Spiritual Awakening – Part 9 – Bob D. – 2018

felt worse in my life it was awful and he didn't fire me he yelled at me but he didn't fire me and he let me stay working there and i paid him back i added 10 on to my estimate and added another 50 bucks on top of that because i know how i am i'm a minimizer right if there's a net if it's gonna if there's a mistake in my calculations it ain't in your favor you know what i'm saying right i know how i am i've been that way all my life right so i added another 10 and another 50 bucks just to be sure and i paid that guy back and it took a long time i mean it took a long time and i'll tell you a funny i didn't get this for a long time within 30 days of making that last payment a guy came to me now i wasn't looking for this he came to me out of nowhere and offered me a job with a management position and a chance to really advance to it like running a whole company a whole business and i went and took that job and i'll tell you something i never took a dime from him i never took a ballpoint pen home out of that place and i gave him uh i gave him a dime for his nickel and with no time at all i was running that place and i was doing very well and i was making him a lot of money and he was taking good care of me and i'm in a denny's restaurant one night and the guy that i used to work for and stole from and paid back was sitting in there with his wife and i started talking to him i said how you doing and he was a little down in the dumps i said what's going on he said well he says i've been wanting to retire he says i'm burnt out and i tried to sell the store and i couldn't and the deal fell through because it had a a gambling license and a liquor license were part of the store and the guy that was buying it couldn't get the approval and he had he got it back in his lap and i don't know why i said this i don't know these words were not of me but i said to him i god i'd love to buy your store if i only had the money and and he looked at me and he said what are you what's your day off and i told him he said let's have lunch and we had lunch and i met him at the same restaurant this denny's and he's got this paperwork all there and he showed me on paper some stuff and he made me a proposition if you uh come back to work for me and run my business and you can get the he said it's not doing very good right now Nobody's really been at the helm, but if you can run it, you can get the profit up to a certain level. Out of that additional profit, you will earn a piece of the business. If you keep it to this level, you'll get 10% a year. At the end of five years, we'll be equal, and I want you to buy me out. And you can buy me out out of the profits of the business. It won't cost you a dime. And I said, yeah, you bet. And I went to work there, and that company was doing about $600,000 a year. And at one point, I started opening other stores, and we were up to about $10 million a year at one point. I sold the last pieces of that corporation, except for the real estate, which I still own and the business had paid for over the years, last year. And I'm retired. I'm retired younger than anybody I know. I retired well. And as a result of that amends, I wouldn't have had that business if it wouldn't have been for that amends. And not only am I grateful for that, for Alcoholics Anonymous, and my daughter, who's 17, is grateful because she will be in good shape for the rest of her life as a result of that amends, and her children's children's children will be all right as a result of that amends because of the real estate that's involved. And I don't know. I was on my knees in a little beat-up apartment, you know, several years sober, and I stood at a table. I was at a turning point. And maybe, maybe I could have swept it under the rug and not drank. I don't know. I suspect I might have drank over it. Or I might have just gotten so weird in AA that I'd have been a fringer on the edge, just suffering acutely from alcoholism, waiting for the Prozac generation to evolve so I could have something for my alcoholism. I might have been that guy. But I wouldn't have the life I have today. I know that. And I'll tell you what I've discovered over the years. And I get a lot of guys that are sober a long time, and they're financial disasters. And some of these guys have made really good money over the years. And it's a weird thing. They'll tell you things like, I make more money than I've ever made, and the more money I make, the broker and more debt I get. And they'll say things like that to me. And I... And they'll have their... They'll have their credit cards maxed out to the... You know, it's just... And they're financial disaster areas. And I will start to work with them. And without exception, we will always find that there's unmade financial amends. And it's usually ones that they could get away with and nobody could ever touch them for. And they kind of slide with it. But you never get away with anything here, really. And I got a guy right now who... He's almost 20 years sober. And he's been in a disaster area for a long time. And he's chipping away. He's almost done. And he's not even... He's more than halfway through, but he's not done yet. And his life is turning around financially already. And I think it's some kind of karmactic thing that happens. You know what it's... If you ever seen... Anybody here seen the movie Flatliners? I think that's a ninth step amends movie. It's about these doctors that find out that are haunted by these things that come back... Into their... Into their life as a result of these experiences, these laboratory-controlled experiences with death. And they're haunted by these ghosts that they think are killing them. And it's not the ghosts. There's a scene where this one doctor, he thinks there's this little boy trying to stab him with a knife. And then for a brief second, it shows what's really going on. He's the guy with the knife. Right? And I'm the guy who destroys my own life because I ain't even. And yet, when you're in the... In the middle of that, you never get that. Because it doesn't look like... It looks like a lot of bad luck. It looks like they're doing this. It looks like I can't get a break. But I am the guy behind... I'm the guy behind the curtain pulling the strings. I just don't know it. And one of the things that happens when you... When you make... There's a... My friend Clint says something I love. He says there's a tremendous difference between doing all your amends and all of them but one. Tremendous difference. And I really... I've loved to watch people clear up the wreckage of their past and what happens. It seems like we get lucky when we do that. We get lucky. There's a promise on page 127 of the book. And this was pointed out to me in early sobriety. And I think that this is one of the greatest and truest principles. The middle of the page in that paragraph, the fourth line down, it says, Although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, we found we could not place money first. For us, and here's the promise, the cause and effect, it says, For us, material well-being always followed spiritual progress. It never preceded it. And you can look around your home group and you can see the guys that put money first. And they come in and they build these tremendous lives. And within seven or eight years, it all falls down on them. And they do the same thing. I got one guy. He calls me his sponsor. I'm not his sponsor. He calls me once every three years whether he needs to or not. I mean, I'm not his sponsor. But he... He has made and lost millions and he's always broke. Right? He starts these big companies and they go like this and then... And then he goes, starts, he's down to sleeping on somebody's couch again. 15 years sober. And then he goes up, builds another company and... And I think that it's impossible for me to progress materially until I progress spiritually first. Because what happens, I will create... I will create a life of abundance I secretly know I don't deserve. And I will find a way to make my outsides match my insides eventually one way or another. I think I am compelled to make my outsides match my insides. And if I have a life that I secretly in the back of my head know I don't deserve because I ain't even. And I know what I did to those people. I never made it right. I know these people over here I never paid back. I know how... And I think... I don't think I get away with something. I don't get away with something because I'll turn it on myself. I will eventually get even with... I am destined to get even one way or another. One way or another. I can't avoid that spiritual truth. And I will either get even by making it right to you and paying back the money and making the amends. Or I will get even with me and continue to get even with me. And I will continue to sabotage my own life. And the problem is when I do that, I never get it. I don't know that I'm doing that. It never occurs to me that I'm doing that. Someone would step back and look at my life if they're going to come to either one conclusion. Either one of two conclusions. Either you're doing this to you or you're the greatest bad luck magnet on the planet. Anyway, I'm real big on amends. I think it's sometimes... The last frontier. Scott? Morning, I'm Scott Lee. I'm an alcoholic. I ran out of these little handouts. I had some more printed. If you need one, they're right up here. I was reminded as Bob was talking, around my part of the world, we do the nine-step promises as part of the opening of the meeting. Somebody one time made the mistake of handing the promises to a girl that was still in treatment. And she did the greatest misread of all time, I think. And here it is. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will level us. Another one I heard in a meeting one time that I just loved. And this girl wasn't trying to be profound or make anybody laugh, like I am. But what she said was, I'm having trouble getting a grip on letting go. Don't you love that? And something else I would say at my home group is that you take your problems to your sponsor. You take your solutions to your meeting. We're having better meetings since we got to that. Talk a little bit about step 10. We're on page 84. Middle of the page. This thought brings us to step 10. Suggest we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes. I think as we go along is the active phrase here. I personally separate... Steps 10 and 11 this way. For me, the morning half of step 11 is checking in with God. And the evening half of step 11 is checking out. I have a new employer. I clock in. I clock out. Step 10 is as we go along. It has to do with staying present in my own life moment by moment through the day. That's the difference. I don't do a 10-step inventory at night. I do an 11-step inventory at night. I do a 10-step inventory during the day. And I think there's a slogan that applies to that, and that's easy does it. Because when I'm running Mach 2 with my hair on fire, I don't notice it as I make the mistakes. And also it talks about on page 59, the short form of the step. It says continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. If I wait until 11.15 tonight to take the inventory, I can't very well promptly admit it now, can I? So it's about being present in my own life moment by moment. That's what this is about. And I have to slow down if that's going to happen for me. And I thought Bob made a great... Great point about the when. It's when we were wrong, not if. We are not saints. Further down the page, our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I believe this is the first time they've asked me to understand anything. A friend of mine tells a story of calling a sponsor one day and he says, he says, sponsor, he says, I've been thinking and it clicked. He says, oh gee, we got cut off. So he dialed the number again. He says, sponsor, he says, yeah. He says, I've been thinking and it clicked. Called back. He says, yeah. The third time he started, the sponsor says, wait a minute. I don't remember telling you to think. That wasn't your assignment. This hadn't been about understanding yet. And now it's telling me at this point I can begin to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I think it's because I've taken the trash out by now. I've dug the poison out of my soul, the hatred in step four. I've dug the old anger out, the resentments. I'm in the process of outgrowing the fears. I have a new sexual ideal that I'm living up to. I'm prepared to make the amends. I've invited God. God can take all of me, good and bad. I have a list of people I've harmed. I've done everything I can to make those amends. I've taken the trash out. And we're going to offer this thing to God. Let's clean it up first. The book doesn't say anything at all about God doing for me what I could have done for myself. So I have to do my part. And now at this point with the trash taken out, I can begin to grow in understanding and effectiveness. It's not an overnight matter. It should continue for a lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. We chased that one through the book earlier, but I find that on about eight or nine different pages. And then it says, when these crop up. That's not if. All right, that's when. I want to talk to, I know there are a lot of people here under a year. I'm really thrilled that you're here. One of the things I was taught in early recovery is what I was going to say when someone offered me a drink. Because it's not an if question. And if you take that as an if question, it can leave you kind of shaky. And I came up with an answer. And the answer is, I'm not going to do that. The answer that I give is, no thanks, I've had enough. Now there's a danger with that one that happened in a business situation one time. And some people who didn't know me were with myself and my business partners. And we were in a bar waiting for our table in a restaurant. And everybody ordered a drink. And I ordered an orange juice. And this other guy said, well, wouldn't you rather have a drink? And I said, no thanks, I've had enough. And my partners came apart laughing. And we had to tell them why. And it didn't hurt us. I have never have found a place where being in recovery has harmed myself. It hasn't harmed my business. Nowhere has it ever harmed my business. So when these crop up, what's the series of events I'm supposed to take when these crop up? Item one, pray. We ask God. This is the first of two prayers in step ten. We ask God to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately. I would think a sponsor, a spiritual advisor, somebody else that feels to you like they're solidly on the path. Make amends quickly. Can't do that if I wait until 11 o'clock tonight. If we've harmed them. And then sit and beat myself up? No. It says, then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. The prescription for helping me is to help you. And I'm not going to read them all. I bet there's a hundred references to this in the book. Just a couple of them. Forward to the second edition. Roman numeral 16, XVI. Forward to the second edition. Last paragraph at the bottom of the page begins with this physician. Count up four lines from that. It says, he suddenly realized that in order to save himself, he must carry his message to another alcoholic. Newcomers, we need to sponsor you. Can I see a show of hands of the people in this room who are not willing to sponsor but eager to sponsor a newcomer? We mean that. If you're new and don't have one, please, please, please do someone a favor. Allow them to sponsor you. Next page at the top. XVI. It also indicated that strenuous work. That's not occasionally when it's really convenient and there's nothing on TV I want to watch. Strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital. You know, once he has a death threat, this is the only thing you want to live. Vital to permanent recovery. Page 14. Last paragraph at the bottom of the page. My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity. I wonder how important that is. The absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. And then the one I quoted earlier, the last line, for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive, that's another death threat, the certain trials and low spots ahead. We promise you trials and low spots. And I love this next paragraph. Here's my life encapsulated in a paragraph. My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm, this is Bill's story, to the idea of helping others. Helping other alcoholics to a solution to their problems. It was fortunate for my old business associates to remain skeptical for a year and a half. Okay, don't think the people around you are going to be impressed by a 60-day chip. It may take them a while. Don't let that bother you. Stay on the path. It says, during which I found little work. I was not too well at the time. I was plagued. How do you like that word? Plagued. By waves of self-pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink. But I soon found that when, when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Many times I've gone to my old hospital in despair. How do you love that? Despair. This is the prescription for when you have depression. Despair. Go to a hospital. Take a meeting into a jail. Get into a treatment center. I'm talking to a man there. I would be amazingly lifted up and sit on my feet. It is designed for living. It works in rough going. Page 20. I say, I'm just going to get a few of these. But I think it's important to hammer this one home. Top of page 20. First line. Our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. On page 62 it had said, above everything we had to be rid of this selfishness. As they're saying it in different words here. Page 70. We covered this one in step 4 last night, but I hit it again in the middle of the page. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge when to yield would mean heartache. I'll do one more. Page 89. Very top. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Back to page 84. So what it says, the series of events when these crop up is, ask God at once to remove them. That's pray. Discuss them with someone immediately, probably a sponsor. Make amends. Quickly, if we've harmed anyone, then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. That's the prescription. Now we know what to do with our mistakes. We have a very, very clear set of directions what to do when we make mistakes. It says we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. Page 113. I'm sorry, 103. Italics at the bottom of 103. After all our problems were of our own making. Bottles were only assembled. Besides, we have stopped. We have stopped fighting anybody or anything. We have to. I've got to get out of the fight. Got to get out. Back to the bottom of 84. For by this time sanity will have returned. Boy, there's a promise. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. If your history with booze is like mine, that is a sane reaction. Now, I'm told there are two kinds of sanity. There's sanity of mind and there's sanity of action. And I think sanity of action is the important one. And my sponsor told me that in the history of this planet, no human has ever been put in an insane asylum for being insane. It's never happened. They put us in there for acting insane. And nobody's ever been let out of one of those places for being sane. They let us out for acting sane. Yeah. So on the days when the squirrel cage is spinning up here, and you've got all these wonderful ideas, if you don't act on them, they won't know. And you can walk around on the street like everybody else. Sanity of action. We'll find that this has happened automatically. We'll see that our new attitude to liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. I think that's easily misunderstood. If you've done everything we've talked about to this point, you will have put in tremendous effort. But the observation is the effort hasn't been involved in booze. It hasn't been involved in changing your attitude. We haven't been focused on the problem. We haven't been focused on the problem of booze. Because the effort hasn't been involved in booze. It hasn't been involved in changing your attitude. We haven't been focused on the problem of booze. Because we've put no effort on that. Our effort has been toward, as I was saying earlier, taking out the trash, which is part of the spiritual awakening process. That's where we've been focused on. We don't focus on the problem. We focus on the solution. If the solution were contained in the problem, we would have found it already because we've been focused on the problem for decades. Yeah, so it's a change of focus. Next paragraph. It's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We're headed for trouble if we do. For alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve. A reprieve, if you look it up, is a stay of execution. A daily reprieve contingent, that means based on, the maintenance of our spiritual condition. I spotted that when I was about six months sober. And I said, all right. There it is. What I'm going to do is to find out what that spiritual condition is. I'm going to attain that. And then I'll be able to get what I've always wanted, and that's to take the rest of my life off with pay. I thought, I'm going to get that, and I won't have to do anything else. And I searched for over a year before I found the definition of that spiritual condition. It is, by the way, the next sentence. I didn't think to look there. Every day is a day when we must. There are no musts. In the program, you'll hear that. This is one of them. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision, that's the best I can see, of God's will into all of our activities. Well, there aren't any holes in that, are there? I don't get any days off. I don't get any activities off. That simple. And it's not something I can attain. It's continuous. Page 164 for just a second. Four lines from the bottom. We shall be. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. It doesn't say to. It says of. The road is the destiny. It's today. This is the happy destiny. Don't look for it out there. We're not on the way to it. We're living in it. Back to 85. And then here's the second prayer. How can I best serve thee that I will not mind be done? These are thoughts. So that must be a silent prayer which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, Bill did get directions in here, didn't he? Yeah. We've begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent, we've become God conscious. How's that for a promise? We've begun to develop this vital, there it is again, vital, sixth sense. I heard a fellow with six months say, if I'm still using my other five senses trying to get my will, I won't develop this vital sixth sense. That's a pretty good piece of information. But we must go further. And I'll go ahead and start just a little bit on step 11 before we take the break. Turning the page, top of 88, the evening inventory to retire at night, constructive, review our day. I don't have permission to bash myself here. Constructively review our day. Where were we? Resentful, selfish, dishonest, afraid. There's that list again. Do we owe an apology? Kept anything to ourselves we should discuss with someone? The question is, what could I have done better? Have I done harm I need to repair? And what could I have done better? And it's really that simple. And it needs to be the last thing I do. And I'd like to note too, do you all use the term around here, next right thing? Do you all say that? You need to do the next right thing? I discovered a last right thing. Each day there's a last right thing. For me, it is to go to bed at an hour so that I can get a full night's sleep. And be able to get up in the morning in time to start my day on a spiritual basis. I need to read my two pages in the big book I read from non-conference proof spiritual literature. I do prayer and meditation. I need to have time to do all those things. And if I don't do the last right thing tonight, I won't be able to start tomorrow morning with the first right thing. Next paragraph, on awakening. I'd like to observe what it does not say. It does not say after a shower and shave, a half a pot of coffee, two over easy with ham and reading the front page. It says on awakening. That's right now. I've got a friend that says his disease gets up 20 minutes before he does everyone. He does some push-ups, some jumping jacks, weights up on the headboard of the bed. As soon as his eyes open, he goes, and jumps on me. And he wakes up with untreated alcoholism. And I have to start on awakening. I've got a good friend, one of my mentors says that it's on awakening because I'm capable of making life-devastating decisions between the bed and the bathroom. So I've got to treat it right now. I've got to treat it right now. And I think that's important. I bought this exceptionally ugly watch. I have better technology. I have better technology. I have more taste in this and I want you to know that. But I bought this watch because it has a function I can't find anywhere else. It has multiple alarms. This morning I had them set 10 minutes apart. And usually I'll set them anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes apart. When the second one goes off, it's the get-up time. When the first one goes off, Miss Linda and I cuddle and we do our morning prayers in each other's arms. Let me tell you something. I think if the whole world started their day that way, it would be a better plan than it really would. And I'll grant you that there are mornings when that second alarm wakes us both up. I'll give you that. That happens. It says sought through prayer and meditation. It does not say achieved through prayer and meditation. I'm responsible only for trying to take the action. That's my only responsibility. And I'm telling you, I sincerely believe that those mornings when the alarm goes off the second time and wakes us both up and we slept through our prayers are every bit as good as the mornings when they don't. Because we slept through our prayers. We saw it. And that's all we were responsible for doing. We saw it. Typically we get up on the second alarm. I get a shower and shave. She starts the coffee. We meet on the sofa. She does her reading. I do mine. And we do morning meditation together. And we close our days in a similar fashion. A lot of times on the close of the day we name individuals. We'll lie in the bed and pray. And we'll name individuals that we know that seem to be in need of some prayer. I sponsor a fellow who's... A brother's name is William who's missing in action. One of us. One of us missing in alcoholism action. If you get the chance to pray for William he's somewhere in London we think. We appreciate that. Those kinds of things. People around us that are in need of prayer energy. And we don't instruct God on how to fix them. I don't do that. I just hold them up in love. And part of what I do too and I learned this also from Miss Linda. If y'all have not heard my wife you need to do yourself a big favor. She is something. Is I learned that I can send love. Love is a commodity that can be transmitted. And I sent love this morning to the room I was in. I sent it to the restaurant. I sent it to this room. I filled this room flat full of love. Lying in my bed this morning between the alarms. My trip to the airport. At the airport. On the plane. And home. The trip home. And at home. And I sent love to the places I'm going to be today. I also sent it to the places my wife's going to be. And I send it there so there'll be some there when I get there. And if you haven't tried that. You've tried that. You might do yourself a favor. I'm going to tell you a story. I had an assistant for a number of years. And she was a very, very spiritual Christian woman. And she and I found ourselves talking bad about a particular person we had to deal with on a regular basis. Had a lot of power in our lives. I'm a manufacturer's rep. I'm a multi-line rep. And there was a power broker at our biggest factory represented a third of my income. And I guarantee you that woman was something. If there wasn't a broom parked in their parking lot I'd be in trouble. That's where I had to have been. And she and I finally caught ourselves talking bad about this woman and said, wait, we don't believe in that. And we decided and we started the next morning and we opened our office with five minutes of prayer sending love to this woman. And the way I do that is I get a mental image of her suspended in space. God's love is flowing down through me and out my chest and swirling around her this wonderful white stuff. And that's just what I do. What you do I think is perfect. And we started doing that and three days later this woman is calling our office to chat to find out how we're doing and gee, aren't you guys fun. Three months later at the National Trade Show I walked into the meeting. There were 200 people in the room. She was knocking people down to get to me to tell me I was her favorite rep and how great it was to do business with me and Sheila. Yeah. Yeah. Don't doubt the power of love and don't doubt the power of love. Don't doubt the power of love. And don't doubt the power of love. And don't doubt the power of love. And don't doubt the power of love. And don't doubt the power of love. And don't doubt the ability to send it. I'm going to share another gift from my wife and she tells us better than I do but this is her third marriage, my second. And we have a problem and we have had a problem with ghosts in the bedroom. Alright. You understand what I mean? Okay. And she prayed about that and she was given a gift. And the gift is before we're going to have what she calls a physical exchange she prays this prayer. And she says, God, help me stay in the moment. That's all. Just help me stay here right now. And it takes care of all of her history and mine. And it takes care of wondering about tomorrow morning was it really okay? And she noticed I've gained weight and all that kind of stuff. It just takes all that away. It takes all that away and I share it just in case somebody can use it. I'll tell you one more story and we'll take a break. When I was, I guess about five years ago a young fellow that I sponsored came into my house. My beloved home group, the back room in Nashville. They meet on Saturday and Sunday mornings to be there. And he'd come back. He'd just come back from his grandfather's funeral. And he had told his grandmother at the funeral, he said it occurred to him and he told her, he said, I think you were a fabulous wife to my grandfather. And she said, I should have been. I prayed to be that every day. And boy, that hit me hard. And so I thought about that and I started the next morning and I don't think I'd missed a morning. I don't think I'd missed a morning since then. And the prayer that I use is I ask God to help me treasure Linda today. The word treasure is mostly used in the English language as a noun. You understand it as a verb but we don't use it that way too often. And I started that within two weeks. I was walking through the den one day and she was talking on the phone and I heard her telling someone, Scott treasures me. When I ask God for what he wants me to have I get an awful lot of help. It's always about me getting to the right question. He's got the right answer. It's always about me getting to the right question. We're going to come back at quarter after. Still Bob, still alcoholic. Someone had, I was talking to someone during the break and we were talking about amends. Just briefly before I get into 10 and 11. How do you know who should be on your eight step list? Well the book says it's the people from our fourth step. But I'll give you a good rule of thumb that's, if we're talking about mending separation between me and God's kids then a good rule of thumb is if you look back over the people in your life and you run into anyone that you can't picture sitting in a car with driving cross country for eight hours if the idea of any individual spending that kind of time with you and spending that kind of time alone with them makes you crazy they should be on your eight step list. Right? Because there's some separation between you and that person. Now, sometimes the answer isn't sometimes it's paying them money you owe them something maybe you owe them something you have a debt to them you have unresolved business maybe it's just to forgive them for being who they are allowing them to be what they are. Maybe it's starting maybe it's just simply saying some things to them that you've never said to them. You're somehow you're not even with them. Right? So there's a state of separation. Do you ever take those two do you ever take two magnets and turn the one around and try to put them together and they just, right? That's what's going on. That's what's going on. Right? You can feel it. Do you ever go into a do you ever go into a meeting or a family event or something and there's a person there that you're not even with? You know what I do? I caught myself I have this blank spot right about here and I will always keep them right there. I sat in a meeting I sat I stood at a podium in a meeting telling my story one time and there was a girl in that in that meeting that I owed an amends to and I had to go like this the whole time because I couldn't I had it made me crazy and then after the meeting I had to go up and clear I had to go up and make the amends to her and I didn't realize I owed the amends until I caught myself halfway through my story and realized I'm not even I'm chattering to myself in my head about this situation right as I'm trying to share my story because there was separation between her and I and it was all involved is me being vulnerable and telling her some things I didn't want to tell her that I felt embarrassed about and just clearing the air and expressing honestly my regret about something that had happened you know owning it step 10 I really liked Scott's comments of about when rather than if you know you can this road of happy destiny you can be on the right road but if you don't if you just sit there you're going to get run over you know what I'm saying right so this is an action this chapter is into action it's not into hanging out or into thinking it's into action and one of the things that should happen and I think does happen in most of us by the time we get to step 10 inventory is taking on a new light now it's not looking back it's looking to see how we're bad or wrong or any of that stuff really it's just an honest recognition of who and what I am I know that I'm a guy with an inclination towards selfishness and self-centeredness I'm a guy that gets afraid often I'm a guy who gets judgmental and builds cases against people I'm a guy who's driven sometimes by self-pity when God or you don't do things my way I'm a guy who does all of that I'm a guy who feels like I'm a bad guy I'm a guy who alters reality and blows it up and is creative with the truth I'm that guy and because I get it that I'm that guy I'm the self-centered fear-driven guy and I will always have that propensity then step 10 and 11 is not about beating myself up for not being perfect it's about an honest recognition of these are my tendencies let's correct the course so I don't get so far out that I can't do it I destroy myself so that I can keep to my purpose here that I can keep close to the decision I made in step 3 not perfectly the book reminds us in chapter 5 no one among us has been able to maintain anything like that means you're not even going to come close anything like perfect adherence to these principles we're not saints but the point we have here is that we're trying to grow along spiritually I must try to grow along spiritual lines I'm an avid scuba diver and over the years I've had to learn a little bit about sharks which is naturally for scuba divers and there's types of sharks that the way God designed them is that they bring oxygen into their systems by keeping a flow of current over their gills that oxygenate them and the gills are able to get the oxygen out of the water and that's how they sustain an oxygen level in their blood but in order to do that they can never stop they must constantly be moving forward they can't stop because then the flow stops and when the flow stops they start to suffocate and I think I'm that way I think if I stop growing along spiritual lines then the flow of God's spirit which must flow through me will stop and I will become stagnant and I will start to suffer and my spirit will start to wither and die and we all know what that's like and you know when your spirit gets withering and dying enough and the pain in the heart is enough we always remember somewhere in the back of our mind like times we've been like that years and years ago and how five shots of alcohol five shots of Jack Daniels could fix that so I must keep my spirit healthy here and this is how we do it in step 10 and 11 a couple I do this because I leak I'm not this is the weakest area in my personal program is step 10 and 11 and I'm here to tell you that I've really in the last just in the last few years I've gotten a little more disciplined about this but I'm still nowhere near where I'd like to be on the bottom of page 85 in italics oh one more thing about step 10 step 10 is a lot like a teabag it seems to work better in hot water right when I'm in hot water step 10 I'm a serious step 10 guy when I'm in hot water I'm kind of a slough off guy where have I been selfish not today let's go to sleep truthfully let's face it there's never been a day I've been alive where I haven't been selfish to some degree self-concerned self-obsessed worried about me my feelings my life there's never been a day I've been alive that I haven't been like that to some degree there's never I don't think there's been a day I've been alive that I haven't been dishonest to some degree about something the little kind of petty dishonesties like like I buy a new car I pay say $36,748 for it and you see the car and you say Bob that's a nice car what'd you pay for it well that's depending upon what I think of you and how I think you'll be impressed I might tell you I paid $40,000 for that car because you'll think well Bob's a big shot he paid $40,000 for that car I might if I think you're more you'd be more impressed with a guy and get a good deal I'd say I spent about $30,000 for that car and you'd think boy Bob's smart he got that car for $30,000 but to say $36,784 there's no edge to that you don't get any there's no leverage on that you don't get no torque in your life with the truth right and when you come from a place of vacancy and not enoughness you need torque you need leverage and I'll tell you I'll tell you this is a little sidebar I think one of the worst things we do in Alcoholics Anonymous is try to act as if our own inadequacies and vacancies are something we should grow away from I think it's the greatest thing I have going for me it's what brings me to the table with God because you know and you'll hear stuff in meetings that implies that this is something I should grow above that I should not feel inadequate that I should I should become whole no that whole is inside the vacancy is my God vacancy and if I lose that and I ever get secure unto myself to not have that vacancy then I've just pulled myself out of the ball game right I just put myself on the bench it's what brings me here it's what brings me to my sponsor it's what brings me to my knees in the morning and at night to pray it's what brings me to step 10 and 11 the greatest blessing I have is my vacancy is that my not enoughness my inadequacy my incompleteness and I'm not enough in the in Genesis it talks about the creation of the of the world it talks about God on the first day created this this and in the Hebrew it says and it was and it was Tov and Tov it translated in English is good and it was good but it's not really Tov really means and it was complete and it was complete and then it created on the second day it created this this this this and it was complete this this this this and it was complete and it gets to man it doesn't say complete man's not Tov man was never created to be Tov man was created to struggle towards his towards enlightenment towards God man was created with a God whole and a vacancy that no other creation has see you'll you'll never deers dogs cats rabbits birds they are Tov they are complete they cannot misinterpret their vacancy because they have none you'll never see a deer in the woods with a brown paper bag and a cigarette coming out of its leg looking at looking at pornos right you'll never see a deer doing that because a deer is Tov a deer has no illusions of filling holes that it a deer is Tov a deer is complete you'll see people like us doing that stuff right trying to misinterpret this God hole trying to fill up something with what's that old country song we looked at love for love in all the wrong places right the God hole real quick and I want to I'm running out of time step 11 in italics suggests prayer meditation we shouldn't be shy in the matter of prayer better men than we are using it constantly it works if we have the proper attitude and work at it it would be easy to be vague about this matter yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions okay the book says step 11 they're about to make some definite and valuable suggestions and then they go right into what I love what Scott called it the 11 step inventory this confused me for a long time because it I couldn't I didn't get it until I found this passage in the 12 by 12 and Bill in the 12 by 12 explains why they're connected why when he's talking about step 11 he's talking about inventory process is an integral part of step 11 because he says in the 12 by 12 that self self-examination prayer and meditation when taken separately can bring can bring much relief and benefit but when they're logically related and interwoven they're not they create an unshakable foundation for life and you see 10 and 11 are meant to be logically related and interwoven you can't separate them if taken separately as I tried to do for years I got much benefit and relief but there's a big difference between relief and freedom and I'm here for freedom I'm here because I have to have freedom and there's only one thing I need freedom from the bondage of self I need to carry out the decision I made in step 3 or I'll die we must be rid of this selfishness we must or it kills us and that's when when we interlock when we interlock step 10 and 11 it is unshakable and what it's very similar to when you when you combine the two exercises that are on 86 and 87 it's very similar to what a sailor would experience let's say you were to go down here to uh one of the harbors on the east coast of Florida and you were to rent or buy the most expensive best equipped sailboat you could find money's no object and you were to go to a nautical library and you had the goal the goal is you made a decision the decision is I'm going to sail to the island of Bermuda and you went to the nautical library and you went through a nine step course on setting a perfect course for the island of Bermuda what would occur is no matter how perfect your boat is and no matter how perfect the course you've set from the east coast of Florida to the island of Bermuda it's just going to come to pass every single day that the winds and the tides and the currents are going to blow you and move you off course it's not because you have a bad boat it's not because you played with your tiller's too much it's none of that it's just it's just the way it is you're just it's not because you've done anything wrong it is the natural condition of the realm of the spirit because what we bring to the realm of the spirit is a person with a propensity to self-involvement a person who's had an inclination to play God and that's what we're bringing to the table here so every single day a sailor must be a sailor must be a sailor he must get out his compass and sextant and all those tools and take an honest honest inventory and he cannot fool himself about values an honest inventory of where he is and then compare it to a vision of step three a vision of self-abandonment and service a vision of Bermuda and readjust his course back to where he was going so he can go there once and for all no because the next day is going to be a day where he's going to have to do the same thing again right and if you don't do that I'll tell you what happens is all of a sudden you're sailing along and you're wondering why you're running into these chunks of ice with penguins on them on the way to Bermuda and if you're really a truly self-delusional alcoholic you'll start saying well you know they must have populated Bermuda with penguins it's just and what happens to us is we get so far out we can't get back and if you've been around if you've been around the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous for any sustained period of time you've seen those guys and you'll see them once in a while that they build this tremendous house of cards out of all kinds of gratification stuff and material stuff and then it'll collapse on them and they have not done step 10 and 11 they do not they're not current and connected to no power source in their life they're not connected to their sponsor or anything else and they will run into a discussion meeting frantic and the chairman will say does anybody have a problem and they'll go like this and they'll dump this mess of their life that is unmanageable out on the table for help and they'll unfortunately if you've ever tried to get help or advice in a discussion meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous it's like trying to take a drink of water from a fire hose I mean it's just and they'll sit there and after about 10 people have shared at them they bolt and they're like out of the meeting they bolt and then the rest of the meeting will just be spinning about a problem that's left right and you can get so far out you can't get back you can't get back because now you're too entrenched in being right you're too entrenched in how they screwed with you you're too entrenched in your judgments you're too entrenched in your will you are the center you're running the show you are right you are right you're not the guy who can be wrong and I'll tell you if you can't be wrong sobriety is going to be hard because from step four all the way through it's about how I'm wrong in my perceptions how I'm wrong in my judgments if you can't be wrong here you're going to have a hard time so that's really what this whole thing is about actually it's time for me to turn over to Scott and I'll I'll talk a little bit more about 11 when I get back a couple of more quotations that have meant a lot to me this is a gift from a good friend of mine it really changed my perspective he says I worked this program to the best of my willingness I don't believe I've ever worked it to the best of my ability ah boy this is a gift from my wife anxiety is really just low grade atheism it is another one from Miss Linda this one has nothing to do with recovery I'm just going to try to make you laugh that's all this is Miss Linda is slightly dyslexic and she's not embarrassed by it but we do get some funny things out of it and I was watching the US Open golf tournament on TV she was being with her husband and you got it it's anonymous giving is what that is alright it really is and this oriental fella I think he was Japanese was in contention he may have been in the lead at that time he hit a particularly bad shot and the camera comes in close and you just see he's in anguish and Miss Linda says oh I hope he doesn't commit karaoke I hope so too I've been there when people have committed karaoke it can be a terrible thing it can last a long time too one of the things you may have noticed is that Bob and I give our last names here we do that in keeping with our tradition of anonymity if that didn't make sense to you I'd like to recommend the pamphlet Understanding Anonymity in the book Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers really really would and I want to tell the story about anonymity isn't a thing anonymity isn't a thing anonymity isn't a thing it isn't just about press, radio and films and we do that so that the newcomers can come in anonymity also has another level and that is the level of doing something good for someone and not being caught now that's not my style I'm just a little bit into the applause myself I had an experience a number of years ago where I had the chance to do something good for someone and not get caught and I did it and what happened was I don't mean to sound poetic but I can't describe this any better and people are going to nod and grin when I say this but it was like there was a piece of sunshine about the size of a golf ball that lodged itself in my chest and I could think about what I had done any time of the day or night and this thing would glow and send light through my whole body see him nodding? okay and it just didn't matter whatever was going on I could just think about that and it would just light me up and boy I never told anybody about it for about six months and when I told that thing got out it's gone now and because there's another lesson in this story I'm going to tell you what it was I'm a salesman by trade and it was one of those days where I got a full day's work done in a half a day I had my fishing tackle in the back I was near a city park I'm fishing the stream and there was a family having a picnic and they had about an eight year old boy and boy he locked on my leg and wanted to fish and so I'm showing him this thing and got to talk to the family none of them fished and eventually I took him on a couple of short trips and got to know the family and the Buffalo River in Tennessee is a national scenic river and it's full of fish and with his parents permission one day I put him in the front of the canoe we floated five miles of river and we floated ten hours and he didn't get enough and I didn't either and we caught over a hundred fish that day yeah the little guy caught a four pound smallmouth bass he got my fish but I'm okay and about a mile from the take out the banks are steep and there's really no place to get out of this river and suddenly the sky darkened and we're fixing to get it I'm hearing the thunder we come down kind of a chute and we did what canoes call eddy out there's a little back water you can count a parallel park in one of those up under the trees just before the bottom drops out of this baby there's going to be raindrops the size of my thumb just before the bottom drops out I'm sitting in the back of this canoe and I'm just about to give God a little piece of my mind have you not noticed Saint Scott down here with the little boy and he caught my fish and just about there and this beautiful little boy looks over his shoulder at me and says is it okay to fish here I forget I prayed that third step prayer and I meant it and I forget that and when the skies of my life darken and the thunder's coming and I'm fixing to catch it it's the only thing I'm supposed to say Father is it okay to fish here because that's my job that's what I signed on to do a friend of mine getting a 24 year chip a couple of days ago and he said he said I got to remember I don't own this business I just work behind the counter yeah I just work behind the counter and that's the question I'm supposed to be taking my God is it okay to fish here it's a great question step 11 on the short form on page 59 has an implied promise I think and a beautiful one sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact if I'm going to improve it I must already have it so I believe we're promising you if you'll do the first 10 steps with a sponsor who's already done them and do them right out of this book that by this time you will have a conscious contact with God as I say of my limited understanding isn't that wonderful and then I get out of the business of coaching God of telling him what to do and ask just what would you have me do is it okay to fish here that's the question 60 12 having had a spiritual awakening as the result doesn't say a says the we promise a single thing spiritual awakening and spiritually awakened people don't drink beverage alcohol and they don't get thirsty I'd like to report that my wife an 18 year member of Al-Anon does not drink alcohol she chooses not to I can't choose not to page 25 tells me that very clearly she chooses not to so that her husband and her wife and her husband who she loves dearly doesn't have to come home and kiss burgundy wine or a martini or something on the lips coming home from a day at work y'all might think about that it means an awful lot to me that she does that and to me the 12 step breaks into three parts promise of a spiritual awakening and then I'm not sure the rest of that is telling me what to do so much as describing who I'm going to become tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all my affairs it was my experience in step 5 that when I told all those things about myself they became lighter I've got some pretty ugly stuff in my past I've shared it with some of you when you hear me say that I don't have