Step 10 and the 10-Step Buddies Who Keep Him Honest – Gary B.

there's a there was something that was brought up here and that was the difference between harm and hurt feelings and here's an example of that I I had a business partner, and we – I was the senior partner. And he found out when he got in that business that he was afraid to do what he had to do, which was to go out and find new business and basically do a lot of selling. and so I wound up doing about 90% of the business and he felt really bad about it and spent most of his time apologizing to me for not being able to do what he needed to do to make the business successful and then he would go out and have lunch with his friends and talk about how much money he was making. And that went on for some time, and he wouldn't let it go, so I fired him. And then his brother talked him into suing me for four and a half million bucks. Yeah, I didn't think that was very nice. and for the longest time I felt like I owed him an amend for firing him because when I did fire him he really felt bad and I thought well I caused that and so I must have some culpability in the middle of this and I kept trying to find some way to to make that right and I kept going I kept I probably went to three or four different people and said tell me what the harm is in that I know there's some harm I just don't know how to get to it and they said you didn't harm him you just took him away from something he didn't want to do and the fact that you fired him just meant that as a pure business decision he had no business working there and and I said well apparently he thinks differently because the son of a bitch sued me for four and a half million bucks and then I'll tell you one other thing about that and that is a line in the book that says because we avoid retaliation and argument. And so I had a good friend, in fact it was Lisa's husband, and I would not defend myself against this lawsuit because it says we avoid retelliation and argument, and so I just was kind of letting it go along was really worried about it, and Lisa's husband came up and said the best defense is a good offense. And he was running a large law firm in Denver at the time. And he said I have a litigator over here that can stop this in its tracks in the first 15 minutes. And I said great. And a week later, I wasn't being sued anymore. So, you have to be clear about the harm anyway. That's the point of this. In that, don't be spending your time running around thinking you were a Genghis Khan or that you harmed everyone that you'd ever met in your life or whatever. Be real clear about what the harm is and then go try and balance it. And most of the time, what you want to do is have some idea about how you can balance that before you ever get there. Now, one other thing that I should mention, and that is that if you have the courage, what you may want to doing on the end of your amend is to say, have I harmed you in any manner that I'm unaware of? Then hang on to your hat. When I did that with my first wife, it isn't like I've been married a lot of times, but I've done it a lot. I've never been married twice. And with my First Wife, I said, is there any way that I've harmed you that I am unaware of, and she said, now that you mention it and went on for about the next hour and a half and she wasn't done and I had to go to I was had some sort of appointment that I had to get to him and I said I'll give you call and we'll find a time and you can tell me whatever it is that you haven't had the opportunity to yet and I called Don and I said, let me tell you what's going on with this. And he said, okay. And I said I think it's a little abusive. Well only because she was really angry at me. It was about let me show you what I'm going to do to you. And at some point it sort of lost something in the translation because it was just pure anger after a period of time so he said call her up and tell her give her an appointment and tell her you'll sit down with her for an hour and that she ought to consider anything that she hasn't told you so far and figure out some way to pack that into the next hour and then you go listen to it So that's what I did. And at the end of that, everything was done, okay? So sometimes you can run into some people who are really angry at whatever you did to them and just be reasonable about what you're willing to listen to and if it goes past the business of amends of amends and gets to abuse stop you don't make an amends is not taking a beating all right it's balancing the books so that woman I said is there anything else I can do then to to make this right and she said yeah marry me again Lord protect us you just so most of my amends these days are they're important but it's about little almost embarrassingly pedestrian things it just I had to make amends to my kids way after I was divorced the last time and I I thought, now here's how your ego works. My ex-wife, or it was then my wife, we were going to get a divorce and she said, you need to move out. And the only reason why I hadn't moved out before that was because I didn't want to damage my kids any more than they already were damaged. they weren't damaged that badly but I mean it and so so she said you need to move and I would seem to be slow and moving so she went got a boyfriend in And that cut it. God damn. So I moved out, and as soon as I moved out here's what my ego told me. I had started a new business, and I wasn't making a lot of money, and all of a sudden and I thought I was going to be living under a bridge. And so I went and rented or leased a two-bedroom townhouse, and I got three kids. And I thought these kids are going to hate me, my business is going to fail, I'm going to live under a ridge, bridge, I'm going to be broke for the rest of my life. You hear my ego? It's all lies. So I rented this townhouse and I got up and went to work every day and the business wound up being the largest of its type in the state. And I went from being almost flat broke to being financially secure, okay? And it was, in any way I had to make amends to my sons. And the amend that I had to make to them was that I was so obsessed with my dislike of their mother that I wasn't giving them the attention that they deserved. That's my fault. And so my amend to them was, I'm gonna be absolutely the best father that I can be to you and I am gonna do everything I can to enhance your life every day of my life. And my two youngest, I have twin boys, I have five sons but the two youngest our seniors in high school this year. One's 6'3 and 230, the other one is 6'4 and 240. And the 6' 3 one has been the starting nose tackle on the Arapahoe High School football team for the last three years, ever since he was a sophomore. Because he's a sweet kid but he gets on a football field and everybody better duck and he played the nose tackle on defense. And this year when they were honoring all the seniors, you go out on the football field with them and they introduced a player and he has his parents on both sides and my ex-wife and I were standing on both sides of him and they said this is Alex Olson and he's an honor student he's been the starting nose tackle for the last three years he is going to Colorado State University and the most influential person in his life is his dad I didn't know they were gonna say that Jesus I mean I you could have pushed me over with a feather right in the middle of that football field but But I found something out, and that is that they didn't have to grow up hearing what I grew up with. And what I grew up is you're stupid, you're clumsy, you are going to wind up in a prison or an institution, you'll never amount to anything, you can't, you will never be a success at anything. That's what I grow up with! And see, I don't talk to my kids that way because every time you say something to a kid it's like planting a seed. And because you are an authority figure they're going to take that seed and they're gonna fertilize it and they'll water it and they will protect it even though it's the worst god damn lie that they ever heard. so when you talk to children what you tell them is you're handsome you're smart you have the whole world in front of you don't let anyone tell you that you're less than you are you are a bright and successful young person who has the whole world in from of you and they believe it My 21 year old son is graduating in May from Southern Methodist University with a straight A average in engineering. He took the LSATs, which is the precursor for law and scored a 99.9. He's now being pursued by Harvard Law School with a full scholarship and a stipend to live while he's there plus about 20 other major universities and all that kid ever heard when he was growing up was you're smart you're handsome you're successful you can be anything you want to be and all you got to do is go out there and risk take the chances don't be afraid of anything you can do it okay thank God I don't have to make amends to my kids for telling them that they couldn't do stuff tell kids if you're going to talk to him that they can do anything and they're gonna believe you because you're their parent it makes a huge difference so the other thing is and it's you know it was true in my case and I think that it and it was through in Gary's case and that is if you own a man make it right don't wait the time you make amends is now and and then maybe you don't have to be sitting by some headstone trying to talk to someone that's already passed so thank you any other questions comment How do you go about making amends to someone who's dead? I know of two instances, and they seem to have been both helpful. Do you remember Bill Boone? A number of years ago, a friend of ours in Denver had a friend who had been instrumental in the death of his baby and was asking how to make the event and how to go about it. And a lot of prayer, many of us were asked, none of us knew. And somebody told him to go and write that child a letter and tell him everything he ever wanted to tell him. And put a lot prayer and thought into it to do that and he did. And he wrote the letter, and then he went back to the sponsor, and he said, now what I do, he said I want you to put it in an envelope and address it to yourself and drop it in a mailbox. And uh, he did that. And when he got the letter back, he was told of the words had been changed in the letter. Believe it or not, it sure worked for them. One of my better friends in Indianapolis was a fellow named Earl. And Earl and his drinking had been thrown out of the house, and he had not been a nice husband. I don't think he had ever been violent, but he could beat you to death with words. And they're living separated. And one day he got a call from his wife. Of course she had the kids. She said, come over to the house, I need to talk to you. And so when he went up on the steps and he rang the doorbell, he heard a boom and she'd blown her brains out. Oh, there was hell to pay for that. He was never arrested, but he was certainly thought bad of about maybe he'd killed her. First time I'd ever had a sponsee that was dealing with stuff like that after he came in. I must have listened to half a dozen inventories about him, and he was writing about her. His resentment was because she'd had an affair with his best friend. He went over that and over that, and we would discuss it. Finally one day after a meeting I cornered him, and I fired him. And I said, I can't help you. You won't listen to me. I said you owe that girl an amend, and you need to get it made. And, uh, I'm done. I can help you." And I left, and about three days later, I got a call from him. He said, can I come over see and I said yeah and he came over and he sat down and he said I went to the graveyard and I found her grave and I sat down at the stone and I must have talked to her for four or five hours he says I didn't stop crying for two days And he made them in. And it would have been fine since. I don't know what else you could do in either one of those instances with that. The guy that told me the story about the baby is a guy I believe, a very believable guy. He was not necessarily one of our gang, but He was as solid a person as you could ever meet with that. And I know what Earl told me, certainly. Earl and I talk on the phone. He lives down in Mexico now, but we talk every day. Part of my reviewing, everyone, I go through the steps as a whole is I review my amends and I review the people out there with that that I might've owed them one. And I look at my parents, and they've both been long gone. But I reconsider all of that stuff. I'd like to be the point with my amends and that sort of thing. If somehow I should know that I'm gonna be gone in the next 30 minutes, I'm absolutely ready. Don't owe anybody nothing. Don't wanna leave anybody out there if I can be of help to them. not that I want to go that, isn't it? But I'd like to know, okay, if God's ready, I'm ready. And that's what it is. And that'S one reason to keep looking and keep trying to find out. Let me give you an example of that. Five years ago I went out, like I walk a lot, so I went down in the morning and walked five miles and then I thought, well I'm going to go play golf, so I went and played nine holes golf and carried the bag and then i had a doctor's appointment so i went to the doctor he said uh how's everything going and i said i have indigestion which seems to happen more often now and he said you need a treadmill and i said why and he said because many times angina masquerades as indigestion and I said I don't have any heart disease in my family and I did all this stuff this morning and I'm still standing here and he said I want you to take a treadmill anyway so I did and I took this thing called a thallium treadmill where they shoot you up with a radioactive isotope. Oh swell and you think you're going to start glowing in the dark and I went over and I took this treadmill and the guy that was watching it said there's something wrong here and I said well I don't feel like it's wrong and he so he we had this doctor look at it and the doctor said we need to do a angiogram on you where they stick this thing in your groin and then I look at your heart go up with through some sort of vein or whatever and they did that right like right away and there was this little oriental lady that was a cardiologist I was doing it, and then I was watching it and fell asleep because I thought it was boring as hell. So when I woke up, there was a different cardiologist standing next to me, and he said, can I be candid with you? That's not a good way to start a conversation with a cardiologist. And I said, sure. And he said you have one artery that's completely blocked, One that's 95% blocked and one that's 85% blocked. And you're having a triple bypass at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. Oh. And he said, He said, is that a scary proposition for you? and I told him no and I was perfectly candid he said no it's not and he said well I don't hear that very often and he said why not and I said because I don' have a lot of unfinished business here which is exactly what Gary just said you know I go today I'd like to watch my kids go to college at the very least. I'd like to see him get married and have children and do all that stuff. I probably won't be around for all of that, but I don't have any unfinished business here. I've made my amends. I'm living a life that I think is productive. And I think that all things considered, that it's been a positive experience for both me and the world. now that's an awful thing to say but I work very hard at doing that so you know when I was 58 I think I'd come down with diabetes and I was floating in and out of a coma and that's what I thought about is my life made an ounce of difference see and at some point you may have to ask yourself the same question and I'll tell you that's a hell of a motivator to start doing something positive with your life and start trying to make someone else's life better and we're going to talk about this in a moment but you know in the 11th step there's a plan for the day two of the things that are on my plan for the every day number one is be happy because I have to work at that Isn't that awful? I thought you ought to just do that naturally. And I have to get up and work at being happy, and so I do. And the other thing that's always on that list is try to make someone else's life better every day because that's our real purpose here. So I think you and I talk on the phone while you're on the journey waiting to go into that bypass. We may very well have. Yeah, I remember I was kind of surprised when you told me that's where you were at. Right. Step 10, I guess. Many years ago, back in Denver, Don and Mickey and I were having a conversation about the tenth step. And we decided we were going to do it precisely like it says. We're just right down to the gnats eyebrow we were going to get this thing and just do it perfectly and and so we were at that point in time one of the few times where all three of us were available to be on the telephones during the day or any other time, and so we thought we would just do that. And I can give you a couple of examples how that would work. I had a partner back then in the business that could just—she drove me nuts. Just crazy. And she'd been away from the business for a year recovering from breast cancer. And when she came back, some things hadn't been run in the office well. I had spent, I'd used the company credit card to buy some personal things for myself and that seemed to irritate her. And I hadn't be hard enough on some of the employees on her side of the business. They should have sold more and done more work And just about on and on and it never quit. I made all those things right and did my best with it and it just never could have done. And so, I just had my days and I remember a day I called Don and I said, I'm gonna kill T.J. And Don says, really? I says, yeah. He says, so where have you been selfish in this? Well when you're that angry that's what you don't want to talk about is where I've been, I'll guarantee that's not what you wanna think about. And so you gotta stop all this ranting and raving long enough to figure out what it is and in the middle of that anger that's very difficult to do. And so I finally come up with an answer that seemed to satisfy me again and he says, well where have been dishonest? And he goes through it again, and resentful. And where was I afraid? And so the time we get down and we get through that, I was pretty well done with that, and I discussed it. And the only thing he, I don't remember him asking me if I'd asked God to remove it, because the answer would have been hell no, I haven't asked God remove it. But we went at that day, and he said, you're an amend yeah and he says what is it then so I spelled it out and then he had some intuition that I don't know many people have had it he said wait for me I'll come down there and when you go make it and so he came out there to the office there and sat outside TJ's door while I went in to make them in and all that and that was I mean you paid a price to go making them in the TJ and I did and I apparently did it properly. And so that night we went up to Denver General Hospital and we hustled drunks there on the detox ward. If you don't get the opportunity to do that these days because they won't let you on the wards but going on guys on the Detox wards or ain't looking for a 12-step call is was really a kick, and it can be a great time. But he and Mickey and I started to do that, and we started this thing that Bob calls having 10-step buddies, and that worked real well in the Forest War, and really did. And then when I moved to Indianapolis and all that fell apart, and Mickey's situation had changed, and Don was about my only 10- step buddy for a long time but we did it long distance for for a long time and he went on to be trustee and uh i would get calls from some of the damnedest places to listen to this next step but they're just so important and just take it literally it's just not complicated the key words let me see that since it didn't really do this this thought brings us to step 10. why am i doing that i can't see that which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to write any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We've entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. It's not an overnight matter to continue for our life. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And when these crop up, we ask God for the key words or the next two words. At once. Okay? Okay. To remove them, we discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we can resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. And I see those as the key words and I try to do that but I still write my 10th steps. I have never learned to write inventory. We were taught to write inventories, and I read this tenth step, but I didn't see anything about that. I don't have to write it anymore just because it's the tenth step. So I still write my inventories. I take a few minutes out any more to do them. And you know, you've done that for awhile, it's easy, you don't need to worry about the drama. You can get right down to the good stuff here. Get down to meet up and do it. But that's my tenth step thing. very much most of the time. Most of my 10th Step buddies are guys in Indianapolis that I hang around. Tom's met some of them, I don't know if you ever met Jim and Earl and these guys that we just do that with. Some of you know mine. That's really important. I've gone down a list to make sure I could catch one right away. I'm not going to wait for Mike to get back in town, you know. I have a friend there. I'm going to be out of step here just a little bit. I had a friend, a man I sponsored for about the whole time I've been in Indianapolis. His name is Jim, and Jim is one of those sponsees that came in that was a fighter. And you told him the book said to do something, his answer was bullshit, eight out of ten. And I like those guys better than the guys who do that just sit and nod, okay? Because you'll never get them to do a damn thing. But the fighters, you're more likely to get them going. And we fought around the third step. And he's at the third step, and we've been talking about God, and he's denying the God, angrily. He's got a resentment at God, but we can't do it yet. He's gotta do that. And he was driving, there's interstate 465, it's a 60-mile highway that circles Indianapolis. And he's screaming around that highway, 90, 100 miles an hour, and He finally stops and goes home. He said, don't give me this stuff about this again. He says, I'm getting tired of it. I've been driving around the interstate like that, hollering at God, calling him a no good so-and-so and all that. And so I let him rant for a minute. Don't tell me there's any God. He said I know, but I just went around and did that. And I said, well who are you hollered at? He said God. I said there must be a God. He gave me a two word answer and slammed the phone down. And then he finally gets it, and he moves on. And I don't know how many of his inventories I've listened to over the years. He's the one that caught on to four-column inventory right away and can be just as insightful. And Tom knows him. He's sitting over there nodding about him. He's one of these guys who can really get down to the meat and a tremendous sponsor, and worked with tons of people. Very effective with the Vietnam vets who come back who are dealing with all the things they're dealing with. And Jim's very effective because he can show them he dealt with some horrible stuff just through our 12 steps. Well, he's 20-whatever it is, three or four years sober now. is dying from a disease, multiple systems atrophy. And that just means that there's these automatic systems in your body that's running or atrophied, they're just shutting down. And he's been for the last two years going through that and he's horizontal most of the time now and in a wheelchair on the bed and he is on the phone eight, 10 hours a day working the people still. and last tuesday i went instead of going to my home group i went and sat with jim we had our own damn meeting we didn't need them other guys a great time and i watch him go through this stuff and he's spending most his time looking at his tenth step in meditating and he loves it when you come over and just want to sit and meditate with him but we still are 10th step buddies because he'll get some little resentment going anymore it's pretty much in God and maybe it's the people delivering the oxygen to him or whatever it is but he's quick to do the tenth step and to move on. I learned a part about sponsorship I didn't know here these last couple years. There's another guy named Dick Martin, he's 28 years over that I closed up and then sponsored all this time and all that and he said major surgery on his brain a couple of times and I'm the one that's been given the power of attorney to make the calls when things aren't going well And I didn't know that was going to be a part of sponsorship. But I got in there. But I'm glad to do it. And I just think it's part of this deal that God's lined up for us to do that. And only talking about that around the 10th step right now because I can't get Jim out of 10, 11, and 12. He's one of the most capable sponsors I've ever known and 12-steppers, and 10-stepper, and all of that. And it's just so much a part of his life. He doesn't get out of bed necessarily to do it, but he'll be just as clear as you can be with where he's being selfish, dishonest, and sinful or frantic. And go through that. And who can you help right now? And because for mine, and he's got a spot see we laugh about and all that, it's his biggest pain in the neck. He calls us his highest maintenance sponsee. So I guess I better call Elliot, and he does. I think I gave 10 and 11, 12 pretty poor attention for an awful big part of my life in AA. And it certainly does not replace the regular inventory. And I can't remember who it was, but we were sitting in a meeting sometime in the past with Bob and somebody said, well, I just maintained my life now on 10, 11, and 12. And some woman in the group said, oh really? And I've never been able to do that. I still have more to do no matter how quickly I try to single look at 10. and the selfishness and the dishonesty and the resentment and the fear. Go ahead. The business about taking four steps regularly has to do with a line in the book that says a business that takes no regular inventory is sure to fail. And you can take your 10 steps and you can work 10, 11, and 12, but unless you're perfect at it, and I've never met anyone like that, eventually it's going to really be helpful to write inventory. On the end of the 10th step, how many of you were at that meeting last night? Okay. At the end of the 10th step, it talks about carrying the vision of God's will into all our activities. And that's a wonderful exercise. And if you have enough presence of mind to do it, when you get up in the morning as part of your daily plan to make carrying the Vision of God'S Will into all your activities, it really makes your day run easier. because every time you change activities, if you say, God, please help me to take a vision of your will into this activity with me, that just seems to even out your day. And that helps you in the 11th step because the 11st step is about staying in a spiritual sense through the day. Now, the 10th step spiritually is about being here now. When it says continue to watch. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. And a great deal about the 10TH step is about being aware. About seeing what's going on around you. there are some great proponents of that Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle all those guys wrote books about be here now be in the present moment this is the only place you have to live don't live in the future, don't life in the past live inthe present moment and that's what the 10th step is about it's about being here now and watch what's going on and be aware of what's happening around you That's what that's about. It's been invaluable to me to have 10-step buddies that I've asked permission to call and that I can call anytime I'm doing any of those things. I mentioned last night that probably 80% of what you're going to talk about in a 10-Step is fear. Although it talks about selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, the thing that you're going to talk about most is fear and telling someone that you are afraid and then they are going to go through this exercise that Gary described and one of the things that it does is it lends perspective to what's going on with you so you may have this perspective where everything has gone to hell and you may not have reason to believe that And so people, if they're an unaffected third party, are going to tell you, why would you ever believe that? That isn't what it looks like to me. And so a part of that whole process, other than sharing it with someone, has to do with gaining perspective about what's going on. There's an enormous amount of value. I also mentioned last night that most new people don't like to tense that. And the reason why most new people don't like the 10 step is that they're still protecting their ego. Which means I'm not going to let you see me because it's going to embarrass me and you're going to think that I'm not very good at this. You know, it's like being 36 years sober and expecting to be perfect. Ain't going to happen. Maybe at 45, but... You know, we need an outlet for that. And if you're too damn embarrassed to tell people what's going on for you, you're missing the point. Allow someone else to see you. There is a great spiritual benefit in allowing other people to see you drop your defenses and let somebody know what's going on. You know, one of the great benefits of this program is having some people around you that know who the hell you are. You know we all have this basic belief that we're not good enough. Nobody ever defines it because they say good enough for what? We just say we're not good now. That's an emotional trap. we all think we're not good enough and if we don't put some sort of facade up in front of us that people are not going to accept us because we have this basic belief that by ourselves why should they so we got to kind of put some window dressing out there we got a we got put a bow on it so we become acceptable that's bullshit you're just fine you know we're not who we can be but we are who we are today and we're a hell of a lot better than we were in the past so why are we embarrassed about who we are that all falls back on what we believe about ourselves you're just fine you know there's some work to be done but that's part of this deal so don't be embarrassed to be who you are you are one of God's children and God made you uniquely with these skills and abilities and for you to say I'm just you know I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you who I am it's like slapping God in the face why would you you're just fine but let somebody know who you are and that's what the tenth step is about so I can kind of stay clean, but the problem is that my ego rebuilds itself. It becomes resurgent and over time it overcomes my 10th step. It overwhelms my 10 step. And all of a sudden I'm back into the bedevilments. And then I know it's time to take inventory. okay so you know that thing in the back by Herbert Spencer about thank you about contemporary investigation don't have that about the tenth step don't get it in your head well why the hell should I do that I'm just going to tell a bunch of embarrassing things to somebody that's going to think I'm stupid that isn't what they're going to think so don't have contemporary investigation about the 10th step just go out and do it and see if it makes a difference and you'll see how valuable a part of that is and then you're going do what I do which is 10th Step almost every day so a guy asked me early on Actually, it was this guy named Mike Bacinius that Gary had mentioned before. And he said, are you doing your 10-step? And I said, no. And he says, why are you settling for half a loaf? And I say, I don't know because I don' t want to do it. and he said you don't know this but you're really short changing yourself by not following the directions and there's enormous benefit in doing this even though you are uncomfortable doing it so he said you might want to consider following the direction so I did and it's made a big difference yeah tom go ahead we're getting a high sign take a break here so but go ahead okay uh i wondered if you could speak a little i heard you and mike both talk about tent stepping with newcomers people who have a lot less variety and how helpful that can be to bring them into the group yeah tom has heard stories from mike and me about about tent stepping with newcomers. And I started doing that because nobody else was around. I was caught out in the middle of nowhere, and I had one of my matchbook inventories with me, and it was important stuff, and didn't want it to fester. And, I knew Mike and a couple other guys were were having lunch, and so I muscled in on the lunch. And both guys were new, and both guys were in the inventory. And they'd always act a little squirmy when I'd be around because I was such an old-timer and all that. And we had lunch, and I said, listen, I need you guys' attention. And I knew Mike would pick up on it because he's one of my buddies. So I went through the tenth step, just like we talked about it with that, and got to the end of it. And Mike asked me a couple other questions. I'd done a pretty good job with it, but I still needed some coaching. And then when I got done with it I didn't think anything about it, and I really didn't. And one of the new guys a few weeks later was giving one of his first talks at a meeting. And he said, I think I got to do this shit the rest of my life. He says, I couldn't believe it. Gary came up and shared inventory with Steve and Mike and I. I just did it because they were alcoholics and they were there. I really didn't think about them being new guys. But that's something I've done a lot. lot. It's not just with those guys, it's just that they happen to be there with that and it's always had good results. Now, if I think about it, I got way too much sobriety and serenity and spirituality to let them know I'm such a jerk that I'm going to go up and share that stuff with them and all that. And that's the lie that he's talking about that's going on and my ego is giving it. We better take a break. We'll see you in about 20 minutes.