Spiritual Experience Is the Result of Spiritual Action — Rory M.

My name is Rory McShane. I'm alcoholic. I've been sober since June the 5th of 2010. I'm very grateful for that. I have a sponsor. He knows he's my sponsor. We had dinner on Monday night out in Las Vegas. You could argue he's painfully aware he's my sponsor, and I have a service commitment, and I sponsor a lot of men in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I kind of started saying that just because I'd heard other people say it, and it sounds good. But I think, you know, a few of us a couple weeks ago were out to dinner after this meeting and we were talking about what it means to come all the way in and sit all the Way Down in AA, right? Because see, AA, for me, I didn't understand what Alcoholics Anonymous was when I got here. AlcoholicsAnonymous was this place to go and if you went often enough, you would remember not to drink. And the good news was if you Went to a million of these meetings, you could get through your miserable life without having to take a drink. and the bad news was you might live a very long time, right? And what I didn't understand that Alcoholics Anonymous was was a way of life, right and having a service commitment and a sponsor and sponsoring men in AlcoholicsAnonymous that is how I come all the way in and I sit all theway down here something that I didn' t want to do when I got here I wear a coat and a tie when I speak at podiums of AlcoholicsAnenomous not because I think God cares that I have on a coat and a thigh and not because I think anyone at the Arlington PPG group cares that I have on a coat and a tie I do it to remind myself that I owe absolutely everything good I have in my life to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I didn't feel that way when I got here and I didn' t think that way when I was a kid. And I remember seeing the guys in the coats and ties thinking to myself, I'm never going to be those cult idiots walking around here outside the meeting drinking the worst coffee known to man wearing a coat and tie at the AA club. Because the thing is I didn''t like AlcoholicsAnonymous when I first got here because I didn ''t understand what this was or what we were doing here and in my experience and i've lived a few places in the country and participated in aa in a few ways of the country and got to sponsor guys across the country a lot of us don't see i understood long before i got here that we're going to talk about steps eight and nine tonight but but but i want to qualify why this matters i didn't i i understood the first part of the first step when i got there and i said okay i'm going to do this got here. What the first part of the first step says is that my body has a different reaction to alcohol than 90% of the population, right? That once I take a drink, I cannot stop drinking. And I'll go out there and I'll say, I'm going to have two beers tonight and then I'm gonna go home. I'm just gonna hang out at the barbecue, have a couple of drinks. I's not gonna go crazy. I''m not gonna end up with my shirt off on an episode of Cops this time, I promise, right. And then I can never meet that mark because the problem is if i say i'm going to have two beers right around one and a half beers i have a spiritual intuition that two was the wrong number right four is a much better number than two right but the only problem with four is right around three and a half i have another one of those special thoughts right so i understood that long before i got to Alcoholics Anonymous. What I didn't understand, in the Vietnam War, 75% of American GIs were addicted to heroin, right? That's a substantial amount of people, right, and coming back from Vietnam, those American Gis who'd gotten addicted to heroin went through detox. And 90% of them got off heroin, they never went to any 12-step program, they never returned to using drugs, and they led productive, successful lives. Once they were free from the physical necessity, they led protective, successful lives. The other 10% of them spent years in and out of rehabs and detoxes and institutions, and some of them found 12- step programs and some of them didn't. That's how it is with alcohol. Roughly 90% of the population can drink without having a problem with it and roughly 10% of us cannot and I'm in that 10% my first meeting Alcoholics Anonymous was in Brooklyn, Maryland that's South Baltimore and I got that silver chip and I introduced myself as new and I remember there was a young black guy in a meeting he had on a red checkered shirt I can see it in my head like it was yesterday and he said today can be the worst day and it can all be uphill from here and that statement gave me just enough hope to keep going and keep moving right and I'm committed that I'm going to do this thing and I am not going to drink and it's rough man and Iam going to three meetings a day and Im smoking five packs of cigarettes a day and I'm just grinding out another day of sobriety. And if I stay sober a whole month, they'll give me a little red chip. That seems worth the misery, right? And I tell you what happened for me is I thought that I must not have whatever these AA people have, right, because AA must be a program for people who ruin their lives drinking. Well, I ruined my life drinking. And then they go to a million of these meetings. Well, I'm going to a billion of these meanings and they all get happy as shit and I'm miserable. Right? So whatever they suffer from, it must not be what I suffer from. And, um, and, uh, and, and I was outside the Saturday night young people's meeting in Annapolis, Maryland. And this guy asked me to come down to the diner with him so he could talk to me about the big book. and what they explain to me in the big book, on page 52 in the book and in the doctor's opinion, XXVIII, it says I'm restless, irritable, and discontent unless I can once again gain the sense of ease and comfort that comes at once from taking a few drinks. On page 52, it says that when I'm not drinking, I'm prey to misery and depression. I have trouble making a living. I'm having trouble in my personal relationships. I'm full of fear. Today we call that anxiety. I have a feeling of uselessness. I can't seem to be of real help to other people. See, what they explained to me is that if the fact that once I start drinking, I can't stop. That's a big problem. The fact that I'm allergic to alcohol, that's a Big Problem. But if my only problem was that I am allergic to Alcohol, what would the really simple solution be? Don't drink alcohol. We're going out to eat after the meeting tonight. If I had a peanut butter sandwich and I broke out in hives and had swelling and shortness of breath and you all had to rush me down to the hospital, you'd say Rory has a pretty bad allergy to peanut butter. but if y'all came to check on me down in austin this weekend and you saw me sitting there with my spoon in a big old bowl of jif chunky you wouldn't think my biggest problem is peanut butter anymore right you know people who are allergic to peanut butter do they don't eat peanut butter they don'T go to peanut Butter Anonymous they DON'T get a peanut butter sponsor they DONT work the peanut butter steps that's the second time I've told that joke at this group but but it but it's a fair made point because I didn't understand what we were doing here and And what these guys explain to me is that the second piece of the first step, that left in sobriety I will become so miserable and so uncomfortable that I will beyond my own will always start drinking again. Anybody here ever gone to the liquor store or the bar or the dope man's house with tears in their eyes? Me and my man are the only one who have had that experience, I guess. You want to talk about a level of powerlessness beyond your rational control? When I know I shouldn't be doing it, I've sworn I'm not going to do it. When I've gone to my people, I've been to my parents, the girl, the job, and I've swore to God, this time I mean it. This time I'm going to get and stay sober. And if you hook me up to a lie detector test in those moments, I would pass the lie detector. Because I really, really mean it, I'm making the solemn resolution that I'll never drink again. But what happens is, the minute I stop drinking, Clancy Emeslid used to put it perfectly, It's like someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night and installs a spring in my gut And little by slowly life gets more and more uncomfortable The voices in my head start talking just a little bit louder The voice when I walk into the room that says I don't like these people. I got to get out of here, right? It gets a little Bit more painful till eventually i'll talk myself into taking another drink And what these guys explain to me is is they explain that the only thing that could ever make that cycle We went through page 20 and 21 where it talks about the difference between the hard drinker and the real alcoholic. And what they explained to me was that an ill health warning from a doctor, change of environment, or falling in love couldn't fix that. Anybody here ever get drunk after you promise someone you're in love you weren't going to? There we go. Anybody here every get drunk when you promise the doctor you weren'T going to do it or the doctor told you to stop? Yeah. so if those external things cannot he cannot fix this what these guys explained to me is the only thing that was going to be able to give me this internal peace at which which was required to stay sober was this thing they called god and i wasn't a big fan of god when i got here it's not that i didn't believe in god but i really didn't want to pray because i was worried he would find out where i was and that wasn't going to be good for me, right? I had, you know. And so they explained to me that they had this power here in Alcoholics Anonymous. So they had, they had these, this power that we could get in touch with that would, that would allow me to feel like I could breathe sober. See, that's what sobriety feels like to me before AlcoholicsAnonymous. It feels like I'm holding my breath and anybody can hold their breath for a couple of seconds or maybe a couple OF minutes. But after a while, I start clawing the walls. You all with me on this? And what these guys explained to me is this power could allow me to breathe and I said, where is the power? And they said it's all around you. It's just as much at the dope man's house as it is at the AA meeting. The problem is I can't feel it there. And what we're in, we agnostics it says deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. It is obscured by calamity, by pomp, and worship of other things. What they explained to me was that finding this power was like looking for water in a boat. The water's all around It's just what the boat's just What's separating me from the water And then what we were doing here in Alcoholics Anonymous Is we're not learning new tools We're not remembering what the last drink was like Who here ever remembered how bad their last drunk was And then felt so bad about it They had to get drunk That's me What we're doing here is we're gaining access To this power that can bring me peace and what they explained to me was that if i was going to do that if I was going to have access to that power that I would have to clean up the wreckage of my past I'm going to read something from from our literature here on page 76 it says now we need more action without which we find that faith without works was dead let us look at steps eight and nine we have a list of all persons we had harmed into whom we are willing to make amends we made it when we took inventory we subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal and now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past we attempt to sweep away the debris which is accumulated out of an effort to live on self-will run self- will and run the show if we haven't the will to do this we ask until it comes remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol in a lot of ways you could argue that Alcoholics Anonymous that our fellowship was founded on this step So Bill and Dr. Bob had met, and what had happened was Bill Wilson was in Akron, Ohio on a business trip, and he'd been sober six months, right? And this was long before we had the steps or anything like that, and he stayed sober six month by helping estimates are anywhere from 70 to 100 people, right, and he moved them into their house and he helped them try to get sober, and he'd stayed sober six months that way and now he's out in Akron, Ohio and he's on this business trip and he desperately wants to take a drink and he goes into a phone booth in the Mayflower Hotel and he starts calling ministers, pastors until he gets on the phone with the Reverend Walter Tunks and who connects him with Henrietta Seiberling who was a member of the Oxford Movement which was kind of like a Christian social club for lack of a better term and she says well I've got this guy named Dr. Bob Smith he's probably the worst drunk in town you can come down and talk to him and so they meet at the gatehouse of the cyberling estate and and um and uh uh uh dr bob had uh had made his wife and his son promise that i only have to listen to this idiot from new york for 15 minutes then we're going to leave right and and because you know it is when you know people have been talking by the time i got here many people had had many conversations with me about my drinking that was not a particularly new thing right and they all suck no one enjoys that right uh um i saw this thing on facebook the other day i just related to it so much said my favorite part of thanksgiving is when all of my family decides it's time to talk about my drinking and offer to send me to rehab right like you know i just it felt like home really when i read it oh my god and um so so they're going to talk for 15 minutes and what happens is is y'all there's magic when one of us talks to another one. There's magic when one alcoholic relates to another. And I think the most powerful words in Alcoholics Anonymous are me too, right? When a guy or a gal, when you can have that conversation and you can talk about the most gut-wrenching stuff, and we understand it in a way that nobody out there does. We understand what it's like to choose alcohol over our children, over our wives, over our businesses. And we understand what its like to do that, breaking our own hearts doing it and breaking their hearts in the process. So what happens is that they say they're going to talk for 15 minutes and then they talk for five hours. And subsequently, Bill actually moves into Dr. Bob's house and they meet every single day. And they talk about staying sober and they talk About God and they talked about how they can stay sober. They talk about how many people they're gonna help. And they talked About this whole process. And they start talking about what would become our steps. And Dr.Bob says, look, I'm on board with all of this except for this making amends business. My family is almost broke. We have no income. No one trusts me. The last thing I'm going to do is go all around the town and tell these people I've been drunk performing surgeries on them, right? Makes sense. I wouldn't want to do that either, right, so they meet every day for about a month or two and a half weeks or so, and Dr. Bob stays sober for a couple of weeks, and then he says, okay, I'm going to go to this medical convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. And I'm going to tell everyone at the medical convention that we found this way to stay sober. And i'm going come back and i'm going to share with you what I find bill. And so he gets on the train. He goes to the medical convention with fully intending to stay over having just met all day every day about this. He gets so drunk at the Medical Convention that they literally throw him off the train and his face is like planted on the asphalt out of the train platform right? And I think in that moment, what happened was there was a very powerful realization that came in that. And the realization was, is that spiritual conversation does nothing to keep me sober. Y'all I love meetings. I go to a lot of, I probably go to at least five, maybe seven or eight meetings a week. Meetings are a pep rally for the solution. Meetings Are Not The Solution. Meetings or where I go find other people who are rowing the boat so they can remind me to keep rowing the boat and I can help other people row the boat. I've been to a lot, a lot of meetings with a lot a lot guys who I watched them relapse after the meeting. So what happens is he gets back to Akron, Ohio and he's just come off this horrible drunk and he wakes up on, and historians are split on this, some say it was the morning of June 10th, others say it Was June 17th. And he wakes that morning and him and Bill were sharing a room and he says, what day is it? And he says it's June 10th. And Dr. Bob goes, oh no, it can't be June 10. It can't be June10. And Bill says, What's wrong? He says, I'm supposed to perform a surgery on June 10. Right? And we don't know exactly what kind of surgery it was, but Dr. Bob was a rectal doctor, so we can kind of imagine a little bit, right? We know the guy survived after the surgery. We know that. And so Bill says okay, let's get you a couple of bottles of beer so you can calm your nerves down a little bit so you don't have the shakes and we'll drop you off at the hospital, right? Which I just love this. I just, I like, let's get you a little but drunk and send you into surgery. Like when I hear stories like that, I think maybe I could have been a doctor, you know? I wouldn't have been half bad neither. And so he goes and he does the surgery and then no one hears from him for the rest of the day and Bill and his wife are thinking, ah, he's drunk again. and he comes home around midnight and they say Bob where have you been and he said I've been out making amends he went around that entire town and made amends to everyone he owed amends to on his first day sober and that was the last day he drank didn't drink for the rest of his life another 15 years because spiritual experiences are only a result of spiritual action when I I remember I really did not want the ninth step to apply To me But I remember my first sponsor I made the horrible mistake Of getting one of those Hardcore big book type sponsors And I remember The very first amends I made I'd worked at this hardware store And I'd stolen a bunch of stuff from them And I had sold it And I wasn't that long sober either. I was maybe at most two and a half months sober going to make this amends, and I'm sitting in the parking lot of this hardware store, and I am like terrified, right? And I call my first sponsor, Scott, and I m like, what if they call the police on me, man, right ? I d like to make a point, and this has just occurred to me recently. When I m out there doing my thing and I M ripping and running, i'm not worried at all about the law right in fact it's kind of a brag it's like yeah baby i'm an outlaw girl you know right the minute i get sober the thought of going to jail is terrifying right it's someone like me in jail right see we alcoholics by nature we're really we're just such ungrateful people right I had this sponsee call me, and he's just complaining, right? And he's talking about how he's got a roof over his head and he has three square meals a day and he can exercise as much as he wants during the day or watch as much television as he want. There are plenty of people who want to have sex with him. And he can't stop complaining about being in jail, right ? That took you all a little longer than I thought. There have been some people in here who have done time. That took y'all a little bit longer than I thought. So anyways, I'm on the phone with Scott and I'm, I're on the verge of tears because I, because I like don't want to go in and make this amends because I'm so afraid of what's going to happen. And what Scott says to me is he says, yeah, but do you want to make the amends or do you want to end up drinking vodka again? And see, those guys had done with me the most important thing that I believe a sponsor can do. They gave me a hopeless case of the first step, a fatal dose of the first step. And at that point, I didn't even really believe in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I believed that if something didn't change, I was going to drink again and if I drank again, I wasn't going to be able to stop drinking again and then I was going to die. I fully believed and was conceited in my innermost selves that my options were jails, institutions, and death or hopefully this aa thing these stupid happy people kept talking about so i went in and i made the events i remember i was a small store and i asked for the owner of the store and he comes out of his office in the back and um and he barely remembered me and and i was like i worked for you from this day to this day and i stole approximately this much stuff and here's your money and the dude was so confused he like had no idea what was happening and he like he looks down and he like takes the money and he's like, do you want a receipt or like, right. And I got out of there before he, I was worried he was going to change his mind in a minute. So I like, I'm like out in the truck and I'm driving up Ritchie highway route two in Maryland. And, um, and oh my God, it was me and God in the front seat of that car as close as, as close As you are to me, right? Because see what we're doing here. We're not seeking knowledge about God. If I was seeking, if knowledge about God solved alcoholism, then there would never need to be a priest, then a priest or a rabbi or a minister would never die drunk. And none of them would ever need to come to AA. But plenty of them do. What I'm seeking here is a conscious relationship with God. What I am seeking here is the feeling of the consciousness of God. And the reason that's what I'm doing is because in my experience, people who can feel the consciousness of God don't sit in their own piss drinking Jack Daniels. so I make this amends, man. And, and, um, it was one of the most powerful moments in my life. That was one. I believe, I believe this is my belief that spiritual experience is only a result of spiritual action. And that was one OF the most POWERFUL moments in MY life. I remember I, I, I had lunch with my mother and I took her out. Uh, y'all don't have Ruby Tuesdays around here, I don't think, but it's kind of, it's kinda like Chili's, right? It's like of that. And I've like took all the money I had that I could like muster to take my mother to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch. It was like $38, and that was like clearing out the bank account, right? And I took my mother to Ruby Tuesdays for lunch, and I'm a mother's only child, and this woman, you know, I'm paid for defense attorneys, treatment centers, therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists. Anybody who would take her credit card and told her that they could fix her kid she was on board with, right, and I have the amends conversation with her and I try to throw some estimate of how much money this is, right? And moms are always the best. Just don't pay back the money, sweetheart, right?" I'm like, this is brilliant. Maybe AA does have something to offer, right?' And for a long time, for a lot of years in my life, I was never in a position to pay that back and the times I tried, the little bit I could, she wouldn't take it. And I had, this is about four years ago, I had a really good year in business. And see, what I've found happens here is that if we're willing to live this way of life, the circumstances that we are in when we come into Alcoholics Anonymous change, right? And I guess maybe five years ago, I don't know, something like that. But I'd had a pretty good year InBusiness and my mother's the cheapest person you'd ever want to meet. Like, you know, up until five years ego, she drove the same car that I used to steal when I was a teenager to go get drunk, right, and her car's falling apart. and she's going to get every last mile she can out of it, right? And we're sitting on the couch one day and we're just having coffee and I'm like, well, what kind of car would you like? You know, if you could pick, buy anything. She's like, Well, I like those, the Honda Pilots. I don't know if y'all know this, but she's like I like Those Honda Pilotes but they're way too expensive. Hondas are fancy cars, Rory. I'm not going to give you, right. And I'm doing like a Honda Pilot. Okay, well that's interesting. Anyways, well yeah, I'll let you know if I see a good one. and I bought her that car and she cried and she hugged me and she said oh that's way too much and I said I owe I owe and I owe that was one of the more powerful spiritual experiences I've ever had in my life when I was two years sober, I might have told you all some of this story. When I was 2 years sober I was stealing data from this company that I was working for. And what had happened was they fired one of the senior guys at the company And he had called me and he'd said, you know, hey, I've got the passwords to the database. Why don't you go to get this data and we'll sell it to their competitors, right? And I wish I could act like there was one moment of me that thought about God or spirituality or any of that. I was just like, that is an amazing idea. That is like, wow, that's – I'm an entrepreneur. Maybe the next Bill Gates, like, you Know. And so I'd stolen this data, and I'm An Idiot, right, So I stole like a quarter million dollars of data and I sold it for, I don't know, $2,500 or something like that. Right. And, um, and, uh, I told my sponsor, I was worried I was an idiot on Monday and he was not shocked to hear that. That was not like, um. Um, and. Um. And I guess, but two years later I was in this place where, see, the thing is if you stay sober long enough and you don't take any action, you start to get uncomfortable, right? And your life starts to look bad. You don't, and at first, the first thing is you want to do is you wanna look around and you wanna say the problem is the money or the problem is the relationship or the problem is the girl, whatever it may be. But ultimately, I can look back and what I can see is that the only problem is, is that I don't have access to this power anymore. I don�t have access to this creator anymore. And I was in this place where I knew absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I didn't make this amends for this stuff I'd stolen, that I was going to drink again. And so I went to their office in Greenwood, Indiana, and I'm sitting outside of their office and I have $500 to my name. And I go in and I's like, I'm, you know, sitting in my car outside there. I'm chain smoking cigarettes and I finally justified it to myself as, well, I can't pay my rent anyway. So if I do go to prison, that's somewhere to live. Right. Like that was this was a good hour. I was sitting in the truck like having this conversation with myself and and and I go in and I asked to speak to the owner of the company and and they come out and they bring back the office and meet with me. And and I and I, you know, I told them what happened. I used to work at your Washington, D.C. office and I stole this date and I sold it to some of your competitors. and I'm not dumb, right? Like I knew that I was going in there confessing to a federal crime and I have $500 with me now that I'll give you and I've no idea what this is worth but I'll pay you whatever you tell me it's worth as long as you tell us and if that's not enough for you and you want to press charges I'll plead guilty and you have every right to do that. and unfortunately unlike my mother their response was not just stay sober Rory we're glad you're in AA right the response was we want you to put this all down in writing we want you to give it to sign it give it to us and we're going to give it to our lawyer and our lawyer is going to get to decide what to do that is a butthole puckering moment just FYI and but I did Right. I wrote it all out and I gave it to them. And I'm absolutely convinced that any minute now, you know, I'm going to I'm going to get a notice that there's going to there's an investigation and I'm going to be indicted and and all this kind of stuff. And I've kind of just made peace with it. And I'm kind of like, all right, well, eventually and nothing happens. Right. Nothing happens week after week and month after month. And eventually I stop. I stop thinking about it. Right. And I am still in the same industry that I was then. And in the years that followed, I built a business in that industry. And, um, I was out in West Texas. This is about nine months ago. I'm out in west Texas and, um. And I'm driving from west Texas back to Austin. It's a long drive, like seven hours or something. And and I get a call from the guy who owns that company. Now, understand this is 10 years ago, nine years ago that I made this amends. I get a call form the guy owns that Company. And it's like, that's weird. You know what I mean? We're polite with each other, but we're not friends or anything. And uh, and I pick up the phone. Hey, Kurt, how are you, man? And we're chatting for a little while and, you know, catching, how Are your kids? How are your kids good, good. And he says, Well, listen, I was thinking about something. I said, What's that? He said, I Was thinking, what if we were to buy your business, and you were to come be a senior vice president at our company? See, I don't know when I'm going in and making that amends facing a federal crime in Indianapolis, Indiana nine years ago, that God is lining up my life a decade later. But what the third step it is the willingness to take the action of a man who trusts God when I do not. See, the problem is, Clancy used to say, and I think it's one of the best lines in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous is the process of one alcoholic relating to another just enough to reduce his feelings of difference that he will take action that he does not yet believe in. And for the first many, many years I was here, even years into being a frontline dedicated member of AlcoholicsAnonymous, a hardcore step guy, I still had that little voice in my head right before I made those amends that says paying these people back has nothing to do with staying sober this is kooky stuff right y'all know that but the one that comes into your head right before you put the amends check in the mail right because it's always the worst when you drop the check in the mail then you can't get your arm in there to get it back out right now i do it i do i do them all wire transfers because like i'll I had one, this wasn't even that long ago. This was about a year ago, I guess. And my company had made a, had screwed up big with a customer, right? And they'd screwed up a job and the customer didn't even know, right. We'd gotten paid, we'd screwed Up the job. Customer didn't know we screwed up the job, customer didn t ask for a refund. Everything was fine. And through kind of auditing the job, I realized how badly we'd screwed up, right? It was $36,000. And which, you know, for guys like, you know Taylor, that's probably not a lot of money, but for me that's big cash, right. And I call my sponsor, a key thing here guys, if you're trying to avoid amends, do not get honest with your sponsor. That's a bad, that'S just a bad move, okay. So I call my sponsor and I remember I was, I was sitting outside a halfway house cause I was about to pick up a guy to hear his fifth step. And I call him my sponsor. And then I tell him the whole situation and I'm like, you know, I gotta, I know I have to make this right. And I'm thinking maybe I'll give him back like 10% of the money and I'll just tell him because they were such a wonderful customer. Right? And he did not find that idea to be, he was not an approval. He was like, no, we're going to tell them exactly what happened and we're gonna send them back all the money. and there's just some moments where you know you picked the wrong sponsor right and that was that was one of them but luckily i i'm i try to live a life surrendered to this process and so i said okay so i say hold on i'm gonna call you back in a couple minutes i'm going to write out an email explaining to them what happened so i write out the email and i explained that you know it was an unintentional error but we didn't do the job you paid us for i need to send you the money back I'm going to send you a wire right now and I call my sponsor back and I literally read him the email over the phone before I sent it and he said okay perfect now send the money and let me know when it's sent because this was a time when I made this amends I've been in business for myself for now about 7 years and I've had good times and bad times in business and this was a really bad time in business We had nine days of cash in the bank at this point. If we didn't make money in nine days, the business was going to go under and 16 people wouldn't have had a paycheck, right? And here I am and I've got this $36,000 and I desperately need that money to keep my business afloat. And I've Got My Sponsor saying it has to go back right now. So I send them the money and then I got a response from them that I never expected. they responded back and said, thank you so much. We've never had anyone do this before and we've got some other contracts coming up and we'd like you to put in bids for those other contracts. My business right now is better than it's been in years. See, because in chapter five, it says I'm a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life if only I manage well. In chapter five it tells me that I'm not a victim that I am a victim of the illusion. Victim means tricked or duped. I'm tricked into believing that I could just be satisfied and happy if I could have all the things that I want. If I could have the pretty girl and all the money and the big truck, right? And I'm tricked over and over into believing that. I've never seen a group of people who've put more effort and energy into getting the things in life than they think will make them happy than alcoholics. And I've ever seen a couple of people fail so miserably at that time and time and time again. and there's a spiritual correlation i believe between these areas of my life right in the ninth step it says by the time we're halfway through we will lose we will use our fear of financial insecurity i believe that that's the truth i believe that being willing to make that amends to that customer that didn't even know i owed him the amends when i had eight or nine days of cash in the bank to keep my business afloat has a correlation to the fact that I'm able to have a successful business today. And I don't, the crazy thing is I don'T understand it. I'm a relatively smart guy but I couldn't explain intellectually how that works but I believe and know that it does. You all with me on this? the problem is chuck chamberlain and you guys i've talked about this a lot since i've been up here in the last couple weeks chuck chamberlin used to talk about how this is a disease of separation right and how the the the great problem that contains all other problems is the belief that i am separate from you right and that we are all not parts of the same whole in the same God. The way drops of water are from an ocean, right? See, the power of one drop of water is almost nothing. The power of the ocean is incredible. It can destroy cities or carry goods across the world. But the drop of water and the ocean are the exact same substance. And when I am willing to be a part of the greater whole, the powerful, the more powerful, the power that I can access in my life is incredible, but the problem is that my ego my ego wants to separate me from the great whole and nowhere does that do that more with the people that I owe the amends to where I've got a good story that guy who ripped me off right that person who took advantage of me that girl who did me wrong and if I've done a thorough inventory what I can see there is I can be either part of that story that maybe I've stepped on that person's toes and that's what led them to want to rip me off and if I'd done the same thing to myself I'd rip me of too or how maybe I've ripped off other people see the continue I think we make a big mistake in Alcoholics Anonymous a lot and I think I'm just going to say it it comes from the treatment centers right where we write down our inventory and then we do stupid stuff like we send it down the river or we light it on fire or whatever right oh my god that's not what it says it says the list of the people we resented are the list of the eight step that we're going to go make amends to y'all know the only problem with the eight-step by the way I put a lot of study to this I've thought this through the only thing the only one the only problem with the eight-stepped is a list of all persons and made amends to them all if they could just change that to some and some I would be much more on board with the eight step those of you who didn't laugh haven't made all your amends Um, I, the first piece of in chapter five, it talks about how resentment is the number one offender. And if you look one sentence above that, what it says is, is self-manifested in various ways as what had defeated us. Resentment is the Number One manifestation of my selfishness. And in the fourth column of the inventory, like we talked about last week, What I find is I find how I've stepped on this person's toes or how I have been just like them. But that doesn't remove the resentment. That doesn't get me free from the blockage to the sunlight of the spirit. What does is then when I go clean that up, right? When I make that amends. I think I told this story the other week but I'm going to tell it again. I was at an AA conference about a year ago and a bunch of us went out to lunch, right. And it's a nice lunch, barbecue, everything. And this guy shows up and just a huge jerk, right? He's, you know, hitting on everybody's girlfriends. He's making fun of everybody. Just a super rude guy, right. And I'm so angry. I'm literally, I'm leaving lunch and I'm sitting in my truck and I'M SHAKING. I'm like, I want to stab this guy. And I'M LIKE, NO, I CAN'T STAB A GUY AT AN AA CONFERENCE. MY SPONSOR WOULD FIND OUT ABOUT THAT FOR SURE, RIGHT. And I go to the inventory process, right, And I look in the inventory and I haven't stepped on this guy's toes. I've never met him before. But then I look about how am I sick like him too? What are the times in my life that I've been that guy? That I went in and had to be disrespectful to everybody? Where I had to hurt people to feel better than them? You see, when I'm not doing very well spiritually, when I're not doing well emotionally, what my ego will try to do is it'll try to pull me down pull you down to make me feel bigger and unfortunately that never works all that all that all that happens is i feel more alone and smaller as a result of it but that's what my ego will do it'll try to pull me down and make you feel bigger and before i even got back to the conference on the way back from lunch i start thinking about i'm talking to god and i start thinking about these two guys uh one guy used to sponsor and another guy that i went to high school with i used to beat the guy up and push him around it was real jerk and i hadn't talked to this guy in 20 years and before i got out of the truck i found him on facebook and i reached out to schedule an amends appointment and in an instant every every feeling i had toward that guy from lunch was gone because see i am just like you because i am just like u and when i am willing to clean up the damage of the harm that i have done all of a sudden the blockage between me and the world goes away and then i can realize the promise the promises of this program right in our book it tells us that it is much harder to go to an enemy than it is to a friend but we find it much more beneficial in my experience the hardest amends I've made are the amends that have had the most spiritual benefit because those are the ones that require the most trust in God the circumstances that I've had to go into in my life where I've been through a lot where I have had to sit in my car and say God, I am absolutely terrified but I'm willing to act as a man who trusts you even if I do not trust you and then having God show up on the other side of those things that's how I built my relationship with God I was talking to a guy, a sponsor the other day I said the only difference I think between a guy with 2 years and a guy with 13 years is I have more evidence to support that this program works and that trusting God works so when I'm confronted with the next situation when I am confronted with the next moment of terror where I don't understand what paying back the money or making the apology or turning myself in for the crime or whatever that thing may be comes up in my life I have more evidence that if I'm willing to trust and abide in this process, that God will take care of me. It tells us in our book... I'm going to piss some people off here tonight, so if you don't want to go to dinner with me afterwards, I won't take it personal. At some point we started to hear around our fellowship people talking about living amends, right? Make living amens. And the problem is, if you go to enough middle-of-the-road AA, go to another crappy AA, people will tell you stuff like, oh, you stole from Walmart? Don't worry, your amends is not stealing anymore. I want to try that one out. I'm going to go to Taylor's house and rob his house and be like, don't worry Taylor, I'm not stealing anymore. It's not how that works. In our book it says, it actually specifically says it, it says we may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything. It's very clear in our book about the lengths that I have to go to to get free of this. It says in our books five times that I am willing to go any length. And I think when it's talking about willing to do anything, it's taking about these amends. It's talking about the amends that I really, really don't want to make. It's taking about the Amends where I don't feel I have to make them, where I feel that they should make the amens to me. And I tell you what, I've made more amends at this point in sobriety than I ever made while I was drinking. Or sorry, more amens for things I've done in sobrietty than I did while I were drinking. Because this isn't about I got drunk and I bashed your silverware or I got drunken and I wrecked your car This is about I've lived as a person who is consumed in selfishness for my entire life. And little by slowly, if I'm willing to take the actions against selfishness, I don't... I called Charlie Parker one time and I said, Oh my God, Charlie, when does the selfishness stop? And he said, I don'T know, man, sometime after 38 years. And it's my experience, right? But if I'M willing to TAKE ACTIONS AGAINST SELFISHNESS, If I'm willing to try to live an other-centered life, then I can have access to the power of this program. And I forgot where we were going. It was about to be real good, too. It was supposed to be the best thing I'd said the whole time I've been up here. When I left that guy's office in Greenwood, Indiana, man, I was driving up to a meeting at the Carvel Club. and I'm driving this crappy little Nissan Altima and it didn't have air conditioning because I couldn't afford to get it fixed. And I got Sweet Home Alabama on the radio turned all the way up and I got all the windows down and again, it's me and God in the front seat of that car and I have the conscious presence of God. Spiritual experience. If you get nothing else from any of my talks that I'm giving up here, Spiritual experience is the result of spiritual action, as I understand it. I grew up on the East Coast outside of Baltimore and I was out there this past fall. I was giving some AA talks in Pennsylvania and I got to go see my family and it was a nice time. And I got together for coffee with an old friend of mine, a guy I used to get loaded with. And we were laughing and we're telling old stories. And he said, hey, man, you remember that time that we got drunk and we tore down the goalposts at Tillman Middle School? No, I didn't. Thank you for sharing that with me. God damn it. Hello, I'm calling you because 15 years ago somebody tore down The Goalpost at Tillmon Middle School, and it was me, right? and they're like and i and i go through the whole thing with them and i'm like um i go Through The Whole Thing With Them And I and I uh and They're Like Sir That School Hasn't Existed In 10 Years I'm Like Okay Well How Much Would It Be To Replace A Goal Post And They're Like We Don't Know Sir We Don'T Know How Much Goalpost Cost In 2008 You Know We'Re Going Through The Whole Things And So Finally I Find Out It'S Like Forty Five Hundred Dollars Right Is What these costs. And, uh, and I'm like, okay, can I just send the school district to check for $4,500? Like, no, you cannot. We're not a charity. And so finally I'm like, all right, what can I do? And they're like, why don't you just find like some local kids charity and give them money, right? Give them exactly what you find, find we owe, find that you owe. Right. So I do, when I do some research to find a local boys and girls club in the area and I sent him $5,000 to try to adjust for the inflation, right? There's a dirty feeling that when I've got money in my bank account that isn't really my money, there's a filthy feeling that comes with that and there's freeing feeling the minute it leaves. And see, a guy like me never thinks that. I think more freedom is going to come from more money. That's never ever once been my experience. and I'll tell you this we're kind of running down on time so I'll shut up with this man I've got so many things out there that I can never ever make amends for things I did in black I remember anybody ever have those times where you just have some memory come on to you that you've forgotten about for years and it's just hurts your heart I was thinking the other day about me and a buddy of mine were loaded years ago and we're driving down this street and we've got lead pipes or something and we are bashing in car windows just being idiots and I start thinking about what if one of those car windows had been a single mom trying to get her kid to the doctor or had to get to work I have no idea where this street was and that's something that I can never ever make an amends for and I'm sitting there feeling so horrible about this I used to when you know Clancy used to say this I think it's so true man he's he said when I when I first came to AA I demanded justice the world had hurt me and I wanted justice the problem is is that after a little inventory all I want now is mercy any more justice might kill me right and that's my experience man that any more injustice might kill me I owe I have a wonderful beautiful life today I was I was there are times man there are times when this thing almost brings me to tears. I was, it was Saturday. We were over at the house and my son was having a sleepover with another young boy his age and his mother and I know each other from AA and they're upstairs making pillow forts with blankets and all that stuff. And I'm out on the back deck and I'm looking over my beautiful lawn. I'm on the phone with a sponsee. My girlfriend's sitting in the flower bushes cutting flowers and gardening. And I'm the verge of tears because how does someone who's done what I've done to the world get this beautiful, wonderful life. And the truth is that I have been shown a grace in Alcoholics Anonymous that I am unworthy of. And through a consistent and persistent commitment to the actions of AlcoholicsAnonymous, I get to live in that grace. And I get to feel the consciousness of my creator. I owe and in my experience owing is the best position I'm tired too brother I get it I don't blame you if you're sitting out there and you're wondering what the hell paying back money and confessing to crimes has to do with staying sober, that's okay. Please just do it and you'll understand on the other side. I said this the other week and I'm going to say it again because I think it's one of the best things I've ever heard here. I think I've said it every week. I heard a guy say one time, he said God's love is like the sun. If I walk outside on a sunny day, the sun doesn't say no sunshine for you, Rory. I know what you've been doing. The sun shines on me because that is the function of the sun. There is nothing, the sun is 93 million miles away, it shined on all of us today. There is Nothing I Can Do That Is Powerful Enough To Change The Fact That The Sun Shines. God Loves Me Because That Is The Function Of God. There Is Nothing ICanDoThatIsPowerfulEnoughToChangeTheFactThatGodLovesMe. But If I Hide In The Basement And I Don't Get Any Sunshine, That's Not The Sun's Fault. I'm a kid who should have died A long time ago in a basement in Baltimore And y'all showed me the steps out of the basement And into the sunlight Thank you