Matthew M. at the NW Woodstock of AA – 2016

Wow. I thought a lot of you would go home. I was kind of hoping. My name is Matthew, and I have alcoholism. And I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be here. Some of the people in this room are some of my favorite people on the whole planet. And what a weekend we've had so far, right? I made the mistake of having a plan for this morning we'll just see what happens my sobriety date is May 16, 1993 and for all intents and purposes even though I live in Gig Harbor, Washington my home group is the Hermosa Beach Men's Stag on Monday nights in Hermosa beach, California So I am tasked with discussing the 10th and 11th step, and I liked what June said earlier. She is not an authority on alcoholism or Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm here to reiterate, June is not in authority on Alcoholism or alcoholics Anonymus. I have some strong opinions. But what I really want to do humbly for you because I love these steps in the book and in the program is just tell you my experience with it, any history I might know about it, and I'll start with the 10 steps. So I was raised in an Irish Catholic family, which landed me in Alcoholics Anonymous, like many of you, but it was a good loving family, and my parents tried really hard with us. Although there was alcoholism, it was not my parents' alcoholism. But they sent me to a Catholic school. Yeah, and I don't really know ever how to describe what it was like to go to a Catholic school in Redondo Beach in the 70s and 80s. You know, there was the ancient traditions of this church, and there was The Sexual Revolution at the beach, you know, and drugs and alcohol and all that stuff, but I was a pretty good, serious Catholic kid for as far as it went, and, and I don't know what they were saying to me, but what I was hearing was that God hated me because of who I was, because of the way I behaved. And things, you know, I remember a nun looked at me when I was in eighth grade. I was sitting in the front row, Sister Dennis Ann. She looked right at me and she said, if you're even thinking about sex, you're going to hell. And I went, uh-oh. You know. And then I looked around the room and said, well it's going to be crowded you know because I know these guys and sometimes when we're playing baseball we forget to think about sex but then we get right back on it so and I guess I don't blame anybody it's just that I really tried to be the good that they told me I was supposed to be to get that love from that God he was supposed to love me no matter what and by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous I had done so many things that would not have qualified me for that love, that when it came to prayer, you know, I was really praying to a God that I thought hated me. That's true. But the tenth step, I think, is I wanted to bring up that I was raised in an Irish Catholic family because it affects how I view the tenth steps. So the tenthstep is where we review our day and we look at what maybe we did wrong and how we could do better. And, you Know, that's actually a pretty tall order. That's a very good practice. you know one of the things I was talking about this morning with some friends of mine on the phone we have a little step study on the phone every other Sunday you know the delusion or it's one of lies that's inferred in Alcoholics Anonymous I think sometimes or it might be taken away as a misunderstanding is that we get well here you know that's a dangerous thing to say to somebody who suffers from alcoholism because we don't get well there we get a lot better here. You know, if you went out in the street, it would be very difficult to find a well person. That is not a static thing. It is a dynamic thing. So one of the ways after we stop drinking that we shape ourselves into a life that drinking is no longer necessary is we do these steps that are so beautifully laid out. And the 10th step is one of those practices, right? You know hey, I'm not drinking anymore, I'm not ruining my life anymore. I'm not stealing anymore. Why would I want to review my behavior? You know, I've come a long way, but I grew up in a family where my sister says, you know, the beauty of an Irish Catholic family is if there's an elephant in the living room, we just make a coffee table out of it. And we did, you know, like life would be humming along. You know my father was bipolar. My brothers were alcoholic. Life would be humming along then there'd be this big explosion of chaos and we'd all pretend it didn't happen because it was nicer before when it hadn't happened so let's pretend it's like that and you know i just grew up that way and as a kid you're sort of clear like well that was weird because you're a kid you haven't become indoctrinated into that so this stuff was kind of hard for me why do i want to look about what happened earlier today, I feel pretty good right now. Why would I think about that? You know, that wasn't entirely true, what I said at work. I was kind of short with my children, right? Or whatever deviant behavior. We have a friend, Clancy, not that Clancy. Another Clancy in our home group. And he likes to talk about Edgar Allan Poe's The Imp of the Perverse. And you know, we all have in us the imp of the perverse. And I don't know about you, but I'm 23 years sober. And where it doesn't possess me anymore, he still hangs around. And the imp of the perverse pops up and we want to look at it, right? And I have these things in various parts of my life. But I will tell you, I did for a long time write a 10-step. I printed out the questions in the book. I put them by the side of my bed. I would not say it was a long time, because this is what happened. I would go to bed at night, I'd write out all the, answer all the questions where I had been selfish, self-centered, where I'd been dishonest, was I loving and kind, where could I have done better? And I wrote down all these questions, I wrote down all the answers, and the bummer was it was like Groundhog Day. Every time I read it, it was exactly the same as what I did the day before. Well, so what did that give me? That gave me awareness, right? It can either give you frustration and demotivation or some awareness. And it gave me awareness. And it got to the point after a while, like, well, I don't want to put it on my 10th step tonight, right. And I found that a Herculean effort to change myself so that I didn't repeat those little, you know, uprisings of the imp of the perverse in me. So I needed something more. I couldn't just know that I did it and change it. I wish I could. That's never worked for me. I don't know about you guys, but I have alcoholism. I'm powerless, right? And I found I'm perilous over a lot of things. So as I did these 10 steps and realized that I needed to change and then repeatedly didn't change, what could I possibly do? Well, it's really a good thing that there's another step, step 11. It comes right after 10. And then step 12, and those for me were what I needed to do to change those behaviors. So what I really wanted to focus on is my experience with step 11, prayer and meditation. So when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was – I'm going to take my watch off, but don't let that give you hope. When I got into AlcoholicsAnonymous, I was a destroyed person. I had taken it as far as I could possibly take it. I had hurt people in ways I didn't know that I would ever be able to do, and I let myself be hurt and treated in ways I didnít think I would never allow to happen. So I donít want to get into that whole story, but take it from me. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was a negative person. I was underground. I weighed 108 pounds. I hadnít been employed in months. I had a pregnant teenage girl across town. I was 31 years old. i had a mother who was dying of alcoholism or dying of i was dying of alcohol she was dying to cancer a couple of miles from my house and i couldn't manage the two miles to visit her and i wanted to i so wanted to go so that's what got here right and i had the the great grace and good fortune of stumbling upon a group of men an alcoholic synonymous who took the steps and sponsorship really seriously i just lucked out. I wandered into the right rooms in the beginning. And you know, there's that early recovery where you're kind of excited, like another day goes by and you didn't drink. You know, I remember when I got out of rehab, my brother dropped me off at my front door and he said, go to a meeting. And my initial thought was, man, these AA people are a little intense. you know, I just got out of a rehab. I'm not going to a meeting. I've been 30 days in a rehab, I'm gonna go see my mom, right? I'm going to go, you know cure cancer and I'm gonna be a father now to this little baby that was born the day I got sober but I lied because I lie and I said I was gonna go to a meeting. No intention of going to meeting, I thought it was a stupid idea and then I opened my door to my apartment and somebody handed me a beer actually it wasn't a beer was the Coors and I looked at that for a while and I looked around the room and they were smoking pot and snorting cocaine all my favorite Summer Olympic events were happening in my living room and I lived alone in that apartment and I backed up and I put the beer on the porch and I ran away because I had one thing on earth and it wasn't character and it wasn't self-respect and it the love of my family I didn't have those I had 30 days that's all I had and I didnít want to throw away the one thing I had on those losers and I made that decision like that so I ran to a phone booth and I called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I got here and each day that I didn't get drunk was a great day because I had really driven my life underground. And you know like there's a guy who came to our meeting for a while he said you know you guys are right the fog is clearing but now all the planes are landing. So I had that experience. You know all of a sudden they want the tax money you know I got so I'll tell you about prayer and my early sobriety when I got my 90-day chip I was driving home and and somebody had put sugar in my gas tank some friend of mine and it was smoking and I got pulled over and I'm like oh god I got pull over I started saying the serenity prayer God grant me this serenities you accept the things I cannot change I got lights flashing in back of my car and then I pull out my license and it's been expired for like six years and who checks the dates you know their suggestions and I'm looking at my license I don't have insurance I don t even know where the registration is for this car I bought it for $200 you know and cop comes up on me and he says can I see your license and registration and I pulled out my 90-day chip and I said I'm 90 days sober an Alcoholics Anonymous and he looked at me goes can I see your licence and your registration and so I gave him my license because that's all I had and he said hold on just a second he walked back to his car and I said God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change which is like I'm going to jail right now. The courage to change the things I can, which I'm not really sure where that list starts. And the wisdom of the difference. The throwaway line. And he comes back to the car and he says, can you step out of the car? And I said, I have 90 days sober. And alcoholics and I did do this. And he goes, well welcome to your past Mr. Mitchell. Step out of the car put your hands behind your back. That's what he said, the bastard. And I mean the peacekeeping officer. And he took me to jail and he mercifully didn't charge me with all the other stuff he had to charge me with, I just had a lot of warrants apparently. And I got to jail and you know, I've been to jail sober and I've ben to jail drunk and there are some things that are better drunk. there's a couple and i was lying on this bunk and this is in the early 90s and aids is a problem and a guy was punching the wall above my cot and the blood from his fist was dripping on my face and i'm laying there going god grant me the serenity i swear to god i said the sereny per like 8 000 times and then i i got i was went on a friday conveniently enough so i don't get out until Monday, right? My parents were gone and out of the country. And I called my brother to come to court. And just before I get to court, I'm chained to this guy, skinhead guy. And no lie, this is what happened. He had a pen with no pen in it, no cartridge. And he reached into his underwear and pulled that crack and started smoking crack, chained me before we met the judge. So then I said out loud, God grant me the serenity to just make it another five minutes, you know. So that was prayer in my early sobriety. And I paid my warrants. So another thing that happened as I started getting more days of recovery and started hanging out with some really strong guys who really believed in this and had wonderful lives, I could see they were sort of transparent and happy and confident and all the things I couldn't imagine were waiting for me. Like June said, how do you get there? There's no way to get there from where I am. So I was going to these meetings, and I was really getting into reading the book. And there was that prayer, you know, relieve me of the bondage of self. Relieve me ofthe bondage yourself. And I go, God, I know what that is, you know, because I wake up in the morning and myself takes over my ego and my you're not good enough and people suck and this isn't gonna work for you. And I narrate my whole life, you know I can't brush my teeth without you know some sort of announcement in my head about what's wrong with my teeth you know or so I knew what the bondage of self felt like it was on my back you know so like the same guy who said you know the fog is clearing but now the planes are landing you know just because the monkeys off my back doesn't mean the circus has left town and and I had that the bondage of self. So I said to my sponsor, right in front of the Monday Night Men's Stag, I said, hey, you know, I'm saying that prayer, relieve me of the bondage itself. And he kind of looked at me, smoking his cigar, and he said, you now, why don't you help God out and relieve yourself of the bondige of self? He's like the Riddler, this guy. And I'm looking at him going, I don't even know, was that English? And I said, what do you mean? How can you possibly relieve yourself of the bondage of self? He goes, well, why don't you do something nice for somebody and don't tell anybody about it. And I thought, why would anybody do that? Then it didn't happen if I don't tell everybody so but I walked in and that's Jay's wife's definition of an extrovert is someone who tells you he doesn't think it if something didn't happen unless he tells you about it and I'm an extroverted so I went into the Monday Night Men stag contemplating you know Yoda out there and I sit down and I'm looking around and we asked for we ask for people from out of town visiting our meeting. And they said, are there any visitors from out of town? This guy raises his hand. He says, my name's Kevin. I'm visiting from Australia. I'm going to be here once a month. And I went, doot-doot-doo-doo. That will be my great altruistic act. I'll remember Kevin's name and I will be relieved of the bondage himself. So I was so glad that that was going to been done with in 30 days that I just went along my life, right? And 30 days later, I forgot all about this guy. And I'm standing in the meeting and I look across the room and there he is. And it was like a high school dance, man. I just took off after this guy, I'm knocking people out of the way. Kevin, welcome back to the greatest meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in the world. I'm so glad you found us. It must be hard traveling and welcome back. And he said, wow, you remembered my name. I said, yeah, it must be difficult being and a stranger in the meetings. And this is a great meeting. He said, that's impressive. Let's go outside and talk for a second. Now at the time I'm living with my mom and my dad, right? 31, so still it's not, it's pretty humiliating. I'm livin' with my Mom and my Dad. I have a job at a loading dock stacking newspapers on a truck and I have job delivering packages during the day and I two degrees. In fact, I have degree in religious studies that I got because I went to my counselor one day getting my degree in modern literature and he said you know you've taken so many religious studies class you have a minor in religious studies I was just thirsty I was his thirsty so Kevin takes me outside now while I'm living with my folks and he goes you know that's really impressive that you thought about me and welcome me back what do you do for a living I'm professionally fulfilled and he said well I'm the vice president of an international airline why don't you bring me your resume and your pack print out your Department of Motor Vehicles he said I think that's what you call it here and wear a suit and come to my office next week so I got all my stuff together right and my DMV report you know this is absolutely true I got arrested for the same DUI three times That's the level of lame I've achieved. You know, I didn't pay the whole fine, didn't go to all the classes. Every time I jaywalked, I went to jail. So I go to this place and I got a beautiful black suit because Irish families, you have to have a black suit. There's wakes and weddings, right? And I got brown hush puppy shoes because I'm a newcomer in AA and I haven't had black shoes in years. But that's what I got. So I go and I got my DMV and I feel like a clown. And he opens up the door and, you know, he's an AA member. He opens up this big beautiful office on Century Boulevard and he looks down at my shoes and he laughs out loud. He puts me right at ease. So I'm a little bit more nervous now. Like, I don't even know why I came here for this. This is stupid. And then he goes, hey, I want to introduce you to the head of human resources. and this goddess from Hawaii comes floating across the room. This beautiful, long black hair flowing and I'm like, wow, she's amazing. And she looks at my shoes and her mouth gets kind of tight. She did not laugh. And I'm really, really nervous now, right? So I go, okay, all right. So I'm going to go into her office and I hand her my DMV. you know I give her my resume that has nine and a half years of went to the party you know because uh I played rock and roll lead guitar on the road for a long time and you don't really put that on your resume and they wouldn't want to call those people back anyway and and she's looking at this and she is looking at my shoes and she looking at me and she was looking at my DMV and she's looking at my shoes and she is looking at me and not saying anything, no interview questions. And she says you know I'm going to be right back and I go okay. So Kevin is in the office behind the wall I am sitting in, the corner office, and I hear her go in there and I hear through the wall he's not going to fly the damn planes She's going to put people on them. And I got super relaxed. And she was quite nervous. And she walked into the room, and she looked at me, and she goes, we're going to hire you. I said, damn right you're going to hire me. You're lucky to have me. I need some shoes. I did not do that. I was like, thank you, thank you, I will not let you down. What is this job? That's what happened. So I went away and the reason I told you that long story is because I prayed and then I took action, little tiny, tiny action and God came running at me. I went from a job I couldn't say out loud to anybody I grew up with to, hey, I work at an airline. A really good one. And they gave me a cool little situation. They gave me extra money to dry clean my suit. And for like six months, I thought they only gave that to me. I thought, give the loser some extra money. I don't think he's going to dry clear the suit. Turns out everybody got that. But that's good. So, and you know, and my life went on and things unfolded for me. You know, I had prayer was not a problem. I prayed, you know. I like the prayers in the big book. The 11th step was weird. It was weird, the whole thing about prayer and meditation. When I first came across it, I said, prayed only for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out. God doesn't like me. I don't want to know God's will for me. I know God's will for me. It's eternal suffering. That's what I came with. It was way back in the back of my mind, but it was really real. You know, and I got some good advice. My sponsor, when I asked him, what does that mean, God's will for me? He said, you know, do the next indicated thing. If the bill comes in the mail and says pay this amount, God just wants you to pay that amount. You know? if the baby's diaper needs changing god wants you to change the baby it's it's simple don't over complicate it and that was really great advice and as a result i went to work every day and i got promoted you know and i was able to buy a guitar to go back to my old my old love is music i love music more than almost anything and and as the result of going to the airport and working i met a girl at the bus stop at the employee bus stop and we got married beautiful, beautiful girl I met her she said she didn't want to go out with me two weeks later she proposed and last week we celebrated 20 years of marriage and you know life was busy and meditation wasn't a big deal I tried I have a degree in religious studies I've been all over the place I've sat in Zendo's I've done all that when I was stoned It has much less of an effect when you're high. You'd have some great ideas, but not a lot of meditation. But, you know, I was praying and praying, and life was getting better, and I come from a group where we have a man there who says, you know the 11th step is not extra credit. It's a step. And the meditation thing started to take hold of me a little bit more when I went to the meditation meeting, the 11-step meeting, right? And that was important. We have a meeting where it's a fireside meeting, or it used to be, but they would shut off all the lights and we meditate for five minutes and then we stay just by the light of the fire and everybody shares about their 11-step practice and then the lights come back on at the end. Or we meditate for five more minutes at the beginning and then I always left there with a great energy. I realized that meditating with other people was really, really helpful. And, you know, my life's going along pretty well. My mother did pass away and then my father passed away and Pip and I had a couple of kids and we could travel a lot. We worked for airlines and life kept getting better and I was going to the 11-step meeting. And then one day I came home and I found my wife on the ground. And she was... She'd become permanently disabled in a matter of five minutes. She had a massive stroke. so we were married for five years and such a strange experience to watch somebody you love disappear a little bit you know we had two little kids and I just walked towards her I called 911 and they came really quickly and I followed them into the ambulance and I left my one-year-old and my four-year in the house because she can't go away she can't and the neighbors rushed in and they took my kids I made no arrangements I just had to be with Phillipa and I prayed all the way to the hospital that God, could please make this stop. And he didn't. I called my sponsor. I called my sister because my parents were dead and I called my mother-in-law in England. My wife's from Great Britain. And I prayed. I watched them. They were going to operate on her. They Were Going To Make It All Better. They Were Gonna Go Up Through Her Leg And Through Her Heart And Drip THP on her brain and dissolve whatever this was. And they stopped because she'd torn the interior wall of her carotid artery. She couldn't have the operation. And they said, we've got a few days now to see if your wife's going to make it because her brain's swelling. And I prayed, and I prayed. And I walked out, and in the waiting room, like 50 guys sitting out there from my groups Jay came in the morning, Bill came. She was in the hospital for five weeks. So at that time I had just gotten a new job. I became a drug dealer. I worked for the pharmaceutical industry. I'm finally getting my money back. But I was supposed to leave in a week and go to Chicago for training but I can't go to Chicago. My wife's in ICU. So I tell my sponsor, I said, hey, I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, I got this job and training starts in Chicago in like six more days. And he goes, well, you're going to go. And I said. What are you talking about? Philippa's in intensive care. And he says, are you a doctor? I said no. And he said, I'm not. And he went, so what are you going to visit her? We'll visit her. We'll take care of your kids. you got one income now son go to chicago and he said go to Chicago and don't tell them about your wife in the hospital don't be the new guy with problems and i looked at him and thought he's gone completely insane and I did not agree to do that but I sat and looked at Philippa for a long time that night and thought, Bill has never, ever steered me wrong. And he sees this differently than I do. And I am going to be in financial trouble if I don't do this. And I went to Chicago. And I didn't tell anyone that my wife was in ICU. I had to go to Chicago for three weeks. Bill and I had a cigar three weeks ago. And he brought that up. He said, remember when I told you you needed to go to training and we'd take care of Philippa? And I said, yeah. And he goes, I can't believe you did that. And I was like, what? I kind of thought I had to do that, you know. He said that to me the other day, 20 years later. But I did do that. It was hard because all these young people are at this hotel drinking and ruining their marriages. It sounded like through my bedroom wall, and I'm going up to my room and hitting my knees. God, what are we gonna do? What happened? What am I gonna do? Is she gonna be okay? And I would call, and people would leave me messages. Hey, we bought Christmas presents for your kids today. We put up your Christmas tree today. Philippa looks great. We brought her food. The food there is really crappy. We made her tea. She's really particular about her tea, and just all this stuff. And so in my mind, I'm like, she's getting better. She's getting worse. She's better. Things are good. This prayer stuff works. So I sneak home before training's over on the weekend. We're supposed to stay, but I have all sorts of contacts with airlines. I just got on a plane. I got back to Los Angeles, flew into Irvine, went to UC Irvine where she was, Couldn't wait to see her It was 10 o'clock at night And I went in the room And I had to keep my face straight Because she was not better She was not She was worse She was really contorted She couldn't move at all She's so great though My wife's here She's actually at the hotel She was here last night I came up to her and I looked at her for a long time And I'm trying just to keep a straight face And out of the corner of her mouth she goes No rumpy pumpy mister just the first thing on my mind you know and i didn't know what to say to her i was scared so i crawled into bed with her and i put my arms around her i fell asleep because i was exhausted from worrying and she fell asleep and about three o'clock in the morning i woke up and I had never felt terror like I felt when I woke up. I thought, oh, she's not going to be okay. This is never going to being okay. I've got little kids. I'm in a job that's way over my head. I'm an English major with a religious studies degree and I'm trying to talk about science. I can't do this. What are we going to do? And I could taste metal in my mouth. I was so afraid. I got out of bed and I looked at her and I couldn't look at her because it just made me more afraid. So I went and the nurses had given me shampoo and little hotel-sized things because they knew that I just came in the night and I had no luggage. So I thought, I'll go take a shower. It's like 4 o'clock in the morning. I walked down the corridor and there's all this beeping and humming. Hospitals at night are not welcoming. And I found the shower, and it was like, if any of you saw the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it was, like, that. Like, giant orthopedic stuff. So I felt like I was in this weird existential play. And in my mind, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown any second. I cannot do this. I can't do this job. Pip was the alpha partner in the marriage. All the bills aren't going to get paid. I've got these little kids. I need to care for her now. I can'T do it. There's no way I'm gonna do this I don't have it in me. So I get my clothes off, I stand under the water and I just hit my knees. I just fell down on my knees on the tile and I started praying with such intensity. God, I have no power. I need something. I need some power because I don' t think that this man can do this work. I want to. I want it. But I can't. And I just stayed there I prayed so intensely, and I couldn't wait. I couldn' t wait for God to come. I couldn''t wait. And nothing changed. I was cleaner, but I was really scared, like full, full of fear. And I had tried my last bastion. I asked for help from God, and nothing changed, and I got dressed, andI walked down the hallway, and I turned into her room and I didn't really want to look at her just yet. So I sat down in the leather chair next to her bed and I looked out into the hallway and I closed my eyes. And when I closed My eyes, I realized I could feel Philippa in the room. I could Feel her presence. And I thought, wow, this must be the sixth sense of really loving someone because I can tell she's here. I wonder if I were blind and I were in a big house, I bet I could walk right to her. That's what I thought that day. Then after a while, I stood up and I put my hands on the railing of her bed and I couldn't look at her. So I looked out the picture window and it was about 5 o'clock in the morning and the sun was just coming up. And there were a lot of trees outside this window and there were these birds. Like all of a sudden, this silhouette came alive and I saw these little birds like jumping from tree to tree and I kind of went, wow, you know, the world is beautiful. I just had that thought. and then I slowly panned down to Philippa's face and Philippa is from Wales and she has this beautiful pale complexion and she was glowing in the light and it caught my breath and I thought, my God I love this woman so much and there was no fear none none everything was exactly right and i was the man for the job i don't know do with that what you will the fear came back in little bites every once in a while but never like that and i can tell you we've we thrive we don't give by we thrive Pip and I are in love with each other our children are adults we've been all over the world really slowly so now I want to talk about meditation Jay, who you're going to hear later he was a member of the 11th step meeting and i got a bigger job and a bigger job i now run three states if these one day these people will figure out what they've done but uh i run washington alaska and oregon for a large biotech company and and as i was getting sucked up into this career i was traveling a lot i was trying to get quality time with the family on the phone with Philippa all the time, making sure things are getting done and sending people to do stuff and pretty stressed. And I got to the 11-step meeting one night and Jay said, how are you doing? I go, I'm not doing well at all. And i told him, he said, I am this thin man. I have no depth. I am not meditating. He goes, well what can I do to help you? I said, i don't know. And he said why don't we meditate together? He said, what time do you wake up? And i said, wake up about 5 30. which I think frightened Jay a little bit. He said, well, why don't we call around 6? And he said, wherever you are and whoever you are in the world, call me at 6 a.m. Pacific time and we'll sit. So I started that. 6 a。m. Pacific time. Call Jay. Five minutes. Quiet, silent, peace, stillness. I love you. I loveyou. Thank you. Thank you." Click. We did that for years, a couple of years. Grew into a call for a lot of people for a while. And then this 11th step just started taking more and more meaning in my life. I was doing it for 10 minutes and 20 minutes and 30 minutes. And you know, I just want to put it to you because I've raised some controversy talking about meditation the way I meditate. And this is my experience. but I will also say that if the 11th step was just read right before we started and it says it was sort of like a review of your day is how they write it in the big book. But there's a line in there that I love. It says were we looking for thinking about ourselves only or were we looking for what we could pack into the stream of life? I love that line because it infers that the righteous way is flowing in a certain direction. It is a stream that flows in a certain direction and when I pull for myself only I'm pushing against that direction and I have bad results. That's my experience. That's how I ended up with a 108 pound body dying of alcoholism. But when I try to pack into the stream of life and flow with those things, that's why all the religions be honest, be giving, be self-sacrificing. There's a flow. The stream of life goes a certain direction. We've all agreed upon it internationally, we just can't see the forest for the trees. So I love that part, but that doesn't mean that Bill said that's the only way you'll ever need to meditate. This is 1935. They didn't have World War II yet. Ancient practices of Japanese knees and meditation had not come to our shores in any great way. But then you see the 12 and 12, and Bill talks about the St. Francis prayer, right? And Lectio Diviniae, basically meditating on each word of a prayer. That's an old Christian way to meditate on scripture. And he says, try this. Here is a practical way to do this, right. And then as time went on, Bill tried lots of things. Last night or two nights ago, I read an article for the guy who taught Bill how to do Transcendental Meditation in 1965. And Bill said, I understand the 11th step completely differently in 1965, more will be revealed. I have a lot of access to these kinds of things, it's my education, I have friends that do these things. So I do meditation, I try to cultivate stillness. There's ways to do that. There's a thousand ways to do that, and if you want to talk to me about it or look it up, there's many ways to do it. But over time, I've done this, and we talk about selfishness and self-centeredness being the root of our problem, right? And we come to AA, and they say things like, hey, do the next indicated thing, pay your bill, change the baby, and those things are lifting. They really help get a license and registration. I can't tell you how happy I was the first time I got pulled over and I had a trifecta. I had insurance, registrations. And I'm like, ha-ha-ha. Then the guy was like, you're sure happy. Well, I'm not going to jail. But after a while, that's out here. Where does the selfishness and self-centeredness come from? My compulsive brain. I just read this morning with my big book study the problem centers in our mind and meditation gets at the last bastion of self will run riot by compulsive mind so it grew I started doing it 20 minutes a day now I have 30 minutes a days I have 5 guys now we all call into a conference call and we sit for 30 minutes in the morning in silence. I don't ask them what they're doing, they don't ask me what I'm doing, we are just meditating whatever way is comfortable for us and what are the results of that? Well Sandy Beach said, he was mentioned earlier a dear love of my life who I met one time and he was channeling Chuck Chamberlain that the entire program of Alcoholics Anonymous can be boiled down into two words let go well I did a tenth step for a long time and I had no tools to do that and what I can tell you about consistent repeated meditation in my life is it loosens my grip that's the effect it has on me like there's thoughts I have that I think I should have some sort of entitlement after self-sacrifice. Hey, I went to the jails on a panel. I bet I get a new car soon. And meditation is the gift was the jail. It teaches you that. So I don't want to take up all the time. i just want to talk about god for a minute because you can talk about prayer and meditation and avoid that topic and i've been traveling quite a bit uh for alcoholics anonymous for a long long time and i hear some of the most amazing speakers and i was in austin texas a couple months ago which is great town great music town music is my love and there were people and they got up and they talked about their struggle with God and their awakening into Alcoholics Anonymous. It seemed to be, kept coming up, kept comingup and I meditated with my boys the Saturday morning before I was going to speak that night and this thing came to me, this space came to be and it was so obvious that I want to share it with you. If you're in Austin, Texas and you're standing looking at a front porch and there's two people playing guitar and a woman playing the fiddle, which could happen in Austin, Texas. And a Martian lands right next to you. A man from Mars, which could also happen in Boston, Texas and you look up on the porch and the Martian says, what is that? And you go, that's music. And he goes, music? It really looks like people beating on wooden things with strings. And I would laugh and say, yeah, that's music. Then you walk for a while and the Martian decides to tag along and you go through and the park has a big amphitheater and it's the summer and they've got a symphony orchestra and they're playing this beautiful Beethoven piece and the Marshal goes, hey, what's that? Well, that is music. No, that isn't music. Music is the girl and the two guys and the banging on the wood. Well, yeah but that's music that's music too and then you walk for a while and you get to the river and the river is beautiful in austin and there's a little bit of a canyon there and the acoustics are amazing and some woman realizes hey these acousticsareamazingand she sings acapella to the to theriver and it comes down the riverand the martian goes wow what's that well that'smusic and the martians nothing but confused and he doesn't buy it he's having a problem with the music thing, because music is heard from the inside. Music is not intellectual. You have to develop an ear for it, and the word music is as useless as the word God is in describing what it's trying to describe. And for me, meditation, I have a pretty good ear, but it has sharpened my ear to hear the music that is God in my life. I just walked in and remembered a guy's name, and I got the best job I'd had in years. June talked about it. You can call them coincidences, but these things happen when we change the way we live that never happened before. One of the guys on the call said he heard an old-timer in South Carolina who said, God took advantage of me at a particularly low moment in my life. That guy heard music. So that's my experience with the 10th and 11th step. If nothing else, I just hope if you're not regularly practicing the 11 step, it's not extra credit. Thanks.