my sponsor and i believe i 10 step with my sponsor everything i do i do 10 step within eight at times if if mickey's not around and we can get in touch with each other but i hold that 10 step as well and until i can get a chance to talk to him even if i've already gone over it with somebody else And the reason for that for me is I need him to know everything about me. I don't want him to, but I need them to. I need hem to know if there's a theme in my 10 steps, I need hem to be aware of that so that he can guide me down the right road. And there are times where I'll be 10-stepping something multiple times and then I know what's coming, and that's the pad and the paper. And we're going to dig a little bit deeper in some inventory. So the other thing that I like to point out in the wording of this, and it's just a wording thing, but I think it's important. And my friend Darlene used to stress this all the time. It's where I got this from. In the instructions of the 10th step, it does not say we continue to wait for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. It says we watch. so if i'm watching right like if the guys on the titanic had been watching what might have happened differently they waited you know so if I'm watching it means I'm constantly scanning what's going on around me to see where these things might crop up oh there's so-and-so god please remove the selfishness the dishonesty the fear helped me to show up right I can start to head that stuff off at the pass, rather than being, boom, I'm sitting in resentment. The other thing before I pass off to Nate is my sponsor's really big, or our sponsor's really big on verbiage, which is really good for me because I will go to him. And I showed up in Colorado one year and I went to the conference and I walked in and I was so glad to see him. Oh, Mickey. He's like, how's it going? I go, oh, I had this on his phone call and I'm kind of frustrated right now with this situation. And he's like okay, so I hear you have resentment. What's the selfishness, dishonesty? And I'm like dude, like we just got here. Like can we just like give the 10-step a break, you know, for a minute? But I like to use words like frustrated, irritated, disappointed. And he makes me rephrase those things in I'm resentful at. Because in my mind if I'm frustrated or irritated with something I don't have to do inventory about it because it's not a resentment. Everybody gets frustrated every now and again. Right? The problem with me is that I don' t have that luxury. and a resentment will grow in me like a cancer and it will destroy me. It's really clear in here that that's what it says so I have to be clearing that stuff out I haveと be continuing to watch not waiting for it to hit me because once it hits me, it's like taking the first drink. I got no power over the second drink. So if I'm relying on waiting to get into resentment before I actually do anything with it then I'm in trouble what's your story it's eerily similar in a lot of ways but to rewind to something I think I might have said throughout the course of the weekend crazy people don't know they're crazy I was crazy and didn't know it around the 10 step for many years in the program I thought I was doing it, I really did I didn't know that I was being neglectful, I didn' know that was cutting corners. As far as I was concerned, I was doing the tenth step. And it looks similar to what Chad kind of described and that was I would call a few of my closest friends in the program and I would just offload the situation and basically, I mean in hindsight, I was really probably in some way shape or form stealing their peace of mind, not necessarily looking to uncover a solution, more just looking to blow pressure off of myself and calling it a 10-step, right? Nothing had changed within me. I hadn't actually looked at where I was at fault. I was basically just, you know, talking is extremely helpful but again, I think we can get so black and white at times that we forget there are also very important pieces that go into this and go into anything. Like, if I was one that could have laid on a couch and told someone my problems and been better, I wouldn't be in front of you this weekend. I can promise you that, right? I'd be better. I'dbe off living my life free of the insanity that lives within me. It doesn't work for me, right. Talking isn't enough. There needs to be some sort of a program of guidance, a blueprint to help me to truly work through that stuff, right, And the first time, again, I didn't really understand the task. As I mentioned with my amends, you know, my sponsor sent me off to make amends and I didn's for the first year, right? I thought everything he was telling me was negotiable the way that I had always kind of approached everything that had told me or anyone had told. and I want to be very clear that whatever the saying is this is a suggestion based program but if you want to live, you don't want to die if you wanna be free of the bondage of self there are a lot of musts that happen around here and that's just my truth and I don't run around with the battle act saying that everybody should do it that way but if you want to live a life free of the monsters that live within you on a daily basis, daily reprieve which is what we're talking about today there are many musts because I will always manufacture and navigate the easier, softer way left to my own devices I will never do what's hard I will ever call another man and get honest about what's really going on in a situation because to be quite honest, most of the time I'm not ready to be done being mad yet I don't want to lose my page in this book of resentment that I'm writing if I call my sponsor, right? So I'll just put my bookmark in and come back to it later. I even have done that at times when I'm so fired up about something, I will actually walk through the 10-step exercise sometimes and have the desire to go back and try to replay exactly what I was mad about in granular shape, you know? It's like, it's not a great idea. But thank God that it's not about thinking right because I wouldn't have a shot. The first time he kind of laid this out in front of me the first time we walked through it and kind of said, you know, basically exactly what Chad just said, right? The directions in the book are clear as day. And I too swung back and forth from talking with someone about it and I never talked with someone honestly about it. It was more just the kind of version I just shared with you. But more often than not, I had this arrogance about me that said, I don't need to talk with another person. I'm going straight to God with this, right? I don'T need to be sponsor-dependent, which is what, again, I'M a crazy person fighting for my right to be crazy, essentially, is what that looks like, right, because I DON'T think, and it'S NOT that I DONT think. I believe wholeheartedly that to work the program with the firm supportive and directive guidance of a loving sponsor is necessary, right? And I think God sends those people to us. Have you ever heard the story or the joke of the man that's on the top of the roof in a flood and the water continues to rise and he's praying and praying and crying, God, please get me out of here. And a guy pulls up on a boat and he says, Get in, get in, we've got to get out of there. He's like, I'm good. I'm praying. God's going to save me. Guy looks at him like, are you nuts? And he takes off sitting there praying, praying, praying helicopter drops a ladder down. Hey, hop, hop on. We've got to get out of here. So the water continues to rise. He drowns and dies, right? Gets up to heaven and he's chatting with God. What's the deal? I trusted you. I asked you, I needed your help. Here I am. You didn't help me. He's like, did you not get the boat I sent or the helicopter that I sent or any of the help that I send? So a lot of the time, that's how I view the people that are put in our paths and Alcoholics Anonymous. God can't pop into the room this morning in the way that we would like to see it, but he's here. God's here with all of us right now because God works through people. So true sponsor dependence, I think, is very toxic and dangerous. but guidance and a sounding board and direction you know if you're throwing a you know i would much rather bowl with bumpers in the gutters right i'd have a better shot of hitting a pin if i was bowling that way you know as an analogy um my sponsor does that for me you know he doesn't you know completely contort my path and insist that i go this way or you know my sponsor says so that's the rule that's god that's dangerous right that's dangerous and my sponsor will be the even as much as i look up to him he'll be the first one to say i'm just as messed up as you are right we all have a shot today to do this thing a little differently but at the end of the day we're all just alcoholics one hand shoulder to shoulder walking the road right putting people's people on pedestals is dangerous it's extremely dangerous You know, we were just talking about a couple of people last night that, you know, putting a microphone in front of them and Alcoholics Anonymous killed them. Killed them. I mean, think about the egos that we bring in here, right? If this stuff isn't being done in the spirit of true dependence upon God and service to others, this stuff is dangerous, you now. And these are people that the world looked up to in a lot of ways, right, But they just got too far gone. Didn't need help, didn't need sponsorship, didn't meet God in a lot of ways. And that's not unique to those specific people, but I've seen it happen with a lot of people, right? We're all doing this together, right, and it's really just a matter of staying right-sized for me always, you know, because that's really what we're here to do. I mean, again, the only qualifications for anybody to talk at an AA meeting is that you jacked up your life so good that you have a story to tell about it, right? I mean, it's not like we're here cornering the market on alcoholism. You know, in a lot of ways, Chad and I have probably shared more of our shortcomings and our frailties and our falling down with you throughout the course of the weekend. But I think there's so much power in that, right, to know that you can struggle and you can fall down and you kan get back up, and it doesn't always have to be perfect, right. Um, but as far as, uh, when I was first introduced to the 10 step from, from Nikki, um, he had sent me off and he basically said, he said, because of timing and because of our schedules and everything, we're going to have the same weekly call that we have every single week at the same time. And what I'm going to task you with is to watch for resentment, selfishness, dishonesty, fear, and you're going keep a running list of those things, right? and not to say because what it says in the book is that we discuss that with someone immediately right and that's still very applicable in my life but he said you know there may be things that you know just to get into the habit of starting to watch and look maybe it's not eating your lunch that day kind of a thing more often than not if something comes up that needs 10 stepping for me though i'm calling now calling now right because i can even find a little bit of a little bit of wiggle room and hidey hole in waiting a week, right? And I'm not usually a very good gauge of what's eating my lunch or not as far as topics go. But anyway, that first – we had walked through that first. A week had gone by. I got back on the phone, and I pulled the old – I don't really have much to talk about. It was a pretty good week. And I could just feel it on the other end. And I didn't even know him that well at that point, but I knew what was coming. And really, really. So you as the sick alcoholic that you are walk through seven days of the calendar without experiencing any resentment, selfishness, dishonesty or fear. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I guess it's a pretty good week because what I want to point out to you is that being tasked to watch for those things. in my life was probably the most threatening direction that I had ever received in Alcoholics Anonymous, because I was being asked to be put on the hook in a way that I never had. And then again, a level of accountability that I have never before experienced with anyone or anybody or any version of the way that I've done this thing in the past and it was extremely threatening. So to be honest, I think in my heart of hearts I really wanted to do it but I was scared to, right? So what I'll never forget, though, is he said, what were you doing before we got on the phone? I was like, I was actually holding a ladder for my neighbor. He had to climb up and unclog a gutter or whatever. He's like, did you experience any fear in doing that? I said, as a matter of fact, yeah, I thought he was going to roll off the top of that ladder and break his neck. I was terrified. He's Like, huh. it's like all right you know and that's not i'm not that was just a good that wasn't like life-changing fear of like fear of what you think of me and compromising myself but is it relevant absolutely right why wouldn't it be i was afraid right and selfishly in a lot of ways i was taking on the role of god for that guy you know i was like i i'm gonna make sure this guy does not die on my watch, right? And I was completely spun up about it and didn't even realize it until that simple question. What were you doing before we got on the phone? I was just so numb to being aware of these things, being willing to watch, right? Because that's just it. You know, and I've also walked people down this road and started to do this exercise. And one of my favorite lines of people to basically say exactly what I said to my sponsor that first time when we first start to do it is, why does it have to be bad all the time? Can't it just be good? Why do I always have to look for the bad stuff? My life is just going really well. It's like, well, you don't have what I have then. You know, I don't know what more to do, because based on what we've walked through to this point in the step work, you need this 10-step. Because it's so easy for us to just get into the business of judging what is relevant and what is not. What is petty and what is important? And my filter is broken. I 100% don't know what's best for me. So usually I'm 10-stepping the petty and holding on to the catastrophic because that's just how I'm hardwired. I don't know the difference. So I'd rather 10-step all of it than none of it, right? And it doesn't mean, you know, obviously the constraints of a real life schedule. I mean, I'm not calling my sponsor all day every day. People are like, is that what you expect me to do? No. No, it's not about relying on the process Yet again, you can't rely on this exercise to say, okay, I'm 100%. I'm a hundred percent slate is clean. I've got nothing on me, right? That's not the point either. I think the point is, is that we're for me in the morning when I'm, when I'M having meditation and praying, I'm putting this ability or desire to watch for these things throughout the course of my day in the hands of God. I ask God to help me to be aware of anything that comes across my life that I need to beware of, right? I'm not walking around paranoid like, was that just a flash of selfishness or was that just a, I think I might have just gotten a little resentful. We're not looking to make people paranoid here, right, or like trying to stack on so much that you can't walk through a room without losing your mind kind of thing, right. And I think, but that's how I take it at times because I'm a literal guy, right and if If you tell me to do it, I want to do it perfect. That's not the point, right? The point is being willing to go there, right and more often than not there are times because I've also experienced when I was attempting to do 10 steps prior where it was almost it was yeah, I'll say it that way. There was almost a bullying factor from the other side when I would call someone to talk and it would be like you need to have this thing buttoned up You need to be bringing just the truth to me so that you can walk through that. You know who you're talking to. I don't know what the truth is most of the time. That's why I'm calling, right? And, you know, as rigid as Mickey can be at times, and, I mean, if you ever met him, he's the most loving. You would just want to spend time with him, you Know? he's just in a lot of ways kind of he's got that Santa Claus thing going on with the white beard and he's you know I mean he just everything about him feels like I want to spend time with this man and I just love him more than anything but he he can be fairly scary in a sense you know like in the way that he holds my feet to the fire just this week I was I was on my way home from work and I had called him to do a 10-step and I was just not ready to be done being mad yet you know I was still fired up I didn't want to see a different perspective at that point in time and he loves me enough at times to let me walk through that let me blow off that steam on the other end of the phone and not just shut it down and say take the take the sickness elsewhere bring the solution back and let's you know give me a break like we're all just human beings trying to do our best right we need to have love and tolerance of that kind of thing At least I do, you know. And he'll say the wine line is always open, jokingly, you know. If you want to call and just let that go before we get in because inevitably, I mean, I'm never going to call him and have that kind of an introduction and not have him say, okay, now let's use 10-step language where you're resentful, selfish, dishonest, and afraid, right? And that's always the case. And for me, for whatever reason, I usually work backwards through those things because that's how I feel like they manifest in my life, right? Usually I get afraid first. I feel the resentment is the last thing to come, even though we like to look at it the other way a lot of the times. For me, I get afraid, right, then I get dishonest. The narrative starts. I'm starting to put a story to what's happening to offset my fear. You know, then I selfish. I start to take action to try to build a level of security in that or make myself safe, or create a false level of happiness, right? Then I'm resentful because I've failed with the other efforts to manufacture security. And this person has really scared me to the point that I'm now afraid, or I'm resentment, right. So it always flows that way for me. And a lot of the time, because it's hard to pin down selfishness a lot at a time, I feel like when you're still in it. So to start with fear and move back, and this is just, this is not what the book says whatever this is just it works well for me so that's why i'm talking about it but again it's not about the mechanics i think you could do them in whatever order you want still get to the point right uh but without fail talking about what i'm afraid of puts me in a much more vulnerable place to walk through the other pieces right because if If I'm just resentful, I am that protector. I am the guy. I am an angry person, right? I'm not just someone that's afraid. Because more often than not, I don't know that I've ever experienced a resentment that wasn't rooted in fear. I just don't have it. I don' t know if I ever have. In some way, shape or form, and honestly even trying to have the perspective and the guidance to see it that way was painful. When I started over with Mickey years ago, I was so frustrated because I thought I knew what I was doing in here. You know? I mean, I knew the book like the back of my hand. I was working steps. I was writing four-column inventory. I mean I knew it. I knew It. And when I started to actually turn the very tools that are in our book inward and apply them to my own soul, to my life it was like I had started all over again and had no idea where to go with it and it was so challenging and frustrating at times because it wasn't just the right answer it was the real answer and that's scary you know that's scary stuff to uncover so yeah in a lot of ways the 10 step has has continued to revolutionize my life right and I am more quick to call and to talk through these things now than I than I ever have been in my 100% now some days I just want to be mad right and i can pay for that right I mean that's ultimately what it comes down to. If I want to stay mad, if I want to stay dishonest, I can bring that stuff home with me and let it spill all over my wife or all over my family or whatever. And it's not fair for me today to bring that stuff home and have it be misdirected at the wrong people. But I'll do that. I'll do that because I'm not perfect. Having two alcoholics living under the same roof in my house it's very evident when someone has not spoken with their sponsor to do a 10-step recently right but we've grown a lot in that right and in a lot of ways as anyone ever heard of the the saying iron sharpens iron steel sharpens steel or whatever steel on steel that's one of those things that's kicking around in a way is the greatest grinding and polishing that I've ever experienced spiritually has been in my home, has been in my marriage because there is no running. In a lot of ways there is not running like we are there where in a past life I would just take off and I'd leave and I wouldn't deal with anything and I wouldn't make any progress and I would have to hold my own feet to the fire to keep my own house in order to be able to contribute to a bigger house right because I've got nothing to bring to the table for my family if if my own well is dry right and it's just wild sometimes as I was saying yesterday the words little fly out of my mouth at times like who said that who said that well unfortunately for me and everyone else the words came out of my mouth so it's really hard to kind of back out of that but you know they're so I think one of the most common things that can happen at times in a relationship between two alcoholics is have you called your sponsor but then there's so there's have you talked with your sponsor lately and then there's call your sponsor we're done right this again it's all in the presentation of the words right kind of the same message but very different message at the same time but in a lot of ways though I mean to be able to show up and not just want to hide and need to keep my own house in order i have to right i have to or i can't all of a sudden i'm disproportionately mad at my wife for things that she has nothing to do with it's insane it's not fair but that's how i do it and i don't do it purposefully in fact it's the exact opposite of who i aspire to be right but left to my own devices that's what i'm capable of and if that's not motivation in itself to want to do the right thing, I don't know what is. But you're talking to sane Nate this morning, right? You know, I have a tendency to just swing back and forth from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde and, you know, I will not leave here a changed man and walking the road of perfection, you now. I'll still have struggles and the struggles are really what makes it worth living in a lot of ways. All the good experiences that I've had that have changed my life have been born in pain. without fail in the tenth step itself I mean there have been times where I have been so wrapped up in what's going on fully justified in my position right with whatever it is that's going even even stuff with like being at work and having things going on at work that I don't necessarily like love I would do it better I would differently and I'll never forget in the the dishonesty portion of the tenth step on that one the first time you know I think my sponsor lovingly said well until you work for Nate incorporated you do what you're told and in a lot of ways he's absolutely right I work for someone else you know and it's okay but in my mind I have this whole idea that I'm justified and I'm going to change the course of all you know in into Chad's earlier to Chad's point earlier it's so dangerous to take a position with no flexibility left whatsoever right and again not to get into the specifics because it doesn't matter but the amount of emotional turmoil and chaos that I watched ripple through everyone that I work with an Alcoholics Anonymous throughout the course of the election in political matters is baffling and for whatever reason we think that we can just be justified in certain things but not in others right it's scary it's really scary and it doesn't matter what side of the fence that those those those viewpoints are on if I'm ingesting rat poison on a daily basis and I'm the one that's suffering and paying and dying who's who's really hurting here right so it's hard to open our minds to things like that at times but but I would also just say that I mean I watched people literally leave God drinking over this stuff probably die in certain instances where at the end of the day the way I see it you know I'm a big fan of the phrase that we wear this world like a loose garment right because I'm here on borrowed time right I'm renting this body as far as I'm concerned I'm gonna be here for a while I'd like to make a fairly decent contribution while I'm here but at the end of the day I mean we all just have we all just have a short time here on earth why would we spend our time being that angry because it's fun obviously but I'm kidding but in a lot of ways though that But I really, I have a, there's an intoxication that comes with being angry that's very similar to drinking for me, right? And I can chase that. It's not good for me. It's Not Good For Me is an understatement, really. But I'm just going to roll on if you don't stop me, Chad. So let's hand the buck back over there. Yeah, I think that's great. I think, you know, the big book says we cease fighting anything or anyone. Even alcohol. Right? So if I'm taking a position in any sort of situation where I'm fighting, then I'm in the wrong. I'm playing with fire. And I absolutely hate fighting with my wife. I hate it. I hate her. I do it, but I hate it. When I started coming around big book people, there was a guy who was a hero of mine. I love him to this day. He died about 15 years ago. He used to say he's never had a fight with his wife in 20-some years, and I knew right then I'm going to fail Alcoholics Anonymous because that is just not going to be me. I'm the guy throwing dirty dishes out because I don't want to freaking wash them. Right? So I'm like, you know, I'm starting off in poor shape, you know. But when I'm able to pause and stop and walk away, say, hey, I don't want to do this. I love you too much. There's like two times that's happened. But that's what this is talking about. And And in regard to like worldly things or injustices in the world, I hope that the message isn't like don't be passionate about making change in the world because that's not the message. The message is that don't get angry about it. Get clear. Get free of the resentment and then go be passionate. There's a huge difference in being passionate or being angry. And so I hope that that is coming through. But the thing that's really cool for me is, and if I can read this book. So, I have my old man version, but I have a nice covered book here and you'll notice I don't look at it much. And the reason is because there's a brand new book in here that's never been really read or looked at. And the reason that I bring this with me is I was at a conference and this guy had this book, The Speakers, an Al-Anon speaker actually. He had this big book and he was an Al Anon speaker and he kept kind of picking up his book and was talking about it and it was like, it had been used, right? He had a leather cover like this and it Was beautiful but it was all like worn down down into kind of some stains and I went up to him afterwards and I said I said man I love your big book and he said yeah this guy Mickey in Colorado made it for me and uh I met him at a conference he had a book cover I loved it so I uh I asked him if he'd make me one and then I got one and I've never seen the guy since I'm like well it's funny because he's my sponsor and um And Mickey made these for us. And so I bring this with me because I want it to get beat up, but I don't... It doesn't have all my stuff in it. So I don' t... Anyway. So it says in here, If tempted, we recoil. So we're seldom interested in liquor. If tempted to recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally. And we find that this has happened automatically. We see that this new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That is the miracle of it. We're not fighting it, nor are we avoiding temptation. I avoided temptation most of my sobriety. Most of my subriety That's why it was so important for me to marry and be in a marriage with someone in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I could hide. I could avoid temptation it was not in my peripheral in my front vision it was gone and that was the joke on me right I didn't get that thought I did but I didn' and so the tenth step the mechanics of the tenth step are which I think is important to talk about Because I think when you start hearing people talk about 10 steps, they're talking about different things. What I'm talking about, what Nate's talking about is a conversation around this is what's going on. This is the resentment I'm resentful at. I'm selfish in. I'm trying to protect myself. I'm try to manipulate a situation. The dishonesty is the story I'm telling myself or I'm outright lying to this person or to these people or whatever kind of thing. And I'm fearful that this is what's going to happen. And I won't be safe and protected. And then there's feedback. And that's the part that a lot of people don't realize, is that there's feed back. My sponsor gives me feedback. Could it be this that you're being selfish in? Is it possible that there is this belief system that is in operation right now? That's false. and um there's times i've gone uh to your point with a 10 step and it's like you know i got a little resentful at the cashier at the safeway or whatever and uh and it turns into this whole big thing i'm like this wasn't a big thing and now it's a big things but it but the reason it's a big thing is not because of him but because of me right because i i have stuff going on under here that i'm not wanting to talk about if i haven't touched up 10th stepped on my wife in a while i get called out on that there's a reason i'm Not doing that it's not because everything's going great right we have as i've mentioned three kids we both work 50 hours a week we have a blind puppy and another puppy she was texting me last night that one of them got diarrhea all over the bathroom like there's there's lots of opportunity for resentment selfishness dishonesty and fear bedtime alone in my house is a disaster so like for me to go a period of time where I'm not 10-stepping a kid or my wife there's a problem and i do do 10 steps on my kids because my ego doesn't understand that they're a kid right any more than my resentments at my wife or or whatever so i have to continue to bring that stuff up if i'm continuing to 10 step about something at work we're gonna have to talk about that in a deeper inventory because we gotta it's about getting to the root and getting it out as best we can um should we move on to 11 probably should all right yep so the 11th step i mentioned this the other day or last night or whenever it was that i didn't meditate for most of my recovery it was it was so impactful for me when I started working with my sponsor that he suggested that I meditate and I was just like ah meditation I sponsor a guy who when he describes to me his meditation I am like in awe of what happens to him bless you bless you my meditations um so i started meditating mickey said just do three minutes set a timer do three moments and those were the longest three minutes of my life and he said you just do it every day and so i um he he has said to me i don't know if he said it to you but he has says to me if someone put a gun to his head instead you get to do the 10th step or the 11th step. What's your choice? Prayer or meditation? What's your choice gun to your head? You'd say I'd take meditation every day. And so I started three minutes a day, and then I worked up to five minutes a Day, and I worked seven minutes a day, I worked 10 minutes a I've been at 15 minutes a for a while. And in my mind, 15 minutes a day is plenty for now until nate goes and tells mickey i said that and then i'm sure i'll be challenged to go to 20. so so uh so for me what happened was i started meditating and if you asked me i would tell you i meditated every day it was the truth except on Tuesdays because I sponsored a guy at 5 a.m and so I would get up and I figured working with him was pretty close to meditation so I wouldn't meditate and then I've already told you I meet with Mickey on Thursdays at 5 30 and to get up any earlier than that to meditate is I mean I'm with basically the guy I think is closer to God than anyone so it's like meditating so I didn't meditate on Thursday's and then the weekends are tough. You know, you got kids wake up before you and then there's, you know, you're rolling into the thing. So I was maybe meditating one weekend day out of the year or out of the month or out Of the week. Oh geez. And, uh, but I was meditating strong Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you know? And, um, and I was seeing some effects. And for me, meditation is like, some days it is like peeling skin off your face. It is, like, not fun. I have what's called monkey mind, and I will rewire my house. I will, like—in my mind, I will sit in my mind and think about anything other than God. And my sponsor tells me that that's okay, that it is about sitting in the presence of God as best I can in that discipline. And some days, my daughter walks in in the middle of it and interrupts me or my son. Just one day, my son walked in and I was in the midst of meditating and I bit his head off. I'm like, I'm meditating. What are you doing? And he said to me, Dad, I just wanted to come in and meditate with you. Oh, loser. Right? And so I just grabbed him and threw him on my lap and we just sat in silence for a little while. So what happened for me was that it dawned on me one day that I don't meditate every day. So I started meditating every day I got up early before the Tuesday guy. I got up early on Thursdays before Mickey. I gotup early on Saturdays and Sundays with the intent like those are your sleep in days not for me I'm up before my kids so that I can get that meditation time in and sometimes I'll sit play a video game for 15 minutes or I'll listen to music and drink coffee and zone out on Instagram for 15 Minutes or whatever after my meditations over and And about two weeks had gone by, and I had my meeting with Mickey, and I started telling him this experience. Like, I realized I wasn't meditating every day. And like, I can't, again, I cannot quantify, I cant say like A plus B equals C. But what I can tell you is in that first two weeks of meditating every day, there was something different. Something was unlocked in me. And again, I want to tell you that I sponsor a guy who levitates when he meditates. Like it is like he is like blissed out with God in the heavens, soaring, doing all this great stuff, having this like total blissed-out experience. And I hate that guy because I'm like that's not my experience. If I could get quiet for 15 minutes and like fly into heavens, I would do that stuff for 30 minutes every hour. Like it does not like that. It is so uncomfortable to sit in silence with myself, but I do it. And it's gotten easier, and some days I get like I just zone out and the time goes like that. And other times it doesn't. I have this little app that's got the bell on it, but it also has some guided meditation. So sometimes I'll jump in and do some guided meditations, and two and a half minutes into that I'm off thinking about something else. And that's okay. Sometimes I'm so tired I fall asleep in the middle of my meditation. That's okay. It's just about the act of doing it. So I explain all this to Mickey, and I'm thinking I'm getting the gold star, right? I've finally gotten the gold Star of Approval because I'm meditating every day now, and he takes a left on me, and he goes, wait a minute. So you're telling me you've been lying to your sponsor for all this time. He was right. I wasn't being honest about what I was doing. I wasn't being honest about that. I'm not meditating every day. If you would have asked me, I would have said I was. Because in my mind, I thought I was because I justified all these other reasons why those days weren't meditation days or what I was doing was kind of like a meditation. Right? Sitting on Instagram for 20 minutes is not meditation, just to be clear. Right? So, and then there's the nightly review, which is the other part of the 11th step, where we take a look at kind of our day in review. And when I'm not doing that, I've got to be honest about it. And I used to do it really diligently. My friend Darlene and I used TO actually call each other at night and we would do it. And that's a great exercise if you ever do that with somebody, where every night you call somebody and go through your nightly view. I hear couples that do it kind of together. And you don't have to always talk about everything out loud, but you have the opportunity to just read the questions, answer it in your mind, and then move on. But Darlene and I used to actually talk it out, and it was great. Except what happened for me was I became reliant on her to call. She became reliance on me to call, so if one of us didn't call, we didn't do this debt. So then the reliance became on the person rather than on God and on the actual process, if you will. I think I've ran out of gas. Absolutely. Oh, wait, wait. Phil's coming. Thank you so much. Close enough. Hi, everyone. Good morning. I'm Margaret. I'm an alcoholic. I just felt this urge. I just wanted to share this with you, this recent experience. So after a year of meeting weekly with my sponsor, going through everything, got to a point where don't have to meet weekly. I'm here. Text, call if you need me. Well, I have huge pride and ego. So first of all, I started doing these things, sending inspirations to her like she does to me because, you know, I want to be there wherever there is. I wasn't being honest with myself so I've been really struggling the past few months and I wasn't sure why last night we met for over an hour we missed trivia because what happened is I had gotten stuck in my own self-reliance not being honest with my sponsor the person the I can most definitely be honest with we ended up I wrote a few resentments did got four amends ready to do and I wanted to share this because I just feel like it is so important that we continue to do this because I slept last night for the first time in months, like really slept I was late getting here what a huge lesson for me that I need to continue and I also was afraid I was going to be bothering her she's sponsoring other women, full-time job, four kids I don't want to keep bothering her with my problems. And she reminded me that for her growth, I need to do this, that she continues to grow by helping others. And so I didn't want TO bother her. My ego was in the way. I got this. I can do it alone. Really got me into a hot mess. And I'm just so grateful because I really need instruction. I need guidance. Left to my own accord, that accountability hasn't developed yet. i need someone else holding me accountable for the you know for the future for right now um i just wanted to share that because i felt like it was timely thank you thank you very much yeah and i i think that that probably chad and i would both agree that a couple of the major themes that we're hoping were were highlighted throughout the course of our weekend and our time together are active sponsorship and the fact that alcoholism does not live in a bottle, right? Is that a fair statement? Yeah, that's great. Good. And what I'd like to do as I kind of share my piece on step 11, I want to read the steps directly out of the book because, as Chad said, there usually is such confusion between 10 and 11, and if that's the case, that person is not doing them, right, I mean, I say that half-jokingly, but if there's confusion about what's going into them, chances are they're probably not being done the way that they're outlined in the book. So step 10 says continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. So we're talking about our spot check throughout the course of the day, the whole piece we just talked about, calling, getting honest, watching for these things. We ask God to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately. We resolutely turn our thoughts outward and make amends if we've harmed anyone. That's the tenth step, right? So we have multiple safety nets in place to catch these things. The program is structured in a way that does that for us, right. If you miss your spot check throughout the course of the day, we then, to move into step 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. So as Chad mentioned, what's also included in the second half of this 11th step is a nightly review. That's different than a 10th step, right? Very different. That's the second safety net. If I miss something throughout the course of the day with my spot checks and my 10th step, the nightly preview portion of the 11th steps is in place for me to sit down and actually take a look at what might have slipped through the cracks during the day, right, and just drawing the distinction between those two, I just think it's important, it's helpful to realize that they're not the same. They're actually very different and to be utilized in different ways to help us really have the best shot at going into a new day clean is what that really looks like. In one particular piece, it obviously... I'll turn the page for you. Oh, you did? Thank you. I picked up your unused book. Right. Just kidding. Yeah. That's hilarious, though, because there was absolutely a time in my recovery where I wanted my big book to look as messed up as it could so that people would think I was really doing it, you know? It was like 17 shades of highlighter and notes and crinkled up pages. And my first one was the spine was split off. The cover was missing. it was like, everybody see this? Clearly you know who's read this, right? Yeah. And I can tell you, I was crazier than a shithouse rat at that time. So a beat up big book is not indicative of wellness. Let's just say that. But and obviously, so something that I like to suggest to anyone that is really looking to ramp up 10 and 11 in their lives is to start to reincorporate pages 84 to 88 on a daily basis. Start to read those pages on a day-to-day basis. Read those pages daily basis again for a while to get re-familiarized with what it is because that's a very short read for a whole lot of just gold, right? All of what we're talking about right now, 10 and11 are highlighted in those four short pages, right, very clear directions on how to do these things. and 86 it obviously starts when we retire at night in that paragraph literally outlines every question that I should be asking myself throughout the course of my nightly review right mechanical process aside if you like to write right if you'd like to walk through it in your mind walk through it in-your-mind I don't get too hung up on the details to do it is the important thing I think you know I was told to put my big book on my pillow don't go to bed without doing your nightly review, right? And what'll happen for me, these things kind of go hand in hand is what, if I'm catching things in my nightly view, what I'll usually do is because I still do to this day, I keep that running list that I have for my sponsor when we meet on a weekly basis of the things that have kind of, you know, I just want to keep track of. Maybe they're not throwing me sideways but a lot of the times what I find in my nighttime review gets added onto that list because then I know it's something that I need to discuss with my sponsor, right? So the two work hand in hand. And nightly review, it says when we retire. I feel like that's good guidance because right before bed for me is usually a lost cause, right, and I can't count the number of people, myself included, that this was totally optional for a long time, right. If I got around to it, I would. It was there. Nah, not so much. The same with the morning, the a.m. portion of the step work, though, prayer and meditation, right? And I also want to be – okay, so when it gets to one of these paragraphs at the bottom of page 87 that's speaking to the morning portion and getting set up and really taking the time to be intentional, to spend time with God, to ask for direction throughout the course of the day, to have those prayers and to really just get centered. And as Chad said, I have the same mind. I do not transcend when I meditate. I bounce and bounce and balance. And it's like for a long time I thought that I was doing it wrong or that I was falling short because of the way that I experienced meditation. But as far as I'm concerned at this particular point in my life and in my recovery, the willingness to be intentional and disciplined with setting aside that 15 minutes for God is what it's about. right? That is what it's about. It doesn't matter what happens to me during that time. I am being intentional of saying, God, I want you to have the first fruits of my day. Here I am, right? I'm just here to sit with you. And that's usually what I'll say on a loop. I'm here to be healed, right. Help me to go into this day with your power, right. And every morning I pray for the things that any alcoholic would hate the most. I pray for obedience, discipline, and surrender to your will for me, right? That's my blanket prayer. I pray for a lot of other things, of course, but at a baseline, I pray for the ability to have obedience and discipline to do the right thing and to work my program. But then to have that meditation portion, what it really does is it allows me to know that I did. I did give the first fruits of my day to God because that relationship is the most important one I have in my life, right? Without that, I'm going to fly off into the day. I'm going to have an agenda. It's never good, right, it's never good. In a lot of ways, if I miss a morning of meditation and fly off onto my day, I can almost promise you that by the end of it I am depleted and exhausted. And maybe not because of what was actually happening throughout the course of the day but because I wasn't properly aligned. I didn't have power in place to live that day the way that God would have had me live it probably, right? And I love the test of, you know, exhaustion and embarrassment are always the end game for self-reliance. That's what I experienced, right. At the end of the day, I feel exhausted and or embarrassed. It's a pretty good chance that I was trying to, you know force a few square pegs into round holes throughout the course of that day. I'm not talking about literal exhaustion from physical activities, there's a difference of course. But that mental exhaustion where you get home and it's like the thing is still spinning, or you're trying to cool down at night and you can't not think about how you're going to build this thing four weeks down the road or unclog the toilet or whatever the case. You know, I do the same thing when I'm meditating and supposed to be jokingly having this transcending experience i'm like thinking about what i'm gonna have for lunch and what's going on later today and it's like it's the strangest stuff you know it has nothing to do with god-centeredness or anything but even the ability to bring it back like wow okay yeah i'm way over there i'm here to be with you god i'm Here To Sit With You And To Be With You God right i usually loop it right back to that i'm hereto sit with you and to be healed because that's really what i need every single day every morning throughout the course of the day I need God's healing in my soul, in my life, to be able to help me to do what needs to be done on any given day. And we're actually over right now. But I think if anybody has any questions, I feel like we could have gone two or three hours on this particular topic. You know, the conversation doesn't have to end here. If anybody wants to catch either of us in between sessions or, you know, we all have telephones. So that's an option too. So if anything comes up that you feel like you'd like to discuss further, I think that goes for everything throughout the course of the weekend too, obviously. Absolutely. Yeah. So we break until 10, I believe? Right. Yep.