Step 11 – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 18 of 29 – 2025 – Robbie W.

hands up. So I know you're out there. Yeah, that's right. All right. I see them. That's right. Come on, Kevin. Get those hands up by seeing my brother at a boy to the grace of God, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, my home group, the primary purpose group right here in Wildwood, New Jersey. My sponsor is a guy named Ben and my permanent sobriety date is October 31st of 1983. And for now, I'm eternally grateful. And let me tell you something right off the bat oh 40 minutes i started my time look this is what a good speaker does okay you see that so like i've been at conventions and conference and a speaker after about an hour and 15 minutes how much time i got to still go like 15 minutes ago pal come on we gotta dance to go too but anyway yeah so i'm timing myself i know i got 40 minutes it's all i need man it's more than enough i want to welcome everybody i want say hi to everybody from from the beautiful shores of new jersey i live at the corner of new jersey my girlfriend's on the call everybody say hi to suzanne l hi suzane good to see you and uh and and everybody else really great to see you i know some of my friends are here i just there's just so many people here 286 people way to go group go group making this message available for 286 People that's crazy cool and a lot of animals I see a lot of animals in the background. Good job. So tonight, man, not running the show. As Ali said, that's what he gave me. And I kind of like that. And if you want to go to your big books and find out where it's at, I'm going to help you out. I'm gonna do something very unsponsored-like. I'm wanna actually tell you where it sat in the book. All right, so if you go to page 87 of your big book, and by the way, get your big bucks out, everybody. Come on, get yourself out there. Get your big box out and get your markers out and get you're book out. And on page 87, it says, as we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought to come. Okay? And now, it's so hard for me to read this book sometimes. I've got so much writing in there. Everybody's saying my book, that's ridiculous. I must be into this program, right? Let me put this under the light. Okay. All right. And it says we ask for The Right Thought or Action. right and we might we as we remind ourselves we are not running the show humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will not mind be done and that is so important when we finally get to step 11 you know by the time we reach step 11 man we've fun we've taken 10 steps hopefully with our sponsor hopefully our sponsor has sitting across the table from us and we've taking the steps with them you know we've learned on page 30 that we fully can see it to our innermost selves that we're not called give me a couple head nods if you've done that a couple head nodds i'm looking around the room yeah see theresa nodding her head that beautiful orange room hi theresa always good to see you and then we got to page 47 right and we finally said like dummies to our sponsor hey i believe i'm willing to bleed as a paradise of okay spots what's next let's go to 63 then we go to 63 and we actually take that third step we could do all this in like 10 minutes if we got a good sponsor right you know we go through these we can actually go through the steps rapidly at least that's the way dr bob did it in the old timers and i love that and in the third step prayer we ask god to take away our difficulties not so we can look good not so he can look great not so i can put on a mask and say hey look at me no so do we take away my difficulties sort a victory over them, right, Allie? May bear witness to those that I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. And then we go into four and five, you know, and we start facing, we start chasing the facts about ourselves. We start clearing away the debris, right? That's in the road of God coming in through our brokenness, through the portal, our portal of brokenness. please be vulnerable alcoholics when you get a chance to be vulnerable please be vulnerable and um and then we go to six and seven and all we get is two paragraphs man at first i thought our our founders cheated us ali two paragraphs on page 76 one paragraph goes through step six where it talks about our willingness and then one paragraph right after that you know it says now my creator now you can have all of me good and bad and then we answer our career tickets and then we get to eight and nine and quite frankly that's only a few pages as well, we make the list right, we became we made the list in step four of all the persons we had harmed we became willing again there's a willingness to make amends to them all and then in step nine we made direct amends to such people wherever possible and then Samantha the good news comes, we get the step ten we get to the god consciousness stage right we get that vital vital sixth sense you know next time you're at a meeting they ask for a topic say a vital sixth scent please and they're gonna look at you like you got three heads and we know what that is that's the god consciousness right it's at 10 man develop it man instead of making fun of somebody all of a sudden we're like hmm, that might hurt them. Let me just hold on to that thought. Let me think of others. I could say, Teresa, constant thought of others, not constant thought about ourselves, what can I get to feel good, to rest enough satisfaction in our life, but constant thought with others. Strenuous work with others, right? And then we get to where we're at now. Step 11. So step 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for the knowledge of the will for us and the power to carry that out. And right away, I always go to 164. When I'm on step 11 with you guys, we bang right to 165. Because I tell them, this is the most important sentence for you. And here it comes. And it begins with C-S-E-E. And it's about 12 sentences up from the bottom of the page. And it says this, ladies and gentlemen, see to it that your relationship with him is right. and great events will come to pass. Great events, not good events, not okay events. How you doing? Oh, not bad. Not bad events. How you doin'? Okay. Not okay events, you know? But listen to this, Mickey. This is what the big book says. It says great events will come true. They'll come to past for you and for countless others. That's the great fact, not the good fact, not the not-so-bad fact, not the, oh, okay, how you doin', oh, I'm okay. I'm all right. How you doing? You know, in Jersey, how you doing off? Hey, you don't, you know, come on, tell me how you're doing. I'm amazing. I'm living the dream. I got 12 steps in my life, Mickey. You know what I mean? I'm fired up. I've read a Teresa. Sometimes I'm doing so good. I can't even raise my hand at a meeting because I know there's going to be about 22 people in that meeting saying, Oh my God, here he goes again. Gratitude, excitement, enthusiasm. him. The God within, I know he's going to say that. Clancy's got that into my head. A God within. A Greek word of enthusiasm is entheos. Entheos is God and it was within. When Clancy told me that at the international convention and at Toronto, in your hometown, Ali, it just blew me away. Anne, all right, keep nodding your head. I love that. Thank you. Let me know that you guys are listening. Let me know you guys are feeling what I'm putting out. There's Renee from Ontario, Alan from Toronto, Amy from Ontario, Kimmy B, my boy Timmy from Florida. What's up, my brother? All right, we got some good friends in the house. Hi, Kathy. Hi David W from Baltimore. They let Baltimore into USA and what are you out of jail? Good job, dude. And anyway, so we're here. We're in step 11. And now we're going to talk about a few things out of a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that I really love to talk about. Go to the bottom of the page on page 85. Open up your big books to page 85, I know you got it. If not, I'll read your big book for you. I always got told by my sponsor, don't let anybody read your book. It's your own big book and read it. Find your own answers. On page 85 Samantha, here's what it says. Step seven suggests prayer and meditation. Suggests. What does suggest mean? Suggest means proposes. let's read again step 11 proposes prayer and meditation um i like that then it says we shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer let's look up what shine means most of us know it's to be reserved hesitant and fearful so what's wilson telling us here don't be reserved don't be hesitant and by all means don't be fearful about prayer let do it let's just get out there let's Let's say to the Lord, let's hold hands. Some of us, I know a lot of our group, let'S hold hands and let'S say a prayer. You're not going to, well, you can't hold hands now. Whatever, there's a little pandemic going on. But after the pandemic and we begin holding hands again, don'T be afraid of people. Like, Kashina, come on, man. You know, you were never, I don't know about you guys, but when I was drinking and doing all those illegal non-conference approved goods, dry goods, I wasn't. I didn't care about who touched me or what touched me or who I touched or what I touched. And now we come in here, you know, I don't hold hands, man. I don' t hold hands. Oh, cut it out. Hogwash. You know, just let it go, man, and let's go. Let's go on a journey. Let's do it. Let's get on a step. Who's ready to go on the journey on step 11? Raise your hand. Come on, Susan H. Come on. God, that a girl. Come on everybody. I'm seeing her hands. I want to go to the second page. Don't stop. Let me see those hands. Let me do those hands and come on Allen H. I know you're Ambrose at a boy. Good grace. And there's Claude. I know, you've got a lot of time there, Claude, I know your response to that a girl. And anyway, so we're here. Let's go on a journey. Let's get excited and let's go. You know, it says better. Let's good page 86, better men than we are using it constantly. It works. That's his prayer. This is meditation. If we have the proper attitude and we work at it. So if we had the proper attitude, so what's your attitude look like? Well, let me tell you what it should look like by the time we're at step 11. By the time We're at Step 11, we should have a new attitude. We should have A New Way of Life. We should Have A New way of thinking. We should be going to meetings now and not thinking about what we can get out of it or what we Can give. Not what we CAN take anymore. I love drunk-a-logs. And I mean, sit there and deal with it because you gave Lauren drunk-alongs when you were new. Cut it out. You know, I love that stuff. I remember a guy, I'm a past delegate of Area 45, Southern New Jersey, Panel 48, on the General Service Board for a little while. And this dude wrote to Bill Wilson. I love, I always study Bill Wilson, and this dude writes to Bill Wolfson, right, about these, this influx of youthful hippie kids coming to AA in their miniskirts and da-da-da done, and they're chanting. This is about 1965, and how upset this guy was. And they're a threat to AA. Bill Wilson was very diplomatic in his answers, which I've learned how to do. You know, if you ever write GSO, here's what you're going to hear. Well, yes and no. Just giving Bill a heads up. And Bill Wilson, who was emblematic of what an amazing leader and how much vision he had, Teresa. and Bill Wilson said, dear concerned member from Arkansas, I'm sure your motives are very good in writing this letter. However, let me tell you my experience. This is for Bill Wilson. Let me tell you my experiences in working with some newcomers, some young people. There was a whole group that came to the office last Friday, okay? They had long hair and many skirts, and they said they did a lot of things that are in alcohol, but the alcohol was their problem. He said, let me say this to you. They were about the best AAs I've met yet. We had one of the young gals chair our meeting, our normal meeting, and it was one of our favorite meetings in the world. They were all excitable and they were all into Alcoholics Anonymous. Then Bill says something really cool. He says, I think we should encourage the movement, but something tells me they got something. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've ever been to an AA international convention, raise your And everybody that's been to an international convention, I see a lot of hands. Well, always there is IKIPA, International Conference of Young People. They're always on the bottom, you know, as we're listening to big speakers and they're going around the bottom. And they got some crazy colors on and yeah, they might have all their clothes appropriately on. But the reality of this, they're sober, they are happy, right? And they're having fun. And listen, if that's what they need at 18 and 19 and 20 and 21 and 22, let's encourage them. So I got sober when I was 22. I got sobre, oh, by the way, in young people's conferences. So it's got a little bit of now. And now I'm 36 years sober and I get to go to adult conferences now. Right, Ali? You know, and the reality of it is I never forget my roots. I never. By the way. Let me just share this with you. When I was new, so here's my experience. When I Was New, I used to have sometimes well-meaning people say to me, wow, thank God you're getting sober young. That's great. You've got your whole life ahead of you. Now, I know their motive is good. I know they're motive is fantastic. I'm pretty sure they mean well. Maybe a little jealous of your envy. I don't know. But here's what I feel or here's where I heard. Man, you're not as bad as me. But we'll accept you for a while You know, we'll see So when I came here at 23 years old Ladies and gentlemen I was so bad That I had just lived From an attempted suicide I was a convicted felon I was wanted by the law I hated myself My own parents didn't want me I smelled I stunk I didn't have a place to stay I think my last residence was a Salvation Army. And I came here, and you people loved me. You want to talk about the 11th step? You people showed me your God. Mickey, that meant the world to me, my friend. And that's my job today. When I suit up, when I get ready to share the meaning, that's because I believe that AA is sacred ground. A lot of my friends say that, and I say it as well. This is sacred groundbreaking right now. I was out in Barrie, Ontario not too long before COVID-19, and uh butch's group and carrying the message of alcohol it's anonymous we went through the middle of town alley and i saw a fellow laying on the bench in the middle of the day on a warm day they had a lot of clothes on right at samantha and he had all his clothes there as a spiller and i and i stopped for a second and i took a picture on my iphone and it's one of my favorite pictures i've ever had one ofmyfriends with me and one ofmyhost gave the fellow i don't know what your bills are out there like a 20 penta costal piece i don't know what you call them and tip i don'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOUR MONEY IS WHATEVER IT IS WE CALL THEM $20 RIGHT THERESA HERE SOMEBODY GIVE THEM A 20 SPOT I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS GOT FRIENDSHAPE SPOTS I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE BUT I'M SO GRATEFUL TO BE SERVED WITH AND IT WAS SO COOL TO SEE THAT AND IT MADE MY WHOLE CONVENTION WHEN I WAS OUT THERE I TALKED ABOUT IT WHEN i WENT BACK TO THE Oh, yeah. I love that stuff. Let's get let's go back to page 86. It would be easy to be vague about this matter. Yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions to our founders realized that they had they didn't want to be big about this prayer meditation. You know why? Because it's important. And so now they really spelled it out here for two pages, the proper way to pray and the properway to meditate. And I'm sure other speakers that have done this 40 minutes i've gone through this but it never hurts you know it never hurt you know i'm i'm in university and uh and there's some things that i do every once in a while they're repetitive the reality is some of it is very very very important so it says uh when we retire at night instructively review our day are we resentful were we selfish were we dishonest or were we afraid do we owe an apology that's a that's the one i always remember Do I owe an apology to anybody? I hope not. I hope, I try to get them, I don't like them step. I don' t like having the opinion of a person with hemorrhoids. And when I was wrong, promptly admitted it. Remember Arthur Fonzarelli on Happy Days? Remember Howard? He couldn't even say he was wrong. Remember? I was, I was. And I know, right, Howard? And a lot of us have a problem saying we're wrong. Just say it. Say it. So I made a mistake. And once you start doing that, it becomes a lot easier. It becomes habit, right? And you say, I was wrong. Please forgive me. What can I do to make it right? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person? And here it is, at once. Look how Bill puts that in there, at one, immediately. I love that stuff. Where could we have done better? Here's a good one. Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? I hear speakers all the time say that. I'm not much, but all I think about, please, I turn off as soon as I hear that. Because if you're a speaker of Alcoholics Anonymous and you're speaking to 500 people and that's one of your jokes, please leave it out because it's not Alcoholics Anonymous. Selfishness, right, Teresa? And self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our problems. How can something be funny if that's the root of our problem? Today we want to be solution-based, right? Tina, we want to be able to say to people, hey man, today, man, believe it or not, I'm thinking about people other than me. Today I get up and I love being on Zoom. I'm taking steps with guys in Scotland here on Zoom, I love it man, it's so cool. You know, you can look at what's wrong or you can Look at the Silver Lining. Dr. Paul says it best in page 419. He says if we're looking for what's wrong in the world or what's wrong in AA, we will find it. When we start looking for what's right, then we find, oh yeah, I know, I get it. Well, geez, Rob, you're just a cheerleader. You're drinking the Kool-Aid. You bet your sweet bippy I am. I'm drinking the AA Kool Aid because for many, many decades, I drank the other stuff and what it did, it was shivering denigrants of its mad realm going through my body. I ended up in jail cells. I ended up in mental hospitals. I end up living on the streets. I didn't have a nice suit on. I don't have suspenders that match my tie, you know, to the grow. Somebody's somebody's got their gosh. Hey, Josh, how you doing? Josh got his thing up there. I'm sorry. Anyway, but the long and true to this today, I got a great life today. I got it. Great life today, and why wouldn't I shout this from the rooftops. Hey, by the way, we're here because Ebi shouted the great tidings to Bill Wilson. We all know that. On page 19, Bill says, what really impressed me about Ebi when he did his 12-step call on me, right? He shouted the Great Tidings. So don't be afraid to talk about this thing. Don't be scared to do it. Don's be afraid to be enthusiastic. What's Dr. Bob saying in his last message? Dr. bob says we get out of this program in direct proportion to our zeal our enthusiasm and our stick to this look even ann's dog saying yeah dude keep going my mama's happy at that at a boy that's a good puppy and i want to be i wantto have zeal man i had zeal when i was drinking i had a judge one time called me a religious zealot because i had robbed the entire church the entire church. The only thing I didn't take was the church, you know? And today I'm a good boy today. I lead a Bible study team at lady house church, Carol, you know where my church is and, uh, and through the grace of God, I don't rob them anymore today. I don'T put that poison in me. Where was that at? I think I just saw a great, uh... Was it in not God? Well, anyway, we'll get to that. Um, Anyway, let's get back to the book. Let's get Back to Step 11. So here's like – so this big book, it says – Ali, it says we have complete directions in here, precise, clear cut. So I'm going to go over just a couple of them because I really like them. It says here, are we thinking about what we could do for others and what we can pack into the stream of life? I am. I'm organized in an international workshop, my second one right now. We're going to have it on June 7th, 1,000 people. I got our speakers. I got Billy Ann. I got Beth H. I got Bobby C. And we got all the locals that are in the service. We're going to talk about service. It's on AA's birthday, and we're going to talk About Happy Birthday, AA. I'm trying to add to this dream of life and have fun, man. And there's nothing like it, man, if they're making a review, we ask for God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measure should be taken. Oh, look at that. Our book says we talk to God. that's kind of cool man i hope you have a relationship like i talk to god all time sometimes that's when i'm out in the ocean on my surfboard uh-huh sometimes it's when i'm in my jeep i i suzy's on the call i called suzy the other day my jeap i was in my Jeep raggedy the top was down my hat was on backwards my hair i mean i got so much hair it's crazy my hair was flying in the air and uh she said she i can't hear you and uh but she loves me i think on awakening page 86 let us think about the 24 hours ahead now when we awake we consider our plans for today before we begin we ask god to direct our thinking especially that it be divorced from self-pity dishonest and self-seeking motives ladies and gentlemen when we get up in the morning my experience it's so important to live healthy serene and happy and a quiet morning before we go about our day whatever that means for you right now our office our dealerships are back open so i'm going into the office but by the time i go to my office i got up in the morning i've been on my knees right i've asked my god for a great day to divorce it from all those things we just talked about i asked him to make put someone in my path that i could help i asked them to let me think about others and other than just myself um i put on a guy put on a guided meditation i got an app i put it on i put all my bluetooth i listen to it throughout my house no matter what i'm doing i don't sit loaded style it's not my deal but as i iron my shirt or do whatever i listen to my guided meditation i i treat my body which is a temple to a nice meal and when they go into work i listen in my music the christian music that's just for me you know i listen that you know I'm no longer slay the fear that I am a child of God. I love that kind of stuff, and by the time I get to work, I have not expended any energy, any bad energy. I don't have any anxiety. I show up for work, and I'm ready to go. I'm willing to say hi to all the employees. I'm going to walk around the dealership dressed like this, saying hi to everybody, all excited. I do that, Teresa, right? I go back to the service, to the wrenches. I go to the body shop, and every once in a while, there's a new guy, The word gets back to me. The new guy says, who's that guy in the real nice suit that seems like he's all hopped up on something? And they always say, well, he's just hopped off on A&A. And that's my deal, man. And listen, let me tell you something. I don't know where it's at. I always have a lamp somewhere around. But if you've got a lamp, ladies and gentlemen, put it up on a light stand. Put it on a stand. Stop putting it underneath. Stop being worried about what other people are thinking about you. by golly marianne williamson says this she says let your light shine ladies and gentlemen don't ever let your life dim don't ever dim your light so others will feel comfortable around you see it's highly obvious already since you've been listening to me that i don't care what anybody thinks about me i don'T CARE i DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR THOUGHTS ARE ABOUT ME RIGHT NOW AND IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS i have a daughter that's going to be 21 years old on friday i don' t i'll tell you what i did today and suzy you don't notice yet i haven't had a chance to tell you we're too busy working which is great keep making the money honey but i called my daughter today and i told her that i was taking around on thursday and to get whatever she wanted and she said daddy i really need a mountain bike for my senior year in college we're going i can't wait i got all 50 hours of thursday i get done about 4 p.m eastern time and i can' t wait i can''t wait to pick up my baby my little girl she's um at her at my mother-in-law's now because she's really rich and really dead care of her and so she's at my father-in law's as she's on reprieve from college she'll be here i guess in the summertime at my place but i can't wait to go pick her up man and take her out i can'T WAIT TO LET HER PICK UP ANY BIKE SHE WANTS i mean i'm i'M HOPING SHE COMES BUT YOU KNOW SEE WHAT SHE DOES BUT THAT'S THE KIND OF STUFF THAT I LIVE FOR AND I CAN DO IT No, because God has taught me how to be a steward of his money. Right? God has told me that it's kind of nice what I do between the serenity prayer and the Our Father while I'm at a meeting. But it's much more important what I doing from that Our Father to the next serenety prayer. What am I doing out there? Am I taking this program out there or do I got to live and not live? Easy does it. I'm a friend of Bill's, and I'm giving everybody the finger and cursing out the window. Take those stickers off your car. You're making us look bad. Gosh almighty. Right, Teresa? Come on. Easy does it as they curse you out the windows. Oh, must be another guy in AA. They get angry. Anyway, so let's get back to the book. Next paragraph. In thinking about our day, we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take, right? here we ask god for inspiration inspiration means to breathe life into say god breathe some life into me okay i try to do that with all my situations if i'm going to go to work and and i'm gonna deal with a big meeting that day and i got some big people come up i say god please come into everybody's heart today please let everything go good for our business you know and it works crazy you know it says in the big book early on it says we go from what the bridge of reason and where are we going where are мы going and this is the shore of faith i i'd love to live on the shoreoffaith as one of my cats just knocked over one ofmy bar chairs thank you and um so anyway i'm in the sure of faith today i don't i don' t reason and debating and criticism, oh, I'm not a criticizer. You can criticize me too, and I'm Not Coming Back With One a little better. I'm just not doing it. I don't play that game. Sarcasm, I don' t speak it, and I act like I don''t understand it. When you're sarcastic with me, it goes... Because those that are sarcastic in life, some think it's an aggressive, God bless them, but those who are sarcistic in life... Samantha, watch this. They are sarcastic with 10 people in a row, and nine of them engage. I'm the 10th. I don't engage. Pastor Ed Mewton, one of my heroes. Teresa, you remember Pastor Ed, right? From Tavonport, Iowa. I know you've been on the tithes with him a few times. And Pastor Ed Newden used to say this before he passed away. He said, ladies and gentlemen, he would say to the convention, let's not be collectors of ones. What do you mean? let's not be collector of ones let's not let's not have 52 people during the day tell us what great people we are and not in an egotistical way but like i heard somebody say i heard samantha thanking theresa from that last 12 minutes that she shared on sunday and samantha said that 12 minutes hit my heart see that's the kind of dialogue that we have with each other see we uplift each other you see but some people for some reason they just think that that sarcasm is is it is an asset and they got to talk about my tie or they got talk about my hair or who or something i don't know and i just don't come back at it i just don't engage so those 52 people say what a great person you are like samantha did before the meeting and then suzy and i went as suzy was sitting right next to me here. And we went in a meeting the other night and I was the speaker, I don't know, a couple few hundred people somewhere in Texas. And the one guy didn't know he wasn't muted. It was, you know, that means for the meeting. And this is the lady, I said, Oh, Jakes, it's this guy Robbie from Jersey. Ah, he's a God freak. Oh, he so annoying. Oh, I didn't laugh at first. And Susie started rubbing my neck. And she said, baby, I don't think you're annoying. Don't ever stop talking about God. It's what attracted you to me. In thinking about our day, we may face a decision, and that's where we get the inspiration, an intuitive thought process, right? We take it easy. We don't struggle, okay? After we do this for a while, listen to this. What used to be a hunch off the top of page 87, or the occasional inspiration, gradually becomes a working part of the mind. It's a working point of the mine today for me to know good things are going to happen. I speak it in the universe. I speak happiness in the univers. I speak love in the universes. I chair a 12-noon meeting every single day, seven days a week. Not 12. I'll take 12. They only give me seven. Seven days a weak. Right? Teresa, I get going, man. You don't know. I don't have time. I create stuff. It just comes off my lips. But for seven days a week, I do a meeting, right? Susie and a few people go to the meeting. And it's positive. It's positive and it's upbeat and it'S energetic and we attract a lot of people, right? Every day at 12 noon. And I love that stuff. You know, you ever notice if you go to a meeting sometimes the meeting will take on a feeling of how the speaker or how the chairman has started the meeting, huh? You know, let's stop being so down. Let's show the newcomer that there's hope. Let's showed a newcomer that I love to see the guys and gals when I came here that smelled good, looked good, that were dressed well to throw away in her Cadillacs. I remember the first time this dude, Ellie, this guy took me for a coffee after the meeting and he had a really nice Cadillac and he got out and he went into the 7-Eleven to get us both a cup of coffee and he left the keys in the ignition and it was running and I'm sitting there with about four months and I think and I was thinking this is an aa test i know it they're gonna they want to see if i take the car now later on he said to me dude i wasn't trying to do that did not even think about that that's what i thought right this son of a gun wants to see If I'm still at arty you know i didn't take the car and i'm still sober man grace of god so let's go down now it gets good down upon my page 87 it says next paragraph says usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer to be shown all throughout the day what our next step is to be. So when you play football, right, and you're a quarterback, okay, and it's third down and three, and it'S a big play, NFL, and you come to the sidelines and you ask the coach, oh, what do you want me to do? My God, these guys are coming after me and my guys aren't blocking and what do You want me To do? And that's what we do with God. Dear God, what should be my next step? We ask especially for freedom from self-will And we're careful not to make any requests for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves only if it's going to help others. Here, God, please let me have another sober day. Here, god, let me Have another sober Day so I can help others, that's okay, that works. All right, bottom of the page. As we go through today, we pause. Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the great pause of 2020. I can pretty much give you a guesstimate that in about three, four years, five years up, I think it's going to be our fifth edition of the big book. It's already being talked about. And I can guarantee you right now we are living history. I can I can guaranteed you that one or two to three to do stories that we include will have men or women that have gone through the pandemic of 2020 and not, oh, I didn't drink or no oh i went crazy they're gonna say i went to these zoom meetings and these men and women who have been sober for decades were speaking and sharing and giving their heart every single day and something came over me and i realized that i wanted to be like somebody i wanted the fact like they're giving back you know it isn't that amazing and i know what's going to happen. So realize what's going on right now. Sometimes we've got to take a deep breath and show up in the moment. Show up in a moment right now on May 19, 2020 at 845 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I don't know what time it is where you're at. Okay? And realize that we're here and we're sober and we'RE happy and we'RE free and we'Re not waiting for some correctional officers to lock us up we're not waiting we're not being careful but who might see us except for the people would have their videos on I don't understand that but um through the grace of God today we say here I am world I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing and that means that I don't drink anymore and that means I don' care about others and that means i don't steal and i don' rob and i don't whore and i dont cheat and i do con and that i care about others and then i'm willing to do anything not only that will lift the mercials obsession from me but i'm going to do everything give it to you and say come on let's go we're going to a convention i love i love taking guys to conventions and conferences and and all that stuff and and seeing the clancy's and and seen the bob darryl's and and and and see in all these you know the bob bizances and and the theresa fairs and And the poly crystals and just being charged up. Sitting with them and getting love from them and finding out what makes them tick and why don't they have any issues? Why does everything seem to be going good for them? You know why? Because they immersed themselves in this program called Alcoholics Minors. And they said, okay, I'm in. I accept whatever you've got for me, God. Give me your marching orders. Follow me on the page. As we go through today, we pause. okay when doubtful and we ask for the right direction and action and check this out here's my topic and then it says um we constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show boom today it's not not not my job to run the show i lead a few things in life and i know what i lead and i Know people like to be led okay and i love that and i i love back okay but when it comes to, when it comes to I've given up step one, I've given up management. I no longer manage my life. I'm no longer in management. Now I'm just a worker. I serve. You know, I serve you. And I'm a servant. I don't care about titles anymore. I really don't. I Don't I don' care about initials after my name. What I care about is, you know, Howard S I met Howard as I'm looking right at his face and we went on a cruise this year i met him and him and his partner i mean we're besties man we can't wait to go on another sober cruise right in october howard right and and and i make friends for life are we going to piss a few people off on the way if you're not you're telling the truth if you're not you're a people pleaser when you're a God pleaser and you love AA and you've taken this book like it says on page 102 of the big book when it says when we go to the most sordid place on the face of this earth and you carry this message and you carry it with love and with truthfulness and you're not worried about hurting an alcoholic feeling and you say listen you're going to die but come here and you get a chance and you had the right motives and you're on the firing line of life. Hey, Teresa, 102, firing line of life, don't that get you excited? Now when I speak at Teresa's in the crowd, she's usually on the front row saying, go! Keep going! And when she's up there, I'm usually laughing and crying. It's all good. So we're on the firing lane of life ladies and gentlemen. Let's start acting like it. You got your helmets on. You've got your big book shield out. You're got your 12 and 12 ready you got your smile ready and when you take those shots and you've got your armor on and you just say hey no problem may god be with you remember don't engage when they come at you don't gauge in closing you know i want to talk about you know a lot of people in this room may feel as though they don't meditate well i got good news for you you do if you worry you are You are meditating negatively. If you're a worrywart and you have all that worry, congratulations. You're an amazing meditator. However, let's switch it around a little bit. Let's start meditating on God. Let's try to walk into the sunlight of the spirit with everybody. Stop all that meditation with the negative and the worry and COVID-19 and oh my God, I'm going to die. We're never going to get back to work. listen we got this god did not start this program in 1935 85 years ago to let us go in 2020 this is just a little hiccup and people in alcohol dynamics are showing the whole entire world how to get through this i got 30 seconds ladies and gentlemen let me say this to you I love each and every one of you And there's absolutely nothing You can do about it I love me Today I'm worthy Of living an extreme Exciting Enthusiastic Inspirational And fired up life And here's the good news So are you Find somebody that's got this program Find somebody That's got his call Grab on to them At some point Look up in the heavens What all else fails And say God i want to be on your team i want to be a soldier in your army that's all i got ally that's my that's my 40 minutes god bless everybody carol from new jersey come on up please carol from new jersey come on up okay hi everybody my name is carol i'm an alcoholic from Cape Maine, New Jersey. My sobriety date is May 15th, 2001. I just had an anniversary on Friday. Very exciting. I really just want to say thank you, Robbie. I love listening to you. I will go anywhere I can get to when you're speaking. I hung on to every word and And I really needed the enthusiasm. I kind of tend to get a little sedentary from being home all the time, and it just makes me feel so enlightened and excited when I hear you speak. So everything you said resonated with me. I'm really grateful for just to be here. I love these Zoom meetings. I love going all over the world, and I'm just so excited to be here and love listening to you. So I just really wanted to say thank you, Robbie. Thank you, Carol. Thank you for your comment. Next person, Barry R. from Fort Lauderdale. Please come on up, my friend. Hi, everybody. I'm Barry. I'm an alcoholic. And wow, I mean, Howard, who's a friend of mine, told me about you and said this was going to be a fantastic, fantastic message, and it was. I typed up my questions I wanted to be right so I'm going to read it So it's quick Thank you again for all the service Allie and everybody else And thank you all for being there God relieved me of my desire To drink and to use Drinking in the first Month of my recovery It was lifted, it was a blessing Now my problem Centers in my mind I will have seven years of sobriety in June 25th of this next coming month. My problem centers in my mind. It's about my relationship with me. It's my relationship with others. It's the problem and it's my ism. Am I right? The problem relies in my mind. I need to learn how to deal with me and others and I don't hear that in meetings. Shouldn't I? Am I crazy? I mean, I need help to deal with me i have alcoholic thinking and behaviors and i'm still working on it and i've not hearing enough about god in my in meetings that i go to and i's just wondering if i'm off the beat being there um so i'm asking you that and because i honor you and i uh honor everybody here so thank you for letting me ask that question thank you barry and barry you know the greatest thing is is that we're all on this journey together. But it says best on page 17, from steerage to the captain's team. So we get to be here with those that don't have any money to ride on the ship, but we get to be hear with the aristocrats. And the reality of this, our job is to say, you know, I just heard it in another meeting. OK, God, just sort everybody out. It's not our job to correct everybody, Barry. I know you're not saying that you want to do that necessarily. But the reality of this, you'll see some AA members that are kind of on edge, right? And they're kind of like, I don't know if they're cross-talking or we don't do that here. We're supposed to say it. And you know what? You know, love everybody and let God sort the rest out. How about that, Barry? Love all. Love all, love and service, Dr. Bob said. If you do the service and you let God do the loving, how's that? thank you barry thank you robbie uh next person ken v please come on up i love that uh i love i love you ali i love your robbie theresa od there's some other co-hosts so i don't know thank you for your service i love uh that uh that ali says come on up so here here i am i'm on my way up and uh so uh robbie jesus bible thumper i'm kidding you'd have to know my sense um and um i didn't hear much of your talk you were a little soft-spoken okay anyway you know i have like it talks about the bondage of self the third step prayer i have fallen into that many times over the years and my experience has been when i get back to contemplating my navel i end up changing my date so uh i loved what you said it's it's all throughout the book love and service uh the uh when all else fails work with another alcoholic will save the day and so i i've had this shift where not where i'm not much that I'm all I think about, but when I'm not focusing on myself now, there's a critical piece, me doing this connection thing. I just feel really full of love and I'm not sitting around feeling sorry for myself. And I, and I just want to help people and stay connected. And you know, just it's happened cause I'm using the tools and it's, and it, and it's so beautiful. What's baffling to me is I've had little glimmers or tastes of it over the year, and I've walked away from it. And it's because of my fear. I see it very clearly now. So to be in this place now, I don't think there's a reason I can't stay if I continue to do what's suggested and what's laid out in the book. So thanks very much for a very powerful message. Thank you. Thank you Thank you, Kim. Next person, Daniel Haim. Come on up to the mic. I love that. Hey, guys. Sorry. Hey, you guys. My name is Daniel. I'm an alcoholic. Ali, Teresa, thanks for your service. The rest of the Fox crew, thanks for your services. Robbie, always a pleasure hearing you, man. It's a blessing. It's incredible. um i guess like what you talk about like shouting the great tidings you know and obviously like i imagine you weren't such a timid guy uh before recovery and definitely not in recovery but like when did you become like willing to to kind of fully like use your gift of gab use use those character assets that that were once probably used in a manipulative way or at least that's my experience with it um when did you start like shouting from the rooftops you know when didyou really start believing while you're in this that you can do that you know what i mean like i don't know because for me when i share i still kind of just share like my experience strength and hope and i don' want to get too into like like this is what we need to do guys but you do it and i believe it andi wanted like you know i found my sponsor i wanted what he had he was honest i wantedwhathehadlike i hear you your enthusiasm i want what you have you know so asking this question i appreciate everyone here thanks thank you daniel and you know that's a great question and let me preface it with saying obviously it was not a night to tell my story i gave you a little piece of it about a lot and in my story okay i i absolutely went a step further than depression i know depression raise your hand if no one's around raise your hand, only I can see. Well, I guess a lot of us can see you, but you get depression, right? You get depression. You get low self-esteem. Thank you. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand again. Daniel, I got to the point where I took a weapon and I tried to kill myself. And I came to an infirmary wrapped with gauze all around my arm and sent to it. I got taken from a prison to a state mental hospital all because i wouldn't stop putting that stuff in my system you with me and so my life and you know when i first came to aa dude i was quiet in fact i i i just i didn't i didn' like it too much i didn''t like both i didn'T like the love not especially guys like ali would always be hey let's hug you no ali you can't hug i don't want you to hug me you know and and for real though it took about five years and at five years sober dan you i don't know how long you're sober now i know you might have a little more than that maybe shake your head off a little less a little left okay a little low four four years thank you all right got you and the reality of it so you're getting close dude and when i finally got five years I got hired at this place at this car dealership and I didn't up to that point I was working at a 7-eleven you with me I was I was giving coffee to policemen and I finally got hired and and I started dressing like this and and people I started feeling like I was important start dressing like you're important dress above your job scale okay make people wonder what you do for a living i started doing that and god started providing and he started putting me in as a leader i became a dcm alley i became at dcm you guys have dcms out in toronto i became a delegate i was at 14 years sober i was the last one on the board i went to the general service office they made me chair of a convention committee they asked me to go to uruguay with them and help them with some writing. What? So I just kept on suiting up and showing up and putting myself in that spot and before you know it, God started using me. So make yourself page 77. Our job today is to get a place where we're going to have maximum service to God and others. If you're sitting in inventory row at meetings and you're not raising your hand and you don't have a sponsor that's pushing you, of course you're just going to have middle of the road sobriety but when you get in the middle and you and you raise your hand and you put it up to speech and you start dealing with crap that's why a lot of people don't do service but you start feeling with it before you know it you're gonna be like wow let me tell people how awesome aa is that's all i got thank you robbie thank you daniel for your question just uh a quick reminder i'm um i don't go on my chat much because i have to see all the participants and they're monitoring something so thank you for the love lot of love towards Robbie and towards the team for thank you guys I love you so much please forgive me if I'm not responding to you directly and I do want to do this the reason our meeting is secure and run smoothly from trolls is because we have Mickey Kevin Samantha and Odie basically monitoring the whole room and sort of sacrificing being completely present because of for us so i want to thank them all very much from the bottom of my heart uh next person is grace please come on up grace from shoreline washington yes washington my name is grace i am an alcoholic i live in shoreline Washington um thank you for this meeting um and facebook page you're keeping a really disconnected alcoholic trying to get back in the middle of the boat you're really helping me out so thank you for that I just wanted to say to Robbie I never occurred to me to apply my worrying and my thinking to my meditation practice so that's something I'm going to take away and maybe it can help change the trajectory of my recovery thank you Thank You Grace Thank You grace next person is Siobhan my friend Sioban come on up hi everyone I'm an alcoholic. My name is Siobhan. I'm currently sitting in my car in my driveway because it's really loud in my house. But bonus, I got to hear Robbie and watch the sunset behind me. So that was beautiful. Thank you so much, Robbie. I heard you at one of the international coronavirus Woodstocks at the end of March and something that you said during that to me tied into what you were saying tonight which was your acronym of frog fully relying upon God and that has stuck with me as well as something else you mentioned about your personal story tonight with the point of getting to that suicidal place like I've been there and um I think we connected upon that last time I saw you on zoom too so thank you um for having that um strength and bravery to share that when you're speaking and um And I just love the worrying thing as well, like, or obsession and the fear and all of that, just turning it towards your meditation practice. I can't wait to give that a shot. And my sponsor has given me some new homework in regards to things like that too. So it will be a great week. Well, every week is great. But thank you so much. and I wish everyone here another 24. Thank you, Siobhan. Next person, Debbie F. Debbie F from Newcastle, come on up. Hi, everyone. I'm Debbie. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, thank you so much, Robbie. I had to mention to Allie this week that he seems to know whatever it is that I need in terms of a topic, so this has been perfect. um but i i especially love you've got your enthusiasm is infectious i mean i've got i've lost 40 years of my life just just watching you and listening to you what really hit home is was your last was your last sentence don't engage that is my biggest problem in life and and i'm like the aa police out there and you know when this pandemic started i was going to show everybody and tell everybody what they should and shouldn't do and of course that hasn't worked so when they come at you don't engage and i've written that down because i don't have the greatest memory but uh it's perfect for what i what i need to remember and um yeah it's uh i i do remember you from you put on a a conference or something recently so when i when i saw it was you i didn't know but yeah really really great talk and uh yeah i just love i love how happy you are that's what it's all about right so thanks again thank you ellie may i say something to debbie and debbie one of the greatest things i learned about engagement was is from my spiritual advisor a guy and he's actually his name's dr paul from delaware we do a retreat every year in saint lucia in january And what he said this year while we were doing a guided meditation is this. He said, imagine yourself at a railway crossing and your vehicle stopped, right, Debbie? And all the boxcars are gone by. Now, listen, we look at the box cars and we watch them go by, right? Okay? But we don't jump in them, okay, and go with it. Well, guess what? those boxcars are our feelings, our emotions as we're going through the day. So we can have a feeling and we can Have an emotion. But just like those box cars on that long railway station, we let the box car just go, we don't jump in, let the feelings and with the emotions go. And then after the train passes, we continue to go to where we were going. So when we have those crazy thoughts, and we have this crazy emotion, and when we had those crazy feelings feelings like why do i gotta have these feelings during the day well guess what just like the real car let it go let it goes away and then go about your day okay debs awesome thank you next person jack w come on up please hey i'm jack i'm an alcoholic and a drug addict from toronto Robbie! Jack W. What's up, brother? So I just want to share this quickly. As you were speaking, something came to me. So in We Agnostics on page 46, it says sometimes we find ourselves saying, how could a supreme being have anything to do with it all and who could comprehend a supreme Being anyhow? Yet in other moments, we found ourselves thinking when enchanted by a starlit night, who then made all this? that's, that's our job as when we share this message and that's what you do so well. And we connect on that level because we have to be a starlit night. We have to be stars in the darkness, right? We have to, we have to, we have to be able to, to offer something where people go, yeah, I want, I want some of that. I want to grab onto that. But then immediately after that, it says it's fleeting. It says, but it was fleeting and soon lost, which means when you offer that hit, when you share and you offer that hit feel like I can have some of that in my life too. They have a brief window where they can grab onto this thing, right? And that's my experience that if I go to see my sponsor and he gives me a pat on the head and we sit and we go through the book, I can feel great. But if he doesn't teach me how to practice these principles in my Life and teach me howto fish and feed myself, I'm going to have to keep going back to him for that hit, right?" So I guess what I want to share is just that if anyone who's really new in the program is jazzed up by what Robbie says and feels on fire right now, know that that won't – if you don't follow it through with this, you won't be able to hold on to it, right? You need to grab onto this right now. So strike while the iron's hot. If you hear something tonight, somebody saying something and you get jazzed off about it, then follow through on it because you might not feel the same about it tomorrow or next week. and you know that's that's it that's our job to ignite this fire but you know it has to be followed through with the action has to be taken after that that's all I want to share I love you man love you brother see you on Sunday awesome thank you Jack Robbie I just had a request that if you don't mind please send me the codes for your nooner that you have and I can post it on the fellowship of the spirit page Thank you very much. Benjamin B, please come on up. Hi, I'm Ben. I'm an alcoholic. Sorry, excuse me. So I really, really enjoyed your share and I love your charisma and you do have an infectious personality. and um you know in in times when uh like you know when i first got sober uh like four and a half years ago it was so you know uh it wasn't actually four and half years ago because i sat on my fourth step for a year and a Half but anyway when i finally started feeling um you know uh that my life had turned around through doing the steps you know it was such a good thing i wanted to share with people and then um you know but there's this thing that we talk about about like attraction versus promotion and um you know it's kind of a hard line to walk especially when you are in a leadership position you know uh to like you know maintaining anonymity and i was just wondering like how do you navigate all that and also i just wanted to show uh this drawing i did of you bet you're a sweet bippy i am dude so dude i gotta send my address i want that bro i'll send it to you i want your address i'm going to send you a gift for that i'm going to sent you a book a free book a special book and i and as only and i'll send it you just give me your address and you send me that and i'd be grateful okay uh i'll like message you or something but uh how do you navigate that whole uh that whole thing though oh thank you so so so how do i navigate that in life like how do i stay like how i stay in fit spiritual condition like maintaining aminivity and um you know the whole attraction rather than promotion like uh promotion thing i got you so i i have a i have a couple i go like ally has this amazing uh your group alley you know your 11 step group and and and everything is anonymous so i have a group like that and i do a lot of stuff in there nothing on my facebook page says alcohol it's not anywhere i don't go on there so i got 36 years of sobriety you know what i will do is i'll be i'll be sticky about it i'll say i'll see you in a little bit i'll stay on my way to toronto to meet 500 new friends or on my way to california to meet a thousand new friends and it's nobody's business and if anybody puts in the column down there benjamin oh i hope it's a good a8 convention just delete it no you know you got i'm just a little it's kind of like i don't know i'm from jersey it's kind of a mob you know i mean like they kind of speak their own language and it's the same with alcoholics anonymous you know almost all my everybody at work knows i'm in the program and they know they can come to my office if they have somebody that needs help so dr bob says we've got to be careful staying staying so anonymous that people can't find us that that's a way of breaking anonymity too now i know where i i i am i challenge anybody that's my facebook friend or wants to become my facebook friend to find anything on my public facebook that says anything about alcoholics they won't find it they won'T find it and so i keep my anonymity at the public level but yet you know my daughter says it best benjamin my daughter when i'm with her and she's here all summer because we go up on our boardwalk and a lot of people know me because i'm on commercials with our dealership plus the AA thing and everybody's always saying hi to me or girlfriends like man your daddy's popular my daughter says only in AA so like wow like you know like wow like that cuts me right down the right side listen all we are is alcoholics there's no stars here but we all are I just heard in chat we're all service workers stay in God's army Benjamin stay a worker that guy jack w just stared from the solution group in toronto he's like a guy that would lead me into battle like i could be like a general and he would be like the soldier let's go walker let's know i got you and benjamin you get these guys like jack and we go into battle together and we'll make sure no one gets hurt so you've got to stay with us dude all right great thank you benjamin for your for your questions sorry robbie what put your address in chat for me uh benjamin please i want to i want to mail you something awesome awesome oh look at this my my good friends kim and kathy come on hello ali thank you very good oh robbie i was one of those guys that didn't have the video on because i'm looking at myself i'm not paying attention to the speaker so anyways i know you uh i could tell by your story you've you've uh studied the big book and the other day i was going with oh through the big boat with a friend of mine and uh we come to the fourth step and it says you know we listed people institutions or principles well i said to the fella i said paul i wonder what bill wilson was talking about when he said principles would you be able to give me your interpretation of principles robbie please okay so for me one of those when i when i'm with a new guy and we're talking about those principles uh is it kim right we're talking about hi kim when we're talk about those principals uh like some of the principles are like uh the principles of um uh kindness you know some ofthe principles of being nasty the principles of uh not caring about others i used to rob people all the time i didn't think about others so the principles of you know i didn't really i used to rob people on vacation i used to rob them when they would go down to the beach and all their money they come back imagine i'm coming back with her two kids and all the money they saved for vacation was gone because this alcoholic has so i had to put down how about the principle of not caring about anybody but myself you know and just being disrespectful the principle disrespect i was disrespectful to Everybody I met, I was disrespectful to police officers and correctional officers. And so, you know, I always disrespected people's property. I lit cars on fire at one point in my alcoholism. See, I got living amends that will never stop, Kim. And when I'm asked – I'm on borrowed time. I don't know about you, but when I get asked, and I'm pretty sure you're like me, But when I get asked to do something, Kim, if it's physically possible, sometimes I jump from this meeting to the next meeting and then to another meeting. And if it means seven planning meetings, which I'm doing now with this next international convention I'm organizing, I'm going to do it. And let's let God sort the rest out because of all – because of how – I can't remember half of the things I did wrong, Kim. You know, back in my drinking days. Half of them I can'T remember. So those principles are what I got. It's really, Kim, the opposite principles of what we try to do today. The opposite of justice, the opposite of love, the opposition of kindness. I think Ali mentioned it. Sometimes we want to be, we want to do things wholeheartedly. Well, I did things dastardly, you know, and no other principles that I had to get on paper and talk to my sponsor about. And guess what he did, Kim? He looked over the table at me and he told me so it wouldn't be morbid that i wasn't as bad as i thought i was i was sick i was a sick man and as long as i didn't do that stuff anymore that my god had forgiven me already and now i had to forgive myself okay thank you kim next person erin b you're up next hi good night everyone my name is Aaron I'm alcoholic first I want to thank you guys for having this meeting and thank my sponsor for putting me on to it I come from all the way in the Caribbean Trinidad so Robert you reached far tonight thank you very much what particularly attracted me in your contribution I mean I grasped it all but what I would like to ask you is in your early of not engaging in criticism or not connecting i like i like the theory of the uh the cards because the thoughts you know let them go but in particular since this lockdown in particular you know in the meetings we got onto zoom and get all these people and when i give a contribution and i share honestly a lot of times especially in this little island we have these foreigners come and they have a better way of doing things so that they know it better and they attack yeah and i don't i don t mind i don't mind criticism but criticism does attack in my my serenity i have a problem with and at first i wasn't looking to fight back but today i step aside i like the car thing but i was just wanting i say this right you pray a lot i use this already pray a little bit to deal with it but is there anything additional to that that you would you would recommend you use earlier if you still use thanks thanks aaron and welcome to the meeting man i loved your accent and I can tell you're doing a lot down there is it Cayman Islands you said brother okay okay gotcha oh Trinidad thanks brother I've been there on one of my crew stops good to see you I will brother this October actually, I'll keep you posted. But, you know, this has been the hardest thing for me. And let me share this with you. I love that you brought that up, Aaron. You know, I'm so put off when I go to these meetings, these Zoom meetings. I mean, not this one. I'm just like, I don't know, I'm still so put on when I go to some of these meetings and before the meeting, I sit there about 15 minutes before the meet and starts, I got my coffee and I'm not usually dressed like And I started hearing the banter back and forth and sarcasm and the ridicule. And I'm telling you, it actually hurt my heart, Aaron, you know, and I've never been good at that. And it's probably because it says somewhere in the book that alcoholics are sensitive people. And Bill Wilson was sensitive. Bill Wilson, I learned a lot. And Aaron, I would highly recommend read the book AA Comes of Age when you get a chance if you haven't read it yet from Bill Wilson. And read one more thing in concept. There's a book and it's out. It's from the General Service Office of Nelson and Steve Rafferty. It's called The AA Service Manual Combined with the 12 Concepts. In that, Bill Wilson in Concept 9 talks about leadership in AA. Okay? You can actually Google it tonight. You don't even have to get the book. Just Google Bill Wilson Leadership in AA, Concept 9. And he gives about seven paragraphs where you could put that seven paragraphs on your wall, Aaron B., and you can have an amazing life. He tells us how we've got to learn how to compromise. He tells us how we got to stick flat-footed to our decisions when we think we have a right decision. He tells Us sometimes our constructive critics we need to listen to. And then sometimes he says, we got it to stand flat- footed and said, you know what? This is odd watch. We got to think about the newcomer. So it's called Leadership in AA by Bill Wilson. Read that and that'll answer a lot of your questions and give you a great playbook on how to live your life. Awesome. Thank you, Aaron from Trinidad. Thank you Robbie and Sherry from Nashville is up next. Sherry, come on up. Hey everybody. Sherry Levy, alcoholic here. Oh, hi Sherry. Hi. Hey, so quickly I am going to do what Teresa said not to do because she's my sponsor. So of course I have to. I just want to say I did meet you at the International Conference in Toronto, Robbie and I just wanted to say I've really struggled because I work in healthcare and so this whole COVID thing has been a struggle And of course, Teresa has me back in the steps and inventory. So I feel like I'm coming out the other side. And part of it for me is the enthusiasm. I just miss myself, my enthusiastic sunshine yourself. So I appreciate you so much. I also just want to say thank you so much for bringing up Pastor Ed Mutum. He was a dear friend, and I still share the story of the Bag of Ones to this day. My question to you is, when you heard the guy on the mic who thought he was muted, where was the shift in perception? You kind of, I know you got your neck rubbed and your girlfriend was kind of soothing you. But where was the real shift in perception to where you were able to let go of the criticism? Okay. So, I experienced, thank you, Sherry. It's great to see you. I recognized you right away from your picture. The real shift happened, I, I experience the human emotion of, I wasn't upset or angry. I was hurt. You know, see what happens with a guy like me, and I'm sure you could raise your hand if you do it too. I put everything I got into this. Anybody raised their hand? You put everything in, you got into your recovery. Allie, your hand should be up. I know you're, Mickey, your hands should be out. You know you guys put everything into it. And that means we've been, I know Samantha, you put our heart and our soul in it. And I really mean that, Sherry. I put my heart and soul in this, just like you do in your career and just like what you're surprised. And I know your sponsor. and i know that means that you've got to be in the aa and i put my heart and soul on this and i come to that meeting i hear a guy say oh geez this guy's so annoying he's like godfrey oh yeah night i got bobby oh he's a circuit speaker he speaks all over the world oh geez so i was hurt and the emotion was hurt and almost and and and she's on the call right now susie's on the call. So I'll tell you, almost right away, the chair like Allie said, excuse me, we can hear you, Joe. I know, I'm sorry. His name was Artie. I remember that. Artie, Artie you're not muted. I don't know why I remembered that. Maybe I'm trying to let it go. Arti, you're not muted and I said right into the camera, I said let him go. I want to hear what else he has to say and so almost right away sherry i turned it into a joke i turned it into like hey listen and i kind of said it during my talk tonight if people aren't taking shots at you you're not doing enough in aa listen aa is not a hot bed of mental health come around here long enough and you'll find that out right ally i mean sometimes in our groups we have to watch them so closely because you know alcohols can argue and thicker and about whatever it doesn't matter you know it says i'm going to share this with you jerry it says um on the bottom of page 17. it says no the fact that we've shared this common peril this fact that uh saved from the shipwreck in maroon island faa sherry that's only one of the powerful elements of samantha hold us here today our stories then bill says next paragraph Right, Samantha? The tremendous fact is, please listen, the tremendous fact is that we found a common solution. One in which we could agree and join in brotherly and harmonious action. Ladies and gentlemen, let's stop blowing out people's candles here. If you want to blow out candles, go outside. Stay out of our meetings. Stay out if our conferences. Stay out of groups. We come here to help each other and to love each other. We've been hurt enough. Right, Sherry? I don't know about anybody in here, but I've been abused by alcohol. I've be abused. And I come here and I don' t need no more abuse. Give your abuse somewhere else. And those of us that are sober long enough and we hear it and we see the abuse, we need to stand up and we need say cut it out. Sarcasm is not an attribute. It is a defect. That's all I got. Thank you, Robbie. That was it for your Q&A. Teresa, please come on up.