Queens Big Book Study – Part 10 – Gary B. – 2008

You never know what Mickey's going to do, so you've got to keep an eye on him.
Well, let's see.
We've pretty well gone through the first nine steps, I think.
Any comments?
Are there questions from the gallery here?
The peanut gallery?
At this point?
Like Peter Marino, he says, is this thing on?
Yeah.
There we go.
How do you approach the man you hate?
You're praying and you're praying and you still can't find forgiveness in your heart.
Gary, you can take that one.
My experience is, I'm sorry, yeah.
Joel wanted to know how you approach the person you hated.
When you've prayed and prayed.
And you're not noticing any change in your heart.
And my thought is, you won't notice a change in your heart until after you've approached him.
That willingness has a sound.
And that's been my experience and that's been the other experience that I've seen.
Trusting in God is praying in God that it's going to be handled by him and you'll go to him under God's protection.
And treat it right.
Our friend Jaime saw his brother for the first time in how many years?
20 years.
They'd had no contact.
And when Jaime would try to call him and make contact, he'd have to wait for his wife to answer the phone because his brother wouldn't pick it up.
But they spent three and a half hours together Friday night.
And so the ice is broken.
The amends are not made, as we would understand it.
Excuse me.
But.
It's gotten started.
And he almost asked that same question when we saw him Friday night.
How am I supposed to do it?
And effectively, I just gave him the same answer.
Don't know anything of that.
You show up.
That does remind me of a man that called me.
Most of you know who Joe Hawk was.
And he sponsored a hillbilly in Kentucky.
Named a buck.
Excuse me.
And we were to have a birthday party or just a birthday that day.
It was Julie's birthday.
And Buck called.
He says, I'm supposed to have taken my fifth step with Joe, but he can't make it out here this weekend.
And this is the only day I come off.
Can I come over and take it with you?
Well, what are you going to say?
Miss Wonderful Al-Anon, we're going to screw up your day.
And.
And we're going to do this.
And so Buck came over.
I thought, well, maybe this won't be real long.
So anyway, he does his fifth step.
And it took all day.
And give him instructions on making the amends.
And I get a call from him one day.
And he says, I just really had an amend go bad.
Now, you've got to do this.
In the Kentucky accent, the King's English is effectively destroyed.
And he is just an enthusiastic, loving AA member who's not too well educated
and probably a little bit mentally challenged.
And he says, I went over to this guy's house.
I'd stolen a horse or something from him.
I don't know why.
And he says, knocked on the door.
And I tried to tell him while I was there.
And he's looking at me so funny.
And he finally said, will you take that bit out of your mouth?
Do you remember the line in the big book?
When we go into the one we don't like, we put the bit in our mouth and we go?
Dead serious.
I'm honest to God serious.
Tell him that story.
It was.
I says, well, did you take it out and talk to him?
He says, well, that's what the book said to do.
He said, Joe told me to do everything the book said.
And every once in a while, I'll get a call from Buck.
And he'd have some story about what was going on in his meeting
and how they didn't appreciate his style with the big book.
But he occasionally would find a guy that he could work with and carry the message.
So don't think they're limited out there.
They can do it sometimes.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I'd like to say my story about Buck now.
The other thing that occurs to me, Joel, is that I've had occasion to make a couple of those kinds of amends.
And my desperation was such that my hatred of that guy did not compare to what was going to happen
if I didn't get that weight off me.
So, you know, I think there's that goad, thank God, that we have.
That says, look, I'm willing to go to any lengths.
And I'm going to go in here and do this thing.
And God, and I just hold his hand like a little boy, you know.
And there is actually another prayer that I have prayed.
And it is this.
God, I know I'm going to get knocked down.
So if I get knocked down or when I get knocked down, would you please pick me up?
You know, dealing with a lot of women.
Who have husbands who are in the middle of their disease and active.
You have a lot of people who love but hate at the same time.
It's so close, you know.
The love and the hate.
And sometimes one of the things that I was told early on is that you can hate the disease and love the person.
And it helped me so much in the beginning.
And what they would say is, God, you love this person through me because I can't.
You know, we don't like everybody.
My experience is, one of my experiences was a little bit different.
I had someone hating me.
Actually, in my home meeting, and she's still there and I'm still there 35 years later.
And she can't stand me.
And in fact, she made a mistake.
She made amends to me after about 15 years.
And her amends were, I need to make amends to you because I've always hated you.
And I said, and?
But that was it.
You know, that was as far as she could go.
And so, you know, the exchange of bad feelings is, you know, it's going to happen in these rooms.
And I guess God is the buffer.
You know, he's really.
And what, you know, I would come home and I'd say what she had said to everyone in the room about me, you know, and that kind of stuff.
And truly, it helped me to get a kind of a detachment from these strong emotions.
I mean, you know, we're dealing with really tough stuff.
And, you know, maybe I reminded her of her sister who she hated.
I don't know.
But.
And my fear was always, the worst fear was that somebody wouldn't like me.
And here was somebody actively not liking me in my home group week after week after week after week.
And it was, it came to be a real blessing because I realized that it really probably had very little to do with me.
And there was, you know, I had to step back.
And I think it's probably the same when you have these strong feelings.
At some point, you have to realize it's probably not so much about that person, but about our own fears and angst and stuff that, you know, our whole history makes us crazy when the person's in the room.
And so the most helpful thing I ever heard was, you know, God, you love this person through me because I can't love them.
And one other thing.
Marie and I pray in the morning and we do our meditation and prayer together every morning.
Thank you, God.
We pray for the people we love and the people who love us.
And we pray for the people we can't stand and the people who can't stand us.
One of the best relationships I have today is a man named Mike in Indianapolis.
And he tells a story.
And all that.
He talks about going to a meeting and running into the man he hated the most.
And he didn't like things that were said about him when the man was getting up to talk.
And people were making some comments that he looked young.
He was so young and he'd been sober so long.
And da-da-da.
And it just irritated the hell out of Mike.
And one day, I was invited to lunch with Mike.
And so we met at this restaurant.
And the first thing he says, he says, you know,
I just have to tell you that there's not a thing about you I like.
And I said, well, you should have gotten in line.
And he didn't know what I meant by that.
And he didn't pick up on it that it was his problem.
That I wouldn't go do a damn thing to fix it.
But we had a conversation.
And from that point on,
I went ahead and took Mike to the book for the first time.
In fact, we put together a workshop.
We ended up taking about 16 guys to the book.
But he today is one that is probably one of the best I know at teaching what we do.
I mean, he's very, very skilled.
And he fell into this thing.
But you know when somebody doesn't like you.
I mean, it's not a big secret.
You know, I mean, he's a good person.
He's a good guy.
But he's not good at that sort of thing.
And what happens with me is something changes with me when I pick that up.
After I had spoken at that meeting at the town, I had talked about my home group
and where we met and what we did.
And he was dead set on finding out and proving that I was a fraud.
And I don't know a thing about this.
And Tuesday night, I go down to my meeting.
And I'm down there.
I don't know.
setting up the table or doing something like that, and he walks in,
and I'm about from me to the first row here when he walks in.
I think he thought I was the greeter because I was truly glad to see him there,
even knowing that he wasn't having a really good time with that.
And so I just happened to catch him the first thing he came in the door, and I greeted him.
I was really glad to see him, and I think my greeting said that.
And so that kind of messed with his theory.
And he sat through the meeting, and, of course, everybody else was glad to see him.
We didn't get newcomers from that far away that often.
That meeting today yet was at that point in time was pretty much on the far south side of Indianapolis,
and people would drive from 50 miles south and 50 miles north to attend it.
We now meet downtown in not the nicest of areas, and that was our choice.
They were going to kick us out of the church, and they said,
well, where will we go?
Let's go where the real drunks are.
And so we went downtown and did that.
But the same thing pretty much happens.
We have people drive from all over the city, and some come up from Bloomington 50 miles south and do that.
But that all started largely, and I'd say Mike right now is probably one of the most effective guys in our group.
We've got a lot of them that are effective and doing real well.
But it all started because he didn't like me, but he had enough program to say,
hey, go to the person and get it straightened out.
So everything that happened there happened like it should.
All this is bringing us to step 10, and I'm going to be reading a little bit from page 84.
I think where I come from with this is I think there's a huge difference between the 10th step and the 11th step,
nightly review.
And we're going to start the 10th step off here because I believe that the 10th step is what happens the minute I catch myself having just stepped in it,
having just gotten incredibly angry, okay, right now.
And the reason I think that is the first thing, I'm halfway through the paragraph that says this thought brings us to step 10.
It says,
Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.
There's some really key words in the 10th step.
At once, I think, are a couple of them.
To remove them, we discuss them with someone immediately, okay,
and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.
So let's not wait until that night to pick it up in your review.
That's, you know, that's not something that's doing it right now.
And the reason I have to do that is because I can't wait until that night.
If I'm caught in the middle of a resentment, it's going to interfere with everything I'm trying to think and do, you know.
I'll try to set it aside and do whatever project I'm in, and about halfway through it, it comes to mind that that guy's a son of a bitch.
And I'm lost.
I can't do it again.
Years ago, Mickey and Don and I made a pact that we were going to try to do the 10th step precisely like it's written.
And because we saw the words immediately and at once, and so the way that would happen, and I'll share one with you,
my partner at my business and I were not getting along well.
And she was a little upset.
She'd been absent getting breast cancer treated, and during my time, I'd kept the office open,
and I thought I'd done a pretty good job keeping it going.
But she was upset because I had used the company credit card to buy personal stuff with,
and I don't know why that would bother her.
But I had paid it back, but she was still irritated.
And boy, is that covering it up.
She was pissed.
And...
And...
And she had done something to really push my buttons that day.
And so I remember the pact, and I called Don.
And it goes like this.
He says, hello.
I said, I'm going to kill TJ.
And he said, oh.
He says, where were you selfish?
Now, that's not something you want to talk about when you're right in the middle of a second column.
That's a lesson.
That's a thing you want to talk about.
But you have to sit down and do it when they ask you that.
And so you work where I was selfish, and where I was dishonest, and where I was resentful, and where I was afraid.
And while they weren't really good, coherent, well-thought-out answers,
they were the best I could do, given what I had going at the time.
And that's important.
And he said, do you owe her an amend?
And I said, oh, yeah.
And he had...
It was Don's insight.
He said, wait till I get there before you go in to make it.
He said, I don't think you need to do this one alone.
And he did.
He came over there.
And he just sat outside in the waiting room to TJ's office and sat out there.
He could hear what was going on.
But I went in, and I got the amend.
And we got it taken care of.
And it worked.
And he and I did that several times.
I don't remember doing any with you, but we might remember we were sitting together making that deal to do that.
And after that, we were looking to the rest of the instruction on the 10th step.
He says, then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.
Love and tolerance of others is our goal.
So that night, we went up to Denver Detox at Denver General Hospital
and hustled drunks.
We're not looking for a...
We're looking for a 12-step call.
If you've never done that, it's just wonderful.
You've got to try it.
It's just the most fun of anything you can do.
But that's what we did.
And we weren't able to maintain that long because having somebody available to do that immediately can get tricky.
And that sort of thing.
But we were sharing, he and I were sharing that experience with some people in Kentucky a number of years ago.
And they started it down there.
And to a man, everybody will say that it was probably the clearest times they'd had in their lives in AA.
If you're staying on top of it immediately and at once, it really works.
It really does.
It doesn't mean you're not ever going to get ticked again.
That's not what it means at all.
We're sensitive people.
I just think that's so stupid.
Anyway.
That's my experience.
Thanks, Gary.
I'm not going to say ditto again, but ditto.
It really came home to me.
You know, only in Al-Anon, I'm sure AAs don't do this, but Al-Anons will call in wine.
You know?
And.
Okay, I'm sorry.
That was sarcastic, wasn't it?
And, you know, I mean, it's like, what do you do with this whiner?
You know, they call and they whine and they whine and you're going, whoa, my God.
And, you know, I don't know when it was, 10, 15 years ago, that the 10-step kind of popped out and became really, really just this wonderful tool.
Really.
And, like Gary was saying, you know, it really, I saw the fruits of it.
I had a whiner and she called and she was like, you know, she was just frantic with the feelings that she had and, you know, and trying to express them.
And, you know, I let her go on for about five minutes.
And I said, okay, now of the four things, what do you have going?
Fear, selfishness, resentment, dishonesty.
And it was like she stopped and she said, thank you.
Because, you know, we do want to be stopped.
We don't want to have whining fed.
And because where does whining go?
It's an endless, bottomless pit.
And.
And it brings us back and it focuses us.
And, you know, Mickey and I are really lucky because we do work together 24-7.
So I have a 10-step partner any time during the day that I want.
But he's a real pain in the rear because he'll, you know, he'll listen to me kind of begin someplace and he'll go, and of the four things.
And I'm going, what?
And then.
You know, he'll start going and I'll say, and of the four things, he'll go, what?
But we bring each other back.
We focus each other on the solution rather than the problem.
Because the problem, I mean, you know, everybody is prone to whining and feeling overwhelmed by this, these things that happen.
And if we're not brought back to a focus, you know, where do we go with it?
You just can't.
You just can't ever have an end to it.
So it's really nice to have somebody kind of like very, very immediately and very available to just bring me back to where is the solution.
And, you know, I really, you know, I have no problem with 10-stepping with Mickey unless it's about him.
And then, you know, maybe I will, maybe I won't because it's not always easy to get in touch with my sponsor.
But it's a tool that is amazingly powerful, amazingly powerful.
And people don't get it until they begin doing it.
And when they begin doing it, it's life-changing.
And I saw the effect of Fellowship of the Spirit about, I don't know, what was it, five, six years ago, there was an amazing 10-step workshop.
And people.
Well, in Al-Anon, it's really beginning to train the Al-Anons in the way in which the big book expresses the solution.
And the Al-Anons in Denver began getting this tool of 10-step.
And the whole of Al-Anon in Denver has changed.
I mean, truly, it has revolutionized Denver Al-Anon because, I guess, it stopped the whining.
You know, that's miraculous.
Stopping the whiners in Al-Anon, oh, my God.
Good morning.
It is so nice to be with you.
So I have this, what do they call it, separation disorder.
So if you find me clinging to one of your legs at the end of this deal, just, you know, try to ignore.
No, but really, it has been so wonderful to be here.
You've made us feel so welcome.
And we've made such neat connections with you.
And what a treat, huh?
What a treat.
So the 10-step, if you would like a life revolution, the 10-step, if you employ this on a daily basis in your life,
you will absolutely, guaranteed, get a life revolution.
You know what?
What I love about our fellowships is that if you say something like that to somebody,
you're going to see them in a few days at a meeting.
They're going to sit right next to you.
Do you know what I mean?
This isn't a drive-by promise.
This is real.
I've seen it happen in my own life, and I've seen it happen in every single person's life that I've ever worked with
or ever seen employ this step.
There is, again, a line of demarcation.
Pre-10-step, regular use.
And post-10-step, regular use, guaranteed.
I don't know.
I guess it was Aristotle said, the unexamined life is not worth living.
So what happens is that now I'm so like I've got this paranoia about trying to state the steps all of a sudden.
I don't know what happened.
I can't remember what they say anymore.
But doesn't our 12 steps say, having had a spiritual awakening, and then it goes on into the rest of the step?
Yeah.
But the reality oftentimes in Alcoholics Anonymous is, is that having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps,
we went back to sleep.
Seriously.
What happens is we've got these first nine steps, and we're rocking and rolling, and we're doing this work,
and there's a lot of energy being put into like all of the things in the first three steps,
and then there's a lot of energy in our fourth step, and a lot of drama.
And our fifth step, and we've got all this going on.
And then like six and seven start to peter out a little bit as we talked, because there's not many words.
And you know what I mean?
And then we got like, oh, my God, the ninth step.
And we have all these cards and all these stories we listen to and all that.
And then the brakes are slapped on, and there's nothing to do.
Right?
There's nothing to do.
But if you read the big book, you see that all during the day they're giving us things to do.
We pray when we wake up.
We continue to watch for these things.
And continuing to watch for them, incidentally, is active.
It's not like if I get hit with a two-by-four of a resentment somewhere in my day, I'll notice it.
We're watching for these things.
Why?
Because they're poison for my soul.
And when the spiritual maladies overcome, I straighten out mentally and physically.
So what is the locus of the disease?
Truly and truly, it's in my soul.
That's why a spiritual program.
A spiritual program works on alcoholism.
I need my soul healed.
So what happens with this is we, and I've talked to people here, and I can tell some people are very active physically,
and you go to the gym, and you do all of this kind of stuff.
And then it comes to doing this work on our souls, and we go, I'm good.
I'm good.
Even, and then, and of course, as Gary said, there's this confusion.
And many times in a 10-step meeting, you'll have people that will immediately begin to talk about the 11-step review at the end of the day.
I'm doing my inventory.
I'm doing it on a daily basis.
I do it at the end of the day.
But in that review at the end of the day, it says, one of the questions is, have I kept something to myself which should have been discussed with a person when?
At once.
Now, so I'll tell you that at once gets elastic.
With the people that.
And I sponsor, because my sponsor grabbed me, as we say in the military, by the stack and swivel and said, listen, Buster, you work at home.
And what was happening is, is that the phone was ringing all day long, because people knew I was available.
And so it's, let's call Mickey, let's call Mickey, let's call Mickey.
Meanwhile, Mickey is getting zero work done.
So he said, you've got to do something about it.
And he said, so you tell people you can call.
What I heard.
I heard it was between 430 and 6, but after 430, you can call me.
So now what the doctor is in between 430 and 6 o'clock, Monday through Friday.
And on Saturday and Sunday, folks, I'm married.
I have a wife.
We have a life.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
And it's like, for some people, this is heresy, because, you know, we've got to be on the battlements every moment.
I mean, are you kidding me?
This is like a one-way ticket to Divorce Central.
But during that 430 to 6, if you'll write down your 10th step, if you'll write down your resentment or whatever,
or make a note or a mental note, I don't care.
You don't have to write it down.
But anyway.
You don't.
You don't.
I don't.
Oh, nasty, nasty.
So then you can call me between 430 and 6, and we can talk about it.
Now, if you need, and some of the people I sponsor will unload it immediately.
Just like the book says, with somebody.
And, you know, you could do that with somebody that you're working with.
They don't have to know your 10th stepping.
You know, I'm really mad about this, or I'm really afraid to do that, or whatever.
They don't know your 10th stepping.
And isn't it interesting that in the 10th step, it doesn't say,
and you better get really excellent spiritual feedback.
It doesn't say that.
And it doesn't hurt if we can get excellent spiritual feedback.
But what it is.
What it is, is it's, they know us.
They know how we isolate.
It's talk.
Get it out.
Say something.
You're angry.
You're frightened.
You've lied to somebody.
You know, whatever it is.
You're being really selfish.
Because that poison can be unloaded.
And I can go to God.
And again, the emphasis in many people's minds is about the amends.
Oh, boy.
You know, I mean, I don't know if I know.
You know, I don't know if I, listen, if you own a man, you own a man.
It's just another step in this deal.
So, this step is enormously powerful.
I, I just started sponsoring a man that I wanted to sponsor.
You know how you watch people and you want to sponsor that one?
Well, I got, I got that one.
And he's a great guy.
And he took a two-year hiatus out of Alcoholics Anonymous and did a lot of travel in India.
You know, and sat in caves.
Whatever.
And went starkers.
He went nuts.
Because he wasn't working the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's okay to meditate.
But I got a lot of other things.
There's a lot of other tai chi in our program than just to meditate.
Okay.
So, he came back and then he asked me to be his sponsor.
And he's about nine years sober.
And Don had been his sponsor for a long time.
But anyway.
He, he wasn't in a 10-step practice.
He'd never done this.
And nobody had ever demanded it of him.
And I say demand.
Look, we're grown, we're grown-ups.
Right?
We're adults, more or less.
And, you know, I mean, if you don't want to do it, don't do it.
You know?
But if you do want to do it, here's what we can do.
Well, he does it.
He is the most religiously attentive to the 10th step of anybody that I sponsor.
And Monday through Friday.
Every day I hear from Marty, between 4.30 and 6.
His life has changed so much.
So, it turns out that this is spirit-filled.
And it can make us spirit-filled.
So, and I do a lot of long-distance sponsorship.
And in that case, quite honestly, we're only talking for an hour a week.
And so, what I do is I ask people.
If you have somebody that you need to immediately talk to, talk to.
But otherwise, I'm available and we'll talk to it.
And they write it down and we have these great conversations.
And I think it's effective, right?
So, but what a phenomenal step.
And it turns out that, like, people will treat.
There's two steps in the program we know are optional, right?
10 and 12, right?
Joel's looking at me like, what?
They're not optional, but we treat them that way.
This is a 12-step program, not an 11-step or a 10-step program.
And so, it's like, if you're not doing it, please try it.
That's all I have to say.
Just to add a little bit here.
We've talked about the critical parts of the 10th step.
But according to the book, it's not over yet.
Going over to page 85 and the first paragraph there is, of course,
talking about...
We're in a position now of neutrality.
And life is changing for us.
And then it says it's not easy.
It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.
Mickey just talked about that.
See, we find this thing, it works so good, I feel great, I think I'll quit.
Okay?
Okay?
We're headed for trouble if we do.
For alcohol,
it's a subtle fold.
We're not cured of alcoholism.
What we really have is the daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities.
That's a pretty powerful command, isn't it?
Anything we're going into, we've got to have a vision of His will.
Or maybe that just means, what is your will here, God?
I don't have a clue.
I just know I'm supposed to be here.
How can I best serve Thee?
Thy will, not mine, be done.
That I consider that the tenth step prayer, if you will.
These are thoughts that must go with us constantly.
We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish.
It's the proper use of the will.
Please do.
Gary read that.
How can I best serve Thee?
Thy will, not mine, be done as the tenth step prayer.
And it says, these are thoughts which must go with us continually or constantly.
So here's a trick that I suggest for people that I sponsor.
And that is, if you have a watch that will sound the hour, that will just make a little alarm every hour,
you can set it to do that.
And when it rings, you can say, how can I best serve Thee?
Thy will, not mine, be done.
It's a way of developing a habit.
Because again, the big book has given us a direction.
So it's just a little trick that might be of some use.
There happens to be a couple of tenth step promises, I believe.
Well, much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him
who has all knowledge and power.
My number one, you can add it if you want.
If we have followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us.
My number two promise is to some extent,
we have become God-conscious.
And then number three one says, we have begun to develop this vital sixth sense.
So there's three promises there.
But it says we have to go further, and there's a lot more action.
And it takes us on into the eleventh step.
The other confusing thing is, I think, is everybody seems to think the eleventh step starts in the morning.
It makes sense that it would, doesn't it?
But it doesn't, it doesn't.
So we're going to start it at nine.
And there is a precondition to doing the eleventh step at nine.
Do you know what it is?
Anybody?
It says we shouldn't be shy in this matter of prayer,
better men than we have been using, are using it constantly.
It works if we have the proper,
the proper attitude and work at it.
What do you think the proper attitude?
She said willingness, I could think.
Humility. God is God and I'm not.
That's the one I need, yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
I think that's it.
So there's a setup for it.
It really helps if I'm going into that.
Not so much as a mechanic going to review my list.
Let's check my attitude and see if God's going to help me with this.
Don and I have been referring to this as the checklist and Julie and I have it written out
when we do our morning and our nightly review.
Or you can put all the things it asks us to look at and make just one little sentence and leave
an inch or so to write in case you need to.
I learned this from a guy named Joe who was taken through the book and the steps in London, England,
I learned this from a guy named Joe who was taken through the book and the steps in London, England,
If you've been to London, you would think there's nobody there that knows about the big book and the 12 stamps.
As most of the meetings I understand, I've never been there.
They're anti-God.
It's all somehow or another you're going to be able to.
What's the terminology they use in the jitter joints today?
You can have the cognitive thinking to prevent yourself from taking the first drink.
The cognitive way, yeah.
Yes, self-knowledge is nothing.
They've taken the totally opposite attitude of what alcoholics know.
That's what government's paying for right now in the jitter joints, and so that's what they're teaching.
You're free to check that out.
Anyway.
Got a pencil?
Anyway.
You can go down the list.
Joe called me one day.
He'd moved to town, and we'd gotten to become friends because big book people seem to find big book people.
And he said, I've got a little inventory I've got to share.
It shouldn't take long.
Can we have lunch together someday?
And so I said, sure.
And so we made a steak and shake, and that's the name of the restaurants.
They're wonderful.
That's what you get.
You get hamburgers that they call it.
Jitter joints.
Yeah.
You got hamburgers they call steak burgers, and the most wonderful milkshakes and malts in the world.
And we had lunch, and he's got a three-ring binder, and I'm thinking, uh-oh, I should have taken the afternoon off.
But when we'd finished eating, he opened it up, and he had one of these sheets of paper in there for every day of the last month.
I guess it was a couple of months.
This is where he had the first one says.
The first sentence says, were we resentful?
One line, was I resentful?
And he left about that much to write if he had discovered the resentment.
Was I selfish?
And on down the page.
And he would go, and we started one day, nothing there.
Started the next day, nothing there.
The next day, had I kept something to myself, I should have discussed it once.
And he did just what Mickey was talking about.
He wrote down that one.
I should have brought it up.
I was selfish.
I was selfishly thinking of somebody.
And he wrote that down, and he went on.
And then you'd find some where he owed an amend.
And he shared the amend with me that he made.
He just hadn't discussed this with us.
He had done what the 11th step was saying.
And on and on.
That's how I learned to do it.
We went through two months in about 15 or 20 minutes.
It went fast.
There wasn't really anything that required a lot of explanation.
Those of us who had been in the steps.
For a long time.
Can avoid the drama.
We still like pitching it a little bit.
But we can avoid it if we're into the work.
And we're doing it.
And so I caught on to that.
And it's a wonderful tool.
Try it.
I come and go with it in all honesty.
I'll do it for a while.
And then I'll start this habit of going to bed and forgetting to do the review.
Because I'm generally tired and I go to bed quick.
And so I can't do it laying in bed.
And so we sit up and do these together when we do them.
But it's a wonderful tool.
I'm trying.
Because what counts are there's some promises of that.
After, you know, what would diminish our usefulness to others?
We don't want to do that.
We're looking at all these things.
But it comes from that and it works.
And then you've got the on awakening stuff that I'm going to leave for you.
But, you know, honestly, I have tried, I think, everything I can think of, everybody has suggested.
In terms of morning meditation and then on occasions, I'll find that I'm bogged down.
My morning morning meditation seems to have hit the wall and nothing's working.
So what you do is you open the big book back up and go back to what is coming up here and try doing exactly what it says.
And I do that currently today.
Julie and I have a and we, too, do our morning our meditations together and we have a prayer list.
And and it includes people that we love and people we're concerned about.
I had a man call today who's back in the hospital with with a fib and they just had a little remove some cancer off a lymph node Wednesday and had sent him home and the drive through surgery center from him and he was back in the hospital.
We're just going to say he was fine.
He said he just couldn't make the intergroup meeting this morning.
Thought he ought to tell somebody.
And but he said, I'll be down to see him on your Tuesday.
If I know Carl, he'll be there and got a new one to put on it.
He just died last night, got a call two hours after he died.
And Tracy had been a guy that I had worked with a while back and and he was incapable of really even starting it.
We tried going to the book, but he couldn't get past the first step and was back out, I think, on the second or third day.
We tried to do it together.
And but that include that list includes friends, relatives, our kids, the grandkids.
And people in AA and outside of AA who we meet in our work and Julie's work and that and their kids.
It's amazing what people attracts to you when you're just kind of out there.
Julie finds the Al-Anon ladies whose kids are bad and trouble with.
It's alcohol.
So their children and they are on the men's list.
We don't revise it often, maybe once or twice a year.
We kind of go with it until I think God's sick of hearing us about it.
But that's his problem, not ours.
We do that and then we sit now and we're doing the centering prayer at the moment.
And being being a converted Catholic and all that and still excited to be a Catholic, I, on occasion,
will go into the.
A regular routine of.
Saying the rosary.
And that's just what I do.
If you want to call it rattling the beads, feel free.
That's what I call it.
But it keeps my butt in the seat and it keeps my mind and my thoughts on God.
And that's what I do.
Bye.
Oh, is that a.
Okay, thank you.
I am not as good at the night stem night.
Ninth step review.
It's morning.
Okay, wake up, Marie.
Somebody get me a cup of coffee.
No, no, no.
Who knows what I said?
Okay, this has been a long weekend.
I love it, but it's like.
Yeah.
But what has been really helpful is that we get into bed and Mickey will say the questions
out loud and then, you know, we do our own silently answering the questions and that
helps keep us awake during the thing because, boy, if I try to do anything at that point,
in thinking of, okay, what's the first question, you know, I get distracted, but it's really
helpful to do that.
And for many, many, many, many years, what I called my meditation was I talked to God
all day long, you know.
And I said that and it was true.
I mean, you know, I.
The minute I get into a car.
Oh, my God.
I get into a car, I start talking to God and that's a nice thing.
And then, and I never challenged myself to really do meditation.
I thought, well, that's sufficient.
And then someone kind of insisted that Mickey begin meditation in the morning and, you know,
he doesn't like to do things alone.
So he said, you know.
Would you like to join me?
And I, you know, thank you so much.
Now, I might be able to put two words together.
And so, you know, how unspiritual would I look if I said I didn't want to do meditation
in the morning.
And so, of course, with that wonderful motivation, I began meditating in the morning.
And so, you know.
That's great.
Thank you.
And I promptly started having these amazing conversations with God and, and it's like
each, each, each morning would be something different and absolutely unique and, and,
and revolutionizing inside of me and, and it was amazing.
It was like.
It was like a whole.
A whole new world.
What I've kind of settled on most mornings and, and I, I, you know, I let God kind of
direct whatever happens because sometimes it's, it's real silence and sometimes it's,
it's something of a, more of a real experience.
But what I kind of presume is that, that God is resetting my compass inside.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, I can, I can really easily get going in a direction.
I get, you know, I get a project or I get a, you know, a thought that I'm going to really,
you know, do this today or accomplish this or whatever.
And my compass is going off this way.
And so the meditation, it's almost like I, I feel like a, what's that, the, the compass,
you know.
It's kind of, well, yeah, but you know, it kind of wiggles and wiggles until it, it,
it points north and, and, and that's what I feel like, you know, I feel like he's going,
okay, this is where I am.
And, and, and so it's not a, a real, you know, active thing.
I, I feel like I'm being worked upon by my God and, and he's, he's rearranging me and,
and I really need that and appreciate it.
And then when it gets to the prayer and we do some readings and psalms and things that,
that are really important to us, you know, I would rather have God's voice in my head
all day than mine.
Mine is, you know, a little iffy as far as, you know, what I come up with and, and so
having God's voice.
That's, is a, is a wonderful thing to begin a day with.
So, that's what I have to share.
Thank you.
So, man, I just drew the biggest blank.
I will come back.
God, please help me get back.
Okay.
Yeah, I don't know what happened.
You know.
Actually, recently.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
It's like we say, God's going to guide me and direct me,
but God forbid he should tell me to shut up.
You want to kill me, tape my mouth.
I'm telling you right now.
And you think he just did.
Oh, I'm struggling.
I'm on the ropes.
What are we talking about?
Holy smokes.
I'd like the 10th step that I'm very self-centered
because I'm falling asleep at the moment.
Yeah, let's take a break because I'm telling you,
I just drew the biggest blank ever.
Pardon me.
I all of a sudden have developed a bit of a cough.
So God's really trying to shut me up, but I'm going to persevere.
So I know there is something wrong with me, actually.
So I wanted to share that on the 11th step,
but this has meditation,
number one biggest struggle I've ever had in Alcoholics Anonymous
in terms of step working.
Second most difficult proposition for me was the review at the end of the day.
I knew I had something to say.
It's coming back.
Thank you.
Because it says we're careful to avoid, you know,
drifting into morbid reflection.
I think it says self-flagellation in some of the earlier books.
But it netted into that for me.
I could not do the review at the end of the day without taking Mickey out
and beating the living crap out of him.
So I didn't do it because it says we avoid this.
Okay, so I wasn't doing like a jailhouse lawyer thing on it.
Truly, I was trying to comply with what the book said.
I'm not recommending this.
I'm just telling you what my experience with it is.
And so I put it in.
I couldn't do it.
I just had a touch of self-hatred.
This is, I mean, I had a mongrel self-hatred.
So for me, the meditation was very, very difficult.
And I kept trying to go back to it and trying to go back to it.
I would also have what Gary was talking about.
I mean, I think you did anyway, that I would fall asleep.
I would start out on this thing and it would become, you know,
like almost like one.
It's one of those hypnosis movies.
Your eyes are getting heavy and I'm gone.
You know, God, you finish the meditation.
I'm out of here, but that's not, anyway.
So, but why I do the review at the end of the day,
I do it out of obedience because I want to tell you that my program
in Alcoholics Anonymous is elimination of variables.
And I'll explain what I mean.
Am I having,
a bad day today because I'm not working one or two steps
in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous?
Or am I having a bad day today because that's the way it is?
That's, you know, those are the rhythms of the disease in my life.
I need an answer to that question because if I,
if I'm not working a program, I don't have an answer.
You understand what I'm saying?
So I do this out of obedience.
They tell me at the end of my day, before I retire,
I'm supposed to do this.
So I try to do it.
And I can't tell you that I get anything out of it.
Seriously.
I mean, yeah, I got sobriety out of it.
Right?
I have a life out of it, but it's not, you know what?
I am an alcoholic.
I want to get drunk on everything.
I want to get drunk on spirituality.
I want to be blissed out.
Bare minimum, one angel.
It's true.
I ain't got, we got one angel right here.
But that's, that's how, how I, I live and move through life.
Everything has to be technicolor.
It has to be larger than life.
I have no interest in being human.
I want to be superhuman, right?
So everything is like always this, well, it's not working.
Why?
Because I'm not feeling anything, man.
Once more, we got the rubber band tied around the bicep,
and here I am.
So for me to do something and not get juice out of it,
I have now lost my motivation for doing it.
Right?
Now, I read in a book one time, another book,
that the emotional level, the feeling level,
is the least reliable in the spiritual life.
Okay?
So, and I want to talk about this,
because Gary has been a tremendous inspiration,
to me, and I'll explain that to you, about meditation.
This is the first time in my life I've ever been able to do it,
and I'm almost 35 years sober.
But anyway, so I just answer the questions,
and at the end of the night, now, I know,
it sounded to me like you were saying there are times
you might jot things down in your evening meditation,
and I know there are people who write everything down.
They answer all those questions each day.
I would rather be horseradish,
and I would rather be whipped.
I mean, seriously.
I was a professional writer for about 25 years,
and I'm telling you, for me, that would be a busman's holiday.
Okay, whatever, nobody knows that reference.
We were talking about old people, whatever.
So to drive a car is a busman's, forget it.
All right.
So, oh, thank you very much.
So, yeah.
So, you're a busman.
I'm a European, please.
I love this guy.
I'm telling you that right now.
So, anyway, I do the review.
Was I selfish?
Yes.
There's never been a day that I've ever done the review at the end of the day
that I could not answer that I was selfish.
It is my context for living.
I'm selfish.
I'm self-centered.
Is this about me?
How do I feel?
How do you feel about me?
You know, it goes like, seriously, I mean, that is it.
Welcome to it.
You know, was I afraid?
And I just think of those instances in the day, and that's it.
I mean, it goes like this.
The whole thing takes about two minutes, maybe.
Maybe a minute.
Because I'm answering the questions.
And then it gets on down, and again, have I kept something to myself,
which I should have discussed with another person at once?
And I wanted to say about the 10-step.
Get a 10-step partner.
If your sponsor's not available, get a 10-step partner.
If your sponsor's not available,
get a couple of 10-step partners that will agree to take your call
and that you can just download.
Anyway, so then I get down, and it says, then we ask God's forgiveness.
And what I say, God, I ask your forgiveness for the things that I've done wrong today.
And then it says, we ask what corrective measures should be taken.
And I've met people who then write down what corrective measures should be taken.
For me.
For me, I just ask God.
How do I know what corrective measures should be taken?
I'm the guy who's broken doing the prayer.
I manufacture.
Look at it.
It took all day to manufacture this thing.
What do I know?
Right?
So sometime in the night or the next day or the next week, I might get an answer.
But honestly, I have no idea if that prayer's answered.
Most of the time, I have no idea if that prayer's answered.
My job is not the results.
As Gary was mentioning,
my job is the action.
I'm supposed to ask the question, and then I go to sleep.
I'm done.
And upon awakening, you know, this is the thing.
We ask.
I like the way the big book writes things.
It says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But before we begin.
Oh, do this.
Okay.
It's like the third step prayer.
You know, they give us a third step prayer.
We're already in rock and roll.
And it says, but don't do this.
And you know what I mean.
So in this case, it says, we ask God to direct our thinking.
God, please direct my thinking.
I ask especially that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives.
When I am coming into consciousness, and I come into consciousness like a dolphin.
I'm conscious.
Oops, he's gone again.
Oh, he's conscious.
Now he's gone again.
So I probably say that prayer about four or five times.
And I'm going like, did I say it?
And I'm back and I'm saying it again.
The reason I'm saying it so quickly upon awakening is because I don't want to wake up with an alcoholic in charge of my life.
This is serious business to me.
Because my thinking can scuttle me right now.
And I want God involved in this thing.
I want to run to him.
I have nothing without him.
And if we're going to talk about a posture of prayer,
sometimes I get down on my knees and I put my face on the floor when I really need to talk to God.
It says it works if we have the right attitude and work at it.
The right attitude is, honestly, I'm a beggar before God.
What do I bring to the party?
Seriously, what do I bring to the party?
I bring the antidote to the party.
A lot of times I do.
You know, because I get, you know, the disease.
You know the disease.
So I get down on my face and I just ask God for help.
So this is about an I-thou relationship for me.
It's an I-thou relationship.
God isn't my running partner.
He's not my co-pilot.
God is driving the bus.
I've asked him, listen, I don't care at the end of my life.
If I get in for all.
I just want to be on the right side of the door.
You know, because, man, I can screw up in a heartbeat.
I can have things come out of my mouth or come out of my heart that I just wish weren't there.
I cannot control my emotional nature.
You know, it's the nature of this disease.
And it's not like I'm out there frightened to death and, oh, my God, what's going to happen all day long?
I've just been given all these tools.
Remember we talked about we've done all this.
We've finished our 90s.
We've done our ninth step or come as close as we can.
Now there's nothing to do.
Are you kidding?
Now we've got this 10th step that we've got cooking all day long.
We've got an 11th step when we go to bed at night, when we wake up in the morning, right?
And I'd like to offer this to you.
Arnello, when he did his meditation this morning and he finished, we got in just at the tag end with our apologies.
And he said, does anybody like to offer a prayer?
And I'd like to offer this prayer.
Somebody gave me this thing.
On a card.
And I'd like to have, if you'd like to have it, and that way if you buy the tape, you'll have this card, I mean this prayer.
Good morning, God.
You're ushering in another day, untouched and freshly new.
So here we come and ask you, God, if you'll renew us too.
Forgive the many errors that we made yesterday and help us once again, dear Lord, to walk closer in your way.
But, Father, we are well aware we can't make it on our own.
So take our hands and hold them tight, for we can't walk alone.
And this is the attitude that I have about God.
I run to him.
It's not sophisticated because I'm not sophisticated.
My disease is certainly not sophisticated, or maybe it is, you know, because it's certainly very wily.
But I need God like I need air, like I need water.
You know what I'm saying?
So this is a relationship.
And I need healing.
Now, I'd like to talk about meditation in the morning because of Gary.
And you need to understand that I really love this man because he's made a room in his life for me.
You know what I'm saying?
And he cares.
Now, one of the observations I have about Gary, and we're going to talk about him like he's not in the room.
He can't leave.
No.
Somebody recorded it.
Somebody recorded it.
Yeah, that's right.
He can leave, but somebody recorded it, he says.
Is that there is – he is direct, and he is very honest,
and it's frightened me about having him be my sponsor.
He's been my sponsor for a couple of years.
My sponsor died of pancreatic cancer.
And anyway, but Gary has a sweetness to him and a love in him that I want.
Okay?
And he says that he meditates, and he keeps asking me,
Mickey, are you meditating?
And for a long time I kept saying, no.
Because why?
Because I'm Mickey.
Because I'm nuts.
Because I'm a disobedient.
Because I'm undisciplined.
Whatever.
No.
And so I try.
And what he asked me to do is to sit in my chair to begin with for like five minutes.
I think we started with five minutes.
And try to just empty my mind.
You guys know this thing.
I've tried every kind of meditation, the crane technique, whatever.
I got nothing.
And I couldn't do it.
I could not do it.
But this one I've been able to do, and I've worked up to between 20 minutes and 30 minutes in the morning.
Okay, so what Marie and I do – and I'm only sharing this with you not as a recommendation,
but just to tell you what we do and to tell you that we do.
So for this period of time.
Now, I've got to tell this on Marie.
I say, Marie, what's going on with your meditation?
She says, well, I go to a place where I don't have – I'm not – I don't have any roles.
So I'm not mother and I'm not wife.
And she says, and then I go to a place where there's no gender and I'm not woman.
And I'm listening to this thing.
And I'm like over in my – I'm like a monkey mind.
I've got this electrical schematic of the house.
I've got – is my foot hurt this bad this early?
You know, and meanwhile, she's in nirvana.
And I'm like, what the hell happened here, you know?
Who invited him, right?
There's a point to this, and I'm being really honest with you.
So, like, I put the A in ADD.
I'm going like – I mean, that's my experience.
I'm so not blissed out, you can forget about it.
So, but I've got 20 minutes of this because I'm an alcoholic and I need help, okay?
And I'm trying to seek God, and it's not getting drunk on it.
Certainly, it's not.
And in this, there – and Gary said there may be times when, you know, you wish you could meditate longer
because you have a nice feeling or there's kind of a nice grooving going on.
It occasionally does happen.
I want more.
No.
So, but here.
Here's what's happened.
Oh, and then we do other practices, which I'll share, but here's what's happened.
And as a result of this, I have gotten sweeter.
I have more energy, but not like that kind of energy,
but I just noticed that I used to have to lay down in the afternoon.
I'm self-employed, you know, I could take a little nap.
And I don't have to do that.
And I have more energy, and I hope, and only Marie can judge this, that I'm a nicer person,
but I still have more energy.
And I certainly feel like I'm acting like a nicer person and being a nicer person.
That's a result of meditation.
I didn't ask for that.
I have that as my intention, but that's something that God has given me by my efforts to sit down and meditate.
And then it says in the big book, if you have religious practices that your religion asks of you, you can do those.
And so we do three psalms every morning.
We do something that if you were raised Catholic, you'd see the priest with his breviary.
He'd have his book of prayers that he has to pray all day long.
And we got that, and we pray the morning office.
And in the morning office, then we're just encouraged to seek God.
And the psalms, whether you're Catholic, whether you're Jewish, whether you're Muslim, whatever,
the psalms are unbelievable because the psalmist stands before God.
He says, what the hell is going on?
Everybody else has got a Ferrari, and I am walking everywhere, and it just goes on and on.
Or I love you so much, God.
I mean, in other words, this outpouring, and you find out we're not alone.
If King David could do that before God, I'm pretty safe doing it.
I'm just saying.
And then we have, and I want to make an offer, and I know this is probably a little strange,
and I know we're not here to talk about our religion.
Whatever we're doing to seek God is exactly fine in the Father.
I mean, I honor Alcoholics Anonymous.
Believe me, I do.
So I hope you don't find this offensive in any way.
St. Rita is the patron saint of impossible cases.
So we have St. Rita's List.
And we put people on St. Rita's List that we really love and who really need help.
Okay?
And we just refer that to her.
And I just finished an icon of St. Rita.
And if you would like a book.
A copy of that.
You write me at mmusset at comcast.net.
M-U-S-S-E-T-T.
So there's a double M at the beginning.
M-M-U-S-S-E-T-T dot net.
I've never done anything.
Comcast, C-O-M-C-A-S-T dot net.
And I know it's weird.
Please, if you feel like this violates anything, okay, I'd be happy to hear about it.
Seriously.
But I just thought you might want it.
Maybe you want it.
Let the patron say to the impossible in your pocket.
We have St. Rita's List.
And we pray for the people who sponsor us every morning.
And we pray for the people we sponsor.
And we pray for our men and women in uniform and harm's way.
That they would be safe today.
And that their families would be united in their absence.
And we go like that.
Whatever we care about, we pray for.
And we end our day that we'd be shown all through the day what our next step is to be.
And we'd be given whatever.
We need to take care of such problems.
And then because we work with our hands, we pray out of Psalm 90.
Give success to the work of our hands.
Give success to the work of our hands.
And we go into our day.
It's rock and roll time.
Imagine having a day where you start with no God.
I mean, where's that day going to go?
Then I'm locked in with this alcoholic who's making bad decisions, who's making decisions on self,
who's sideways with the universe and everybody else.
And I have no hope.
A guy I sponsor had an experience that just made me laugh and smile.
He went to a 7-Eleven and he asked, he said good morning to somebody and they wanted to fight him.
I'm telling you, I've lived there.
I could say good morning and we're crossways right now.
Can you believe it?
It's because the spirit, it's because the spirit is sick.
Now I can be well.
I can be well.
So all of that's a lot.
I know that's a lot.
But the fact of the matter is I have to have this.
We would not go out and try to run our car with no gas in it.
We would have no illusions that that car would go anywhere.
I need this fuel in my spirit.
God's not telling me, you know, you must.
I need to pray.
And I do a very.
Terrible job with it.
And I have to tell you something seriously.
I get zero emotional hit out of God, out of prayer.
Nothing.
I get nothing.
But I have, I mean, really, because don't we have an expectation that if I pray, you know,
or we're looking at the other guy, I bet he gets a lot of juice when he prays, you know.
That's Zach.
He's got, I mean, he's got fire coming out of his fingertips.
And I'm over here like nothing.
Nothing.
Just to do it, to be obedient.
And I leave all of the rest of those results to God.
But I will tell you this.
In my bones, I am convinced that there's a God.