Queens Big Book Study – Part 7 – Gary B. – 2008

Why don't we, well, I'm not hopeful, optimistic, no. No, it is. This is a lot. This is a lot in a weekend, huh? So hopefully we'll find out. I know that I'm looking forward to finding out what I said. She's right. Marie said he'll never listen to it, and it's true. So the eighth step is we made a list of all persons we had harmed, and told them we were willing to make amends, right? Something. Became willing to make amends to them all. Look at it. I mean, it's tired. What the heck? We'll get there together. It takes a village to get this thing done, I can tell you that. What do you like? Come with us. So we become willing to make amends to them all. So once again, for myself as a practice, I put a prayer across the top of the page and ask for God's help because, and it says in the big book that we have a list of the persons that we've harmed. We made it when we took inventory, and excuse me, but I'm going to have to disagree. Yes, in part, that's true. There are people in my fourth step that I harmed, and I can put them on my list. There are also people who are not on my fourth step that I harmed. I didn't resent them. I wasn't afraid of them, whatever. I just hurt them. So they go on my list as well. I was going for the A material here. I know. Table it. Tom told me that they're going to keep Lorraine in the hospital overnight, that the tests have looked. They're seeing some things. They need to observe overnight. So keep your prayers going. Okay. What a sweet person. Here she is. So anyway, there are people that I've harmed that are not in my inventory, and they need to be included on my list because it's made a list of all persons that I've harmed. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put them on my list. And became willing to make amends to them all. I'll never get this wording again. It's like off the disc is gone. Yeah. What a memory, huh? Just like a steel trap always closed. But anyway. And what I do is I list those names, and then I put the exact nature of the harm next to each name. This is my estimate of the exact nature of the harm that I've done to them. And, of course, we know that that's, that's debatable. Right? Especially if we're going back for amends that we, you know, for harm that we caused intoxicated or crazy. And, or a combination thereof. And, and so anyway, that's the, that's the process. And I always discuss this with my sponsor before I go out to make amends. And part of that reason is, because I went out the first time to make amends, and I followed the big book literally, and I put down every person that I had in my inventory, and I went to make, to make amends to them all. And after a while, I'm showing up over and over, and people are saying, what are you doing here? Now, that's worse things than saying hello. But I was there to make the big amend, and they're going like, you didn't hurt me. Right? I had not done my homework, and I had not had help with it. And also, I found that there were times, this is lovely. I used to be a promoter, believe it or not. And I was out promoting like, you know, a couple of groups, musical groups. And so I was out to make amends to this one club owner. And the only reason I wanted to make amends is to get more business. You know, I could have cared less about any harm or everything. I just, you know, I'm the same horse thief as I was, drunk. Now I'm a sober horse thief. And I'm out trying to use the steps as an excuse. So going over it with my sponsor was useful to say, Mickey, this is a spiritual exercise, and we're here to clean up the wreckage of our past. Also, as the gentleman in the back was talking about earlier, so I don't have to look over my shoulder the rest of my life, too, and be worried, and we'll get into that in our ninth step. But that's my experience with doing eight step work. And that's the way also, then when I work with somebody, I ask them to go over their amends that they think they owe, that they think they owe. And almost invariably, we'll pull something off that list. They don't really owe an amend. What is the nature of the harm that you caused? Well, you know, blah, blah, blah. We can talk about it. So that's for me. Ditto. You know, everything he said. I think we, we also have to be really open to things that might not occur to us. My, my mother died and, and I was unable to, in the last 10 years of her life, to be available to her and to, to help her through her sickness. And, you know, and, and, and there were some times that I, you know, I felt like I, you know, was, was not available emotionally to her. And then I, I, as I did my work, you know, I saw that in the meantime she had died and, and there wasn't a whole lot of amends I could do to her for her. And, and then I found myself in the position when Mickey's mom was dying. And I had really gotten to a place of very, you know, being very willing to, to be available. And, and I was able to see Mickey's mom through the dying process, whereas I was not able to see my own mom through the dying process. And so, as I did that, I would offer the, the time that I spent with my mother-in-law as she was dying, also for my, for my mother. And I, and I felt like I was really in reality making amends to my mom. And, and, you know, I wouldn't have thought of that before, but I think that we need to stay open to the, to the, the possibilities that God might present to us as a, as an alternative for some of the amends. Many, many of my amends were not resentments because kind of, as I've said before, I didn't, I wasn't in the place to be able to recognize my, my resentments. But, you know, like, you know, I never made my children brush their teeth. I wanted to be their best friend. And so, you know, they, they had a lot of things that they suffered, you know, going to the dentist, 13 cavities at a time because I had not done my job. And, and so those kinds of things didn't come from resentments and, and they were very powerfully, you know, I saw real, um, harm, uh, that I had done. And so these are the kind of things that, that I had to go through. And, and, you know, uh, I didn't have, um, any money to replace or anything that I had stolen. So, uh, there was, there were, uh, I had to really, um, have my sponsor and I, uh, get creative and, and I had to stay open to God's voice and, and how I was going to actually do these amends. And they were not all straightforward, um, like many of the amends. So I think that's all I have. Well, like I said, after I had finished my fifth steps, I ended up, uh, having, uh, lunch with a few of those guys I took the fifth steps with and, uh, thinking it was all over when one of them suggested I get my pad and pencil out and they were going to help me with my amends. And I was like, well, I'm going to have to do this. And they had really good memories. uh, and so we did, we started the amends list and then, uh, um, long about dessert. Paul asked if there were any amends, uh, that I owed that weren't on the inventory. And so they systematically interrogated me until we got down and we got all that I could remember. Uh, and, uh, uh, owed an awful lot of money to a lot of people. Uh, that's because I'm a beggar and a thief. It has nothing to do with being able to earn money. It, uh, we had borrowed money from parents and, uh, a members and, uh, friends and, and, uh, we just, this all is this big number. Uh, and it wasn't like we owned anything. You know, it's not like there were houses and cars and furniture and stuff. It was, it was just, we just owed it. And, uh, look through that. The, the personal amends that needed made, uh, uh, at that point in time had pretty well been touched on, but this time I had that. So we had this great deal of money that we owed. And so, uh, and I'm sure Julia will talk about, I'm not sure, but Julia may talk about some of this tonight, but, uh, we got home, uh, that Sunday when it was over and I sat down with her and we went through it and we went through it to see if there's anybody out there. Uh, anybody I'd missed between, between her parents and my parents and her brother and on and on. And, uh, we thought we had them all. And so Julie had an interesting take on this because she had been with me most of those times. We've been together since, uh, uh, I was 19 and she was 18 after she picked me up on that park all those years ago. And, uh, uh, so she thinks those are as much her amends as they are mine. And so we were in agreement of what it needed to take it. I also explained to her that those guys in Chicago couldn't believe that I had stayed sober 21 years and hadn't made amends and hadn't done anything, hadn't pretended to do anything. And, uh, I had been spending those years taking people to the book and when it came time to amends, I'd disappear. I'd, you know, I'd pull my punch, whatever it was. So we get home and, uh, on Sunday, on Tuesday, I start the amends and I started them with her dad. And, uh, he answered the phone when I called and I don't know at this point, I don't know why we started at him with him because I guess he was just a recent one on our mind, but we started them with him and he answered the phone. And, uh, and his name, uh, was Ellis, like Ellis Island. Julie commented yesterday that maybe that's where he got the name from. And, uh, he's, he was just a good man. He just is a solid a guy as you'd ever want to know. If you want to see a real man that understood taking care of his family and, and, and his extended family and making a living, how important that was and just being upfront and straight up guy. He seemed to be everything I couldn't be, but I called him and he answered the phone. Uh, uh, uh, and so I told him a little bit about why I, uh, was calling, but I said, uh, you know, you got to understand this. Uh, I, I, you never were angry with me. You never said a loud word to me all those years that I was driving you nuts. I know you were worried sick about Julie. Your word sick about the way I treated your granddaughters. We were always broke. You were always bailing us out. You're always helping. But during that time, you always showed me nothing but patience and kindness. And I love you. At which point he handed the phone over to grandma. And, uh, and so I went through the same routine with her. And then I said, have you any idea how much you've given us over the years? And she said, right down to the last penny. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, so anyway, we, we made up a payment plan at that point, which was the amount of money we owed. And all my payment plans I made up were no more than tokenism because I didn't have the money to cover that. And, uh, couldn't have done if I wanted to. So anyway, uh, made a few of the other calls. One of the other calls I made was to a man who had been, uh, my boss and Larry. When I got out of the nut house, I got a free ride to college in Laramie, Wyoming, at the university. And I still needed some extra money, so I took a part-time job in a men's clothing store there in town. And I was the oldest of the students that he hired, so he kind of put me in charge when he was gone. He'd go elk hunting or hanging out at the country club, whatever he was doing. And he'd leave me in charge, and I repaid him for all that kindness by stealing everything I could get from him. And so I had to call him. And part of my discussion that Sunday before had been, how much do you think you owe John? And so we had to go back. Well, let me see. What do you think the buck was worth in 1968 compared to now and all this? And we finally came up with a number, which we could have ran out and left field and grabbed the number just as easy, but it was the best we could do at the time. And so I had to find him. He'd sold the store and retired. And all that. But he was still living in Laramie, and I tracked him down. The phone call went like this. It went, John, this is Gary B.. Do you remember me? And he said, yeah, of course. He said, are you still going to those meetings? And I said, yeah, that's pretty much why I'm calling. And so I tell him to go through the whole routine that I had taken all those clothes and all that. And I said, the best. I can come up with how much money that might come to and be worth today. And I gave him the number. And I said, I need to start a way to start paying that back to you. And dead silence on the other end. It seemed like for 20 minutes. I'm sure it wasn't. But he said, I thought you were stealing that shit. Exact words. And so we made a deal. And I was giving him $50 a month to pay off that. And that was tokenism. That might have taken us eight years or something like that to pay it off because it was a lot of money. And I did pretty good with it for a while. I've been a straight commission salesperson all my life, which means some months I'd make pretty good money. And other months I didn't make any money. It's a lot like being an account executive in an advertising firm. But I was doing pretty good with it. And then one month I missed a check. I didn't get a commission check. And so John didn't get a check. And he called me. And so I said, John, I didn't get a check this month. I said, but I've got to pay that off. I said, it's just very important for me to do that. And he says, well, I don't care if you pay me. But you've got to promise me you're going to pay everybody. And I said, okay, I'll promise you that. So he forgave me the debt. And so I'm going on my happy way. I had this spreadsheet, you would call it now. Only this was back when you couldn't do that. And I did 18 columns on it. And so and then a date there and you go back. And each column was somebody you owed the money to. And you get a payday and you go down as far as the list as that payday went. And then you stop. And the next payday. You go a little further down the list and do all that. And go along that. And that was going on for a long time. You'd write the right payday down to enough money for groceries and gas to get you next week. And you had to look and see if the kids needed anything before that went on. That went on for a long time. It seemed like it went on forever. And one day I came downstairs and I was just so tired of that. And I said, Julie, I'm not capable of earning the kind of money it's going to take to care of this. I don't have that. I don't have that kind of earning capacity. And I just can't do it. I don't know what it was. And I was so tired. And I thought for sure I was going to get some sympathy, which was, that was funny, fuzzy thinking. And the next morning we come downstairs to get ready to go to work. And she said she had an idea. Got to watch it when they say that. And her idea was that we've been in that house for 10, 11 years. I've had the same job for nearly 10, 11 years, which might have been the record of my life for employment anywhere. I still. And I had this 401K retirement and all of that. She says we could sell the house. And then we could cash in the retirement. And we can pay off all the old amends and maybe what little current debt we had at the time. You got those kind of amends. You don't have much current debt. They ain't giving it to you. And. And. And we can have enough left to buy a used trailer house. And I'm thinking to myself, my God, she can't be serious. And. I go to work and I come home and I said, let's call Paul and see what he thinks about that. Because I got to find out somewhere. I got to find something that's going to take the pressure off. And so I called Paul. And I said something pretty close to this. I said, Paul, you've been listening to me for a long time and you've heard me with some crazy, crazy stuff. I said, try this on. And I said, we're thinking of selling the house and cashing in the retirement and doing all that and making those amends out there. And I said, I said, how local does that sound? He says, Gary, I've known you for 20 years. That's the same. You've never said. And then he said, was it your idea? And I said, no, it was Julie's. And he said he thought so. My sponsor is my wife's biggest fan. I think that's. So anyway, we did that. It took a few months to sell the house and the day finally came. And I'll just tell you about a couple more. I called John, the guy that owned the clothing store. And I said, give me your address. I got the money to pay you right now. And he gave me the address. He forgot he forgave me. So I sent him the money. And we paid all of them off. And I'll tell you about one. And I have a friend. He and I like each other a lot. We don't see each other often. And he's one of the guys that travels the circuit talking and doing stuff. And he lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. And he and I had been on a couple of programs together out in the country. And he had taken an extra day off on the way to a convention somewhere where he was talking and decided he wanted to stop by Indianapolis and see Julie and I on the way. And this was before the amends came about. And we're flashing back. And so he did. I meet him at the airport. And we're having a cup of coffee. And he's looking me in the eye. And he's saying, Gary, you look like hell. He said, what's going on? And I said, well, we're in real trouble. And I haven't told anybody. I haven't told my best friends in AA. I haven't told the soul what's going on here. But they're going to foreclose on our house in the morning. And Julie doesn't know that. And I'm afraid it'll kill her. And I got some relief because I hadn't told anybody that. I've been keeping that garbage to myself the whole time. And so we're driving out to the house. And we were going through downtown on the interstate. And Bob says, where's the bank? I said, what bank? He said, the one that has a note on your house. I said, oh, it's just downtown right over there. He says, let's go see him. I said, let's go see him and talk to him. I said, Bob, they're really tired to talk. They've had all the talk they really want. We don't really need to go talk to him. He said, oh, you never know. I said, come on. So we went over there and found a parking place across the street. We're jaywalking to get across the street to go on the bank. I felt like a kid walking in to see the principal with his dad. And we go down there. And we're sitting in this room waiting. And this banker. Can you imagine Jerry Elkins really upset, walking into the room, carrying a big stack of papers, a big wrinkle down his nose like that, sitting down? And I love doing that where I'm doing one of these with Jerry. And he, Bob looks at him. He says, how much is it going to take to get Gary caught up? And the big crease loosened up a little bit. And he opened up and went to him and gave Bob a big number. And Bob. Bob reached in his pocket. And he's carrying substantially more than that number in cash and travel checks in his pocket. And I've never seen anything like it before. And I walk out of there even with the bank. And we're walking back to the car. And I said, Bob, I got to pay that back. And he said, that's your problem. Pretty wise. I'm drunk from Minnesota. I thought. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. He had no idea how much in my palm. So now we can flash back forward to the 28th of February. And that year, we sold the house. Reason I know that that's Julie's birthday. And that was one of those 39 year birthday issues. Having and. And I called Bob and. And I said, give me your address. I'm in shape to pay the money. you gave me all those years ago. And he laughed at me. And I said, what's so damn funny? And he said, well, cowboy, it's like this. He said, back then when I gave you that money, I had a business that generated more cash than we could spend, invest. It was really a cash cow. It was legal at the time. But since that time, Congress had made it illegal. And so he's at a place where he doesn't have the accounting tricks to generate all the cash that he had before. And effectively, he's trying to make all this investment work, and he's got investors mad, wanting their money, and he's in deep trouble. And he didn't talk about it much. He made sure he spoke with his sponsor about it. And I know his sponsor. I know that's true. Just to make sure he was being honest with it every day. Here's what happened on this mess I'm in. And he'd go through that every day. And he said, He says, that's the only thing I'm doing. And nobody else knows about it. I'm not speaking from it, about it on the circuit or any of that. And he says, but every once in a while, I'll go down to the mailbox and get the mail, and there'll be a check in there from one of these people that we helped. Because he and his wife Linda, that was their tie. If people needed help, they gave it to them out of their pocket. And did that. So every once in a while, there was a check. And so he got the best deal on. And all of that, I think. He got these huge blessings. And it came from him. So I just got another feel for how big this deal is. Now, this is a big deal here in this room. Not quite as big a deal as you sitting in your home group and sharing going on. But this is a big deal. And this AA as a whole is just a really big deal. And it's all wrapped up with a ribbon that I just seem to think is love. And that's what it is. So anyway, we ended up and we lived in a trailer for a number of years. We paid off all those financial amends. And I understood what and where the real change comes about in Alcoholics Anonymous. And it comes about at the amends. The promises are read when it says we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. Well, I was a whole lot more amazed after I was through. And it's a change that lasts and it does that. So I. That. Was mine. I had a few personal amends I had to make in there. Some harm I caused and some lies I told and that sort of thing. And today when I'm encouraging and working with somebody to make their amends and how they're going to do that. I'll have them write each amend on an index card. And write the harm. And then we'll discuss them. And then we'll discuss what to do and how to go about it. Generally speaking, I'll have them tell the person. I'll make an amends to. That you need to understand first, sir, that everything with you is fine with me. This is about the harm I've caused you. Nothing else. And given the best shot at the harm as they remembered what it is. Ask them a question. The question can be, have I missed anything? Or can it be? Could be. How does that make you feel? And you let them talk. You shut up. Nicky, Tom. You shut up. And you don't defend yourself. And then when they're finished, you ask what you can do to make it right. Okay. If you own the money, show up to do that with some money in your pocket. Don't show up dead broke and tell them you're going to pay them Friday. You've been telling them that for years. Better start with something. A guy came to me from Cincinnati. He was a guy from the United States. He was a guy from the United States. He was a guy from the United States. He was a guy from the United States. He was a guy from the United States. I told him a story of his. The guy from Cincinnati a number of years ago. Listened to his fifth step, and we get through that, and that had taken a very long time. He says, can you help me with my amends list? And I said, sure. And he says, I've got to go out in the car and get it. And he brings in a box about that big. About that long. Three by five wide. And there was amends cards. It wasn't a blank card. Every damn one of them had been filled out. And it was a blank card. The only thing he could find was the book. But he said, that's a check. and they would have been filled out. And I'm thinking, he isn't old enough to cause that much harm. And so we start with the first three or five, deciding what the harm is. And the first five out of ten were something like that, I owe him an amend because he doesn't like me. What harm did you do to him, Tom? Oh, I don't know, but man, he really doesn't like me. I said, so you're trying to fix this so he'll like it? Or are you trying to make amends? So you can see where I'm going with this. I went and got a grocery sack. And that was the discard sack. That's where I got to practice flipping cards into the basket before we got done with that. But I just think that's so critical that you do that with somebody. Don't trust your thoughts on what the harm is. Don't trust their behavior around you that you harmed them necessarily. They may just not like you. Believe it or not, they might not like you. Amazing. And that's fine. We're not all that likable sometimes, are we? So anyway, that was pretty much our time. Now, there have been a couple of other little amends here and then and all that that didn't involve money. Nothing that was dramatic, so I don't talk about them. Come on, that's funny. So anyway, that's my amends. All right. So the ninth step, we made direct amends to those people. What is it with my brain today? So direct. Come on. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Thank you. So direct amends means direct amends, and that's what I was taught. Direct amends means face-to-face wherever possible, and if it's not face-to-face, it's on the telephone. And if it's not on the telephone, then it has to be a letter, and that's the process of that. But I'll give you an example of I have seen, and I've made reference to this maybe, I'm sure I have, in the course of the week, and I'm really getting kind of tired. I'm sure you are too. But anyway, the idea of working my whole program towards amends. Well, geez, I didn't owe an amend on that one. Shoot, that's great. The work's over, and it's that kind of stuff. It's not like that. But if I do owe amends, I'll give you an example. During the worst of those times, right before I came close to killing myself, all the money was gone. The creditors were coming after us, and Marie was doing our financial work, and there wasn't any income. And it was brutal. And she was having to stand in the breach when there was no money and deal with these people, and it turns out that they actually wanted their dough. You know, we had borrowed it, and they wanted it, and that was that. And so she dealt with all that, and I hid. I mean, that's all there was to it. I just hid. So since those days are past us, thank you. God. I pay all the bills. And whatever has to be dealt with, I face those bills every day, and we look at what we can do, and we take care of business, and I discuss it with her, and I do not hide anything from her, which was another deal in the past. You know, it's like, oh, my God, like Gary was making reference, that Julie didn't even know they were going to lose their home. I mean, I was capable of that and sort of living in that secret deal because we want to maintain. This image, and here we are going straight down the pipe. So when we come to something, I will tell her this is how much money we have left, this is what we can do, and we live like that. And, you know, and it's made my life better. It's restored my soul, which is what we're talking about. We're also talking about helping somebody else in their life to gain some belief that really maybe people can be okay too, that we're not just always takers. And we are the ones that surprise. We're the ones that are the best people out there. I, you know, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm trying to recover from the disease of alcoholism. And part of that is that I need to make amends for the harm I've done in the past. When I was a kid, I used to steal all this stuff off the shelves in your store. And as close as I can figure, I owe you this. Can I come and talk with you? How often do you think they get a call like that? Not very often. And it kind of restores your faith in humanity. Yeah. And just a story that I sponsor a guy who is a sous chef in Denver. And he owed some amends up in Vail. And he had this trick that he worked, and I'm sure either you've done it or you've maybe heard about it, but here's what his deal was. He would go into a hardware store and steal a tool, a good one, a power tool. Then he would come back and he would say, I lost my receipt, and I want to return this tool I don't care for. And they would give him the cash at those days off that power tool. So they're in essence buying their own tool twice. And he skips off down the road. So he had enough money just to get a bus ticket from Denver up to Vail. And I'm telling him, this is important, man. You're buying back your soul. You're buying back your soul. So he took the money he had and he got on a bus and he went up to Vail. He had called the people at this Ace Hardware, what it was, first and said, here's my situation. And they said, and I want to make it right somehow. And he told them, honestly, I don't have any money, truly. I'm tapped. But I wanted to take ownership with you that I did this and that I owe you for it. And they said, I'll tell you what, we're painting the floor in our hardware store. If you will come up and paint this floor, we'll call it even. So he goes up and he's getting ready to paint the floor and he's working on the floor. And in walked two or three other amends that he had been avoiding. And they ran right into him there, presented themselves to him, and he had a chance to begin working on these amends as well. And they aren't always financial amends. I had very, very little financial amends, if any. But my amends were for harm caused. So it's to even up the books. It's to make an attempt to even up the books and to get square and to not be looking over my shoulder. And some of the things that I did, I did because I was really, I had my hair on fire and I was dangerously antisocial and I was lost. And if an offense was made towards me, I made retribution like right now. And for most of those things, I got caught. And I stood there. And I said, I'm going to do this. And like I didn't graduate from the eighth grade, which you did in South Dakota. I was in South Dakota at that time. I didn't graduate from the eighth grade because I had defaced the school. And I got the whole deal on it. I got the whole deal on it. And I got to stand in front of my priests. And they read me the riot act. And so when you were graduating from the eighth grade, I was standing across the street smoking old gold cigarettes and drinking grain belt beer and a vinyl motorcycle jacket. To hell with you. I got the reward of my behavior. I didn't need to go back to those people. But I'd like to tell you sort of a happy flip on one of these for just a second. I told you about that senior English nun that was watching me come up through high school. And I just loved her. I just thought she was maybe one of the neatest people I'd ever met in my life. And I really loved her. And she was kind to me. Because I was having a lot of trouble. And she always listened to me. And if I came up with some cockamamie proposition in my head, I'd raise my hand in class and say it. And she'd say, do a paper on it. And my poor classmates, they had to listen to my paper. She'd go, go do a paper. And I would present the paper to the class. And anyway, it went on like that. And what happened was I'd been going around the country telling everybody how much I loved her. And it occurred to me I had never told her. So I went and I found her. And I sat across the desk from her. And I got to tell her what it meant to an 18-year-old boy to have somebody believe in me. And not think I was disposable. And she said, you know, Mickey, you're the only one who's ever come back to talk. But I got to be that one to let her know your time as a teacher was not wasted. I see you. I heard you. And I love you. It's a pretty good deal. So we have a, go ahead, Gary. Sure. I was, Jack reminded me I've missed a couple of things. I told you about Julie's dad answering the phone on that Tuesday and then handing the phone off to Grandma. And what I didn't tell you, it was the following Sunday that we got a call from, you know, Cheyenne where he lives. And he had lost consciousness with a stroke and he never regained consciousness. And it just happened. And somehow God put that amend right there to at least have that conversation with him. We got that one done. Now all those years that we were going to them for help and borrowing money from them and all that, it's not that they were available every time, but they were available most of the time. And as time went on, they tried different things to get me to pay them back. And one of them was they had to sign a promissory note. And they were really proud of it. Obviously, it didn't mean a damn thing to me. But they were very proud of that promissory note. And, you know, I was in the middle of the meeting. And so anyway, that all got paid. And then a few years ago, we had to move Julie's mother into a home. And then she died a couple of years later than that. And while we're getting ready for the funeral, we're sitting with Julie's brother. And he doesn't know all this. He hadn't been told any of this stuff. And so we're sharing with it what happened. Over the years and how that had come about. And we had done all that. And he asked me to do the, what the hell do you call it? Eulogy. Eulogy, thank you. I'm fine. Just fine. The eulogy for that, which really kind of surprised me. What you need to know about that, all those years Julie and I were married, and it didn't matter whether we lived in town or not, if Julie's mom sent us a card or a birthday present or something like that, it always said Mrs. Julie Brown. Gary was never recognized on any of those cards and that sort of thing. But after that happened and all that, occasionally a card would come to me personally, just Gary B. or something like that. And it kind of changed. So anyway, I did that. I did the eulogy that day. And they do things, I don't know how they do things here, but every part of the country I've learned handles the funeral process a little differently. In Indiana, they have the wake at the funeral home, generally the day before they bury the person, they have the funeral itself. And where in Wyoming, the funeral home, some people may drop by to see the body and show some respect, but there's not many people that do that sort of thing. But after the funeral, everybody shows up at the survivor's home and brings lots of food, and it's a party. Yeah, I mean, and it's just the way it is. And so we're all out at her brother's house, and John disappeared for a while. They have this large basement down there. And he came back and he handed me the promissory note, and it said, paid in full. And I don't know if it was given to him that way or he did it and gave it to me. I have no idea. But that's one of the men I know got made. Yeah, Tom. Yeah, I have just kind of a comment. Yeah. Can I stand up? Sure. I know what you look like, brother. I did that review, that eight-step review, in that funky office with the asker. And we talked about the instructions and how we go to someone. You know. I'm here because I'll never get over drinking, et cetera. Most of us know the drill. Right. And one of the pieces that you gave me that is not in the big book but I've used so successfully over the years and I've given it to so many people and they use it was to add to that, you didn't deserve to be treated like that. And I've given that a lot of thought, and I don't really know whether they deserved it or not. I mean, they might, you know, I'm not God, they might have deserved worse. But it's been a sweet thing. It really has meant a lot to a lot of people. Can you talk about where that came from? Yes. One of the things that I'd like to hear is about the timing on that so we don't self-goal our amends and, you know, push them forward if we don't get the spiritual joy of that. You understand what I'm talking about? Yeah. Thank you, Tom. And I wanted to acknowledge the fact before I answer Tom's question that somebody did put something in the basket and here's what it says. Who is June Cleaver? I just wanted you to know the depth we're playing at here. Beaver's mom. Yeah, leave it to Beaver's mother, but it was June Cleaver. But anyway, I love that question. That's like the best ever in an ask a basket. So, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I'm going to put that in the chat. I'm going to put that in the chat. I'm going to put that in the chat. Yeah, I'm going to put that in my big book. That goes with me. Yeah, that goes with Marie. So, in making sexual amends, amends for sexual harm, which I had to do, which I got to do, I got to do that. It's amazing the kindness that is shown to us. It's unbelievable. Here I offend some woman and here I was inconsiderate. And I was selfish and so on. I call up some years later and she agrees to meet with me. I mean, forget who, oh, big deal. I'm going to make an amends. I'm doing fighting for my life. Here she is, the offended party, and she agrees to meet with me. I think this is huge. And I thought so at the time. And, of course, again, the common wisdom is we're going to meet with somebody about a sexual amend. We meet in a public place so that they feel safe. And that we're not there to be an opportunivore about let's strike up another, hey, you know, here you are. You're looking pretty good, particularly good today, whatever. It's not that. We're there to make amends for harm caused. And, Tom, to answer your question directly, and he's talking about the fact that I used this, you deserve better. You absolutely deserve better was how I talked to this young woman. You know, I talked to this young lady. You did not deserve what happened between us, and you deserve someone who really loves you and who cares for you and treats you kindly. That's where that came from. And it's true. She didn't deserve that. She deserved what we all can have that's beautiful in life. And she did not deserve me because I was a predator. I was a predator. And, incidentally, on that score, I want to share something with you. I mean, again, in the spirit of truth. I was sexually molested when I was eight years old by what? By my oldest brother was seven years older than me, by his friend. And I was buried that so hard and so deep that I was six years. I was six years sober before I even remembered that it happened. And I was watching a show on rape on television. And I found myself with my feet coming up off the floor, and I didn't know what was happening to me. And I remembered right then that I had been molested when I was eight years old. Now, I had spent my life feeling like a complete predator creep, and it's not that I wasn't predatory. But I thought that I was personally so. Low as a human being. Do you know what I mean? I was just a bad person. And I didn't know that I'd been hurt. And I never talked about it. I never talked about it to my parents, my brothers, priest, anybody. I never said anything. As a result, and what I wish I had done is I wish I had talked. Because it would have helped start to diffuse the rest. Because hurt people hurt people. And you know, here I am acting out, and I'm like becoming very promiscuous. And I'm eight years old. I'm eight years old. I was promiscuous with boys. I was promiscuous with girls. I was just sexual. And I took the hit on that, and I never realized that I had been harmed. And when I found out the dynamics of a lot of that stuff, I found out that, you know, I could heal inside. And I could also stop being a predator. What a gift, huh? And Tom, I forget the second part of your... Just the timing on events. Yeah. The spiritual timing instead of forcing them, self-willing them. Yeah. Well, I want to say something, and it's not directly to your point, but I do want to talk about the momentum of the spiritual life, of the work in the program. There is a momentum to the work we do. And if we start stalling, and relevant to the ninth step, if I start stalling, which is the other side of the proposition that Tom has put forward about waiting for the spiritual sort of green light to make the amends, if we start stalling on the ninth step, I can tell you what happened to me. And, Tom, I will get around to that, and I know you guys have something to say on this as well. But what happened to me is that I got down, and there were two amends that I had not made in my original ninth step. Okay? I couldn't find these people. This is before the Internet. And, yes, there was a time before the Internet. And so one... Now, I had made no connection between what I'm about to tell you and that. One morning, I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I was never more scared in my life. It was like there was something in the room with me. And I was terrified. And I didn't know what was wrong. And I'm like barely able to move. And now this name keeps coming up here. But I'll tell you how scared I was is that I called Big Frank at 3 o'clock in the morning. I needed some spiritual muscle, and I called him. And he said... And he's had this AA reaction, which is lovely. He says, Why don't you come over for a cup of coffee? This is the bad guy I painted to you. So he said, I'm scared. So he lived close enough that I could walk. But I didn't walk because I was like a little boy being chased by a goblin. I ran over to his place. And we talked and we talked. And we talked about meditative postures. We talked about 11-step stuff. We talked about a lot of things because he's fishing. He's looking for what's wrong with this guy who's sitting in my home at 4 o'clock in the morning having a cup of coffee. And he just in passing, after a long time, he says to me, Have you made all your mints? And I said, I got two hanging fire. He said, Oh, my God. If you'd have told me that at the beginning, we could have bypassed all this other conversation. He said, Make the amends. And what I found out was that the phone company had all the phone books from around the country. And I was able to go down to the phone company, and I looked up these two people, and I was able to mail letters. And my program got back on track like right now. So I tell people, Understand something. The first three steps. That's how we're working our way up to dealing with a power greater than ourselves. And then we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him. If we'll know if we're if we meant that decision by if we do the middle step work, which is four through nine. That's how I act on my decision. That's how I know if I meant it. Now, if I'm going to take the piece out of it invariably happens at the ninth step if it hasn't happened at the fifth. But most of the time it happens in the ninth step. What will happen is your whole program will roll backwards on you. I've seen it happen. I had it happen in my life, and I've seen it happen to people. All of a sudden they can't go to their home group anymore. They're losing. They lose all the spiritual power that they gained and all the momentum goes away. And so that's a part on timing. And another part is that I to Tom's deal. Again, in the momentum of things. Is that I will pray and I go into prayer and doing my amends and it's just given to me in the course of all that. But Tom, I don't have any direct experience with forcing the issue and self willing it. And I can tell that that's like that's real and it's bad. I mean, I just know that from what you're saying. Do you guys have any experience with that that you want to talk to? Oh, mainly. What I want to say is that, you know, as with anything else, especially with a rule follower, I have to be very careful about the heart of the rule. You know, we've talked to a few people about how the big book can be used as a club, how the steps can be used as a club as you know, we can we can be cruel to each other in trying to save each other's lives. And and. I think what I would say to that, Tom, is that that we we never make a we never do anything at the expense of somebody else. And and we always have to be thoughtful and caring for the position and what the other person can handle and need. And, you know, I mean, if we're not doing it in love, if the whole thing is not based on a loving attitude, then then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're not doing it in love, then, you know, you might as well not do it anyway. So it's not like you're going to get kudos for doing it. You know, I did it. You know, I harmed them in the process. And I'll tell you, I've made many amends where I had to go back and make amends for making amends. It's not good. It's really. It's really lousy. Or than just, you know, waiting for a little while to get real clarity on what you're making amends for. I think that's where I've really had to halt, you know, step back from an amends, unless I know really what I'm going to make amends for. It's mushy, and, you know, I just confuse them, and I confuse me. So I think that's really important. That's where a sponsor comes in. Thanks, June. Thank you. That is so funny. It is great. My experience around that goes twofold. By the time I got to making amends, I didn't think I had time to let any of them sit and fester any longer. I thought they'd gone long enough, so I made them as quickly as I could and as fast as I could, and I didn't give that any thought. However, over the years when I'm working with people, one of them is sitting here in the room, and I start out hot, get a few amends made. One of them go real easy, give him enough oomph to go do the next one where he gets his ass kicked, and emotionally, and that sort of thing. And I don't think I nagged him much about it, but I would ask him fairly regularly when he was going to finish the amends. And I saw... I don't know if I would go on and ham the same as I went on and me before we finally got them done. If you're sitting out there, and in my case, you've got a life on a yo-yo, an emotional yo-yo, where you'll get in trouble, you go take an amity, you go take some fifth steps, and the yo-yo's up at the top of the hand, and you're doing fine. But then if you're going to just cruise on that and not go any further, it starts to drop, and it comes down. So you feel like hell again. You go right more inventory, take another fifth step, and you get up. But the highs don't get as high, and the lows get lower. And you live on that. And so now I'm a little bit... I'm not absolutely convinced that there is a spiritual timing. Our friend Mike B. in Denver, he always said that willingness has a sound. And... Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. That's when you hit the door with the money in your hand. With that. It's the kind of way it comes about. But that's my experience on that. I know we're just about to break up, but I just wanted to say one thing also, and that is about amends that people don't want to hear about. And they don't want to see you, and they don't want to hear your amends, and here we are. And I have had that happen with my brother. And he just wasn't interested. And he was set in whatever he was set in. And what I did is I made the offer, I tried to do the amend, and it went nowhere from the sitting down and having the angels sing and the sun come out and all that. So the book talks about that. I've done what I can. I put it in God's hands, and I pray for my brother. And that's that. And I would rather have it otherwise. I have this thing, you know, when Christmas starts to come I get this courier and I of sort of feeling about things, and I'm listening for reindeer on the roof. You know, and it doesn't come that way. That's not the way it is. And so I can't have my picture of life always fulfilled. But what I can do is what I can do. That's it. God bless you. You guys have been great to be with. I mean, seriously, and you've been attentive. And this is hard, and it's a lot in a weekend. So we have a break. And I guess, is that six?