Step 12 — Carrying the Message – Kathleen B. – 2026 Wilson House Big Book Workshop Retreat – with Andy B. and Kathleen B.

I am Christine. I'm a real alcoholic. Hi, Christine. I am. Henry knows. Okay. This is the Step 12 passage from page 89. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our 12th suggestion. Carry this message to other alcoholics. Help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember, they are very ill. Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends, this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. Thank you, Christine. How many names, Andy? I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Andy. No, it's fine. Thank you. I had a whole thing I wanted to say, and then I just remembered something else. Yes. One of the first times I sat with Tim in the basement, Spectrum Residential, I guess it was the second time I sat with him, we got to the end of Bill's story. And I'm not even going to make it. Two minutes. Yeah. I love it. The end of Bill's story goes, most of us feel we need to look no further for utopia. We have it with us right here and now. Each day, my friend's simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself. In a widening circle of peace on earth and goodwill to men. And he told me that the previous February, he was up at Bill Wilson's house. And he told me about this guy, Jerry E., who was his sponsor's sponsor. He was Malcolm's sponsor. And he told me, he listened to Jerry speak that weekend, and then they went and took a picture of him. Out on the front porch. We probably won't do that today because it's like negative 48 degrees outside. What's the wind chill? And he told me, he was trying to explain to me that this one guy, and this was, I guarantee it was driven by Tim's ego. And sometimes ego drives us in the right direction. This one guy came here and started talking to me about this. And I started sponsoring these people. And there were a hundred people outside that were all well because this one guy sponsored a few guys who sponsored a few guys who sponsored a few guys. We have, I call it, I tell sponsees all the time, we've got a pyramid scheme for spirituality. It's literally what it is. And the pyramid scheme only works if you keep doing it. Right? And I think Tim was really motivated by that. Being up here and realizing how much one person could affect all these people. And obviously it wasn't just Jerry and it wasn't just Don. It's all these other people. There were the Al-Anons that helped us get in here and everybody. It takes a village. But yeah, that was really moving. And then the following, I actually can't remember if it was the following February or the next one, I got up here and I got to see Jerry speak a few times. And yeah, it was explained to me early on in being sponsored how important sponsorship was. And through the years, it has become obvious to me that there's a lot of people that the only reason that I'm doing this work is so that I can go help others. Not only is it the only reason I'm doing this, it's really the only thing that's keeping me sober. Like all of the work that I do to get there, to place me in a position to be spiritually fit is so that I am qualified to help others. That's it. It's the entire thing. And I know we got like a ton of different personality types and all that stuff in AA. And some people are going to be the extroverts that are going to go find, that are going to be sponsoring five guys at a time and 50 people a year and all that stuff. And some of us are going to maybe only be working through the steps with one guy every now and then. And I hope you know when I say guy, I mean gals too. And I understand that the numbers look different, the frequencies, the energy looks different, but there's two things about this is it's not only is it the most important thing that we absolutely have to do, that we must do, that we must give back, right? It's like the most selfish thing for me to do would be able to, would be to get this thing and keep it for myself, right? But it also just happens to be the most amazing, fulfilling, joyful thing that I do in AA, right? Like I can speak at the meetings and chair and make the coffee and go to commitments and all that stuff and all that stuff is good and it fills me up, right? And I'd rather be stacking chairs than not stacking chairs, right? But bringing another person through the steps is so much greater. It's on such a higher plane. I wanted to, there's something, I don't know where I heard it and I'm sure a ton of you guys have heard it, but there's probably one person here that hasn't and I'm going to tell it to you. There's the, I'm not going to make it through that crying. Damn it. Okay. I'm just going to, thank you. I'm going to, I'm going to channel like how my hatred for the Patriots and that'll make me not cry. Taking shots, yeah. I'm not, I'm not all the way well yet. This is a lifelong process. All right. So, so there's, so there's a road and this guy's going down the road and he, he, he tumbles and falls into this pit next to the road, right? And he tries everything again to get out of this pit. He's, he's, he's tried crawling up the walls. He's tried climbing up. He's tried running around in a circle as fast as he can. He can't, no matter what he does, he cannot get out of this pit. And then he sees a guy coming down the road and he's like, oh my God, you got to help me get out of this pit. And the guy's like, I'm a doctor. I can help you. Right? And he writes him a script and he throws the script into the pit and he says, good luck. Right? I'm still stuck in the pit. Right? And he's waiting there and he's trying, he's trying everything he can. And he, and another guy's walking by and he says, I'm a therapist. I can help you. And he goes, how does making, how does, how does being in the pit make you feel? Right? And he's like, I still can't get out of pit. It's not enough. Right? And another guy comes walking down and he's, he's a priest and he goes, I am going to pray for you to get out of that pit and you should pray for yourself to get out of the pit. And you're like, how the hell is that going to help? Right? I'm stuck in this pit. Right? And he's still stuck in the pit and the next guy's walking down the street and he's like, you got to help me get out of this pit. And the guy jumps down in the pit with him. He goes, you idiot, now we're both stuck in here. He goes, ah, but I've been in this pit and I know how to get out. And that's what we're doing when we sponsor people. The priest and the doctor and the therapist, they're trying to help and they mean well and they want to help us. And they might be able to help some people. They help a ton of people. But for the real alcoholic or the hopeless variety that we're talking about in this book that has a problem that only a spiritual experience will conquer, we need to have a teacher that has been there, that has been through that hell, that can confidently say, I know exactly how you feel and I've come out the other side. And the only thing that you have to do is do the things that I did. And my only job is to tell you what I've done. And it's your choice whether or not to follow that. And when I, so I shortened out shortly after I got out of Spectrum, Timmy told me to, I was reading at the meeting, right? I was going to be the new reader, along with Jared. And and then he told me, and you got to start raising your hand for sponsorship. And I'm like, you know, I'm like, I got like five and a half months sober and I'm like, dude, I'm, what are you talking, I'm going to kill somebody, right? I'm going to say the wrong thing and I'm going to kill somebody. He's like, he's like, oh, maybe you're not ready. Timmy, I love being sarcastic. Oh, maybe you're not ready because I thought we were, I thought we figured out that you're not that powerful. You're not God, right? And, and it was explained to me that if somebody doesn't want it, there is no magical words that I can say in the right order that is going to get them there. And if somebody does want it, if somebody really wants it and they, and they've been, and they've gotten just a piece of it, a peek at what it's like, they realize that their sponsor isn't it. Their sponsor's not, doesn't have that thing to get them there. They're going to find another sponsor. So I really can't say anything wrong either. Right? He said, have you had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps? Yeah. Yeah. I used to think about it every 20 minutes. I used to think about, think about it before I went to bed at night. I used to think about, when I woke up in the morning, it ruled my entire day. My entire day revolved around who am I going to manipulate and harm in order to get what I need. And that's gone. That's gone. I don't tell myself the lie and I don't listen to the lie. Right? I don't listen to the lie anymore. And therefore, I'm recovered of a hopeless sense of mind. And because of that, I don't pick up the first one. So, I'm recovered of a hopeless sense of body. Right? So, I'm recovered. I'm spiritually fit. Then you're qualified. There's no time requirement. Right? I've heard stories from a lot of people in here can attest to the fact that like, a certain amount of time certainly doesn't make you sane. Over this weekend, I've heard from multiple people, I had 10 years sober and I wanted to blow my brains out. Right? Like, yeah. So, I started raising my hand at that meeting. And I started sponsoring guys at that house. And I already told you this weekend because of the fact that like, I had nothing else going on. I was, you know, I had the time and the ability to sponsor like, five people at a time. And it was one of the, it was a wonderful time in my life. It really was. It was this, exciting, joy-filled, scary, time in my life. And I look back on it really, really fondly. And I made so many friends and just going to so many meetings and, I don't think I did anything that killed anyone. but I've also I've had sponsees pass away over the years people who could not or would not give themselves completely to this program and I told you last night how the pendulum has swung back and forth many times I've had conversations in the past with Malcolm about it I've had conversations with Timmy about it I've had conversations with MJ about it about how what do I how am I going to handle this situation am I going to be the iron fist or the gentle hand when's the right time to turn on the right levers and I think what it keeps coming back to is that first thing that Timmy told me if you've had a spiritual experience all you have to do is be honest about that experience and the rest will just fall into place right I I recently I recently had a guy who I was reading with and he was he kept bringing it back to the fact that he was convinced that he was staying sober on his own willpower and like we got we read all the and I kept reading with him I had conversations with my sponsor about like I don't really know what to do with this guy and like it came up to me it came back to like well am I am I am I wasting my time and not am I wasting my time am I wasting time that could be spent with another sponsor or sponsee right and I'm of the I'm of the thinking I'm not telling you this is right or wrong but what I always do is when I am when I'm at a meeting and they say and they ask you to raise your hand for sponsors temporary whatever the hell a temporary sponsor is but you know all that stuff raise your hand I raise my hand every single time whether I'm whether I got way too many guys or not because I think the hardest thing for somebody to do is to get up the courage to ask that first person so if I've said something or acted some way that made them feel comfortable enough to ask me right but maybe they're not going to ask somebody else they'll ask me and I'll be like hey man so I'm only available for these two one hour spots per week and they're already taken right now but I got like five guys that I can go introduce you to right now right we're in that window of willingness like let's go do it right now right and you know and I kept raising my hand and nobody else was asking me to sponsor him right so I just kept reading with this guy like maybe he's going to come around to the idea that maybe he's not doing all of this himself and it was honestly one of the hardest conundrums for me because it was it's still it's so obvious to me how much of an insane alcoholic this person is like if you talk to him for five minutes you're like oh yeah right hundred percent and he he he just he can't see it and I think you know his problem is this is the this is the first time he's actually tried to stop by himself right so in his mind I stopped when I wanted to and I've stayed stopped this time so how do I convince somebody that they can't stay stopped on their own and we eventually got to this place where we were going up to the third step and we were right up against the third step I told him to get a notebook and then we had the the conversation about the third step is all self-will right and he he's just he's got the will he's got the willpower he's going to do it himself right sick of will sick of will and the interesting thing about it though so like so he elected to not do the prayer and he was going to take some time and I explained to him like if if you if you change your mind and you want to do this absolutely call me back no problem if you change your if you if you decide you don't want to do this we can still be friends you know call me whenever you want right say hi to me at meetings no hard feelings whatsoever right but I will tell you that amount of time that I spent reading with this guy him arguing every single point it was amazing it was honestly one of the one of the most enlightening times that I've had reading the book with somebody since I was fighting with Timmy I honestly I got so much out of it I got so much out of it because he challenged every single point so then I had to like challenge the opposite right we're in a debate class right and I why that's a good question oh let's talk about that right like and and the I'm not doing step 12 right if all of my responses are staying sober I'm doing step 12 right if I'm going out there and I'm doing the deed I'm making myself available right even if that's I'm raising my hand and nobody's asking me to asking to sponsor me for three years straight I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing when I have sponsees that are ready to raise their hands I do tell them some tips like hey you're going to want to go to meetings where there are sick people a lot of times what we end up we end up gravitating towards the more like meaning the meetings that are more well off right because it's a lot easier to have a conversation with like you know 90% of the people in the room are recovered and we're all on the same page and we're all like yep yep yep right it's a harder to go to the very sick meetings where there's a bunch of people that are just talking about the problem but man when you go there and you start talking about the solution it cuts through the room sometimes it makes people angry sometimes why are you bringing that shit in here you know like you're ruining my buzz yeah you're ruining my buzz yeah totally right and like you stick out like a sore thumb and people yeah because you're challenging somebody's way of life right like no I'm okay bitching about my cat seven times a day right that's working for me right and sometimes people bitch about their cat that happens they miss the litter box whole day's gone so so yeah I it's so you know I recommend to people go to meetings where there are sick people you gotta speak at that meeting right nobody's gonna come and ask you to sponsor them because you're like looking so spiritual like you have to talk right even if it's hard even if you're not if you don't want to you have to you have to talk the sick meetings usually don't ask people to raise their hand for sponsorship so you have to mention it right you gotta say hey like I've done this is the result of the work through the steps and I'm sponsoring people and if anybody's looking for a sponsor like you gotta put that out there right it is absolutely something that you're not gonna wanna miss if you've been coming around for a very long time you sponsored guys in the past you're not sponsoring people right now you're missing out if you've gotten really well and you go to your same meeting every week and you got a bunch of awesome people and you got a you got a job at that meeting and you're nice to your family and you're nice to your co-workers you feel spiritually fit you're not sponsoring people you're missing out so it could be even better it could be even better and I would argue that there are people out there that need to hear your exact experience like how many times have we heard that where it's like oh my god this person for the first I've been coming to AA for X number of years and this person told my exact story I've never heard that before right what if that person didn't show up to the meeting that day it's another five years before you hear somebody that tells that exact story like I was sitting there in spectrum and all of these people that I couldn't identify with at the time all these people that I could not identify with were coming in and then I go into that back room and Timmy's talking about speedballing and running from the cops he's a young guy talking about exactly the type of you know dirty stuff I was getting into I needed to hear that right you have a unique experience that other people don't you know Kat's experience is extremely different from mine and there's you know people that come in like herself she talks about coming in and you know people are talking about jail time and DUI she couldn't identify took her a while to find somebody that like you know she could really identify with I when I you know I needed to hear from Timmy I needed to have that one person that qualified for me in a way that I could go oh my god I could have this too and then once I started to get just a little bit of it and I and I had that like I think maybe it's possible that everything's going to be okay all of a sudden my mind just like opened up to all these other people and then and then and then I get brought to a meeting where this guy who seemed just absolutely the oldest person I've ever met right he was 13 years younger at the time and I was like he wasn't that old you know like it was just like in my mind it was like how could I identify at all with this person he's reading from the four words and and and all of a sudden I realized I could absolutely identify with the way this guy felt and there's another there's another woman at this meeting Kathy and I don't know if Kathy ever did a hard drug in her life right but she had this story about waking up in front of the fridge fridge door open just like a pile of drool where her mouth was with like one hand in like the drawer where like either the wine or the beer was right and all of a sudden I'm like oh my god I can identify with Kathy right absolutely and it just started to open my mind to like wait a minute we all have this exact same thing and it's not it's not about the substance it's about and it's not about the duration and it's not about the you know the the little circumstances of my life you know that make things different it's like this one thing it's this one spiritual sickness that we've all figured out that we can treat with substances right and it worked until it didn't and now all of a sudden that medicine that was so effective for so long doesn't work and we're all sitting here blind like what do we do now and yeah so the whole point of all that was to hopefully get anyone who's on the fence or has wandered off the path and maybe is thinking about wandering back that the the entire reason that I am here is because so that I can sit down with other alcoholics it is by far the most important work that I do right and I mean that seriously because if I am if I am not putting myself out there to be a sponsor I will inevitably end up going back out and then I cannot be a father and I cannot be a husband right this is the most important thing that I do it's so that I can be a father it's so that I can be a husband the closest that I ever got to in my sobriety to like getting squirrely right was was over COVID and the meetings shut down and at first you know it was it was pretty cool because I had been I work with computers a lot I work with software a lot I had already been doing web meetings with my teams all the time so I was able to like figure out and help like some groups like get into like the online world right and it was kind of cool because we were like all of a sudden it was like oh my god we can like do this thing over the internet this is great modem to modem I got the modem to modem book right and and and and that wore off right I sit at my computer all day in the same room and I sign on to the meeting at night and I'm still at the computer and I get an email and I'm like notification during the meeting and I can check it now and I can see everybody's faces and then some people are turning their cameras off and then I'm like staring at this other person because I'm like what is this person doing right they look like they're acting weird this guy's picking his nose right like I'm like I'm not in the meeting right not there and then in the beginning like in the early days like I met this guy from British Columbia and he asked me to sponsor and I'm like sponsoring him over the over the meeting or over over like Zoom or whatever and it was cool and then he stopped calling and it wore off and it got to this point where I'm like I'm holding on by a thread man I got to this point where I was leaving in the car when it was meeting time and I put the phone on the Zoom in the car and I drive around because it was the only way that I could make sure that I the only thing I was doing was being on the meeting and I was like and it just wasn't working I mean like I understand it works for some people there's some people I know that still do the Zoom meetings all the time and they get a lot out of it I'm not saying you can't do AA over Zoom you absolutely can and I'm so glad that we have it I'm saying it was not working for me and it was and if I'm not raising my hand for sponsorship and I'm not sharing at the meeting and I'm not getting new sponsees then I'm not sponsoring anybody and in that time Timmy moved to Austin, Texas and it was it was hard to keep in touch with him he had two small children also schedules were weird right and I just got to a point where I just wasn't sponsoring people and I when I'm not sponsoring people all of a sudden I'm not doing that prayer meditation stuff and then when I'm not doing that all of a sudden I'm not doing that daily inventory where I'm walking around realizing what I've made a mistake in the immediate moment and fixing that right and then all of a sudden because of that I'm causing harm to people and I'm not making those amends right and I'm working myself backwards through the steps right and yeah it was it was I'm glad I'm glad that it happened because it made me so sure of the fact that I absolutely need to be actively bringing guys through the book 100% nothing nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive works with other alcoholics intensive work with other alcoholics going to commitments is great setting up the chairs is great doing the coffee is great those are great things you should do them you should go to many meetings as possible intensive work with other alcoholics is bringing them through the steps the last thing I'll leave you with is MJ shared a poem with me last night Sam Shoemaker and I read it and I wept Kath was like looking at Instagram or something and like laughing at things I never even told her about it she was like in the middle I was like I don't want to interrupt her right now and I'm going to screw up it's a long beautiful poem but the gist of it is is this guy there's this wall people walk along this wall searching for a door and the door is the door to go find God and and the poem is from the perspective of the person who sits at the door and he can hear inside the joyfulness of the people that have gone in to find God but he stands at the door he stands at the door to make sure that other people that are searching find that door it's his job to put their hand on the latch so that they can go find God and over and over again he keeps coming back to how wonderful it must be inside and how there's people that go inside and they go so deep that they forget that the outside exists they forget what it's like for that person that's searching for the door and the people on the outside cannot fathom what is inside and that's why he needs to sit at the door he needs to sit at the door to wait for the people so he can show them where the latch is and I thought that was just like a beautiful metaphor for sponsorship and that's what I'll leave you with as I pass over to Kath thanks I'm Kathleen and I'm an alcoholic and yeah talking about step 12 is it's my favorite thing and I . You can read this and you can read about step 12 and listen to people talk about step 12 and consider like it from the perspective of the sponsee so like some people in this room might be like well I'm not in any position to like sponsor others right now like I haven't been through the 12 steps so I'm this isn't relevant necessarily and it will be someday but also like I think we can read the chapter working with others and we can consider like oh this is the role of a sponsor if I engage in this work this is what I would be looking for in a sponsor right and I think that's helpful because I think as a newcomer like I was awfully confused about what a sponsor was and like what they were going to do with me and what this whole deal was about you know like I thought it was all about like calling the person a lot getting rides getting to meetings and it seemed like I could get free coffee from them you know like there was like some interest like there was some interesting dynamics with my first sponsor and I had never read working with others like in early sobriety and yeah they really do like a really great job of talking about like the sponsors this person who like has an answer they don't have an attitude of holier than thou they're walking the path with us there's no like better than less than they're just another bozo on the bus trying to do this deal right and so like that's that's what we should be looking for is like a person who has an answer and I've been so fortunate I've mentioned this weekend that I have not always had the same sponsor but I have had sponsors who shared their experience with me freely and that is all we ask of you and they gave me their time and they listened carefully and they asked really great questions and over time they put my hand in God's hand they added different tools to my spiritual toolkit you know just by sharing what worked for them and there were times where like a sponsor would be talking to me about something and they'd say like I don't have any experience with that but I know someone who does right there's so many different roles that we have in life and like not everybody's a mother you know but I know somebody who's dealt with that maybe I'm going through a loss and you haven't experienced that but I know someone who has you know and so so being a sponsor is really about it is about letting somebody else have their own experience with this and sharing our own freely when I think about the need to sponsor and why it still continues to be so important for me you know at the end of Dr. Bob's Nightmare he defines like these four reasons why he lists four reasons why we should sponsor and I love these and I've heard them shared a lot over the years and they're really powerful he says I spend a great deal of time passing on what I learned to others who want it and need it badly and I do it for four reasons number one sense of duty number two it is a pleasure number three because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took the time to pass it on to me number four because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for myself against a possible slip so when I first started sponsoring women I was I've mentioned this like I was really young and I was inexperienced and I also thought I was going to kill someone and similarly to Andy you know like I was reminded I'm just not that powerful you know and so I started sponsoring women and and I knew at that point like I needed to I needed to read the book with them because the book had the directions to the 12 steps but I also thought it was my job to get them to meetings to get them a coffee on the way to the meeting if if something if they didn't if they didn't have anything to do on the weekend I'm going to fill up your social calendar I'm going to be your fellowship chair for life right like I'm your girl for all the things right you can count on me and it's funny because like I look back and like we had so much fun the women I sponsored like we were we were great friends as well and we had really good times and and I had the time to do that at that point in my life also you know like that I didn't do any of that because it was an obligation like I did it because it was a joy like I really wanted to just like do fun stuff with other sober people so it worked out great but I remember also like spending a lot of time sponsoring people who were like really really struggling and and the book kind of like talks to us about like not like if someone is like really not all in on this it's not my job to convince them that they need this or to keep them sober you know and it's it's been amazing like there's a young woman who I sponsored her since she was 18 on and off and and she hadn't stayed sober like I've known her for over 10 years and she hasn't been sober that whole time you know she's relapsed a bunch and eventually like you know she had to go on a journey and like figure out like what what whether or not she was a real alcoholic and I had to let her go you know I didn't fire her I'm not in the business of like firing sponsees but I'm definitely like I I think it's important to have conversations with people about like what it is to be a real alcoholic and what it is to be like completely willing to do this process and you know people don't detox at my house like that's not something that we can do so like there's facilities to do that and when you're like available to do this work like I'm here you know just let me know but it's it's awesome you know Shannon Shannon's been sober now for like over three years and she just had her first baby a couple months ago and we know we know some people who like have been sober now for a little while who used to struggle who just became parents this year and it's really beautiful to see like people who you didn't know if they would make it their lives have just like flourished because of the 12 steps you know this this chapter working with others it also gives me really great instructions on it says it's not the matter of giving that is in question but how and when to give and so I've learned that if I keep my focus on sharing this spiritual experience with a sponsee that is like my primary purpose in this relationship with a sponsee things go pretty smooth and I just had to learn through experience that like the more I was doing for the other person the less they would do for themselves which seems pretty obvious you know but I just think as like a new sponsor I just I had this instinct to want to help you as much as I could you know and you know getting to the point where like it's like I'm the person picking up the people from detox and everybody in the car expects me to like stop at Duncan's on the way to get them a coffee you know and if I want to do that and I'm and it's cool and I don't you know because there's no expectation that's fine but if I'm starting to get a resentment over it like oh everyone's expecting this of me then like then maybe stop doing it right like notice how that makes you feel like make a change if necessary and they tell us in here like sponsors like they're not therapists they don't give out loans they don't help you find a job you know if there's a situation where I can be helpful to someone I'll try to be but really like this is my job so the longer I've sponsored I think the more effective I've become because it's just become about this thing right this is the thing we do together and if we end up becoming friends along the way like that's awesome but like when I sponsor someone I'm not setting out to be like I'm here to be your new friend like we're here to like set on a spiritual journey together like to save your life that's it and on the other end of this like if we become friends along the way like that's great that's awesome you know a lot of my sponsors have turned into people who are who I am very close friends with you know you know I think I just think that the less time that we've had as like our lives our lives become full as we stay sober and recover and like life gets really really beautiful and and then you know if we have a family like there's more responsibility and time just becomes a little more constricted and um one of one of my sponsors who I've sponsored for um like 12 years now Melissa she always talks back to it was a common thing I'd drive out to Serenity House I'd pick her up we'd drive out to Framingham we'd read the big book for an hour I'd drive her back to Hockington and I'd drive back to Shrewsbury and she's like and I wasn't clocking that it was like a three hour thing for Kath you know and I loved it and I loved it and Avery was born and Melissa didn't have custody of her for a while and I got to sponsor her through that period of life that felt so bleak and then Avery came to Serenity House she was three months old and she came to the meetings with us and um and she's gonna turn 12 this year and um and being able to go through that period of life that season of life with them was like such a joy you know um but that's not how it is for me nowadays like I don't have three hours on a given night to just like you know drive out to random places and what not and um but that's okay I can still show up and be very useful and um and share my experience freely you know um the first part that Christine read you know they say to us that um we're uniquely qualified because of our experience right we can help when no one else can and so I continue to feel like it is it is both a duty and a joy to sponsor women today and um and Andy pointed at the fact that like if I don't get to do if I don't do this if I don't make sponsoring women a priority then I don't get to be a mom and a wife and a teacher and a daughter like all those other things that are both duties and joys I don't get to do them if this isn't number one I think about like what it is to to have a front row seat to someone else's spiritual experience a free front row seat right we get to do this for free and for fun and and I've gotten to teach children to read I've taught children to read that's amazing that's incredible you know I've had the birth of both of my children that's incredible I consider those experiences great honors but like the honor of watching another alcoholic recover from a spiritual malady like if I don't continue to prioritize like that and get to experience that with them then like I don't get the other things right and I know so many people who just got they just got so busy with life getting good and you know I have so many memories of like coming to this retreat we were talking about coming up in like white out conditions in the blizzard and our car was packed with alcoholics and we're just like slipping and sliding down the road trying to get to Wilson house and Andrew Duffy's in the back seat and he's just a little kid in this big old body with all these muscles and he's just so excited you know and he's like he goes through he's going through the steps and he's getting to sponsor people and he's just like lit up on fire with joy you know this is what it is to be free and yeah life just got so good and he just got so busy you know and people just slip away and and and I I want to learn from their experiences you know people come back to this retreat and into meetings and they'll say I was sober for X amount of years and um and I pick back up you know and I'm so grateful that they share that with people because I want to learn from that I understand like life gets really full and you know we talk about these things and it's like continue continue continue it can start to feel dull right it can start to feel really like rote and repetitive so we talk to each other about like how do you keep it novel how do you keep it fresh what are you doing you know help me learn more add to my spiritual toolkit um there's so much that like that takes me like everyday waking up as a newcomer right like I'm I wanna I wanna I wanna continue to be the student today and if I can then um then I'm in a better spot than thinking of myself as the teacher right um that perspective shift you know there was something that I was thinking about with step 12 um you know they talk in this chapter about what do we do when our sponsees have like domestic problems and they're like coming to us you know with like these issues in a relationship and I had this situation where a sponsees long time boyfriend was like relapsing again and again and he's in the meetings that I'm going to and she's like got this she's got issues with him obviously like lying to her etc and um so in no way is it helpful for me to character assassinate this sick alcoholic right I can be helpful to her in dealing with her resentment and her fear and uh I can help her to consider what are the right right steps for her in her relationship right but I don't need to harbor any resentment to this guy you know he's not physically assaulting her yeah he's lying to her and you know stuff's not good but like at the end of the day like it is not my business to be like taking his inventory or holding a grudge or in any way showing any kind of like bitterness toward him in a meeting that could just look like me like not making eye contact with him you know and I remember talking to my sponsor about this I wrote out a resentment against this guy my sponsee's boyfriend because I'm like oh I'm lying to her and da da da da I go to my sponsor and she asks me like what if he comes into the meeting and he makes eye contact with you and he senses your bitterness toward him what do you think is going to happen I'm like he might leave he might start avoiding meetings that I go to he might stop going to AA right and now and now I've positioned myself to make somebody feel unwelcome in AA potentially or likely so it's it's really really important to note like the power that we can have as a as a recovered alcoholic in the room a person who raised their hand to sponsor in making other people in the room feel welcome or not welcome and so I do not like partake in my sponsees relationship issues you know they're gonna have them so so that's just something I wanted to note because I I've had people have talked to me about that over the years you know like wanting to gossip about other people's stuff and like it's a big no-no as a sponsor you know what I mean like we're a vault they need us to trust them and if they think that there's any way that we might be gossiping about their business they might just completely walk away from AA completely so it doesn't matter what's going on like I gotta keep my mouth shut you know if there's something that's on my mind I can write about it and pray about it and talk to my own sponsor who's a vault right and that's it like we're closed lipped um I wanted to talk a little bit about the step 12 promises also because like we get to this place um oh there was just one other thing so at the end I just love at the end of Bill's story where he talks about working with other alcoholics and he says an alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature our struggles with them are , variously strenuous, comic, and tragic. I love those adjectives. I think they're spot on. It's just great. It's like some funny shit sometimes. I was in Syracuse and one of my friends she was sponsoring somebody for the first time and we stopped at a gas station and we're on our way to a meeting and this woman she's sponsoring is in the car with us so she gets out of the car to go into the gas station to get a drink and all of a sudden we go in she's taking a little while so we go into the gas station she's drinking in the aisle my friend runs over and tries to take the bottle from her and I'm like what the fuck are you doing pull a bottle away from her you know what I mean like I don't know what you do but you don't do that you know it's like those adjectives are spot on but I yeah I have no business fighting with an alcoholic who's actively drinking that's for sure yeah but strenuous this work can be exhausting especially when like life is full um I don't and this is the hour I have this is the one hour on Thursday night where I can meet at the church before the meeting to sit down with you and I'm a little tired but I know that if I show up there and I sit down I will never regret it I will be so fulfilled when we are done talking and that perspective shift that we get from working with others it's hard to explain I'm so selfish my default mode is so selfish it's all about me and what I got going on and you need to understand when I sit down with another alcoholic and I listen to what they have going on in their life and we get into this spiritual work together the shift is just like it's so magical there's a mirroring effect I hear them saying things that are like the way I think and the way I feel I'm reminded that there's a solution that like feeding a selfish narrative is really really unhelpful and in talking to them about how to use spiritual tools I am reminded that I need to use spiritual tools as well it's just like it's this amazing thing that we do so when we get to this place in step 12 where we're working with others we're doing 10 and 11 on a daily basis hopefully we're in this position of neutrality safe and protected and that was how I felt as well so they start to talk about it at the end of working with others assuming we're spiritually fit we can do all sorts of things that alcoholics are not supposed to do and they give us instructions is not to avoid a place where there is drinking if we have a legitimate reason for being there and then you know they give us some examples of what those might be even good old whoopie parties but one of the things that's been really amazing about getting sober recovering from this and continuing to share this with others is that we've been able to go to a lot of festivals and concerts sober and we both really love live music and we've been able to enjoy that together and enjoy that with other sober people too and I feel like that's been an amazing gift to share it's like we can still really enjoy life it doesn't have to become this dull boring thing there's people here who know how to have a really good time you know and I just I think it's amazing it makes me think too about our wedding you know like that was a really interesting thing my mother really wanted there to be an open bar at my wedding and she's a huge people pleaser she was like people can't pay for their drinks we have to have an open bar she wanted to pay for it so I prayed about he was opposed at first we prayed about it we talked to our sponsors about it and I was like I really don't care I really don't care if she wants to do it she wants to pay for it it's her thing who am I to get in the way I look back on that day it was the best day ever Kelly married us and I don't remember anything about people drinking I really didn't notice I'll tell you what what ended up happening was half the people weren't drinking and half the people were and we explained to the people ahead of time there's going to be a bunch of people who don't drink at all we had a pallet of polar seltzer there but the bar still ended up doing the normal amount of drinks they would do because the half of the crew of mine and her family that was drinking drank enough to make up for the people that weren't drinking my uncle Todd was very drunk he would have figured it out resourceful alcoholic and I think what they say at the end of that chapter is like after all our problems were of our own making bottles were only a symbol and besides we have stopped fighting anybody or anything we have to so yeah it's not really about alcohol anymore at this point yeah the problem is it's an internal problem and I don't get to point my finger at really anything or anybody at anymore and there's so much freedom in that there's so much freedom in not being the victim anymore you know yeah I want to say that like I was mentioning that like some of my sponsors like when you sponsor somebody they might just be like your sponsor and that's fine but like my one of my sponsors like married us and one of my sponsors you know she when I graduated from Syracuse she had like a graduation party for me with her family and my family that was really amazing last year I ran like the mountain goat which is a race in Syracuse I hadn't run it since I was 22 and it's 10 miles of hills and it's a race for insane people but somebody I got sober with we got sober together when I was three months sober she was four months sober she's one more month than I do she reached out to me last year and said do you want to run the mountain goat together and so we were training we don't live near each other but we were training from afar and so we were coming up the hill we were coming up the hill and it's raining kind of cold and there's my sponsor Bridget at the top of the hill and she's just ringing a cowbell she's just all by herself at the hill and she's just ringing the cowbell smiling at me and like my sponsors have been like champions for me and they've rooted for me and I've always felt their love and it's an amazing experience to be in a relationship with somebody like that and so if you you know aren't in a relationship like that right now you're not you don't have a sponsor you're not sponsoring like you're missing out and it is an experience that you will not want to miss it has brought so much joy to my life and the ways that my sponsors have loved my children is so special too you just don't you just don't know what will happen this whole process being a part of this when I started out it was a huge obligation it was something I had to do I didn't want to do it and every time that I continued to do it I found out it was a joy and it was a gift and an honor and it was something I got to do you know and many people in this room can testify to that being their experience as well so if you're not doing this thing right working with others currently I highly encourage you to mix up your meetings go to different meetings find the sick people you know they're not it's not hard to find them no you don't have to look too far yeah get to the detoxes get to the jails yeah when you go there you know have that one line or that one paragraph from the big book that you're like this might be digestible for them right now this might be something that they can relate to and don't think like I need to save somebody right because you are uniquely qualified because of your own personal experience you never know what's going to resonate with somebody I was at a detox in CHL in downtown Worcester with a couple other people and I was sharing my story with a bunch of people and half of the group looked like they were asleep and I was like I don't really know if this is resonating this like six foot four black dude stands up at the end of the meeting he walks straight over to me and he goes Kathleen you just told my story and you gave me hope and I'm going to go to a program when I get out of detox you know and you just never freaking know like when you'll share something at a meeting at a commitment with a sponsee like something that will give somebody hope you know I'll say one more thing yes of course I I I think the the the longer the this this particular book does not have great experience knowledge sharing for long term sobriety right like the the longest term sobriety of any of the authors of this book at the time that the book was this book was written was Bill W crazy egomaniac with a lot of problems that was trying to solve a lot of problems at the same time wrote this book when he was three and a half years sober right and the one thing that's worked for me this this idea that it really helps me illuminate like we have this like little cup that gets filled up right and when we start it's this little cup that can get filled up with joy but it's got a hole in it and it gets drained really quickly right and when I'm a week sober it's this little tiny thimble of a Dixie cup right and it gets drained so fast but it can also get full so quickly the silliest little thing you talk to somebody that's a couple weeks sober and they're like oh my god like I got a hole in my shoe and it was the worst day of my life and then I ran into this guy who like accidentally had an extra pair of shoes and they're the same size as me right and that's like he is full he is spiritually high as he's ever been his entire life from nothing right little tiny Dixie cup right and as we as we grow in this program as we get more spirituality like that cup gets bigger right and it turns into one of those big gulps right and eventually it's this five gallon bucket right because as I do more work I take out more insurance and the bucket gets bigger the hole stays the same size but the hole remains and the size of the cup does not get smaller again okay eventually that thing drains the problem is that now it's a five gallon bucket and it takes a lot more to fill that thing back up takes a lot longer to get that thing full right that little thing that got me on a high when I was a week sober isn't enough anymore right and I have to remember that because look we've built up enough insurance over the years that like yeah like if I don't sit with a sponsee this week I'm probably gonna be fine if I don't go to the meeting next week I'm probably gonna be fine if the Patriots win the Super Bowl I'm probably gonna be fine right like I've taken out enough insurance where that's not gonna if I do it for long enough the bucket keeps draining and it takes a lot more to fill that bucket back up okay so I think that that's just something that I have to keep with me right just because I'm gonna be fine for X number of weeks or months or whatever right like there's gonna come a time where it's gonna get empty again and it's gonna take a lot more in it every single day right just to carve out five minutes for that prayer five minutes for that meditation right I could I could I could I could you know I got I got five minutes free between meetings I could I could jump on Twitter and have my my brain just filled with mayhem right or I could shoot a text to Sponsee and be like hey we're still gonna meet tonight right you know yeah something just happened though alright I guess I was supposed to message you like now all of a sudden we have an opportunity to talk right so I gotta I gotta remember that it it it takes more for me to fill that bucket up even though it takes a lot more for it to get empty right that's all I got you want to end anything what you got yeah I thought maybe I think most of us love the last part of a vision for you and when I hear this red at a meeting it just like yeah it really moves me so we some of us don't see each other often some of us see each other once a year and we'll go off on our separate ways and we might see each other at a meeting which would be such a joy but as we go our separate ways I want to leave you with this abandon yourself to God as you understand God admit your faults to him and to your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny may God bless you and keep you until then thanks everybody thank you so much