Ninth Step Amends – Big Book Workshop Jan – Part 2 of 6 – Scott L and Matt C

I could cry lay the pen down and cry till the tears stop on their own and when I was finished I was absolutely sure I was finishing. I was told to sign love dad And I wasn't finished and And I got free. Can you see it? I got absolutely free and And I was handed a plain white envelope and told to address the letter and I said that how in the world And he said, uh, where's that child? I say well in heaven with god. He said exactly and there's no resentment there nobody's mad just love they want you to get free now address the letter and i addressed the letter of an unborn child in heaven he said put extra postage on it that's a long way from nashville tennessee i loaded that baby down with stamps and uh mailed it and i got free and uh i started telling this in public about 12 years ago at a conference i just couldn't not do it. I've been doing it ever since, but prior to that time, the men that I sponsored up until that time had that information because when I heard their fifth steps, they heard mine, and a guy that I sponsor who did not have this experience called me one day, and he said, I have permission from a guythat I sponsored to call you. He is involved into abortions and needs to get free. And I don't have the experience. Would you come while he writes his letter? I said, you bet I'll come. And I've discovered that you can write them together. And we sat down and I coached him through like so many he wants to write and cry. I coach him through. When we got to the end and I handed him the plain white envelope and he said, no. He said, I think I'm going to burn this. Not in the sense of destroying it. But the book does not say we mail them a letter. It says we sent them a better. And I think I can send it and smoke better than any other way. You bet, you bet. And we went over by the rose bushes and he held a kitchen match to this thing until it was ashes and he crumbled up and put it on the roses and he got free. I not only have his permission to tell you he begged me that whenever I get the chance to share this, to share that part because you see he got freed too. And part of his freedom is the need to pass that on. And maybe it's for you, maybe it is not an unborn child, maybe it's a grandparent or a parent or a sibling, somebody that's gone. Don't doubt the power. Do not doubt the power and I got free. I got absolutely free and I'll be happy to hold you while you cry and I'd be glad to talk about it. I see some people and I'm having your eyes and we need to talk. Believe me there is a phenomenal amount of freedom available here it is an amazing process so many of us on the abortion thing it runs between five and ten percent and I know that from my experience of doing this but for people who have a grandparent or somebody gone hey it goes way up over half so many of us have the need to do this please allow me to share my experience with you they're down here if we run out I'll get some more printed I feel like I need to put a little break in there just for a second because it's so heavy. I'm going to go back to a different perspective now for a few minutes, and this is the perspective of how I take a new guy through the amends process. He's got his eight-step list. Oh, by the way, I know a lot of people say, you know, you need to burn your fourth step, and I think that's a great idea, but make a copy first because you're going to need it when we get to step eight. All right? because that's where a lot of this comes from. And so now we have his eight-step list, and I review the list with him one at a time. I don't say go make amends. That's abuse. He has no idea how to do that. Sit down here, and let's go down your list. First name on the list, Fred. All right, what did you do that harmed Fred? And if you can't answer that question, then check him off because this is about repairing the damage you've done. If you haven't hurt him, you don't owe him an amend, I don' t think. and so how did you hurt him let's talk about it okay and you owe him a hundred dollars great so this is what that amend would look like so you would go to fred and say i harmed you and and i i stole a hundred from you and here's the hundred if you don't have the hundred then here's 10 and if you're sure you can pay him ten dollars a month promise him five and then pay 10 we're going to under promise and over deliver i restrict the men that i sponsor from using the word sorry, they don't believe us anymore. You can tell him I harmed you. You can tell them I was wrong. I think both of those or either or both of those together are a wonderful way. I also believe if you take the fifth breath while you're making amends, you've already said too much. It's not a lecture course and don't mess up your amend with an excuse. As soon as I gave him an excuse for what I did, it took away all of the power. And if I talk long enough, I'm going to give me an excuse. So I got to be real careful with it. I was wrong. I believe I hurt you. I'd like to repair the damage. Can you tell me how? Now we're not asking you to turn your well-in-life over to the care of this person that may roundly hate you. If you had gone to Big Ken Sweeney the day before he got sober and tried to make amends to him, he would have bashed you for the rest of your life. He was the one that hated everybody, wished there was more of them. I used to sponsor him. I got permission on this. So he's not final authority on the amend. If I sponsor you, I am. Or actually you and I are prayerfully together final authority. You don't have to turn your will in life over to him. We need to hear what they think it is. If it makes sense to you, go for it. I think it's a grand idea. One of the things that's difficult, so the guy's looking at 160 names on an amends list and something inside him is saying i can't make 160 amends i agree with that you can make one today we're only 159 days away from finish to this one day at a time applied to amends don't say go out and make amends I say which one are you going to make first so we may not cover them all in a sit-down session we might cover 30 or 40 of them so he knows exactly what he's going to do and then let's talk about okay now which one do you want to do first sometimes I put them on hold I think the immediate past mother-in-law, that may need a little time. Let's give that a little bit of time, maybe so. And I trust my God on that, and I hope you trust yours because I think God bless his sponsorship. But he says, okay, I'm going to do Fred first. Okay, that's a good choice. When can you call Fred to schedule an appointment? Why can't you call him right now? Good. Call him now. Make the appointment as soon as possible. Okay, appointment's tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock? Good. I'll be looking for your call at 2.15. I want to know how it went. 2. 15. Yeah, he made the amend? Good. Oh, he didn't even remember who you were? Well, that happens. The great and powerful Oz. And which one do you want to make next? Oh, yeah, I think that's a good choice. When can you call him to schedule an appointment? Why can't you call them now? Good. I want it in the next 24 hours. I'll be looking for your call at 215 tomorrow afternoon. One day at a time, apply to make an amends. Works good. The other piece I like to do at this point is if he's not sponsoring by now, I start him sponsoring. And if he can't find someone to sponsor, I'll find somebody for him. That's easy. That's easily. Let me share something with you. I quit and I've asked the men I sponsored to quit giving their phone numbers to new men. It's a waste of time. Nothing happens. They don't call. You feel better but nothing really happens. We exchange phone numbers with new men and I take the responsibility and I ask the menI sponsor to take responsibility for calling the new guy twice in the next three days. We're not going to chase him. This thing about the hand of AA always to be there. what would happen if we could reach it out just a little bit further? They're dying, you know. Those are our people and they're dying. His responsibility as far as I'm concerned is over when he gets his first foot through the door at my home group. At that point, it becomes my responsibility. And I take it very seriously. So I give him a couple of phone calls. Hey, I met you at the back room yesterday. We exchanged phone numbers. I talked to four or five guys every day in recovery. You're on today's list. How are you doing? I'm going to the Nolensville Road men's meeting tonight, 8 o'clock. meet me there. We'll have a cup of coffee. I got a speaker CD you might enjoy. How are you doing? He can't call me, and it's nothing for me to call him. Let's reach out to him. And by the way, do you have a sponsor? Oh, interestingly enough, I have a guy that I sponsor. I think I'd make a good temporary sponsor for you, and walk you over to my guy and say, well, how would you like to be his temporary sponsor i'll tell you what he betters and um yeah yeah boy i have an opinion and um and i explained to him a temporary sponsor just kind of show you the ropes and kind of get you started so i know people don't like that i think this newcomer needs a commitment i don't think so i think it needs a sponsor and he made a commitment when he came through the door that was huge let's make the rest of it easy and uh i've got a friend who's been another guy's temporary sponsor for 23 years. They're both sober. Yeah, but I'm a one-trick pony. I'll be your temporary sponsor. Here's your first assignment. This is how we're going to do this thing. Let's get them started. So I've got my guy in step nine. Now he's got a couple of rookies to sponsor. I will capture a couple for him if he can't. And what happens is as they move through the steps he doesn't want them to get to step nine before he finishes step nine uh i sponsor a guy in kiev olig who several of you know and i was just talking to him and one of the guys he sponsors has got a rookie it's almost up to step 9 and he's not through 9 and this guy's got his after burner lit getting those amends done he's ricocheting all over town getting this done it works good um there's uh there's an interesting one if somebody has another idea less i'd really love to hear it at a break is is for a guy to approach a lady and this this is the best i can do on this all right i'm not playing is to approacha lady whose charm she's availed himself of lightly and make amends without making her feel cheap and this isthe best ican do with this one i wasn't as good a friend to you as i could have been i think i've done some damage i'd like to repair it can you tell me how that's enough somebody has another idea on that i'd really love to hear it at a break um it's amazing how many amends turn into 12-step calls there's also there's something that's that's great fun on amends and boy i tell you if you haven't sponsored if you hasn't done this it's when there's no way he can make the amend and it doesn't have to be a big thing but there's just no way it's not going to be possible to find this person and there's very little chance that they're dead you know they're just so how are you going to do that and the answer is prayerfully with your sponsor sit down the two of you and carry that into a prayer slash meditation and see what you get and i have permission to share this one with you and i've got a bunch of them but this is this one just happened not too long ago uh this guy that a sponsor is in his mid-50s and when he was in grade school something was going on in the playground and he grabbed a kid's hat nobody saw it and he threw it up in a tree and it landed like in a three where it couldn't be seen and no one knew where that thing was no one new he'd done it and this kid was not wealthy and did without a hat that winter and this at 55 years old this is crushing this man so and he has no idea what the kids name was much less any way to find him and he and I sat down and prayerfully approached that and a couple of days later we got a couple of professional sports teams in Nashville and a few people a couple days later he went down to one of those sports team's offices and he bought enough stocking caps for every kid in the orphanage and he got free he got absolutely free don't have the power and I've got guys that I sponsor calling me saying here's this impossible amend what should we do and I got an idea what they should do but i say no no the two of you sit down and prayerfully approach god with it and see what you get and if you don't come up with something that sounds like it'll work to you call me we'll talk but but let's let you bless let you guys take that blessing together if you can phenomenal experiences this one uh this one's a gift from miss linda my beloved and um i'll tell this as she tells it She had been in Al-Anon for a long time. She'd been through those steps. She was coming through them again. She gets to nine. Her amends are complete, and yet she cannot get it out of her head. And so she prays about it, and she's given a gift. And I share her gift with you, with permission. And her gift is something that she calls good amends, that she realized that she'd done a lot of harm, and she went back to repair that damage. And people like me think about our sins of commission, the things that we did that harmed other people. What I don't notice is the things that I omitted that harmed other people. And it's the word thank you. And she went back and thanked her high school teacher that got her off the back row, got her active in school affairs and probably saved a teenage suicide. She went back and thanked someone who helped her when she was on a run. And I thanked my mom for being the best mom she could be. And I thank my major professor in college and went back and thanked the man that taught me to fly and set up my Air Force career. I'm a distinguished graduate from Air Force pilot training because of what he did with me in my first 30 hours. And I went back and made good amends. Boy, if you haven't done this one, if you have not done this, if you've ever thought about who do I owe profuse thanks to? Boy, if you hadn't done that one, do yourself a big favor. And I was told this. You say you want to strengthen your faith Well, if I want to strengthen a muscle, I know what I'm supposed to do. I'm exposed to it. I'm not supposed to use it. I say I want to strengthen my faith, welcome to step nine. Here's a chance to use it. I think I'm going to quit there, Bob. Thanks, Scott. And Bob is still an alcoholic. My experience, I just wanted to reiterate one of the points Scott made about the letter that really works. My first experience with writing a letter to a person that had passed away was to my grandfather. It's probably almost 26 years ago, and I burnt it. And all the ghosts of regret that haunted my consciousness about my grandfather were put to rest. And my whole experience inside myself with my grandfather's memory shifted and changed, and it became sweet. whereas before every time my grandfather would come up or I would think about him I'd feel uncomfortable we are not we don't do this stuff to merit any kind of grace or anything like that because God doesn't punish us for our sins we're not punished for them we're punished by them and this is where we get to circumvent our own karma a great 9th step movie is the movie Flatliners if you've ever seen the movie FlatlinERS it captures the essence of why we make amends to put to rest the ghosts out of our past that are haunting us, that are punishing us because we are punished by our sins not for them and when you put those ghosts to rest you get free and you're not haunted by them anymore I had a couple amends that I want to talk about one of them that was very difficult for me was to my mother and father I didn't come from a bad home matter of fact, I came from a wonderful childhood my parents loved me they would have done anything for me they were so excited that i was their son and i just when i started to get sick with alcoholism i just i broke their hearts and i broke Their hearts and I broke their Hearts to the point where they had they were forced for their own survival to physically cut me out of their life but they could never cut me Out of their heart and so my mother saw a therapist and took medication and my father slept 15 16 hours a day because i did that to them and they would not take my phone calls they would i was not welcome in their house and they did that just to survive it hurt too much to try to love me and i i god i i'd stolen from my thought from my parents so much and so often that my dad eventually became friends with the guy who owned the pawn shop in the town he lived in from buying back his own stuff. And then when they became friends, the guy cut me off and wouldn't take my stuff anymore. So when I get sober, I am haunted by all this remorse and things for what i've done and i i can't blame them anymore i tried that and i knew it was me and people in alcoholics and i just want me to start making amends to my parents and i you know the people in aa they're well-intentioned but they don't see the big picture as clearly as i see it and i see is this it's it's too late you know a couple years ago maybe I could have that was would have been repairable but it's too late and I am here to tell you how delighted I am that the people in AA have never really paid a lot of attention to my opinion about any of this stuff they just wanted me to take certain actions regardless of what I thought and uh and the first thing they told me to do with my parents they said we want you to start calling your mother every week and don't call collect I remember the first time I did it I just I like it was yesterday I called she answers the phone I said mom it's Rob what do you want where are you well you're not in Pennsylvania all right no mom I'm in Nevada you're in Nevada but the operator didn't get on asked me to pay for the call I said no no mom I paid for the car her voice just jumped an octave she went you paid for a car she couldn't believe it I mean I could always call collect I mean it was like I had some kind of weird sick self-centered sense of entitlement, you know, to my parents. Because I'm a user, right? I'm a taker. And I started paying for the call. But I tell you, my mom is not happy to hear from me. She's got that what do you want kind of thing going on, you know? But that's what happens. You break somebody's heart over and over and over again, you know? That's what you get. And they told me just keep doing it. They told me to start sending her little notes and cards and never miss a Mother's Day or a birthday or an anniversary or father's day and i started doing christmas and you know my my first year of sobriety and my first couple years of sobrietty i'm working a little little meager jobs for minimum wage and i'd always get them something you know for all these holidays and send it to them and when i was about a year sober after doing this calling every week paying for the call and sending him the cards and letters and notes and little gifts. But they decide to come out to Nevada and eyeball me. They're not, here's the thing, this is how they come out. They come out with this attitude, you know, he's probably still a bum. But we've never been to Las Vegas. So it won't be a complete loss. So they flew out skeptical, you knows, thinking. I knew in the back of their mind they were thinking, I'm probably still, I'm conning them. They're thinking that. They came out to see and I met him at the airport. I ended up taking him out to dinner with my sponsor and his wife and I took him to my home group and I, oh my, I didn't, that was my sponsor's idea. It would have never occurred to me to do that and what a brilliant idea it was because they got to see me with you and I'm never better than when I'm with you. They saw me with the old-timers who used to, in my first home group, the old timers were just always needling the newer people, just picking on them, making fun of them, laughing at their expense and growling just continually. And then they saw me mit the guys I ran around with and how we took meetings into a care unit at the time and into a halfway house together and we ran in a pack. And then the saw us with the newer ppl we're trying to help and how we'd needle them and pick on them because AA functions on the first rule of plumbing, crap runs downhill. And they saw the camaraderie and they saw this sincerity and they said, they saw it couldn't have been better. They loved AA. I don't think they understood AA, but they loved it. I remember watching my mother. I took them to a meeting every night. I was not going to take them one night and they got upset. Well, we want to go. okay took them every night to a meeting and they didn't understand i watch i remember watching watching my mom tear up one time at a meeting some somebody's talking about getting their kids back and she's she's going oh this is great they loved aa i don't know they got it but they loved it when they're getting they're ready to leave to go back to nevada and i had a list of things i put actually put it off till the end of their trip there um and it was it was money i owed them and i owed him as most i was sort of towards my father because he was sort of bankroll with a family and i um it was a lot of money and i it's money for the times where i had tickets and fines and stuff i had to pay and i might go to jail and my dad have to loan me the money to pay it and times when my car would break down i couldn't get to work unless he loaned me the money for a transmission and i the times when uh i was in danger of being on the streets and he'd give me enough money for first and last month's rent because i got thrown out of another place i had to get to another one and then this builds up and it's a lot of stuff like that and i i sat down and i figured out to the best of my ability i tried to figure out what it was and i I put it on paper and I had a plan it was it was a and I figured the most I could probably afford to make in payments and it was 12 and a half years of payments that I was going to have to make to my father to make this right 12 and half years is a big deal to me being a year sober it seemed like an eternity but they kept telling me you just do it they used to say the old times to say things and laugh like oh after a couple years of making those payments you won't even think about it anymore I thought if you're a couple you know they get a kick out of that stuff you know there's all the guys today they just get a kick at it stuff and so I sat down with my with my mom and dad in the coffee shop or the Stardust Hotel where they were staying and I told him what I i wanted to do and my my father uh kind of grabbed remember he grabbed my mom's hand or and he said he said rob we don't want you to pay the money he said we we don'T understand all about this a thing but this is we want you TO KEEP GOING it'S THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS THAT WE HAD ANY HOPE THAT YOU MIGHT BE OKAY AND WE LIKE THIS THING THAT'S HAPPENING TO YOU AND JUST KEEP DOING IT and forget about the money well man i just got out of 12 and a half years of payments this is i just hit the recovery lottery you know what i'm saying man i i mean i am i thought oh i'm getting the gift now man this is great i was on my way to my sponsor's office i'm thinking oh man i can't wait to tell him the good news i'm Thinking about other people I owe money to wonder if I get them to see the light like my parents saw the light and I I get over my sponsors office and I go in and tell them the good news I went to make amends to my father he says I don't have to pay him and my sponsor says it doesn't matter what your dad said that's your debt you have to make that right now there are times when you realize you got the wrong sponsor and I thought but he said I don't have to and my my sponsor said you borrowed that money you gave that word that you'd pay him back someday this is your integrity this is your recovery you have to find a way to make it right I said well for god's sakes I don' t know how to do I can't send him a little check every month he's not going to cash it I don''t know He says, he used to say this all the time. He used to bug me. He used said, I don't know, but a way will be shown. He used say it all the times, a way we'll be shown, all right, and he says, you just have to be ready when the way is shown, okay, I'm ready, yeah, yeah ready, well, I am working as a cashier in a store, right? Now this is late 1970s, my dad had a hobby and his hobby was he collected silver coins and silver certificates and gold certificates and wheat pennies and war nickels. He was obsessed with that stuff. He'd sit for hours at the kitchen table with the books and the bags and putting the coins in the different things and all that stuff, he had a log of all the coins, he had all that shit. And he loved it. And I'm running a cash register every day and every single day there's silver coins and silver certificate and still gold certificates and war nickles and wheat penny, all that stuff's coming through register and i thought maybe if i could talk to my boss i could buy some of this stuff maybe i could just just accumulate some of it be a nice gift for my father never never thinking i'm gonna make the amends with this stuff it's unreasonable i went talked to my bus and he said he says i don't care i don'T save that stuff go ahead and i started accumulating this stuff and there were there were a couple times when And when these $100 gold certificates would come through, there were still some of those in circulation. It'd take me about a month. He'd put them in his safe for me and he'd hold them and I'd eventually buy them from him and Iíd stick them aside and I started saving this stuff to give to my dad. And weird stuff started happening. I'm doing this and I also have a couple other little things I'm chipping away with. And I started getting lucky. I started being lucky. I started financially really lucky. I started getting promotions. I ended up with a better job, and I ended up with bonuses. There was a guy in AA who had a moving truck and a little moving business. He'd give me $100 cash just for a couple hours' work moving furniture. And in about four years, give or take, I accumulated at face value the total 12 and a half year debt in rare coins and bills. I had bags of quarters and half dollars and dimes and nickels, stacks of silver certificates and I was able to give that stuff to my father and I gave it to him knowing he'll take this. He'd have much chances of, like a crack addict giving back an eight ball trying to, he ain't going to do it. Hang on to it. And how divinely ordered that was perfect. It was perfect, it was perfect God's plan is always perfect and my dad died that next year and I was able to fly back to Pennsylvania and I were able to bury my father and it was a bittersweet thing It was bitter because, God, it was so good between us. And I just had a, I didn't have enough of it. I wanted more of it, but it was sweet because I had it and I had it. And my father died and there was no ghost. He died knowing that I loved him and knowing that I knew he loved me. When I, prior to me giving him that money, There was no doubt in my mind that my dad had forgiven me. There was not doubt in mine mind that father loved me. But when I gave him that money, something changed for the first time probably in my life. He started to respect me. See he never, he loved me but he didn't respect me, I was Bob, you know Bob, you got to make allowances for Bob, I'm was Bob. my dad loved me but he didn't respect me and he started to respect me i became a man in my father's eyes because i got even i was finally a stand-up guy and somewhere see i am my father and my father is me and somewhere in my own eyes i became i became a man also see i i finally started to make some stuff right and i'll tell you about one one or two more little things one of the hard things yeah one of the hardest amends the hardest one of the most difficult amends i've ever had to make is for something i did sober you know when you make amends for stuff when you did when you're drunk you kind of hang that on the hook of well i was messed up for god's sakes you get a little bit of slack there, right? But what do you do for stuff that you did that you just can't stand yourself for as a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous? When I was about a year sober, I'm working in this store as a cashier and I'm struggling paycheck to paycheck. I'm not doing very well. And I had a tremendous nicotine addiction back then. I was smoking better than three packs a day. I mean, I used to light a cigarette off a cigarette. One of the things that AA, after eventually working the steps and doing some of this stuff, AA kind of turned me in from a type A to a type B. And it just sort of changed my whole demeanor. I'm not that nervous guy. I was a nervous guy, one cigarette right after another. And I ran out of cigarettes one day, and it was a Thursday afternoon, and I don't have any money. I broke till the next day I get paid Friday and I thought to myself that's usually the way I do it. I thought, well we sell cigarettes here I'll take a pack I'll smoke it tomorrow when I get my paycheck we always cash it out of the register I'll ring it up no big deal seemed like a reasonable proposition I took the pack cigarette smoked them next day I go into work I get paycheck I ring it I cash it and the thought goes through my mind you know you know you need to ring up those cigarettes you know I work harder than everybody else here I come in early I stay late I don't get paid for that I mean it's only a pack of cigarettes for god's sakes everybody does this thing I bet you it's factored into the cost of operation never rang those cigarettes up and some i opened a door that i could not close and i started stealing all my cigarettes out of that store and i'm talking about three packs a day and when i had two days off i'd steal enough to take home with me for the two days and then no time at all i'm taking a six pack of diet coke because what the hell? Why don't you open that door, right? And I'm starting to get sicker and sicker and sickier. The book refers to this thing called the realm of the spirit. In the realm of the Spirit, things are funny because you do something over here, and you don't get sick initially over here. You get sick over there, and then eventually over here and you don't get it right away. And what started happening to me as a result of all this stealing is I'm starting to go to meetings and everybody that's sharing in meetings seems phony to me. You know what I mean? Nobody's genuine anymore in AA. I'm dating a gal, I started to pick her apart and then eventually came back to the job. Next thing I know, I'm about ready to quit this job and I'm picking the boss apart. I mean, he was a good guy But you know how we are. You get that headset going on, you could tear Mother Teresa apart. And I'm tearing him down in my mind, and I'm getting weirder and weirter. And I've been leaving AA. Now, I haven't stopped going to meetings, but I'm leaving AA even though I'm still physically in the rooms. And one night, I get down on my knees like I've be trained to do to thank God for that day of sobriety. I've done that since I've bee sober. On my knees, I just yelled out. I just said, God, what the hell is going on here? The minute, the moment I asked the question, I knew the answer. Right in here. I knew that the reason I'm so sick and I'm on some kind of weird road that drinking is at the end of it and I can't get off this road is because I'm stealing from my boss and trying to pretend I'm some kind of honest... I'm living the double life that it talks about in chapter 6. Right? and i can't stand myself i feel phony i am a liar a cheat and a thief and i'm sober and i cant sweep it under the bed no more its right there and i start doing the math and oh my god its been going on for a long time its a lot of money i dont have the money I'm going to have to go to my boss and tell him what's going on. I know he's going to fire me. He has zero tolerance for employee theft, and that's the way retail is. I watched him throw a guy out one time, caught stealing. I'm gonna have no job, another blank spot in my resume. I already got a bunch of those where I can't explain what I was doing. You know what I mean, right? I'm not gonna have to do that. I'm just gonna have a job somewhere and then make payments to him. Wouldn't have been so bad if I had the money. I could have given him the money, maybe got a little pat on the back and added, well, he came to your senses, good for you. I don't even have the money I'm going to have to make payments. And the worst thing of all is the guy I've got to go face has heard me prattle on on occasion about my rigorous program of honesty in alcoholics. I'll tell you what, I've never done that since. And I'll tell you something else I don'T loan money to people who tell me how honest they are either or even trust them. And I was humiliated. I went to him, and I told him, and he did not react well. He started yelling at me and telling me what I was, and he's right. He's right, but he didn't fire me. Blew my mind. He didn't fight. He dumped all the... Man, he was mad. He didn' t fire me, and I said, I'm going to pay you back every cent, And what I did is I figured it out to the best of my ability, the amount, then I added on another 10%, and then I add it on another $50. And I'll tell you why. I know me. If I'm going to misjudge the amount I'm telling you, it ain't going to be in his favor. You know what I'm saying? Right? You ever cut a pound of pot for you and somebody else? Who gets the big side? I mean, you know, right? Right, right. You know how that is. Right? So I knew, and I want to be clean to this so desperately i'm willing to add on 10 another 50 because i'd rather overdo it and be free of it i don't want to mess with this thing and i started making the payments and i'll tell you some weird cause and effect this blows my mind to this day how god works and how is the spirit is free how we become magnets for everything all the all the everything within 30 days of making the last payment i am I am so delighted to be working there. You know what it says in the book, we'll be amazed before we're halfway through? But not even halfway, just as a result of making a couple payments, I started liking working there again. Everything's good and A.A. All the hypocrites had left and all the good people showed up again in the meetings. It was really, you know what I mean? Right, it was just cool. It was cool. And I'm doing very well. Well, with it 30 days after I finished the last amends, I'm like working there, a guy comes to me out of nowhere. I was not looking for another job, very happy where I am, offered me a job for quite a bit more money and a chance for management and a change for quite significant amount of money to manage. Maybe I would eventually be able to manage this other company, other retail outlet store and I put my notice in, I went to work for this other guy, never stole a nickel from him, never took home a ballpoint pen. I gave him 10 cents for his nickel every day. I was practicing the principle that I got from Chuck Chamberlain by this time that I go to work to help God's kids, period. Forget yourself. You're there to help. You're here to be of service, period, bottom line. That's it. And in no time at all, I was running that joint. I started getting more and more money, raises. I'm knocking amends out left and right. I'm like moving through this thing at a speed that I could have never imagined. Well, a few years go by and I'm in a Denny's restaurant and I run into the guy who I'd worked for, stole from, and made amends to. And he's there with his wife and I said, how you doing? He said, well, I'm a little down. I said well what's going on? He said well you might have heard I was selling my store. And I said yeah, I'd heard something about that. He said, yeah, I was selling it to this guy for Korea because we have slot machines and we sell tobacco and liquor and all that kind of stuff. The guy could not pass the gaming control board licensing investigation because he was from Korea. He said the sale, they wouldn't approve him. I got the store back in my lap. He says, I'm a little disappointed. I thought I was going to be able to retire. And I had an out-of-body experience. I stood there and heard myself say the words, oh, I would really like to buy your store. The minute I said it, I thought, what did you say? And I started backpedaling. I said, oh I'm just kidding, I don't have any money. And I'm thinking to myself, whoa, that was a stupid thing to say. And he says to me, he says, what's your day off? And I told him, he said, meet me down here, we'll have lunch. And I walked in, I remember it like it was yesterday. He's sitting in this booth, he's got these papers there. I sit down. He says, I want to make you a proposition. He says if you'll give your notice and you'll come back and you run my business. He said it's not doing very good. The guy from Korea ran it in the ground. If you can get it back to its profitable, out of the profits you will earn a piece of the business every year. If you keep it up to a certain level of profitability, after five years at yours you'll start to make some payments, but I'm out of here. I'll get to retire. It'll be your business. now i'm a guy with no real good education i'm a guy whose resume includes washing dishes running a cash register selling blood and some things that i can't put on there because they're not legal uh i don't have a lot of i i don'T HAVE A LOT GOING FOR ME I JUMPED ON THAT MAN LIKE A LIKE A DUCK on a june bug man i said you bet i'd love to do that and i went to work for him and ran that business and practiced these principles and started building that business back up and i think at one point we were doing about almost 10 million dollars a year and i started buying the commercial buildings and i eventually owned them all and bought him out ended up with five stores um i sold that company quite a few years ago and tried to retire and financially i could have retired easily i'm pretty much set i don't have to worry about money ever again but i said gave me the freedom i realized there were some things in my heart i'd like to do with music and and writing and tv and stuff and it's given me the freedom to do that and to do pretty much whatever i want to do and it all came from an amends one of the hardest things i've ever had to face and i didn't know that i if you would have told me that I was going to get this life, this was going to happen to me as a result of the amends, I wouldn't have believed you. But that, and I tell you, I can't tell you how many sponsees I got that have had, that have come up against stuff like that and their fear is driving them away from taking the action and somehow through God's grace they walk through it, they take the action and man, the harder the amens, the greater the gift. And I don't know, you can't, you can not you can' t know what the gift is going to be. It may not be that you'll own a business. It may just be that it'll light you up and you'll feel better about yourself than you've ever felt. Maybe it'll change your relationship with people somehow. We don't know what it's going to do, except that we know that it's holding you down. It's like ballast in a helium balloon. When you make the amends, you get rid of the ballast and you soar. We don'T know how you're going to soar, we DON'T know where you're gonna soar to, We just know that you're going to soar. Let me do a little piece and we'll take a break. Page 59, especially for those of you who are new and haven't gotten to this step, I'd like to make an observation. Up in the upper right-hand corner of this page, there's the numbers 5 and 9. Please notice that there are other numbers on the page. They're there for a reason. and as good as this nine step stuff sounds you might notice that there are eight steps in front of them I hope you notice that because my personal experience is that making amends before I'm ready and before I have a sponsor directing me, I will wind up having to make amends for the way I tried to make amends and there's an interest between making amens and making a mess and that's a harder amends. And that's a much harder amends and that you just heard was the voice of experience and please my highest recommendation is I need a sponsor to prayerfully coach me through making these amends, I think it's just critically important to do it that way let's go ahead and take a I'll give you a little bonus, take a two hour and one minute break, we're going to start at 720 and we got two really fun sessions for this evening see you then all right my name is Bob Darrell I'm an alcoholic hi Bob top of page 83 makes a statement it says yes there is a long period of reconstruction ahead there's i i'm not sure how to put this in words but i i am convinced that there's something in the human heart the human spirit that's that seeks equilibrium it seeks a balance and it seeks to make things right again almost as if water seeks the ocean and consequently if you have an open heart uh things that seem like you can't make amends a way is is provided in time and when it says a long period sometimes it takes years before it comes up and you're you're shown away i want to tell you a couple little instances about this you didn't do that description of karma that you used to do about what it means oh yeah car this i talk i mentioned this but i didn't give the definition you know karma i always thought that here's what i thought karma was when you hear karma referred to as what goes around comes around that kind of thing it was all i i thought for a long time it was as if it was the universe's way of slapping you for being out of line. Like it was some sort of retribution. And the actual translation of the word karma from the Hindi into the English would be translated as the word doing. In other words, it's your doing. If you hurt a lot of people and your life is crap, it is not the universe doing that to you. it's you're doing that to you right it's the thing inside you that seeks to make it right and and to make things even and i i think that i am compelled to get even one way or the other and if i don't get even with you i'll get even WITH ME but i'm going to get EVEN right there's a there's that need in my heart for to make THINGS RIGHT to and And a couple years, several years before I got sober, a couple of years before I was pretty down and out. And I was sleeping on a guy's couch. It's funny, I had from the time my parents no longer allowed me in their house, I had no place to stay. But I would stay in halfway houses, guys' sofas, a couple times in back seats of cars, a couple time in abandoned buildings, couple times in the park. I never ever considered myself as a homeless person even when I was living outdoors. I wasn't a homeless guy. I was an urban outdoorsman in the Jack Kerouac spirit but I wasn't homeless guy right. Anyway I'm sleeping on this guy's couch and I'm at a stage of my alcoholism that's pretty bleak. I come to every morning and I am sick and I shake and I want to jump out of my skin and i hustle together as much change as i can to go get some medicine and at that point my drinking i drank i was an economy drinker it was just the most amount of alcohol for the least amount of money uh a lot of times when you did the math it would be richard's wild irish rose sometimes it would b thunderbird occasionally if on you might get a deal on cheap vodka but a lot of times it was cheap wine and when i say wine i use the word loosely if you look at the ingredients it says like there's not doesn't mention there's not grapes in here at all this is like neutral grain spirits and flavorings i mean that's you know but it was 20 by alcohol and i that's what i drank well i come to this one morning and i'm sick and i really need a drink and i i put together a change and i got enough change for a half gallon of wine which is potentially a good day and i go out to the state store to get my half gallon wine i think a half gown it was like under two dollars in those days but like dollar 98 something and i got the half gallon o'wine and i'm leaving uh the state store to go down the alley and get my first drink and i want run into this woman who knows my mother and father and i don't want to run and she starts she starts wants to talk to me right she says to me she says how's your dad well i don' t know i haven' t seen my father in a while i haven't talked to him because they don't they they've cut me they went like this and i said i don't i don''t know and she says well i hear i heard he was in the hospital and he's dying oh man i didn't even know and i i got away from her as quick as i could i got down a place some place where i could take a big about this much pull off of that jug of wine to stop this and kind of calm myself down a little bit i had enough change left to go to a phone booth and i went to the phone booth i called my mom and she god she almost hung what do you want you know that kind thing and you break somebody's heart that's what you get you know and i said i i heard dad sick and he's not doing very well and she pauses and she said yeah he's in the he's an intensive care we don't know if he's going to make it and i want you to know that i i loved my father and i had hurt him a lot and i Had a whole bunch and even in my drunkenness i got a whole bunch of unfinished business with my dad and I got to talk to my dad the idea of him dying with me not even getting a chance to say I'm sorry anything is just eating me alive and I said to her I said I gotta go see him and she said you can't see him I said mom I have to go see he said listen it'll hurt him I know how you are it'll heard him to see you like you are And I swore to her, I promised her I said, I promise you If you tell me which hospital he's in I will go over there and I will be sober And I will not drink anything And she said, she got real defense She got really uptight She says, you can't Listen, you cannot fool around with this You think You'll get high and go in there And think you'll fool him He knows when you're high And he did too He could tell on the other end of the phone When I was high When I wasn't even really that high I mean just a little high he could tell on the other end of the phone like that i was you know what i mean it was weird like that and i you know i yeah i know all right i promised her i gave my word i promised i said i promise you tomorrow i'll go over there she told me where he wasn't well i go finish that wine up and i ended up going out running with some guys and getting some more stuff that night and i come to on this guy's sofa the next morning and i'm sitting there and i're coming apart at the seams i'm shaking and i'm rocking back and forth grabbing myself like this and i got to go see my dad and i'M TERRORIZED TO THE IDEA OF THE WAY I FEEL AND I LOOK BAD I'M DIRTY I MEAN I CAN GET CLEANED UP A LITTLE BIT BUT I'M DRY AND I DON'T EAT BECAUSE I I ONLY CAN HUSTLE SO MUCH MONEY AND I AIN'T Eaten UP MY DRINKING MONEY I AINT GONNA DO IT SO I I DONT EAT SO I GOT SOME sores and stuff that won't heal right you know and the idea of going over to that shiny hospital with all those shiny clean people and walking down those halls they're going to be looking at me and it's making me nuts and I'm shaking and I used to hate it when people would see the tremors. I used just humiliate me and I start having a conversation with myself and I got to tell you something an alcoholic having a conversation with himself's in trouble and it goes something like this you know they can't smell vodka on your breath i'm gonna get i need a half of a half a pint of vodka just enough just to quell this shake it a little bit so i can go see my dad and i start rummaging around pockets in the sofa and all that stuff and i got enough changed together for a fifth of vodka well i don't need a whole fifth but i'm going to need a half of a half a pint and i can use the rest of the fifth after i come back from the hospital so i go out and i get a fifth vodka and i'm gonna have a half just this much the problem is i don'T HAVE A CLUE HOW STRONG THIS PHENOMENON OF CRAVING IS AND I TAKE A DRINK AND I GOTTA HAVE ANOTHER ONE ANOTHER NEXT THING I KNOW I'm halfway through that bottle of vodka And I'm too rummy now to go see my dad And I know it And I am sitting there and I am crying Cursing myself And I say to myself Tomorrow I am going to come I am not going to drink The problem is Tomorrow came and it was the same thing And the next day it was same thing And I never got to go See my father in that hospital well because god is is very merciful my dad didn't die until after i was sober about five little over five years five and a half years and i got to make a lot of amends to him but i never really addressed the fact that i never went over and saw him in the hospital when i was 17 years sober my mom was diagnosed as being terminally ill. I got to tell you, in my experience, and this is across the board throughout my life, in the realm of the spirit is a realm of do-overs. You screwed some stuff up over here. Trust me, the opportunity to be in a like situation later and make it right is going to come up. And I got TO go over and I got To take care of my mother and her apartment while she died of cancer and i got to go over there and sit with her and and feed her and change her diapers and i all when she went all the way down to uh 50 she was about 50 pounds when she died i could i could lift her up like this and it was a sad thing and i in some way as i remember moments thinking that I'm doing this because I never got to go see my dad. One of the stories that has hit me very much about amends and how this long period of reconstruction, there was a girl in my first home group named Chelsea. And I watched Chelsea get sober. And Chelsea, when she got sober, she had these two little mulatta babies. She was a white gal, but she had fallen in love and married a black guy who was a pretty good guy but he couldn't sign up for her alcoholism and cocaine addiction and he was a cop which made it worse on him. It was very difficult on him and he took as much as he could take and he couldnít take anymore and they got a divorce because of her insanity and she gets sober and sheís got these two little kids while sheís got this big resentment and the resentment is towards her father Her dad was a bigot. I mean really a bad case i mean almost like a klu klux klan kind of guy and when he when she fell in love with that black guy and and cook got married to him she he cussed her out called her names when those babies the cutest babies were born she wouldn't have he wouldn't having anything to do with them and he called them names and called her you know just abusive stuff now she gets sober and she's got a resentment towards her dad and this is the kind of resentment she can get about three-quarters Alcoholics Anonymous to agree with her what an idiot this guy is, right? Except she had a sponsor who believed in the principle that you disregard the other person involved entirely and you clean up your own side of the street, period. So her sponsor says it doesn't matter. Yeah, your dad's all of that. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But what kind of a daughter were you well she'd used her dad's abuse and and prejudice and sickness to justify being a really lousy daughter and her sponsor told her you have to start calling your father and you have to start sending him letters and notes and pictures of the kids never forget a father's day or christmas or his birthday etc etc and she started doing she'd call him up she'd get so infuriated she'd call him up and he'd cuss her out and hang up on her he never responded to any of her letters he i was part she used to come to the home group talk about it week month after month after year after year her sponsor just kept saying you just keep doing it you just keep acting like a good daughter in spite of her and she did that in spite him and she did that sending him notes and kindnesses and all that stuff and it was over four years i'm at the meeting one night and she comes in there and she's got a letter from her father and most of us in that room had been through this with her and she told me she she really likes the fact that i talk about this she asked me to talk about it and and she um she comes into the meeting and she starts reading this letter and in the letter her father starts he starts off by apologizing for being the way he was he's been and he tell he talks a little bit about some of his fears and some of his resentments and some things that had happened to him as a kid and he says in the letter, he says I'm really ashamed of my behavior and I know this is the part that got me. When he said this I started bawling. He said in the later, he said I know I don't have a right to have you and those kids in my life but if you would give me another chance I'll do everything I can to make it right to you and i'm and we're like we're like crying because we've been through this with her right and i am driving home that night and i i'm just i'm in this like weird place i'm like a like amazement because i realized the power here that not only did she get a benefit from making this amends but it changed him and i realized that there's a principle in the universe that you cannot continue to resent hate or fight someone who just keeps loving you you can't continue to fight someone whose consistently trying to be on your side you can do it eventually you just feel like the idiot that you are right you know what I'm saying and what it wore her persistent loving action and she took the action regardless she didn't always she most time didn't feel it she took the action anyway because her sponsor told her to do it, and it changed him. It wore away his resentment, his hate, his fear, and his prejudice like the wind will eventually wear down a mountain, and I remember I was so proud of her, and one of the reasons I was proud of her and kind of humbled by it is because I know how I am. I'm an event-oriented instant gratification guy i want to make the amends now i want the parade the balloons right and she did right action in the face of rejection and adversary year after year after years and it changed her and it changed him and it changes their whole family there was a guy before right before we started reminded me of a story of one of my dear dear friends who died a few years ago clint and clint Clint sponsored a guy named Tom and I've met Tom, and Tom's a good member of AA. And Clint was a stellar member of AAA. We did a lot, we exchanged fifth steps, we were very close. And Clint first told me the story and then I heard it from Tom also. When Tom got sober, Clint was his sponsor and Tom had been a burglar in the Pasadena area of california by night and he washed windows by day which is a good combination that's i think they i think that call that skill pairing i don't i don' know and so he would have washed the windows check everything out and come back at night i mean it was a great or a couple nights later and so we get sober and he's got i think it was 13 houses, 12 or 13 houses in the Pasadena area that he burglarized. And Clint's very, Clint used to have some great sayings. Clint used zu say there's a world of difference between making all your men's and all your man's but one you know you hear that when you don't have them all made you go that's right on the money. There is a big difference and Clint was big on direct amends. I used to Have a great saying people would say to him well can i can i make the amends by phone he said did you do the harm by phone right big on direct amends so he had encouraged tom to go over and knock on these doors of all the people he robbed right i just went with a guy uh three days ago who knocked on two i went with him i sat in the car while he went up knocked on a couple doors of people he robbed it was an amazing thing to be part of. But so he gets, Tom has to go there. So Tom, by this time, Tom's been working. Tom's got a little bit of money. He's got good job. He can actually make these things right. Not all at once, he's going to have to give him a good portion and then make some payments. But he's in a good position to make a strong, serious demonstration of a guy who's on the square here. And he went to all the doors. He'd go to the door. He knocked on the door. His little spiel, the spiel was, did you live here on such and such a date? Oh, you did. are you burglarized yes i'm i'm the guy who did it i'm here to make it right here is is a portion of what i figured it's worth it tell me if that's not i will make the difference up and i promise you i will give you the rest within a certain period of time and he went through uh all of the houses and he had one left and he gets to the last one nobody's answers and he comes back again nobody answers and you kind of put it on the back burner until till clint kind of got on his case about it may pushed him a little further and you got to go do this and all right all right he goes back again this time he knocks on the door and this little old man and little old woman answered answer the door. And he goes into his spiel did you live here at such and such a date yes were you burglarized yes and well I'm I'm the guy who did it and I'm here to make it right. And they their reaction was very unusual to him they they they kind of lit up a little bit they had with they looked very like they were startled they say well come come in come in and they brought him into the house. And as they're coming down the hallway, there was a picture, a mirror there. And he said, they asked him, why did you break the mirror? And he says, well, I thought maybe there'd be a safe behind the mirror. And they go into the living room and there'd been a picture on the one wall of the father and the man. And he's, why didn't you just tear down the picture of Papa here? And, well I thought it might be a save. Okay. And sitting down at table and he slides an envelope of money across the table, and then they slide it back. They say, we don't want the money. The insurance covered most of it. We're fine. And he said, listen, you don't understand. I have to make this right. And they said, you don't understand. You have. Up until this moment, we thought it was our son. And you never know. I'm telling you, you never know um in night uh about when i was 17 years sober i found a woman that i'd searched for when i was five four and five years sober and couldn't find and i don't know why i couldn't find her i went back to the same town i'm in the same time pick up the phone book and there she is and she dropped off the face of the earth found out later she'd married changed her last name moved to a different town got divorced came back went back her maiden name there she isn't the phone book i called her up made the amends she starts calling me once in a while we start this little kind of friendship and her and her husband um the guy she was with was uh were good friends with a guy i used to drink at his bar a guy named jimmy and jimny owned this bar and i used to drink in his bar almost every day because it was the only bar within crawling distance of the couch i was staying on i mean and some of you'll get that i mean you and i i don't have a car so i gotta walk to so it's it's my bar right well jimmy used to throw me out there on a regular basis and not for anything big i'm even though i fancied myself a gangster the police explained to me i was a public nuisance and it was i'd get thrown out for little stuff like you'd go to the bathroom and i drink your drink and take your change and then change seats right i mean i And he'd catch me. He'd catch me because I'd get sloppy at it because I would be really drunk and that phenomenon of craving would be on me. I'd run out of money. And he would catch me and he would cuss me out and throw me under the bar. Don't you ever come back here again. The next day I'd be shaking and I need a drink. It's the only place I can go to. I'd be begging him please Jimmy, I promise. He says don't do that stuff I promise you Jimmy. But I go in there and I start drinking and i run out of money and i got that phenomenon craving on me and i see some change you know you know how it is right and he'd catch me again throw me out of there well i'm talking to anna on the phone and anna says oh yeah remember jimmy he just got a chit chat farms that's a big alcoholism treatment center in pennsylvania she's it's his second time through there i said really she said yeah does he has he ever been to aa and she said you know he mentioned it he didn't like it he said not his kind of people self-righteous do good not and I thought oh yeah boy he met some of the same people in AI met yeah I understand and I told him I told her I said tell him that I'm a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I've been sober 17 years at the time she said okay about a week later I early in the morning I get this phone call wakes me up I answer the phone he says is this Red Darrell he used to call me Red Darrel I said yeah who's this this is Jimmy from 724 park i said jimmy how you doing she he says i'm okay he says i heard you're sober i said yeah i am he says come on this is jim tell me i said jamie i haven't had a drink for 17 years he says you're doing drugs though right i said Jimmy i ain't doing nothing he's pills smoking pot i said Jimi honest to god i haven' t had nothing for 17 years he said i must have been the worst drunk jimmy ever saw and i said i said really jimny he says you can't stay sober i know you you can'T STAY SOBER i said I'VE BEEN SOBER HE SAYS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU I SAID I WENT TO ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS YEAH I DON'T LIKE THOSE PEOPLE i said to him i and this was inspired it just came to me i said jim my remember in in town how there was there was all different types of bars. There were some gay bars, there were redneck bars, there were biker bars, there were yuppie bars, there were bars for businessmen and lawyers, there are all kinds of bars if you really needed to drink bad any one of them will do but some bars are your type of bars and you'd hang out there other bars you wouldn't hang out in. Not your type of bar. I said AA is like that. You got to find your bar. And Jimmy started going to Alcoholics Anonymous because of an amends that I got to make to a gal named anna and all of a sudden i understood why i found her at 17 years and i couldn't find her at four and five because it wasn't about me and it wasn'T even about me and her it was about me her and jimmy god maximizes stuff he creates win-win situations i could tell you i could Tell you a dozen stories like that of people that got sober as a result of other people's amends, and we think it's about us, and it never was about us. And it never will be. Scott? Oh, I can't wait to follow that. Thanks, Bob. I absolutely just love his stories. Isn't he a great storyteller? Man. For those of you who read the text regularly, you've noticed that they add stuff that like wasn't there last time. Now for those of you who are new they really don't but what happens is we read it with new eyes or they change it and could it be both I guess because they changed page 99 just in November so this may not be in yours yet you know they sneak into your bedroom at night and there's a concept that I've had for a very long time and Bob's been bouncing off of it for the last session and a have, and it's very powerful. And it's on page 99, and it's the first full paragraph, second sentence. And it says, these things will come to pass naturally in good time, provided, however, the alcoholic continues to demonstrate that he can be sober, considerate, and helpful regardless of what anyone says or does. What that says to me in plain old Tennessee English is I cannot afford to allow how you treat me to affect how i treat you and that that question that he was asking is how what kind of a son were you irrespective of what kind of apparent they were it's what this thing has all been about and that's the way it has to continue to be for me is i can't afford to allow how you treat mita effect i treat u because you see that's what i'm responsible for and i think it's most especially that way when i get crosswise with somebody in the fellowship so i don't want to fight him. I want to help him, but I want to let him help me. And I can't very well be his go-to guy if I'm fang and claw with him. You've got to be really careful with that stuff. We used to laugh at my home group about having full contact business meetings, you know, helmets and pads. And I cannot do that because it is not healthy for me. It is not healthy for anybody else. And And I'm going to tell a story about one of the assignments that I have, a standing assignment. I've mentioned it earlier. And on Christmas Day a number of years ago, we ran out of milk. So at halftime, I raced out to the car, roared down to the convenience store, ran in the back, grabbed the gallon of milk, and ran up front to be the first one there. And I got a gift. And the gift was that this part of me saw a guy. You know, not just a chance to buy the milk and race home and see the second half. There's a human being standing in a convenience store on Christmas Day. And that far back I would say working for minimum wage time and a half, pretty good guess. And I saw that. And this part OF me opened up and said to him, wow, man, I bet there's someplace you'd rather be. But see, my family ran out of milk. And if you hadn't come to work today, we couldn't have gotten it. I appreciate you coming here. Thank you. And he and I both cried. And what a gift that was to me. And it crystallized for me the gift assignment that my sponsor had given me to spread the joy. That's one of my standing assignments is to spreadthejoy. And what I've discovered is that if I'm sloshing it all over you, there's no way to keep it from splattering onto me. And Bob has a marvelous saying I haven't heard it this time so I'll steal it And that's the last time you get credit This is three Whatever I want for myself I need to give to you I want to feel welcome I need you to forgive me I need it to make you welcome I want it to be forgiven I need It to forgive you I want It to feel joy I need To try to give you joy I want to be appreciated. I need to appreciate you. It's an amazing thing. It's just an amazing thing. And so that standing assignment is to spread the joy, and one of the ways I found to do that is to just simply say thank you. I've already done it some this weekend. I missed some chances today, but I don't miss many on the weekends to thank people who are working. If you're working on the weekend, thank you for working on the weekend. I'll say that tomorrow to all the airline employees that I bounce off of. I appreciate you guys coming to work this weekend, probably someplace you'd rather be, but I need to go home. Thanks for coming to Work. And sometimes nothing, you know, and sometimes it hits them or I drop by the health food store and I get my bag and say thank you very much. Hey, in the back, thanks for cooking my Big Mac and fries. You guys make a great lunch. Thanks for making my lunch. And usually nothing, but sometimes it really hits them. Sometimes there But has anybody ever been over-thanked if it was sincere? I never have. And so that's kind of part of the things that I try to do consistently. In the nine-step promises, this happened at Shade Tree, which is one of the meetings in Nashville. And I was not there, but we read the nine step promises in Nashville as an opening in a lot of the meetings, and somebody handed them to a girl who was still in treatment. We don't do that on purpose because you don't know what you're going to get. And she read, among other things, fear of people and of economic insecurity will level us. Boy, that's true. Yeah, I like the ones that are true. One of my favorite misreads in the whole book is rarely have we seen a person in jail who has thoroughly followed our path. I think that might be right too. Page 52 if you would. second full paragraph third line see if you can relate to any of this we were having trouble with personal relationships probably never have had that couldn't control our emotional natures we're afraid of misery and depression we couldn't make a living had a feeling of uselessness we're full of fear we're unhappy couldn't seem to be of real help to other people have you had those kinds of experiences? Okay, hang on to page 52. Don't lose that. We're going to get back to it. Now let's flip back to 83. It says at the bottom, if we're painstaking about this phase of our development, we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. We want to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We'll comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in self-love.