Step 11 Workshop – Part 1 of 3 – 2018 – Mike D.

with a moment of silent, followed by the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Again, good morning and welcome to our workshop. Today's workshop is going to be on step 11. Step 11, the preamble states that Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other, that they may solve their common problems and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Today, we'll share a passage from page 124 of the Big Book. And it says, As Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value in life, that is true only if one is willing to turn their past to good account. We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets. The alcoholic's past thus becomes the principal asset of the family and frequently is almost the only one. And again, this morning's a workshop, so we'll get right to that. And presenting. The workshop today is Michael Donnelly from Sioux Falls. And he's a guy I've known my whole sobriety. And I have definitely seen his passion and enthusiasm for Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm excited today what he has to share on Step 11. So please help me welcome Michael D. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Donnelly. I'm an alcoholic. And I have some notes here. And the podium is low. And I'm up here, so I may not be able to see them. But first of all, I want to thank Carla, who asked me to speak, and the committee. I really appreciate the opportunity to come out and share what God has done in my life. And I can assure you that whatever... you here today. If any of it is good, it is from him, because without him I would be nothing, and my life proved that before I met all of you. I want to thank Craig for hosting me. Making the sacrifices that he has over the last 12 hours has been just been inspiring, really. No, I'm serious. I'm just saying this from my heart, like the seven minutes we have spent together has been, it's just, it's, right, I was being generous because his wife is here. But I've known Craig a long time, and he's one of my favorite people. I love him very much, and Chad as well. Thanks for opening, Chad. I also want to thank my wife. You know, I I got to tell you, I really don't know what I would do without her in my life. And when we talk about step 11, and the idea of what God's will is in our lives, and how do we carry that out, and are we empowered to do so, and are we asking for that? The relationship that I have with my wife, I think, is absolutely the fruit of step 11, because I don't know that I would be able to love her the way I do today if it wasn't for step 11, and I believe that. And I don't know that I would be the kind of person that would be willing to receive the unbelievable love that she throws my way. I don't know that I would be the kind of person that would be willing to receive the unbelievable love without the gift of step 11. I think I need both of those. So I want to thank her for being here tonight, and my buddy Jay, who's not with us, who was going to host me, who may have invested a little more than seven minutes with me this weekend. He's out trying to help America, so we appreciate that. My history with prayer and meditation goes back from the time I was a little kid. My mom and dad, two of the finest people you'd ever really want to meet. They were tremendous people. And we would go to church every week, and we would say grace before meals, and before we'd go to bed, they'd come in and we'd say night prayers together. And they sent us to... I grew up on the south side of Chicago, I should say that. And I think my mom and dad kind of smelled future felony when I came out, because they did everything they could to make sure that I stayed out of the Chicago public school system. And I was a chronic misdemeanor guy, but had I gone there, I think I would be a chronic felon guy. And they really sacrificed. They were really generous to make sure that we got an education that kept us out of that. Now, public schools are different all over the country, but where I grew up in the south side of Chicago, they're a little bit of a mess, right? And so, my dad passed away when I was six years old. I had just turned six years old, and my mom was a waitress, and she continued to wait tables and sacrifice for my sister and I so that we could be in a Catholic school and stay out of the public school system. Again, public school systems are different. I'm from Sioux Falls, been there 25 years. It's a great system, right? But it's just different all over the place. And... But Chicago was nuts. And the sacrifices that my mom made to teach me about God and values and just her living example to us about what the fruit of prayer and meditation is, I mean, I can't thank my parents enough for the sacrifices that they made. So prayer and I go back a long time. And so, I just felt like I needed to say that. And I say it because I think there's a difference. There's a difference. There's a difference. Between what we're looking for here and just saying your prayers. Right? So I don't know about anybody else, but I can tell you there's a period in my sobriety where I felt like I was a really good AA member because I got up in the morning and I read the daily reflections. And I read the two pages out of the big book. And I said the third step prayer, and I said the seventh step prayer, and I found the St. Francis prayer, and I read that. And then I went out and lived my life as selfishly as I did before I ever said the prayers. I think we're looking for something different here. Right? I think we're looking for something that's... It's transformative. I love the expressions in the big book. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is absolutely, at least for me, the center of what we're trying to do here. See, I got to tell you, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, the very first home group I had... By the way, I still have a home group today. I have a sponsor. I'm sponsored by that sponsor, and I sponsor other people. And the very first home group I had was a place called Le Mans Oaks. It was on the south side of Chicago. And early in my recovery, I was really blown away by this place because... They would have all these kinds of fellowship things, and they had all these different things, but it always sort of seemingly came back to this idea of trying to live a spiritual life. Right? From the folks that you met at the meetings, from the activities that we did. My favorite activity was they had an old-timers and newcomers softball game. And so everybody got out on this big softball field. It was awesome. And everybody had a shirt on, right? And it said, class of 91. Right? And everybody in my dugout had class of 91 shirts. Right? And then everybody in the other dugout, and there were hundreds of them, hundreds of them, all had the class of which they came in and met Alcoholics Anonymous. Right? All different colors, all different fonts, all different script. And we played against each other. Right? And at the end of this game, and I'm probably, I don't know, two or three months sober, and I'm just beginning to get to know you, and I'm just beginning to sort of feel like you really don't... All the kindness you've been showing me, isn't because you want something from me. Right? Like what you have is beginning to sort of penetrate, and I'm really confused about what I'm experiencing. And we're on this softball field, and the spouses are out there, and the children are out there, and we're all holding hands, and we took up the whole circumference of this softball field at the end of the game. And we said they are father. Right? And the first thing I thought of, there's cars driving by, like people are going to see us. Right? Right? Some weird... Some weird deal going on over there. I don't know what I thought people were going to think. But as I'm standing there holding hands, and I said I'd been in meetings for three or four months or whatever, but this was just different. And I got our father out of my mouth. And I'm feeling it again. And I couldn't get another word out. And I remember opening my eyes and looking around this softball field and just thinking to myself, who are these people? Like, what the heck is this? Right? What the heck is this? Because for a long time, long time before I met you, I had diagnosed my problem as drunkenness. And if you'd have looked at me from the outside looking in, you'd have gone, good diagnosis, Mike. That's very good. But of course, that's not what was wrong with me. Right? I thought I suffered from chronic drunkenness. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Hey! Hey! On another page, shout out, one more time. On another page, shout out, one more. Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen! It looked like my problem, and it certainly caused a lot of them. That's not what was essentially wrong with me, though. What I didn't know is that I had this thing called alcoholism, that the big book describes as a three-fold disease. So eloquently written in the doctor's opinion, Dr. Silkworth explains this, and he talks about how we have this allergy to alcohol. And really all that means is it's an abnormal reaction. Jen did a great job of explaining that last night. That for some reason, this body is sick. And I don't know why. I didn't want it to be sick. I didn't think it was going to be sick. I don't even know or care if it's genetic. All I know is that when this body gets alcohol into it, it wants one thing, and one thing only, and that's more alcohol. And it's moving you either through kindness, or meanness, or arrogance, or altruism. Whatever it takes to get you out of the way so that I can get another drink, I'm doing it. I didn't know. I didn't know I had that. And of course, if my body is sick, since none of us are doctors, this body is going to be sick until they throw dirt on me. So I'm always going to have this disease called alcoholism, at least at that physical level. The other thing that my first sponsor explained to me was that I had this mental problem. I was sort of aware of that. People around me were more aware of that than I was. But it really goes like this. Again, back to the doctor's opinion. That idea that we have an inability, to differentiate the true from the false. My head tells me stories, and I just believe them. Right? I have a great buddy in Sioux Falls. His name is Mark Allen. He talks about, I had this deal, and it went like this. He says, if I think it, it must be true. That's the law. That's the rule that I live by. If I think it, it must be true. So I remember having coffee with my sponsor, and we're talking about this. And he says, hey, you know, we're talking about this obsession to drink, and certainly that was on me for sure. But he talked about these other lies that might be running through my head. You know, like bigotry about someone's skin color. Right? Or bigotry about someone's political disposition. Or bigotry about their, I mean, just anything. Right? And he said, I want you to just, next time you're walking through the mall, sort of inside yourself, just take a step back and listen to yourself think. And you know, I judged every single person that walked the opposite way from me in the mall. Right? Oh, they have money. Who do they think they are? That guy, get a job. That guy. I mean, it's like, it was crazy. It was crazy. It was crazy. My head lied to me about almost everything in life. Everything that I can put on a name on. I didn't know that that was part of my problem. I really didn't. Plus, it helped. I'm making decisions with this thing that's broken. Right? And so I'm making decisions with this thing that's broken, my head. And then on top of it, I get all these bad results from all the bad decisions I'm making based on the bad head. And you know what that does for me? It brings knots in my gut. And I can't believe that you guys know how to live life and then there's me. I can't believe that all of you know what you're doing and then there's me. My old sponsor, Keith L., which by the way, if the taper has any Keith L., the man was unbelievable to me. He's one of the finest men I've ever met in my life. And Keith would say this. He says his biggest problem was this. He was a man who guessed it. He was a man who guessed it. He was a man who guessed it. He was a man who guessed it. He was a man who guessed it. And his biggest fear was that you would find out he was guessing. Man, that just touched me. Because that's exactly who I was. I was the actor who wanted to run the whole show. God forbid I need help. God forbid I need to tell you I don't understand. God forbid I ever show anyone that I don't know what I'm doing. Right? Because then you'd see me for what I was. And I knew what you would do if you saw that. Hell, you'd leave. And I couldn't blame you for that because I wanted to leave me. So I'm trapped. Joe says, do you have the allergy? I said, yes. He said, do you have this mind that lies to you? He said, yes. He said, I have some really good news and some really bad news. The good news is, it sounds to me like you have alcoholism. The bad news is, Alcoholics Anonymous does nothing about either one of those two problems, contrary to what you might hear in a meeting. He said, we are not doctors. We cannot fix your body. And again, contrary to what you might hear in meetings, we are not counselors, nor therapists, nor psychologists. Right? We can't do those two. We can't fix those. So I looked at him and I'm like, where's the hope? And he said, the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is not a message of hope. Never has been, never will be. That's untrue. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is a message of hopelessness, followed by a message of hope. Because if you're not screwed, Mike, you won't do the work. You'll settle for meeting attendance and service work and unity things and sort of conceptual things that sort of appease you, but you won't change on the inside because you won't do the work. You get caught and sort of almost drunk on the fellowship. But that heart that's broken inside of you won't change unless you do the work. So I was like, wow, thanks, Joe. I thought I felt crappy when I walked in. He said, but there is hope. And the hope is found in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because in AA, we only work. And I think on the third thing, the third part of this disease called alcoholism, and that's the broken soul. And when he talked about a broken soul, it touched me in a way that I really can't describe. I have known since way before I ever took a drink, since I was a little, little kid, something was wrong with me. Round peg in a square hole, on the outside looking in, always apart from, never a part of. However we describe that, I knew that something inside of me was broken. And alcohol simulated what AA, really gives me. Alcohol was the great imposter of the awakening that we get from the 12th step. From the first 11 steps. It gave me peace. It gave me joy. I could be angry, and it would give me forgiveness. I could be full of fear, and it would give me faith that things were going to work out. And then, you know, the urine stained Levi's and the legal fines, come up and didn't really end the way I had planned it. Right? But it did. It was the imposter to what I have now found in this book. I didn't know that. So he says, do you have an allergy? I said, yeah. Do you have a mind that lies to you? I said, yeah. He said, do you have a broken soul? I said, yeah. He said, great, we can get to work now. And we'll pinpoint as to where we're headed. Because believe me, I'm not here to discredit sobriety. I am not. God, thank you God for my sobriety. And thank you God for all of our, our sobriety. Where would we be without that? For sure. Please don't, anything else I say, please don't hear me say that the gift of sobriety isn't something we should be joyful and exuberant about, because we should be. All I'm saying is that if that makes us happy and joyful, and it's only the physical thing that gets arrested and held at bay, imagine if we found a loving God who could repair our souls so we would think differently, so we would make different decisions in life and have tremendously different outcomes. That's where the real joy is, I think. I think. So we got started on the steps. And what's weird is, I didn't know, but you were all prepping me through the book to get to 11. I had no idea of that. Every single step, starting with step two, that I can see and figure out, and everybody has different opinions on this, but as I study that book and as my own experience in walking through that book, I see prayers in all the steps. Right? Look, this idea of page 47, and we agnostics, where it says, when therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. And then it gives me, at least us, I think, this first direction. And it says, do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. I was told from Joe that I was to sit in a chair with the book open and thumb through it and find spiritual terms and ask myself, what does that mean to me? Now, what does it mean to my group? Not what belief system will be acceptable to the fellowship I hang with. Not what did my pastor think. Not what did my mom raise me with. What do I think it means? And I did that, and I wrote them down. And it says, it says, that effort brings about the first conscious relation with God. I think that's what we're looking for in 11, right? Conscious contact. So step two begins this process. I think. Okay, in my experience, I would say, that's true. I'm not going to universalize it for everybody, but that's my experience. Step three is clearly a prayer, but Joe is very clear to me as well. Step three is not just a prayer. It's a prayer and a commitment to work 4 through 12. That's really what step three is. On page 64, it says, though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect. That's what I wanted. I wanted permanent effect. Unless at once, followed by a strenuous effort to face, and I was taught that was four and five. And to be rid of, and I was taught that was six through 12. The things in ourselves which have been blocking us. Liquor was but a symptom. We had to get down to causes and conditions. In step four, we look at these things, right? Our resentments, our fears, and our sex conduct. And there are prayers that Bill Wilson and those founders, and I think through them, God, is asking me to pray about. And the first one is a resentment prayer. And it's interesting. You know, we hear a lot in meetings. And I certainly won't discredit this at all. We're always told, pray for the person that you resent. Now, far be it for me to tell anybody not to pray for somebody. Like, I think that's great advice. And I encourage it. It's great. It's wonderful. But you know, our book is different. Our book tells me, it says this. It says, we asked God to save us from being angry. As if I was the chief victim of my own resentment. God saved me from being angry. Saved me from it. And then it says, show me how I might be helpful to that person. I'm supposed to serve the person I resent? Yes. Yes. And that just might mean praying for them. Right? Which falls in line with that first sort of discussion point. But the idea that I am the victim of my own resentments without even knowing it. That I'm slashing my own tires and wondering why my mileage is so poor. And my car. Right? And this is true in my marriage. Right? So I don't know about any of you. Right? But the first five years of my marriage was less than satisfying. And I think it's truly because she was wrong. I think that's true. And let me finish the sentence. For marrying me. Okay, I didn't finish that. That's it. But somehow I would come, I would come into the house and she would say, Hi hon, how you doing? And I would hear her say, Why did I marry you? Oh my God, what a mistake. She never said that. She never said that. I had the same experience with my mom. I would walk in the house. Hey hon, how was your day? And I would remember hearing her say, at some level, which she never said, with disdain and remorse for ever bearing me. When are you moving out? I can't wait to get rid of you. Now she never said that. But you see, that resentment, I made up. And that resentment was killing me. Right? And the result was it, when I would lash out at the people who I loved, when I would tell me stories about those people that I loved, it would then hurt them. Right? But it began here. It began with the story and the lie that I was telling myself. On fear. Right? It says we ask God to remove our fear. At once, we began to outgrow fear. There's got to be more to that. Right? I mean, no, no, that's it. Right? It seems like there should be like a 19-point plan to get rid of fear. There's one point plan. Right? Ask God to remove the fear. At once, you begin to outgrow fear. And then sex. Right? There's four prayers for sex. The right ideal, guidance in questionable situations, for sanity, strength to do the right thing, I've got to tell you, if you'd have told me, Mike, we're going to be praying about the right ideal for your sex life when I first came to my first meeting, I would be like, give me a drink. Right? But why would Wilson lead us down this path unless it was extraordinarily important to get this soul thing fixed so that we think differently, so that the alcohol stays at bay, so that we can make better decisions? If it wasn't extraordinarily important to pray about, I mean, I would think it would be. But certainly the fifth step is a prayer, right? We invite God into this. Right? We tell another person, but we also tell God and ourselves. Six and seven are all about prayers. Pray for willingness and the removal of these defects. Step eight, we make this list out from our fourth step, right? And we pray for the willingness to go out to these folks and make restitution as best we can. Right? And I don't know about you, but I prayed a lot in step nine because there was a whole lot of amends I needed to make that I didn't want to make. Right? Parking lot out in front of the bus, business. Please, God, come with me. Help me with this. Please, please, please. Step nine drove me to prayer. I didn't file federal income tax for four years prior to joining Alcoholics Anonymous. Whoops. And apparently, apparently they want their money. I guess that's what, right? So I sat down with this accountant, right? And he worked it out for me and in Illinois state things and I had federal things. And I sent him checks for three and a half years. Right? Right? Every single month. I got to tell you, there were months I did not want to send that check. There were a lot of months that I did. I'll say out of three and a half years, the only one I really wanted to send was the first one and the last one. Right? First one because I'm starting and I'm spiritual. The last one is, thank God I got through that. Right? So that was a principle that I learned that just because some of my natural impulses aren't like joyful about living a spiritual life, doesn't mean I can't live one. Again, where does a joyful come from? It's a story I'm telling myself. All real spiritual people are happy about living a spiritual life. None of them I've met consistently. That we've all struggled. There's all been points where we're going, I'm not crossing that line. Right? And the most beautiful people cross that line. Sometimes with regret. Sometimes with doubt. Sometimes with, boy, just a will. Just a wishing they didn't have to, but they cross it. And the beauty on the other side of that line, when they go, that's as far as I'm going, and then they cross it, it pales in a comparison of what they had before they crossed the line. To go a little bit deeper and a little bit further and push themselves a little bit more to grow in this area. Step 10, I think, is the 4x4 step. Right? We're told to look for four things and when we see any combination or singularity, of those four things, we do four things. Right? Resentment, selfish, dishonesty, fear. When they crop up, right? It says we ask God to remove them immediately. So I don't know how this works for you, but I don't, again, walking through the mall, I don't know, just picking a place, I guess. Right? And I think, there's something that makes me afraid. I don't know what it is. Could be anything, right? You know, he's taller, he's got, you can play checkers on his, you can play checkers on my stomach too, it's just the chips roll off the side. So that's a, still do it, it's just not a fun game. So, but, you know, whatever my insecurities are, whatever my fears are, whatever those things are, right? I'm just walking through life. And if you're like me, you've had moments where that fear just, it's all of a sudden, it's there. What do I do with that? Hey God, take this fear away. That's it. Talk to someone if I need to. Certainly if I've acted on that fear and I've harmed someone, I'm supposed to make amends quickly. But the kicker is, resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. There it is again. Right? Prayer, love, and service. It's all over that book. And when you think about it, if all I had was a drinking problem, why in the world would love, prayer, and service be my answer? Unless that drinking was merely a symptom, what was really wrong with me was a lack of love and a selfishness that avoided service and a desire to live my life on my own as my God, therefore I didn't need to pray. But when the solution came, the solution is prayer, love, and service, it's got to be something other than just drinking. Although drinking is an enormous problem. Again, please don't hear me say to be disingenuous to this gift we have of sobriety because I'm not trying to be. I just want us to go a little deeper and look at it from an angle that maybe sometimes we talk about, but I wonder how often we contemplate. Right? And then we get to step 11. And all of these steps were setting me up for this point. All of them. I didn't even know it. You got me. Right? And Bill wrote this when he was like four or five years sober. It's like, Bill didn't know either. Right? I mean, there's no way he could have written this book with the time he had. Like, it's insane how wonderful it is. So we get to this point and there seems to me it'd be a breakdown. And I remember going through the book in one of my first big book studies and it looked like the way the book was situated and written that it was really the tenth step. Right? Because we go through this nightly review. Right? And we think about our day. And that just seemed more like ten, like an inventory, than it did like a prayer and meditation. Right? So I just sort of filed that back and I'd ask a few people and they would say, well, put your shoes under your bed and just totally ignore my question. In the morning, kneel down, paint your shoes. Right? But it's interesting, you know, over time, the more you read, the more you sort of understand, the more you try to hopefully sort of look for answers. And this is just puzzling me. Why? Why? Why would the eleventh step in the big book look like a tenth step? At least to me. And part of that answer might be, I'm nuts. Right? That could be part of the answer. I'm willing to admit that. But you know what I found? Was that Bill Wilson had this tremendously close relationship with a guy named Father Dowling and he had it before he wrote, or he didn't have it while he wrote this. He had it years later. Father Dowling was a Jesuit priest and he came looking for the author of this book, Alcoholics Anonymous, because it mirrored so closely to Jesuit spirituality. And Father Dowling was a Jesuit, which meant he followed the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola who does what they call the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. And the big prayer for the Jesuits and people who follow Ignatian spirituality is this thing called the examine prayer. And what blew me away was in many ways, in many ways, not word for word, what Bill wrote in step 11 in the big book mirrored the principles that St. Ignatius had written down in the 1500s and Bill Wilson had no idea who in the world St. Ignatius was. No idea. And so Father Dowling reads this and as the story goes, I won't get into the whole story, knocks on his door, sees him, they talk about it and then they start this wonderful relationship, right? That goes on for many years after that. So it began to challenge what I thought prayer was. Why would all these questions be involved with my prayer life? Somehow they go hand in hand. I didn't know that. Because I've heard, I've been in meetings and people would say, I have this question on prayer. Don't ask anything, kid, just do it. Okay. Right? And then I'd go do it and the question wouldn't go away. Right? Like I think sometimes in our intention to be loving and kind and supportive and bring this gift of sobriety to other people that unintentionally, and I really mean that, unintentionally, we can cut them off without really knowing it. I was in a meeting one time and a guy with about 30 years, one of the, a very good guy, heard some guy in a meeting, younger guy, a few months sober, say, you know, you guys are always talking about this God thing and it was a discussion meeting so it's kind of going around the room and there's a church down the block from me and you know, I've never really been to church, wasn't raised in a church or anything like that but man, I just saw all these cars in there on a Sunday and I thought, I'm going to wander in there and check it out. And you know, it was kind of cool. Like I don't really know what they were doing but, you know, but it was kind of cool. Like you could tell like whatever they were doing like they really, it like, they liked it and it like helped them. This kid didn't even have verbiage to describe what he was seeing, right? And at the end of this meeting, a guy with 30 years goes up to this kid and is like, this is Alcoholics Anonymous, we don't talk about religion in here. Which by the way, is totally contrary to the big book, right? I mean, big book, doesn't advocate religion but it is about as positive statements about religion as you could find, right? And this guy wasn't really wasn't trying to be a jerk to this young guy, right? Although this young guy's eyes got as big as pie plates. And he's like, and you could just see like, well I'll never bring that up again. Right? So I went up to both of them and the one guy, I was like, dude, you need to chill, right? You know? Because Alcoholics Anonymous, if you're a Buddhist, you're welcome here. But you know what? If you're a fundamentalist, Bible banging, evangelical, you're also welcome here. Right? Whatever you are, you are welcome here. Whatever you are, you are welcome here. Whatever you are, you are welcome here. Whatever you are, you are welcome here. And wherever you're at on the journey to become whatever you're supposed to become, you are welcome here. Right? And whatever your journey is at the meetings on spirituality, you get to talk about your journey in spirituality. Period. Right? Bill Wilson and our good friends at Dicob might have a copy of this too, by the way. That's another thing. I just want to say this. We do all this stuff, we hang out, we have a great time in fellowship. The sacrifice that these tapers make is not just about is unbelievable. They're away from their families, they're doing this on weekends. It's not an easy deal. They've got to come and set all this stuff up. Before we go any further, let's just give them a round of applause for doing this. Thank you. Really, they do a great job. Thank you. And they might have something over there called The Best of Bill. I don't know if they do or not. Maybe the literature table has it. If not, you can find it in World Services somewhere. But Bill writes these different letters to the grapevine and one of them is on faith. And he talks about how, I'm paraphrasing this, how everyone has their seat. Everyone. Wherever they're at, they have it. And to not be ashamed of what you are. Right? And so, anyway, so I went up to this guy and I said, you know, you've got to chill out on this kid, right? He's trying. And I went up to the kid and I'm like, hey man, tell me more about that. He's like, ah. I said, no, tell me about it. Well, I don't know, they all had kind of different clothes on and some people were clapping and I don't know. I don't know. And I'm like, sweet dude, you don't know. Right? Let's try to figure it out. You know? We don't mean to, but sometimes we can stop each other from growing spiritually. In my life, I was an alcoholic synonymous. I had a bunch of friends that I got sober with in Sioux Falls. And I was about nine years sober. And these are some of the best people I know. Best people on the planet. And if I was going to move forward, I'm just telling you the truth and I don't mean this in any disrespect toward them. I had to cut ties. I had to go a completely different way. Or I would have settled for the social circle of spirituality that I was living in in Alcoholics Anonymous. Would not have grown past that. Right? And although that caused a lot of disruption in my local circle of fellowship at nine years, it was the best thing I could have done. They weren't trying to do anything wrong. They were just being themselves. Right? And God bless them. And they're still my best friends on the planet. And we still talk about it certainly differently 18 years later than at nine years. We talk differently about it today than then. But still, it was a real thing. I felt unintentionally closed in. Like, I want to talk about this part of spirituality. Oh, what are you going to be, holy? Oh, yeah, yeah. And they were kind of kidding me about it. But at the same time, I could tell they really didn't want me to go deeper. Right? And I need to. Because I'm at a spot where I got to. Because I don't know where I'm going if I don't. I need more. Right? So we sometimes, it's another thing, we'll put these things in a bucket and they're all bad. Like, more. Like, if you want more, that's selfish. I would put a comma on that. More of what? Right? More spirituality? That's good. That's not selfish. Right? More selflessness? That's good. That's not, right? More isn't selfish. More of what? Maybe. Right? So, when I got to Step 11 and I started going through this process of trying to develop what I thought, as incorrectly as it might have been, or as incorrectly as it still is today, some relationship with God, I began to try to do different things. I began to try to understand things. And the number one thing that my sponsor told me is, step 11 without step 12 is not the answer. Right? So, he taught me. He said, look, you've got to have three things in your life. You always have to have a Timothy. You always have to have a Jonathan and you always have to have a Paul. That was kind of a biblical reference the way Joe talked to me. That was just kind of what he meant. But really what he was saying was, you've got to have someone who's ahead of you, pulling you forward, like the Paul scenario, right? And you've got to have Jonathans. And he says, folks, many of them who are sitting in these seats right now who are my peers, who love me enough to go, Mike, you're a little off track here. And by a little, you know, like people who love me enough to tell me the truth to come shoulder to shoulder with me as our vision for you talks about, right? Commencing this common journey. And then I've got to have someone that I'm pouring my life into. Some Timothys. Again, this is just a paraphrasing of it, right? Just a symbolic expression of it. Right? You've got to be in both. And then he talked about how a strand of three rings is not easily broken. Always be the middle ring. Have someone feeding you. Have someone holding you accountable. And have somebody that you're pouring your life into. That's the real center of Alcoholics Anonymous, he told me. Not 17 meetings in 14 days. Nothing wrong with 17 meetings in 14 days at all. As long as the strand of three rings is still there and you're the middle ring. Right? Because to me, Alcoholics Anonymous and the 11th step taught me this. Alcoholics Anonymous is more about what I do when I'm not at a meeting than what I hear or what I say while I'm in one. It's how I live this thing when I'm not with you. Because I've got to tell you, when I hang out with you, I am juiced. I mean, I'm serious. I love hanging out with you. I love laughing with you. I love cracking jokes. Right? A buddy of mine over there where he was kidding me about my memory. His name is Joe. And I'm like, Steve, there's nothing wrong with my memory. Right? We just, I love being with you. Right? I have friends that I work with. And it's like, you know, did you ever get into your gray car some gray Monday and drive to your gray job? And it's just like, life will never be good. Right? And then I walk in and I see this friend of mine in the program. The fellowship holds its place. The fellowship is extraordinarily important. It's so important for me to continue on this journey. And you give me great joy when I'm with you, for sure. But at the end of the day, it's not enough. Right? And in a vision for you, it talks about that our fellowship is a substitute for alcohol. Not for God. It's a substitute for alcohol. God is really the missing part of what's wrong with this broken soul that I have. Right? As I said, my drunkenness was a symptom. So if you, if you help me as fellowship replace my symptom, you still haven't fixed my soul. Right? So I think the 11th step is not only crucial, I think, I think it's one of those things that just can't, it just, there's no way it can be replaced. Right? It just can't be replaced. The practical application of this particular step takes on many forms. And I'm a big believer in that. I'm a big fan of Sandy B. And if you guys haven't heard Sandy B, again, I'm sure you can grab some of his stuff over there. The man changed my life in many, many ways. I loved him very, very much. And he taught me a lot of things by listening to his talks and by chatting with him. And one of the things he taught me was that this is my journey. Right? And I get to go where I feel led. Right? And I get to be open about it. And I don't have to be ashamed of it. And I don't have to be scared of it. Right? That this is my journey. And he'd give me books to read and I'd read them and and they were edifying to me. Right? They sort of allowed me to feel free enough to go search. And Sandy used to say that seeker is the highest level of humanity any person ever gets to. Seeker. Man, I love that. Takes the pressure off. Not knower. Seeker. Right? And the great thing about that word is we've done big book studies over the years and plummeted through the book and been through dictionaries and tried to look up these things and tried to understand what this message of Alcoholics Anonymous is trying to tell us through its founders. That word seek is such a tremendous word. See, I can look for unicorns and I can look for you know buckets of gold at the end of the rainbow. I can look for I would say leprechauns but those are real. Last name is Donnelly. I am genetically incapable of not believing in leprechauns. I'm just going to put that out there. I'm going to put that out there right now. But whatever it is, right? I can look for anything. Fiction or not fiction. The word seek though is different. It means to search for what actually can be found. I can never find a unicorn no matter how much I look. And I've given that definition I can never seek a unicorn. I can only look for one. Because it will never be found. But in the big book talks about my search for God it talks about seeking. Sought through prayer and meditation. Right? To improve my conscious contact with God. And that was another part of this deal that sort of always brought up questions and ideas within me. Prayer and meditation. Like I get the prayer part. I get the prayer part. Because you taught me that, right? Holding hands in the outfield. The third step prayer. The serenity prayer at the beginning of the meeting at least in our area and the closing with the Our Father. Like you taught me how to pray. Right? What about this meditation thing? And I for some reason I had this image in my head of like you know sort of sitting cross-legged you know and sort of levitating a little bit. Right? And you could you know because everyone knows that if God's going to get your attention he's going to have you sit in a very uncomfortable situation so you can't focus on him. And because that's just how he is. And it just never really I never could really get my arms around what this meant. So I did something revolutionary now. Alcoholics Anonymous. I began to ask other people about that. And what I found was this. That meditate simply means to think upon. That's it. To think upon. And so this particular gentleman at this time in my life Keith taught me what are the things what are the principles that you think God would have you do and be in your life. And I would think more loving. I think well that was the first thing that came to my head. I think God wants me to be more loving. So he said well Mike think upon that. Think upon that. And I'm like that's it? He's like yeah that's it. Think upon it. If you were more loving to your wife what would that look like? What would come out of your mouth? What would you help her with? What would you challenge her with? Because love isn't just mushy. Right? It's respectful and deep and thick and thorough and beautiful. And relational and cyclical. Circle. Right? It's not really love until it's sort of back at you. Right? Think about that. What else? I don't know. How about your co-workers? How about your customers? How about your vendors? How can you love them? How can you love the people that are in your life more deeply? Your friends. The people that you sponsor. How do you love them? Right? So it's very interesting that to just simply sit and contemplate or think about how I can love the people that God for whatever reason has put in my life like my children and my grandchildren could actually be part of Alcoholics Anonymous. I just think that's wonderful. Right? And if I got resentment maybe forgiveness is something I should think about. Maybe. I'm just saying. Right? Maybe it's not but maybe. Right? If I'm convinced they're wrong maybe I should think about that. Now we're often taught don't think. Right? Don't. Whatever you do don't think. I bet in meetings like some new guy will be like you know I was thinking today and half the room goes oh God no. Don't do that. Right? Oh God. Right? If we look at the 11th step even in that first paragraph on contemplating your morning and starting your day. It's over 20 times they reference your brain or thinking or mental capacities or thought process your thought life. It's all in there. Right? Again that's at 11 after 10 promises sanity. Right? Which means you've probably worked one through nine. Right? I'm not asking people as Cliff Rocho says you know going into the dangerous neighborhood alone. Right? But just the idea that that once we have something and we begin to hold on to something that's beyond ourselves that that thing just might be the real God. And that if he really loved us to at least get us that far what we're holding on to is maybe the real God. Maybe he would take us further. And maybe I shouldn't just settle for less conflict. Maybe I should move toward peacemaker. Right? Which sounds similar but they're different. Right? I got to the spot where this idea of improving conscious contact I began to think about that. Right? So I began to look up these words. What is conscious? What is contact? Just look around. Just think about them. Right? And conscious means to be awake and alert. Right? To be awake and alert. Contact. That was a word that really got me. I'll give you an example. I had this guy that was at work and he was a guy sponsor and he texts me. Hey. Right? And if you know him that means I'm in serious trouble. Right? That's what hey means. Okay? And I love the guy. He's great. That's how he starts. Hey. In a text message. So I text him back. What's going on? I'm in a meeting at three o'clock. You know, give me a call before that. Three o'clock I get a voicemail message. How ironic. Right? Strategically placed no doubt. Right? Hey man, give me a call. Give me a call or whatever. Right? And that means I'm really in trouble now. Right? I mean you have to, you know, you can translate. So I call him on the way home and he doesn't answer his phone. I leave a voicemail message. Call me back. He calls me back. It starts out, hey. I've already defined hey for you. Right? So what's going on? Oh, you know, you know, life is good. Stuff. You know. Okay, well, keep it coming. Right? Well, this happened, that happened, here's the deal, whatever. Right? So in my world, it's like, okay, well, what part is that? What did you do in that? Right? Well, I was selfish here and I was afraid here, whatever. Okay, back to step 10. Did you ask God to remove it? Yes? Let's move on. Did you harm anyone? No. Okay. You're talking to me about it. That's three of the four. Who can you go and serve right now? Right? On the other hand, if you ask God to remove it and they say no, I just say, okay, I'll hold. Right? I mean, I think sometimes we can't, I've done this, I've fed my own ego with the people I sponsor. Look at it, here's a person on the other end of the phone who's dying of what might seem to be an anthill to me. And so from some spiritual mountaintop, in comparison only, by the way, I'm going to lecture him on how ridiculous his anthill is when in that moment he's dying from it. How stupid is that? On my part. Right? Or, you know, kid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He doesn't need a lecture right now. He needs the only one who can save him. He needs the one who has all power. And I'm not it. And so when those boys that I love call me and tell me their deal, if I point them back to me, who has no power, instead of the one who has all of it, I'm not sure I'm doing my job. Now, we might be able to have a discussion, a discussion on whatever it is later, and I can share my experience, strength, and hope with them for sure. But in that moment, it's like, did you do this or not? No, I didn't. Okay, I'll hold. Some pray out loud. Some pray silently. But they did it. They did what the 10th step asked them to do. Right? So he says, yeah, okay. So he does this thing. That's fine. Still eating at him. He says, well, maybe I'll see you at a meeting next week. Throws me an invitation. Right? I said, no, no, no. Why don't you come to the house tonight? So he comes to the house. Comes in. How you doing? Good, good. You want some coffee? No, small talk. Right? Suddenly he starts opening up. And then he's on my couch crying. Because I love him, I can't, those of you who know me, like I'm just, my bladder is attached to my eyelid. I just cry all the time. I never cried. I was too cool. Right? And now I'm like a weeping idiot. Right? So I'm sharing this. I'm sharing this with him and I'm like crying with him. And then we kind of figure out some stuff that he's going to do and he stands up and he thanks me and he gives me a hug and I walk him to the door and he goes on his way. Over the course of that hey text to the embrace in my living room foyer, that improved my conscious contact with this guy. It became more and more open, more and more intimate, and the contact became more and more intimate and personal. At first it was some general email or excuse me, text message. And then it was a voice conversation. And then it was empathy that we shared. And then it closed in an embrace. And I think that's what God is calling us to. Right? It's okay to go, hey God, you get it? Like you know what I need? Like that's fine. That works. I haven't taken anything away from that. Hey God, text message thing. I think in my experience given what I've been through, I've been able to what I've had happen in my life with his grace and what I've seen happen in so many other people's lives with his grace. The two speakers last night, how wonderful were they and their description of that. I think he wants more than an A. I think he wants that embrace in my foyer. And if I'm too afraid to give it to him, he's not going to force himself into my house and do that. Right? He's just not. So to me that kind of helps. Right? Intimate am I with God? Like how raw, how honest am I with God? Right? How, given the moment to moment living of my life, how, how, how willing am I to go, I'm going to look at this. There's still something wrong. What am I going to read? What am I going to find? What am I going to search for to get rid of that? Right? And we'll talk about the whys in just a few minutes. But, man, I think that's, I think that's essential. And this idea that, that the 11th step is just about praying, I don't think so. I think it's about this intimacy with God. And, and I think there's a purpose to that. I think there's a reason for that. And again, I think Bill tricked me. Because when I came here, I came to quit drinking. He granted me that. And then he's like, you know, life was still significantly unsatisfying. Right? So, then I thought, well, you know what? It's the wife. I need the wife. Like, you can't just be, so you got to have the wife. Right? Then, you know, you got to have some money in the, like you got to have the job. And then you got to have some money in the, then, still significantly void. Right? There's nothing wrong with those things. They're one, those things have blessed my life beyond any measure that I could have thought of when I walked into you. But they didn't scratch the itch for very long. They really didn't. And, and no matter what I would do, I couldn't get it to. Right? So, then what I decided to do was use it as a comparison tool. Right? And I love what C.S. Lewis says. One of my favorite authors. I just love C.S. Lewis. He talks about how sin, excuse me, pride is the sin of comparison. Right? That we, we walk around and we're like, better than that guy, not as good as him. Better than her, not as good as her. Right? It's this constant balancing of scales. Compared to what? Other seekers. Other people on the journey. It's the wrong person to compare. Right? They're not the end either. Right? And they're in flux. And they're changing. Right? And we have no idea what's coming in their life if we think they're better than us soon. And we have no idea what's coming in our life if we think we're better than them soon. Right? It was all this gauge. It was all this gauge. Where do I fit in? How do I fit in? It's the same thing. Same symptom. Excuse me. Different symptom. Same virus. So, I got to this spot where I had to decide that and I believe this today, that the rest of my life should focus on 10, 11, and 12 as a lifestyle, as an expression of who I am rather than something that I just do or accomplish. Or a checklist to validate whether or not I'm a good AA member or not. Right? So, why? Like, why would that matter? Maybe I don't know the full answer. And I probably don't. Look, I'm journeying like everybody else. But what has come to me or what I think at least up to this point, which I'm reserving the right to change, but seemed to make sense to me today, is that the reason that God yanked me out of that damn gutter I was in and put me around people to get into that book and to do those steps instead of just handing me meeting schedules. Thank God for the meeting schedules. No disrespect. Sat me down and listened to me go through this stuff and then encouraged me, hey, Mike, you're doing fine, but fine ain't good enough. There's more. Was for this reason, I think, I only think, but I believe it. It's to do two things. Receive the unconditional love of God into my heart. And have the conduit that is my life spread that to other people. Starting with my wife. First five years of our marriage, as I said, we struggled, right? She didn't know how to communicate. She didn't know how to listen. You guys know the list, right? And one day, I saw that it was me too. Not me only, me too. Because it's relational. To put it all on me isn't fixing the problem either. Right? We both had to take our responsibilities for it. And she's a gem in the center of my world. And she did. And I did. And I found my prayers changing over time. That's another thing I think part of the fruit of the 11th. I used to pray to not get divorced. And now I pray that I love my wife in such a way that she'll know God loves her. And that is totally different. It's totally... Not getting divorced is part of that. It's like a drop of sand in the ocean, right? It's nothing. But I really want her to know that. Like it matters to me that she knows that God loves her. And I don't know why he did it. But in hindsight, he obviously did. I was at the wedding. It happened. He put me in her life. Right? He put me in her life. And so I don't know who else he's going to use in that realm that I have in her life to show her that God loves her, except me. My children. I have two boys. And they're not mine, but geez, they're about as close as mine as I can think of. I have tremendous respect for their father. I just can't tell you what my boys mean to me. My father died when I was a kid. And to be able to be a dad, or something close to a dad for these two young men, such a dream. It's such a dream. Come true right before my eyes. My one son is brilliant. He's got a master's in philosophy, and he's a waiter. It's perfect, right? I mean, that lines up perfectly. But he is brilliant. He's brilliant. And in order for he and I to connect, I have to read things and try to understand things that don't come very easy to me. But I'll be damned if I'm just going to take it at face value. No, I'm going to engage. You taught me to engage. And you know, some of the things that he understands that are past me, the little bit that I have understood, that if I never made the attempt to engage him, I would have never gotten, has blessed my life. And he sees that I'm trying. And from his words, that blesses his life. I'm in. My son Cody is very different than my son Kyle. He's more outgoing. He likes to laugh. It's kind of me, right? And for the last, I don't know, man, it seems like forever, we have a meal every week together, whether it's breakfast or lunch on Friday. And I get to sit across from him, and I get to practice this step. And I get to practice this step. Because he's married now a while, and they have three, two beautiful kids, a third on the way. And if you know me, you know Grace and Hank are like the center of that. I just love them so much. And, you know, I get to this spot, and I hear something that he says, and I think, you've got to tell him now. Because he's not, he's close, and you've got to just, God. Right? That's because I love him. I love him. Right? The first letter of love is L. I was taught that means listen. And so, I'm sitting there in the booth, across from him in the restaurant, and I'm praying. Please, God, don't let me talk. Just let me hear my son. Let him be able to talk to me. Let him know I'm safe. Because you're safe. And because you love him. And because right now, I'm the only reflection of you to him that he has in this booth at this minute. When we get up and leave, you've got the rest of the world. But right now, it's just me and him. And if I act like a jackass right now, I don't want to do that. And it's hard. There's times it's really hard. But when we get up and he hugs me, and he says, I love you, Mike, it's worth it. It was all worth it. Because all that was, was my ego, trying to invade our relationship. And that was the biggest problem I had in all relationships. This is the crux of what the 11th step has taught me. The thing I made a mistake on, whether it was my family, my marriage, my mother, my sister, man, whether it was the people that I stole from out there in the world, all those things I wrote down on the fourth step, whether it was the church that I practiced my faith in, I thought relationships were about two people. How dumb. How dumb. But I didn't know. I was ignorant to it. All relationships, if they're not triune, if they're not three, they don't work. If God is not in my marriage, I'm telling you, I'm going to hurt that woman. And she's going to hurt me. And my story would change. It would be a different angle now. If God wasn't in the relationship with me trying to be a better parent to my kids, I'd have to go somewhere else. I'd have to tell you a different story. I don't want to tell you a different story. I want to tell you that I struggle every day to love the people that God has put in my life the way they deserve to be loved because they're a child of God and he put me there to show them that. That's what I think God's will is. That's where I think I was going. That's why I held hands with those folks in that park that day. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Who are these people? They were reflecting God's love to me and it was so foreign to me I didn't have any concept of what they were doing. I was so blind. I was so blind. I love this line in the fourth step. It talks about people who we perhaps, perhaps, are spiritually sick. They offend us, right? I gotta tell you, when I came here, it was the people that were not spiritually sick that offended me. That's why I love that word perhaps. Perhaps they were spiritually sick. Or perhaps you were so spiritually sick that the spiritually healthy offended you. That's what was happening to me. That's what was happening to me. That's what was happening to me. I don't know really how to end this except with a couple of stories, I guess. The first thing is that God's really good at surprises. I can't live on those surprises though because I think he's better at the regular, mundane, trudge thing. But I love his surprises. I go to make this amend one day. There was a guy that I had stolen from. I lied to him about a contract that he needed to sign because I was in a sales contest which back then defined that I had to win the sales contest, right? Because number two really is first place of all the losers. Second place is. Second place is first place of all the losers, right? There's only one place that really matters and that's first place. So I'm in this deal and I'm, I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm in this deal. I'm trying to win and it's coming to the close and I'm getting to this spot where we're getting down to the nitty gritty. And so I had to raise my average a little better. I felt I needed the cushion. So I went to this guy and I fictionalized this contract, right? I just made up a bunch of stuff and I sort of shoved it in there. I guess a more accurate way to say is I could have taken it out but I left it in. That's probably more accurate. And so he had to buy more. He had to buy more to get our services, right? So my average would go up, right? And coming back, I'm going through this thing with my sponsor and we hit the fourth step. He was on my fourth step and I told someone in five about it and I prayed in six and seven and he made my eighth step clearly and it was time for me to make amends to this man. And I didn't have any money. I mean, I didn't have any, I had no way of doing this. This was my first year of recovery and so I talked to my sponsor about it and he said, well, the first thing you have to do is go to your boss. Right? Because you falsified all kinds of conversations with this guy based on the company relationship you have. You messed with her too. And I was like, really? I didn't want to do that either, right? So I called her up and I said, here's the deal. This is what I did. This is what I got to do to make it right. And she's like, well, can't you just tell him that this year's renewal, like the price has decreased? And I was like, I could but I'm not gonna. It was the first time that I caught myself wanting to be something different. Where my first thought wasn't wrong. Right? Where I finally saw in myself the hope that all of you had promised me if I did this thing. And she's like, well, here's the deal. If he calls up or he throws lawsuits or he tries to get goofy with stuff, you and I just never had this conversation. Okay. Hung up the phone and I called this guy, Joe. Got a lot of Joes in my life. Where's Steve? Is Steve still here? Steve is gone. Okay. And so Joe says, I said, Joe, do you have a few minutes to talk? He said, yes. Come on over. So I went over. And sure enough, he's like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. He's like, what's going on? I said, well, last year when I wrote the contract and everything, I said, I stole 750 bucks from you and I need to pay that back. And at the time, I mean, still a lot of money, but it was a huge amount of money to me then. My early 20s, just starting my career, that was a lot of money to me. And he said, well, I don't understand. I said, well, I stole from you. I falsified this contract and you deserve $750 back and I got to pay you back. And I don't have it. I got 250 that I'm going to give you now and in six weeks, I'll have another commission check and I'll give you the other 500 then, but I don't have it all today. But I need to do everything I can to make this right. This guy looks at me, he says, why are you here? And I was like, I stole $750 from you. He's like, no, no, no, no. I heard what you said. I'm asking you why you're here. Like, why are you telling me this? Right? And for the first time I broke, man, I just lost it in this guy's office. And I was, like I said, not a crier, right? And I said, Joe, I'm a drunk. Beyond that, I'm a maggot. And I got to do some things to change my life and this is one of the things I got to do. I got to make this right with you. And he said, can I tell you a story? And I was like, yeah, that's fine. Hoping that was the restitution he would be asking for. And he said, when I was a kid, we used to pick peas. Me and my brother would go out to this farm and we'd pick peas and we'd put them in this hat. Or, excuse me, in this basket. And if you filled the basket up to a line, you got a quarter for the day. But if you didn't fill the basket up to the line, you didn't get the quarter. So you kind of got this motion going and it was like you became unconscious. You just sort of thought about other things. Your body just kind of took over. It was sort of weird. He's like, you just sort of did it. So there's only two rules. One is you had to honor the bells, which we'll get to in a second. And the second rule is you had to stay in your row. That way the farmer knew which ones were picked. So there were two bells. One was with 15 minutes left to pick and the other one was when the pickup truck was going back to the farmhouse and it was a long walk and you did not want to miss the pickup truck. He said, so one day I'm picking and I'm looking out across the hills because South Dakota is waving stuff and there was railroad tracks that went along there and down one of the gullies, the hobos would jump off the train and nuzzle themselves underneath the little bridge and stay there for the night. So you see, here's a train coming, he kind of looks over and he sees this guy jump off the train. He's got a big 10-gallon cowboy hat on. And he gets in my row, Mike, and he starts picking these peas and he starts putting them in his hat. And I'm going, hey man, those are my peas, right? He says, and it throws me off my game. You know, I start thinking about what I'm doing. I start focusing on all this stuff, trying to pick the best peas and hurry up and I know I'm coming soon because the trains are going by, which meant the bell's going to, the bell's going to ring soon and I'm getting, I'm all convoluted. I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. He said, and I hear the first bell. And I look down and there's no way I'm going to make my quarter for this basket. And I'm ticked. This guy threw me off. He says, so I start walking in because I know the pickup truck's coming soon. He said, and out of the corner of my eye here, hey kid. Joe says he turns around and here's this guy with a hat full of peas. This big 10-gallon hat full of peas. And he walks up to Joe's basket and he dumps them in the basket. And from Joe's testimony to me, he points them in the chest and he says, remember that kid. Somebody gave you a hat full of peas one day and you didn't ask for it. You didn't deserve it. But you better remember that because someday somebody's going to come knocking on your door and they're going to need a hat full of peas and you better give them one because somebody gave you one once and you didn't even ask for it. He says, you know what I mean, Mike? And I was like, no. I don't, I don't. I'm sorry. Peas? I don't know where we're going. No idea where this guy was going. So he comes from around his desk and he stands in front of me and he goes, stand up. And he poked me in the chest. He said, I'm giving you a hat full of peas, Mike. I don't want your money. He said, by the way, if you're ever looking for a job, we could use an honest man like you around here. I was like, what? Look, I'm the thief. Right? I'm the thief. I'm the guy telling him I'm a thief. And he called me honest. Is that weird or what? And then he says, look, you can drop checks off here all you want. I'm never cashing them. If you don't want to be in our business, that's fine. He said, but if you ever need a letter of recommendation, I want you to call me and I'll have my secretary write it up and I'll sign it. I'd be happy to endorse you in any way I can. And I'm just like, I can't believe this. And he goes, stand up. And I stood up and he put his arms around me and I'm hugging this guy and I don't know what to do. Never been in this situation before, right? And he pulls me back and he goes, one more thing. I said, what's that? He goes, God's bigger than you. He's bigger than me. And he's sure the hell is bigger than 750 bucks. He poked me in the chest. He said, remember, remember that, Mike. I'm giving you a hat full of peas today. And you don't deserve it and you didn't ask for it, but you got one anyway. Someday, Mike, somebody's going to come knocking on your door and they're going to need a hat full of peas and you better give them one because somebody gave you one once. See, that's not the script I wrote. The script I wrote was that he would call my boss or worse, because he was a pretty big guy in the community of Sioux Falls and because I come from Chicago and I thought Sioux Falls, was like that big, that everybody knew everybody about everything about everybody, that he would go around and he would tell people and I'd never work again. I mean, I fabricated this elaborate, you know, Charles Dickens novel in my head about what was going to happen with this deal and I knew I was right and I couldn't have been more wrong. Thank God for being wrong, right? My wife and I, and I remember praying before I went in there that I, I, I just need your help on this. I don't know how to do this. I don't know, I don't know what to do. Right? And I just, just do it. Just shut up and do it. And then he works. Right? Because he's ever present, man. He's with us all the time. And he's got our best interest in mind. I just got to, I just got to align my actions with what he would have me be. It's a great chapter in, in the big book on page 100. It's the first chapter there, right? Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will come to pass. It's so true that if I just think, I don't even have to be right. That's what's awesome about it. If I can just think that right now God wants me to be fill in the blank and I try to be fill in the blank, I'm walking with him. I'm just, I can just tell I'm walking with him. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be great. I don't have to be important. I don't have to be knowledgeable. I don't have to be witty. I just have to be Mike. You know? And Mike's enough because Mike's a child of God. Not because Mike is great because Mike isn't great. My wife is back. You can ask her. She will confirm that. Right? The idea of what is God's will for my life, like that idea where you pray it in step 11. Right? Dear God, give me the knowledge of your will. There's great implication in that. And the implication is is that why would you ask God for something he was unwilling to give you? Right? I mean, if you needed the knowledge of God's will and all you heard was you can't know it, you'll never know it, you can't be a part of it, you can't understand it, it's just some big mystery and you'll never know any part of it and you're just kind of that way and that's how God designed it. Why would Wilson point us to asking God for the knowledge of it? It doesn't make any sense to me. Because, you know, Wilson's never played the shell game with me. Ever once. He's never said, here's the deal. It's never worked that way. He's always said, if you do this, you get this. And you know what? Every time I did this, I got exactly what he said. Why would he do that to me now? The power to carry it out. When I was a kid, I was seven years old, my dad had just passed and I'm off to Toys R Us with my mom. And I don't remember, Lost in Space, I don't know if anybody remembers that show, right? So, yeah. Right? So, Dr. Smith gave me the willies. But that's another talk and another deal. But, we had Will Robinson, right? Danger, Will. He had the robot. So, we're walking through Toys R Us and we see this end display and there's all these robots there. And they're giant robots from Lost in Space. And I'm like, please, Mom, give me the robot. It's like November. My mom was really sweet. She's like, look, if you're a good boy, Santa will bring it for Christmas. She lied. I was not a good boy, but Santa brought it anyway. And, thanks, Chad. I appreciate the giggle. And, he's always been a great supporter. Thank you. And so, but, nonetheless, this thing opens up. And I'm playing with this thing from Christmas to like, I don't know, the second of January. The couch is one thing. This is another thing. The stairs are another deal. Right? I'm just, man, I'm just loving this thing. Somewhere around the sixth or fourth or whatever it was, a little bit after January 1st, my mom runs off to Woolworths and she grabs D batteries and she shoves them in the ass end of this thing and it lights up like the fourth of July. You push one button and it rolls forward. You push another button and it rolls backwards. You hit the red button. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger, Will. It's awesome. I got to tell you, we're that robot. I know I'm that robot. That robot had all the capacity that it, within itself, before it got the batteries to do all of those crazy things, but it couldn't do them. There was no power. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, batteries not included. No matter what my potential was, I found out that I had a potential. A guy's I sponsor, we talk about that. What's your potential? Your potential is you plus God. Not you and your talents and you and your skills and you. No. Those may be helps, but they're not your potential. Your potential is all of you plus God. If we work these steps, we get the batteries. And when we get the batteries, we're able to do two really incredible things. One, acknowledge that we have the batteries. We have been receiving this love from God. And the second thing, is to bring that love that we have received so graciously and so far from deserving it to other people in our lives, especially those that God has put in our closest circle. And that newcomer. And that guy and gal we sponsor. And our friends. So let's not settle for sobriety alone. Let's work these steps. Let's find those batteries. And let's bring God's love to other people. Thank you for sharing my life with me. God bless you.