Peter M and Chris S – May 2022 Workshop – Part 4 of 7 – 2022 – Chris S.

All right, everybody. I think we'll get going. I think we will get going, Peter and I talked a little while ago, and we think what we're going to do is I'm going to finish up with this talk on 10, 11, and 12, and then we're gonna let everybody out of here a little early. Is that okay with everybody? Yeah, I know. I know sometimes sitting this long is, is really, really difficult, you know. You know, I want to, I want to thank Brian, I wanna thank Otto, I don't want to think everybody that had any service commitments here. This has really, really been a fun event for me and I know it has been for Peter too. There's, there's just been a great energy. Everybody came up and, you know, thanked us for being here and talked with us. It's just, there's such a wonderful spirit in this room and I can't tell you how much I, I enjoyed, I I enjoyed being a part of your weekend. I really did. Now, you know, Peter was really talking some great stuff about amends, about living in the world of the spirit. You know, we're living in a world of God. We're living the world to the spirit where we've been rocketed in, you know to a new dimension of reality. There's so many wonderful terms. You know when you look at the big book, The big book is very, very deep with how it describes the divine, basically. Father of light, the great reality, power greater than ourselves. There's just so much language in here that is so open and so welcoming for people like us to look at living a spiritual life. It's a wonderful... Now, without exaggeration, I've been through the book Alcoholics Anonymous 700 times. I mean, when you think about all the people that I've gone through the book with, when you think about all the workshops I've listened to, when you think about all the big book meetings I've gone to, it's probably somewhere around that amount of times I've been exposed to this material. It's almost memorized. And here's the thing, Here's the magic I find in this book. This book is so deep that every single time I move through it, something else pops up. Something else grabs my attention and I look at something a little bit differently or I see that there's a deeper meaning and it's an amazing, amazing book. And when I look back on the people that were putting this together, you know, Bill and Hank and Ruth and all, you know, the people who are typing it up and going through all the different drafts, I am amazed at how it really nails us as far as what the problem is and it really lays out a solution that works uh and it just continues to continues to amaze me and i'm you know i'm so grateful uh for the uh the early aa members and and their decision to put this book together because if they would have left us to just make it up ourselves you know I don't know that we would have uh we would ha held on to the real the core principles of this whole thing. Now, I'm going to move into step 10. I see step 10 today as a way to be present, as a way to being mindful of living the spiritual life. There's some exercises in step 10, there's some instructions in step 10 that I need to understand and I need to apply, but I really see it as my practicing the principles step. I see it as my walking around during the day. I need to remember, I need to remember that I need to live a spiritual life to survive this thing called alcoholism. You know, so on page 84 this thought brings us to step 10. Well, what's what? Well, the nine-step promises that we've all heard you know, new freedom and a new happiness You know, those promises have been carrot-sticked to us, you know, so many times. But really what they are is they're manifestations of the experience that we have when we're doing amends. When we're really serious about the amends process. They manifest themselves and they call them in this book promises. So this thought brings us to step 10. Step 10 suggests that we continue to take personal inventory. I learned a lot with personal inventory I learned to identify the various manifestations of self that defeat me. So I need to continue to do that, right? I don't want defeat. I want my life to get better. You know, I don'T want to be stepping on my own feet all the time. So I NEED to learn how to do THAT. Continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. I learned this in Step 9. I went into step nine really seeing it as a punishment step. Oh, you know, I've got to go make amends. Well, when I got to the other side, I saw it as a freedom step. I saw I saw It as a liberation, a liberation from the emotional emotional crap that I had within me. I mean, I did so much damage out there. You know, I just I just couldn't carry that stuff around anymore. I go through the amends and you know I'm walking easy. I'm living a cleaner life. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past, so I'm to vigorously continue to take personal inventory and vigorously to set right the wrongs that I caused throughout the day, and I'm going to continue to make mistakes. Peter was talking about it before, and you know, I'll emphasize this as well. This isn't about becoming a person perfect person you know this this is not about me you know being a perfect person I don't even like perfect people you ever you ever have like a perfect person come over your house and make you look bad you know why are you more like Harry you know he's going to law school he's got a nice girl you know i hate harry you know so it's it's not about it's not about becoming perfect what this stuff folks what this does is it renders us useful this whole process renders usefully gets us out of our own way so that we can be helpful and useful Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness, and it should continue for our lifetime. Remember, it says that we need to seek. We need to see and continue to grow. Now, I believe the steps 10 and 11 are really my growth steps. I've had an experience with the first nine steps. I've got kind of an awakening as the first 9 steps. But 10 and11, because it's asking me to continue to practice this stuff, they're really growth steps. They're really, you know, enabling me to just get better at living the spiritual life. I'm to continue to watch for selfishness, resentment, dishonesty, and fear. Where did I see those before? Those are manifestations of self that defeat me. I am to continue to watch for them. Just watch. I'm to remain present and awake to when these things crop up, and when they crop up I am to ask God to remove them, discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if I've harmed anyone. This is my response to those manifestations of self that defeat me i you know this stuff works i'm telling you you know the more i do that the more those manifestations of self become removed or set aside or reduced you know whatever your experience is but this stuff really does work on them then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help love and tolerance of others is our is our our code um we turn our thoughts to someone мы can help that's the we're being rendered useful kind of a thing you know listen i i was not used when i first came in to alcoholics anonymous it was i told you it was the time of fellowship, right? And everybody was running around and if you were a newcomer, you know what you got a chance to do a lot? Move people. You know what I mean? Hey, so-and-so's moving. Come on, we're going to go help him move. I'm like, who? Do I know them? You know, I'm going to help somebody. I don't even know who that is. You want me to help move them? I mean, it was early lessons in being selfless and being helpful. It was great fellowship back in the 90s. Everybody was a lunatic back then. Okay, every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. How can I best serve thee? Thy will not mine be done. these are thoughts which must go with us constantly what thoughts should go with us constantly you know the vision of god's will in all of our activities and the thought how can i best serve thee your will not my will be done remember i've i've made a decision to stop playing god for that really to mean anything you know, God's got to start to take some responsibility for this whole thing. And this is a way of me connecting with God. You know, Peter was right. God's always been there. I have thrown up things because of self-will that have blocked me off from connection with the divine. And so those things have to be knocked back down. And these are some of the practices that work really, really good with that and we can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish the willpower in you know removing the things recognizing and removing the things that are blocking me off from the divine um all right step 11 step 11 suggests prayer meditation now you know i i got i gotta tell you i i come in here with a lot of old ideas I come in here with ideas about religion, I come in here ideas about spirituality and I really this book begs me to lay aside prejudice and tells me I need to get rid of my old ideas. Why? I need to get my old idea because they're gonna block me off. They're the things that are going to get in the way of a new experience or new information or new understanding, the ideas that I already have. I got to tell this story because it was so funny. You know, this is the set-aside group, right? So the set aside prayer, originally, my understanding is it came from Don Pritz. And Don had a couple of sponsors who were kind of difficult. And he gave him an exercise. He gave him a prayer, you know, listen, say this prayer, God, you know, please help me to set aside everything I think I know about AA, about the steps, about recovery, you know, but help me set this aside so I can have a new experience. And he gave that prayer out to Joe Hawk, maybe some other people, right? And then when Joe Hawk later in his recovery, Joe Hawk and Mark Huston are running around doing workshops everywhere. And if you've not heard those workshops, you now get a hold of some of those 90s workshops. They're unbelievable. And anyway, they put that as a prayer, you know, in that workshop. And now a lot of groups, I think our group was one of the first groups ever to do it, we've replaced the serenity prayer with the set-aside prayer. You know, this is a big book work group, you knows, set aside everything so that you can be open to a new idea. Now I'm explaining this at a workshop I was doing down in Columbus, Georgia a couple of weeks ago with my buddy Rich B. And I'm giving the spiel on what the set-aside prayer really is meant to do and what it's used for. And when I get done, this is what Rich does. Rich stands up and he goes, Hey everybody, got an announcement. Here's what we're going to do. There's two cases of brand new big books in the back. Now, we want you to have a new experience, so we've got brand new books for you And he picks up a garbage can, and he walks around, and he starts saying, so throw your big books in the garbage can here, and we'll get you a brand new one. And he walks through the crowd, and not one person throws their big book in the rubbish can. Would you throw your Big Book in the Garbage Can with all your notes and all that stuff, right? No. So, and then he sits back down within the garbage can, and he goes, hey, everybody, that's the set-aside prayer. do you see how hard you want to hang on to your old experience and everybody started starting to kind of kind of get it you know uh i'm listen i wouldn't have thrown my big book away either so there's some disciplines in step 11 that i'm just going to briefly cover because i want to get to step 12 i think that's very important so there'S upon awakening uh there'S when we retire at night, and then there's as we move through the day. And these are meditative processes that we need to start to practice. Now I will also say none of us practice this stuff perfectly. You know what I mean? Like the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. So what we do is we start to live this stuff as we can. We're each going to have a different experience with it i would just suggest that you really try to make an effort but none of us are going to do this perfectly and there's going to be times when we don't do it there's gonna be times where we miss it and it's a real good thing that this is a pass fail experience and not graded you know what i mean anyway when we retire at night we constructively review our day were we resentful selfish dishonest or afraid again manifestations of self we're to ask ourselves when we retire at night have have those things have we experienced those things uh do we owe an apology have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once were we kind and loving toward all that's almost always a no for me by the way when i answer this what could what could we have done better uh where we think were we thinking of ourselves most of the time, or were we thinking of what we could do for others? These are questions that we should be awake to, present to, when we retire at night. Now this is a constructive exercise. I used to beat myself up, you know, I can't believe I was so stupid, you Know, when my boss said this, I should have said that, you You know, that was my retiring at night, this is a constructive process. We're only trying to recognize where we can, you know, engage in improvement is really what this is about. After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. Now, in the Oxford group, you almost need to know this for context in this step 11 in the Oxford group they they had a they had a practice of listening for God and how they would do that it was like they would go into prayer and they were going into meditation then they would get silent and they would have a pad and a pen handy and if there were guided thoughts intuitive thoughts they'd write them down and they believed that they could they could refine that skill set to the point where they were receiving inspiration from the divine. They actually thought that they could listen to God, and some of that ended up in the 11th step, and a lot of it didn't, but that's really where Bill and Bob were. They would do this practice to try to seek divine guidance because, you know, we're not managing our lives anymore. We're looking for God's direction. this is kind of how they were getting God's direction the intuitive thought on awakening let's look at on awakening on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead we consider our plans for the day before we begin we ask God to direct our thinking especially that it be divorced from self-pity dishonest or self-seeking motives self-pitty, dishonest, self- seeking motives manifestations of self where we're over and over and over again, we're being asked to identify these things. Why? Because our life is a failure with them. So on awakening, we think about the 24 hours ahead. This is a contemplative exercise. We're supposed to think about what we're going to do today. You know, I've got to go to work, you know, after work. I've gotta go to soccer practice to see, you know, so-and-so's kid, you know, kick goals. I mean, whatever is going on. We look at our day ahead and we try to plan for it. Now, meditation, meditation for me was not, when you said to me meditation, what came into my mind was sitting in lotus position burning incense chanting om because what had happened is in the 60s and 70s the eastern forms of meditation showed up in the united states in a big way transcendental meditation the maharishi the beatles brought the mahrishi over for god's sake you know everybody's paying attention to it now and and this isn't these are eastern forms meditation and if you do eastern forms of meditation god bless you but that's not what the big book is talking about it's talking about really a contemplative exercise that's constructive that has purpose it's not about emptying your mind it's about focusing your mind so so in thinking about our day we may face indecision we may not be able to determine which course to take here we ask god for for inspiration and an intuitive thought or decision we try to we try to begin to as as we live a more and more spiritual life we begin to trust and rely upon intuition intuition is knowing without conscious thought you just kind of know you know and we're looking we're looking for that kind of guidance in our lives as we move through our lives remember we had to quit playing God. We had to admit that the management of our life was not a success, so these are ways that we try to bring the divine into the management function of our lives. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that would be shown all through the day, what our next step is to be, that we'd be given anything we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will and are careful to make no requests for ourselves. All right, here's the as we go through the day part of this. As we go to the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. So things are going to come up in our lives that, you know, we're going to be challenged with. I mean, we'RE all out there in the real world. You know, WE'RE going to BE CHALLENGED WITH STUFF. this is telling us don't just do something stand there that's what this is telling us right and wait for an intuitive thought or action don't react half of my problem was I would react what did you say what the hell did you just say I know what you meant by that you know I mean you know I was like Mr. Reactive you know don't just do something stand there we constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will be done you know it asks us to do that in step 10 as as well we let god discipline us in this simple way that we've outlined now Now if you're a sponsee of mine, prior to even getting into amends I have you looking really really deeply into step 10 and step 11 and applying what you can apply in step 10 and 11 into your life. You know right after the fifth step is really when I ask you to start looking at this because these are spiritual principles and practices that really have to become a lifetime thing you know if we're going to continue to grow in effectiveness and understanding we need something like this to be practicing you know for for that for that to happen now that's just like a brief outline on 10 and 11 uh if you have a sponsor or spiritual advisor go go deep with them on this stuff the longer i'm sober the more uh important i believe step 10 and step 11 are uh i you know i believe it's all in step 10 and and step eleven and if you do a really really good job with the exercises in 10 and 11 and they become disciplined in your life you know your life is going to show it and there's there's really going to be some uh some great things that that you're you're going to experience and you're not going to shoot yourself in the foot as much as uh as before you uh got expose that. All right, step 12. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Bill learned this after he went through the Oxford group, you know, principles and he started working with other alcoholics, you Know, one day he's like, he's talking to Lois, Lois you know I haven't been able to get one of these guys sober and she looked at him and said you're sober, you're over. So sometimes it's our job to carry the message. Remember, Peter was saying we're not in the outcome business, right? But it's Our Job. It's our Job to carry this message to other alcoholics. And many of us do it in many different ways. There's instructions in the chapter working with others. And I believe that's how we're supposed to work one-on-one with another alcoholic. but there's a million ways to be of service. There's ways to make sure that the alcoholic can get to the message. There's carrying the message to the alcoholic, and there's ensuring that the message is going to be there when the alcoholic needs it. You know, there's all types of service, but what the first part of this chapter speaks about is how I am supposed to be dealing one-on-one with an alcoholic. Right off the bat, he starts talking about a bunch of promises. Now, what I want to cover is the first visit and the second visit. I believe the chapter working with others is the most overlooked and underutilized chapter in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I know so many people stop before the chapter of working with others when they get done with step 11 because we just do it different now. We got more meetings now and we got sober bowling and you know there's all kinds of stuff that you know we have it's not the 30s anymore right and I thought that way too because what you know when I saw when I Saw What It Was Asking Me To Do in this book it was almost like it's an overreaction like dude that's harsh you know if so if somebody's unwilling to work the steps with me you know I'm supposed to let him go you know that's that's pretty harsh. I've come to believe that that's compassionate. It's not harsh because if I allow an alcoholic to believe, that I can help them manage an unmanageable life without offering them a solution, I'm not doing them any favors and I made a lot of mistakes early on as a sponsor. Somebody would come up to me, hey, Chris, you know, would you sponsor me? Sure. What do you want me to do? You know? I mean, it was just awful. And they were drinking on me right and left. You ever have sponsees drink on you? Make you look bad? Is Harry yours? You know, he's hitting on all the new girls and he's borrowing money. Took somebody's car. Yeah, Harry's mine. I'll talk to him. So I was making an attempt to help people manage it, unmanageable. I couldn't even manage my own life. I'm going to help you manage yours? What this chapter is doing is this chapter is pointing me toward pointing someone else to the manager. The manager that's going to manage this stuff moving forward. listen I can encourage you to stay sober and and I do that with a lot of people in the fellowship I'll encourage you hey keep coming back you know hey there's a good meeting on Tuesday night hey you want to go out and have coffee after you know I can be that guy and I think I think there's really I think we really really need to do that that's part of the fellowship right helping to encourage people to keep coming and staying sober but that's a far cry from offering them a path to a solution to their problem of alcoholism it's just it's it's the difference between night and day it's a difference between black and white it's difference between life and death for some people you know pointing them toward toward the solution so let's look at the first visit all right there's some of the material in here is how you find an alcoholic now remember there was no meetings there were two meetings back when this book was written so go go to priests go to ministers go to police courts go to sanitariums go you know go to the bout wherever try to find alcoholics try to fine someone who who's alcoholic who might want to get over it who might be willing to take some action to recover from alcoholism try to fight those all right we found one what are we supposed to do where do we find alcoholics like that today? We find we find them in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, you know. We find them rehab commitments, we find him in jail commitments, that we you know it's not as hard to find people who are willing who might be willing to go through this process any more than then you know the early AAs they had to look all over the place. See your man alone if possible. does this mean go on a 12-step call by yourself no it means if you've if you're at the guy's house and his family's there you want to talk to him alone you don't want to talked to him with the pissed off family sitting next to you you want it you want try to get some get some identification going it says this after a while turn the talk to some phase of drinking tell them enough about about your drinking habits, symptoms, and experiences and encourage him to speak of himself. This is an identification process. Oh, dude, man, I don't know about you, but I drank a lot. Let me tell you a little bit about my drinking. Let me talk to you a minute ago. Let me show you a look at the bad stuff in my drinking, how bad it got. You know, what you're doing is you're trying to help identify. The thing about alcoholism is, is did did uh did people yelling at you ever help did did did people criticize you criticizing you and telling you you should do better did that ever ever really help you know but an identification an identification oh my god this guy feels the way i feel this guy is it used to drink the way I drink now. You know, that's a powerful connector. If he wishes to talk, let him do so. Hopefully you get him to talk about his drinking and there'll be that identification. There's some more information in here about, you know, whichever way it goes, you know. Pay attention to that. Try to be awake while you're talking to this guy to know which direction to take the conversation but then it says when he sees you know all about the drinking game commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic tell him how baffled you were how you finally learned that you were sick give him an account of the struggle you made to stop show him about the mental twist that leads to the first drink of his spree this is asking us to explain to them our first step truth. This is my first step truth. I honestly wanted to stop drinking and I couldn't, and once I started drinking all bets were off. I always got drunk. We're supposed to hopefully get an identification by sharing this from our own experience. We suggest you do it as we have done on the chapter to alcoholism. If he's an alcoholic, he will understand you at once he will match your mental inconsistencies with some of his own you know it might be the first time he ever hears somebody talk about that you know because i you know i never was sitting at the bar and all of a sudden somebody goes oh man the phenomenon of craving is on me you know I'm gonna pass through the stages of a spree and I'll be remorseful tomorrow, you know? I mean, that's not what they were saying at the bar. So this will be like the first time maybe he's ever heard this. If you are satisfied he is an alcoholic, begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the malady. Show him from your own experience how the queer mental condition surrounding the first drink prevents normal functioning of the willpower. you want to try to convince this person of hopelessness of powerlessness of lack of of choice power and control don't uh don't at this stage refer to this book unless he's seen it and wishes to discuss it let him draw his own conclusions if he sticks to the idea that he can still control his drinking tell him possibly he can if he's not too alcoholic but insist that if he's severely afflicted there may be little chance he can recover by himself you know this this you're you're to honestly give them the real truth as you know it about alcoholism and what alcoholism has can do continue to speak of alcoholism as an illness a fatal malady talk about the conditions of body and mind which accompany it keep his attention focused mainly on your personal experience explain that many are doomed who never realized their predicament it says talk to him about uh hopelessness of alcoholism because you offer a solution you can talk about hopelessness because because obviously you're sitting there sober oh man it was hopeless i couldn't stop drinking i couldn'T stop drinking man when i when i drank it was awful oh the trouble the trouble well well you quit drinking didn't you yeah so maybe there's a solution so the person might get curious about about what's going on with you you will soon have your friend admitting as many if not all of the traits of the alcoholic um it says um he uh even though your protege may not have entirely admitted his condition he has become very curious to know how you got well it would be crazy if if they don't if they're not curious about how you quit if they've been serious about quitting they're going to want to know why you quit let him ask you that question if he will tell him exactly what happened to you this is the place folks where our story is important you know Alcoholics Anonymous has developed a speaker meeting where people talk about this stuff in a speaker format and that's that's all well and good but the real place the real place for our story is right here in front you know knee to knee with another alcoholic stress the spiritual feature freely if the man be atheist or agnostic make it make make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of god he can choose a conception he likes provided it makes sense to him the main thing is that he'd be willing to believe in a power greater than himself and that he lived by spiritual principles we're supposed to go that deep with somebody on the first visit we're suppose to go that deep was somebody on the first visit when dealing with such a person you better use everyday language to describe it your prospect may not may belong to a religious denomination you know there's a there's there's some more there's some more information there and then on page 94 it says outline the program of action explaining how you made a self-appraisal a four-step how you straightened out your past talk about eight and nine, and while you're now endeavoring to be helpful to him, talk about what the 12-step is. This is all on the first visit. It is important that he realize that your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital role in your own recovery. Actually, he may be helping you more than you're helping him. And those of us who've done a lot of 12- step calls understand that that's absolutely true man i've never felt better than when i leave a 12-step call whether whether it's a successful or one or not according to the person you know we're visiting make it plain that he's under no obligation to you that you only hope he will try to help other alcoholics when he escapes his own difficulties suggest how important it is he placed the welfare of other people ahead of his own on the first visit you're going to be sharing that to the alcoholic you know it's good sorry buddy but it's going to be more important that you place everybody else's welfare ahead of your own what yeah this is this is really really powerful stuff but i'm telling you i believe in it today i believe it today make it clear that he's not under any pressure that he needn't see you again if he doesn't want to you should not be offended if he wish to wishes to call it off maybe you've disturbed him about the question of alcoholism And this is all to the good. The more hopeless he feels, the better. He will be more likely to follow your suggestions if he feels hopeless. If step one really connects with the person, you know, that's very, very important. Your candidate may give reasons why he need not follow all of the program. He may rebel with the thought of a drastic housecleaning, which requires discussion with other people. Do not contradict such views. Tell him you once felt as he does, but you doubt whether you would have made much progress had you not taken action. On your first visit, tell him about the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. If he does show interest, lend him your copy of this book. So if you're on a 12-step call, what do you got to have? You don't want your Myers book, you know, that you got notes in from the last 20 years. You know, have a big book with you that you can pass on. Unless your friend wants to talk further about himself, do not wear out your welcome. Give him a chance to think it over. If you do stay, let him steer the conversation any direction he likes. Sometimes a new man is anxious to proceed at once. sometimes not. Never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop. Simply lay out the kit of spiritual tools that work for you. That's one thing, you know, there's so much stigma in alcoholism. I'm hoping we don't continue to push it. You know what I mean? Like in the chapter, there's a great line in the chapter to the employers. And I'm going to read it, okay? I'm gonna digress. This is from the chapter To The Employers. It says, when dealing with an alcoholic, there may be a natural annoyance that a man could be so weak, stupid, and irresponsible. responsible I love that right what did we look like out there we looked weak stupid and irresponsible to the people that were around I'm sorry to tell you that if you don't know it already but I'll tell you what we didn't feel weak stupid or irresponsible did we we were being driven by all this stuff we meant well you know what I mean so as a sponsor sometimes I have the capacity to look at somebody like they're weak stupid and irresponsible I gotta let that stuff go this is alcoholism folks you know What I mean and I gotta lay off the judgment I gotta laying off the stigma and I got it you know you know it's out it's alcoholism i just gotta focus on being helpful you know i i just do so uh let's see where the hell am i if he's not interested in your solutions if he is if he if he expects you to act act as a banker for his financial difficulties or a nurse for his sprees you may need to drop him until he changes his mind if he wants you to be the drama coach you know that's what i wanted from my first sponsor oh my god you wouldn't believe all the stuff that this happened to me today it was just crazy all these people are crazy ah you don't believe you know i expected a drama coach uh we're not supposed to be that we're not supposed to be a life coach. We're not supposed to be an counselor. What we're supposed to be is a guide, a guide toward the solution. The solution being a conscious contact with God as we understand him. That's the ultimate brass ring. I'm just supposed to help people. I supposed to helpful going in that direction. I could try to be helpful. Not perfect you know but I'm going to try to help. So we may have to drop somebody if they're not willing to go through the steps holy mackerel if somebody's on the first visit if somebody is you know not willing to move forward I'm supposed to drop them now I saw that as crazy I saw it as irresponsible when I first read this chapter again I believe it's compassionate now I'm suppose to be helpful through this whole process And if somebody says, you know, I don't think that stuff is going to be necessary in my case. Fine. It says nothing in this book about bringing somebody to a meeting. It says that we're supposed to be dealing with them one-on-one. Back in the early days, if you weren't serious about this stuff, they weren't going to bring you to a meeting. Now today, people bust people to our meetings. They're not even alcoholic, and they're busting them into our meetings. It's just it's changed, and I'm not judging because far be it from me to judge anything. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. But what it's asking us to do in here is to ensure that somebody's serious and willing to go to any lengths. That's what it'S asking us to do. Why? Because that's the compassionate thing that's the compassionate approach rather than let somebody sit in the back of the room languishing month after month after months not being asked to be accountable to a spiritual program of recovery and to just slowly spiritually die back there until they finally relapse that's not compassionate you know what i mean if he if he sincerely if he sincerely is interested and wants to see you again ask him to read this book in the interval so you'll leave him the book after doing that he must decide for himself whether he wants to go on he should not be pushed or prodded by you his wife or his friends if he is to find god the desire must come from within if he thinks he can do the job in some other way or prefers some other spiritual approach if he wants to do primal scream therapy when I first got sober there were teddy bear huggers if he wanted to teddy bear hug for a while it basically says encourage him to follow his own conscience we have no monopoly on God we merely have an approach that worked with us but point out that we alcoholics have much in common and that you would like in any case to be friendly, let it go with that. Do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Here's the thing. When I first started to sponsor, I said yes to everybody and then they drank on me. And it was almost like somebody leaving the team. You know what I mean? It was like I had this crew of guys and somebody drop off. And it were nuts the way I was dealing with it. this basically says quality beats quantity you know what I mean like so so if someone isn't willing to work a recovery program with you move on maybe the next person will if that person doesn't move on may be that next person well but don't waste a whole ton of time on somebody who's not willing I can't tell you I wish I had the hours back that I tried to help somebody manage an unmanageable life and they and they relapsed on me yeah you know what i mean like so so our time this book is saying our time is incredibly valuable and it should not be wasted we are recovered alcoholics that makes us uniquely useful to be helpful to other people and we should not waste our time with people who who may not be you know bill is very non-judgmental they cannot or will not give themselves to this simple program they're not at fault okay he's very non-judgmental but we're supposed to try to find people who are willing and the people who aren't willing those are gonna I'm telling you I've got some of those guys in my life they're friends of mine for life they're the fellowship I crave we're like blood brothers you know these are people who've gone through the steps with me 20 30 years ago and we're still connected at the hip, you know, like that's what he's asking us to develop here. A fellowship that we crave. Not somebody that comes to AA for two years and then you never see him again. You know, this is about the roots, the roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, the people that are going to really stay. So it says if your prospect does not respond at once, search out another alcoholic and try again. You're sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer we find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you meaning sit down and do the step work if you leave such a person alone he may soon become convinced that he cannot recover by himself to spend too much time on any one situation is to deny another alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy uh our fellowship failed with uh with a ton of people in the early days and then he found Bob and then they found Bill Dotson and then They Built Alcoholics Anonymous as we know it today so folks that's the first visit you know that's our all that stuff is the first visit suppose now you're you're making uh your second visit to a man we're moving into the second visit now okay he's read this volume and said he's he's prepared to go through the 12 steps of the program of recovery now how many people is that going to be that you lend the big book and then when you come back they've read it and they're like i'm all in i'm All In it's not gonna be a lot is it it's Not Gonna Be A Lot so our time is incredibly valuable we get the people that are willing we move them through the steps we develop the fellowship we crave having had the experience yourself you can give him much practical advice let him know you're available if he wishes to make a decision the third step and tell his story the fifth step but do not insist upon it if he prefers to consult someone else you know so here's some more instructions and I'm going to end with this you have to act a good Samaritan every day if need be these are the 12 inconveniences you've all heard of the 12 steps the 12 traditions and the 12 concepts these are the 12 inconveniences they are if you want I'll number them You have to act a good Samaritan today, if need be. Number one, it may mean the loss of many nights' sleep and great interference with your pleasures. Absolutely. Two, interruptions to your business. Three, it May mean sharing your money in your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails, asylums. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night. Your wife may sometimes say she's neglected. A drunk may smash your furniture in your home or burn a mattress. You may have to fight with him if he's violent. All of my sponsees, I have them take martial arts training because some people need a meeting, some people needs a beating. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction. Now that's one thing I just don't do. This is the one inconvenience that I just dont do. I had some bad experience being the sedative administrator a couple of times and uh you know i remember this the quaalude epidemic of 73 and i just i just don't administer sedatives anymore after that it really went south about 50 people fell out in high school you know overdosing on quaaludes another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance these are the 12 inconveniences obviously you will have to meet such of these so so here's what here's here's my final thought about a little over two years ago the unthinkable happened this thing called covid hit and literally at least in the northeast every single alcoholics anonymous meeting shut its door oh my god what you know if you would have told me that was gonna happen i would have not believed you that is that is i can't imagine a bigger disaster alcoholics anonymous was shut out well it took us about five minutes to to find this thing called zoom right and and we're showing up upside down and unmuted and bringing the bringing the laptop into the bathroom with us, you know? I mean, we're making every mistake that you can make, right? But we intuitively understood we needed to stick together, right, like we needed to be together. You know, we were resourceful. And then we found parking lot meetings and people in the basement meetings, the real alcoholics I'm talking about. And we knew that we needed to stick together. Now, half of us didn't. We've lost half of the fellowships since COVID. And I'm just looking at the meetings that used to have 100 people that have 40 now. You know what I mean? Home groups that used To have 80 people that 12 now. I mean, it's coming back, right? But here's what I believe. I believe that this is the best opportunity in the world for us to be available to do this work, to do our job as 12 steppers. It is time. Do you know that overdoses have doubled in the last two years? Do you Know that suicide has almost doubled among people with addictive illness? Do You know death because of alcohol has almost double? I'm in a position where I can get a hold of these statistics you can trust me on this it's bad it's bed and there are still sick and suffering all over the place and guess what now that we're opening our meetings back up again they're going to be showing up and it's going to be time for us to do our job like we've never done it before because because we're not in the numbers we used to be, but the numbers are going to be common. And so what I would leave you with, what I believe that it's our job to be at the place where we're of maximum benefit to especially other alcoholics. I believe nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking than intensive work with other alcoholists. I think it's going to Be Our Job. I Think The Opportunity is going to be out there, and I think we're going to be able to help save a lot of lives if we do our job. I absolutely love being here in Charlotte with all of you. North Carolina is really, really close to my heart. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you.