Step 12 — Carrying the Message – Rick H. – Wilson House Big Book Workshop Retreat – 2024

Step 12. I don't think that... 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. You can 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. It's the start of the first step of our lives. Thank you Kelly. Thank you Kelly. Thank you Kelly. Go right ahead. Okay. Oh, I am on. I'm Sonya and I'm an alcoholic. Good morning Sonya. Good morning. I hope everybody had a good sleep. I just want to start by saying thank you all so much for being here so I can be here. It was a real honor to be asked to be here and to be part of this conversation. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. I'm Sonia. Thank you. Thank you. It was a great honor to be asked to speak this weekend. Dick had asked Rick and I and he's Rick's brother in law as you know an sponsor as you probably have figured out. And I've gotten to know him over the years, but it was a really nice gesture for him to want to get to know me more here and to share my experience, strength and hope, I felt really humbled that he thought I had. something to give because I know how long they've been doing this retreat and it just was really powerful so thank you all for just supporting me I appreciate it so we are now moving into the big step 12 the principle is service and having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs for me I was schooled in the in the in the respect this has two parts in some say even more but service and emotional sobriety and the service part I was really blessed I started at a very urban meeting when I got out of the rehab places I was at and there was so much love there and there were these five gentlemen who pretty much ran it wasn't a club it was a church basement but they hosted I think 18 meetings a week or maybe 21 I don't know it was a lot and there were a lot of coffee commitments there was a lot of everything to do and I really started to grow up in that group Yvonne didn't go to that meeting and I went every day to the 8 a.m. in the noon and they taught me what service was and they also taught me what healthy men were because it was a predominantly male population that would go and I never saw love like that between men and Niles and I mean just all of them they just Mr. Lonnie and they just loved each other some of them had been had war stories not together but in the same war Vietnam and they just had such a strong bond and they loved each other each other. And that was something I got to witness by being my neurotic cleaning self. So I would stay late and clean the coffee, but then I would do those two cabinets. And then, wow, then you get a little deeper. And by week number 20, you know, the kitchen's spotless and you're paying attention of the circle of who did that. And yeah, it was a little rough too, in some respects, but they showed me service through love. And they also showed me that I could be a female and have a lot more to offer than just the female things. And I really appreciated that because when they looked at me, I knew they were looking at me, not at all of me that way. And for me, that was a start that, wow, healthy might really look different because I was very used to the outside stuff being what was defined as Sonia. So they really gave me the opportunity with many, many things there to do service. And I really got to know people. I started to open, they let me have the key. They trusted me not to clean them out. Wow. They trusted me to sell literature, which was great. They trusted me to be the treasurer at different meetings. And they asked me to be the full treasurer at the end. And I was like, I had been around a while. And I was like, yeah, that's not going to fill my ego. That is a thankless, horrible, scary position because all those meetings and there was always money missing and there was just always issues, money not around. And I was moving anyhow. But that was the beginning of how service worked. It also, in the beginning, I thought, I'm not a baker and I don't like to cook. Rick will tell you in the beginning, I said to him, honey, I will cook you dinner. You may not like it, but you will leave full. So, and we stand by that to this day. I'm not faking who I am. Yeah, we sure do. But I would bring in cupcakes and I bought one of those things because I wanted to try it to make it really pretty. And I would make those like two or three times a week. And I had one of those guys say to me, don't bring in cupcakes anymore. And I thought, oh my God, everybody loves them. Like they keep, they say how much they love them and the sugar, because I couldn't do it good. So I had a lot of frosting. And he said, okay, well, if you really want to bring them in, let's talk about your motives. And it was the accolades I was getting for those cupcakes. Hell, I wasn't even, you know, I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I haven't made them since. So I was getting kudos when I should be able to learn how to just give kudos to myself without cupcakes in hand. So I met some really great people there. I'm this guy, Bob, Bobby, Radio Bob. He had such a great, has such a great voice. And he said to me in one meeting, he said, so you have a sponsor. And, uh, I said, well, I don't know if I should tell you, cause I didn't really know him. And he said, I've been around a long time. And I looked at my friend Niles and he kind of gave me the nod, Bob's okay. And I said, uh, I said, well, yeah, I do. And he said, well, I want you to let your sponsor know that I'll be your male sponsor. And I said, uh, all right. So I went and I said, Yvonne, this guy, Bob, he seems right. Niles gave him the nod and he wants to be my male sponsor. And I said, well, I don't know if I should tell you because I didn't really know him. And he said, okay, I'll let you know. And I said, well, I don't know if I should tell you and she like, was like, that's not a thing, you know? And, um, so I go back the next morning and I'm like, uh, Bob, like I talked to Yvonne and I told him the deal and he went awesome. I'm so happy to hear you have such a good sponsor. And I was like, I love you. And, um, so yeah, so he was just keeping, making sure, keeping tabs. had a sponsor who was healthy that whatever and I was like he's son of a gun and he has been around his I don't know if you've ever heard of there's a silver silver lane in New Canaan Connecticut his great-grandfather started that Silver Hill Silver Hill but anyway it's a really nice rehab facility down in Connecticut so that was some of the early phases of service and I would go to meetings and you know when you come in you don't have a lot and so I went to this Trumbull meeting I don't typically go to on a Tuesday night and I had known quite a few people because I'm starting to realize like this is a small community even in a city so I saw this guy walk in he sort of looked lost now I'd never been to this meeting so I went over to and I said oh welcome I'm Sonia this is this kind of meeting coffee and he was like thank you so much and he sat down and he did the meeting and all that good stuff and like I never saw him again for a while like a year so I walked in and I looked and I said oh my gosh you stayed sober and he looked at me and he gave me the biggest hug and he said honey I have 36 years he said the reason I I said well you looked confused when you walked in he said well I'd been going there for a lot of years and they switched the whole room around so I was confused like the whole and I said well you know I'm not going to be able to get a job in a few days and he said oh my gosh you're going to be able to get a job in a few days and I said oh and he said but I knew I hadn't seen you he said and you were given what you had and that's what you had to give you met bill and so um so there's you know service comes in funky little ways and we grow and I can remember radio Bob saying it's time to get a sponsor a sponsee and I said well okay he said I want you to pray on that so I was blessed I was like I started praying and then the meeting happened and after the meeting this cute little girl who was I don't know she was probably 19 at the time comes scootering over to me and she said I just love you will you be my sponsor and I said to her whoa because that was me like years before I said whoa I said you know I don't really know you I said why don't we go for coffee give me a call well sure enough she got to her car and she said well I'm going to go to the coffee shop and I went to the coffee shop and I got to her car and called me and I thought wow God is really killing me on this so we met for coffee and I had it in the same spot that I met Yvonne just to throw the human power in there and um she had said to me because though that meeting I went every day 8 a.m and noon and a few other sprinkled ends that meeting taught me how to be in people's space and I didn't know how to do that and she came from an abusive situation as a child and after we got together for a while she had told me the reason she said you know why I picked you as my sponsor and I said no Yasmin I don't and she said I saw you that morning I asked you when two people came in two men came in you hugged them and I remember who they were it was Daryl and Mr Lonnie my safe guys she said and two other men came in together and they went to hug you getting in the line for the queue to get a hug and you step back and put your hand out and she said I don't know how to do that she said and I need to learn I'm afraid of people especially men and I was like wow like I just had no idea um trying to work this program for myself the impact that and what people are watching what people see you know I hear a lot not a lot but I've heard that you know you're the copy of the big book that somebody might see so try to be as big bookie as you can or as healthy whatever that means you know work your program um and you know different people have seen different things that I was struggling with that I had to learn that I had no idea that they were getting something from and that's just mind-blowing you know but Yvonne said to me I was very afraid of women um before I came into the rooms my sister had all kinds of girlfriends and like hung out with them and I thought wow that is bonkers I hang with men I know how to manage men I know what they want and I know exactly how to you know get what I want and that's how I ran and um I worked in a field the sea of men I always worked in restaurants to pay for college and then I worked in a dominated male field of politics and um I just could figure that out and so when she said to me you need some girlfriends I was like what and she said yeah and I said well I don't know how to do that thank you they said well look around she made me go to a woman's meeting after that and I was petrified and she said to me you didn't walk this much doing your fourth step and I was like what she said yeah she said you keep saying I'm going I'm going and um so I started going and then I got addicted to them because it was a different energy and I said well how do I know who my friends are gonna be and she said well look around the people who you know, who have what you want, like you looked at me. And I said, okay. And then she said, but when you know who your friends are is when you see them in the parking lot, outside of the meeting. She said, that's when you judge somebody because we can all recite the big book. Everybody thinks they're awesome because they can recite this and that. She said, but what are they doing with those words? You know? And so that was the thing. And then I took a service commitment at the woman's meeting. And I started, I'll never forget going up to Kathy and saying, will you be my friend? Will you like help me learn how to be friends with women? And she looked at me and she said, of course I will, you know, cause she was always so good with newcomers. And, and so her service was teaching me how to trust women because trusting women, was not my forte and trusting men, I picked the wrong ones. So I was blowing myself out of the water. Trust was my big issue and safety. So through service in different ways, I have grown being a sponsor has given me more joy than probably anything. I just love my relationships with my sponsees. They, they are, it's amazing to see them wake up and to grow and to get it and, and to be there to catch them when they fall because, you know, they need to have their experience. I can't just coddle them. And I have, and I've learned from that, but I wouldn't change it. You know? I chose to be one of my sponsees divorce attorney and I'm not an attorney, but we did it. You know? You're doing pretty good, by the way. Yeah, it was okay. So, you know, and it was just, it was, it was okay. And, but will I do that again? Probably not. You know, but I have gone to court with people when they're scared. I have shown up with that kind of stuff to show my love and support because they may not have other people to love and support them at that moment. Um, Rick is big on, there's one woman who he really gave a lot of service to and would rally groups of people to help this woman that we're all friends with. And it consists of a lot of outdoor work. So part of Rick's service was teaching me how to drive a tractor. So I could pick up leads and like do all that. So that was cool. You know, so service has been a really wonderful thing and it's one of my go-to, um, go-to behaviors when I am feeling bad or I am feeling alone. I was taught, don't pick up the phone and call somebody and bitch and complain about yourself. Pick up the phone and call and ask somebody, how are you today? How is that situation? That's what service is. Nobody wants to hear you whining all the time, you know, and I had a wonderful group of women who taught me. When I had to whine every day, because I did. They passed me around, you know, the Fairfield group, the pretty women Sherry always caught. They all went to the meeting all pretty. And, um, and they just passed me around because it was kind of like we say, you know, this is too much for humans. Well, I was too much for one or seven women. So there was like 17 who would be like, okay. Yeah. And they showed me that I don't have to, you know, I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I don't have to take on all of it. I can pass my love. People around to other women and give them opportunity to make friendships so they have other women. So I don't have to be the only one and I don't have to control our relationship. Like I want everybody to have more. There is abundance. I mean, there's abundance of love for everybody in this universe and being. I mean, there's a long distance shower between things. But. All of us can Guys I had God here. Yayりました here. It is type of life. I'm alive again. I go to my AC. I've moved the furniture I built. I've started a business. There, the By the way, we're already at the beginning of our goals here if we had plans to come again like we can get to work. And we Ginette, I had nine groups of friends here today, and like, you know, we are all who we are and let's say they won't lose money someday. Like me thought if you areие jobs you're good to go out. But we involved ourselves together. So we decided to stay on this earth and live in the world. Okay. We had actually at that point in time I felt like it would be better. the stuff you don't tell anybody you may need to tell me so I was like okay so I get my little service idea and I worked a lot and I was on the road a lot and there was all street parking in Greenwich with quarter things so I'm like I'll go get quarters and I'll just fill up slots that are almost out so they don't get tickets so I feverishly run up and down Greenwich Avenue and give all these rich people like extra time on there um you know I wasn't a complete sound mind like I said it was one of my first exercises so it was like painful to not tell anybody but of course I could tell Yvonne because you know you can tell me so I went oh my god I started but she went I don't want to know but you said I could not this I'm like so you don't even want to know what I did in secret she's like you need to sit with that and I did and I had to and I didn't have to tell people I could just it could be enough for me to know and that was the beginning of a lot of things I said yesterday that I was enough of me to know you know I didn't need other people to know to co-sign me to like I know my beliefs whether it's in politics whether it's in mothering whether it's in all the different dynamics this globe has to offer. And I'm open-minded. I do want to listen to what other people have to say today, to hear, not to respond, but to truly hear. And that for me was very new. You know, I didn't know how to do that. And I could easily tell you what I thought and want to change your mind, but I didn't need to do that anymore. And having it be just mine, I learned that there was a precious place for that, that yes, I do need to give a lot away, but there's some stuff I really just want to hold on to. And I had a couple, like I went to, I got a new career after I got sober and I had to take licensing. I had to go to things like a stronghold or a stronghold of training, exams and stuff for like the practice. And I took it, I failed it twice. And then the second, third time I took it, I passed. And because I actually paid attention to people who told me how to study for the exam. I was studying all wrong. So I passed. And when I saw the woman, actually it was a man, hold up. Because you see right there your form and you know exactly where to look and they don't highlight it, but it's in bold and it said pass instead of failure. I wish they would change that, but they don't. Failure, dun, dun, dun, you're a bad girl. I literally embraced it and I got in my car and I was somewhere in Rhode Island, I don't know, past the Rhode Island mall, so it was over an hour from my house. And I just sat in it for 40 minutes. I didn't call anybody to tell them. It was mine. And I had a lot of help with that and a lot of love and support studying for that exam. However, the outcome was mine. And I knew I wanted to share that with people, but not yet. I wasn't ready to give it away. And that was a real gift. And when I did, I called my mother first. I called Rick second. I called, my sister third. I called Yvonne fourth. And I called my former husband fifth. And Bill said to me, oh my God, when you post it on Facebook, I'm going to share it. And I said, Bill, I'm not putting this on Facebook. And he said, why? And I said, because all I want are the people I need to know. That's enough. And he was like, well, okay, like he, whatever, cool, fun. So, you know, it was all in service that I learned what felt right for me. And it was, my motives were clean. I wanted to be a part of, I wanted to belong. I didn't want to fit in. The cupcakes were fitting in. Belonging was doing thankless tasks and ordering books and going to pick them up and all that jazz and just showing up for meetings and stuff. You know, the second part of this step really is the air that I now breathe. And that's the emotional sobriety piece. I stopped growing emotionally. Some say when, you know, I picked up my first drink. I think it was well before that. I don't think I even had double digits when I started shutting down emotionally. Like I've mentioned. But one of the things I really found that was so important to me is that love does not have a price tag on it. You know, freedom might, I will say freedom may have a price tag. I've given things away in situations that just made the freedom a much smoother path. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. But love doesn't have any price tags. And love is not limited. And love is abundant. And it's powerful. And to me, there's only two feelings that I've come up with. And I work with feelings all day long. Not just mine, everybody else's. And I love it. But for me, the best thing is that I have a price tag. And I think that's a good thing. But for me, the best thing is that I have a price tag. And I think that's a good thing. And if it's not love, then I know it's fear. And I have to look at whatever way it's coming out sideways, whether it's the anger, whether it's the sadness, whether it's the resentment, whether it's the insecurities, whether it's blah, blah, blah, all of those other emotions that never took me anywhere peaceful. And I had to redefine what my definition of love was from what I was conditioned with what love felt like. And I've said it before to you that, you know, I know my family loves me and they've loved me since birth. My mom to this day would jump in front of a Mack truck to save my life. I have no question for either for any of us, any of her grandkids. She would. Does she know how to sit and hold you when you're crying because your boyfriend in high school got killed in a car accident? No, not one tiny bit. She sent me to the funeral. And said, get over it. So, you know, there is a lot of interpretation about love in those two scenarios. I will die for you, but I won't hug you. So it was very confusing. And my dad was very nurturing. He was very kind. He was a funny dude. He had our brain. So when I would go to him and be like, dad, I don't know why I feel that. He'd be like, honey, it's normal. Because it was his normal to think like I thought. And I can remember going to my cousin's law firm Christmas party and I was dating one of the lawyers there. And I walked in with my parents and I was like, I am so. I was so nervous. And the woman walked by with a tray of champagne glasses. And my dad grabbed three of them and handed me two. One for each boy. He goes, drink that one really fast and then sip that one. You'll be fine. So, you know, that was the loving advice I got for, you know, just drink it. And, you know, but my dad was a real softy. He was a very feelings guy. And he, my mother did not know what to do with it. He was like, I'm going to go with him with that. You know, she prides herself on like I'm hugging a cactus and thinks it's great. Like, and so we joke about it. Like, well, not well with her actually. And every time I go over, I think of that and I'm like, okay, this time. And I'm just, you know, wishful thinking or hoping. I don't know. But I'm like, this time it's going to feel right. Like connection. Up until just yesterday. I dropped my dog off and gave her the hug and it was like, like it just still like it's either too long and she pulls away funkily or whatever. So anyhow, I can hug other people, though. And that's what I've learned in emotional sobriety. My mother loves me the way she knows how. And I accept that love today. It was a tough road to get over the pain of different pieces with. My mom. But I did. And it's because all of you and the other 12 step program that I consider to be the graduate school of AA. That program is amazing and off the hook, too. But yeah, right on. And we'll shout out. And I really have learned that I don't have to hijack. I don't have to be a I don't have to be a loving me and being more than they are supposed to be for me. And I can show up in my relationships not needy. And there is. Such. Like. There's no more control. In my relationships because I love Rick and choose to be with Rick. Rick isn't a title for me. Rick isn't a bank account for me. Rick is in, you know, my emotional support pet Patrick. And I'll show you pictures later. That's my dog. You know, he. Is. My partner. I can actually have a partner today and not have to have there be a reason for me to stay because he's paying most of the mortgage. I need him to support me emotionally every day. I have an abandonment issue, so I'm keeping him. No, you know, I choose. And he's. In the same place. So he chooses. And. Now it can just be about love and partnership. And do we buy each other things? Yeah. Do we support each other big time emotionally when we have stuff going on? You bet your bottom dollar we do. But I've learned not to go to Home Depot for a loaf of bread. I've learned there's a bakery. And that was the thing. I had to have it for myself first. And then I had to decide in my relationships who could support me where. And, you know, as there's you've all known my know my sister and we have a brother in between us. And when I got sober, he could do the footwork. He got me to the place he was. He could support me in so many ways that my sister couldn't. My mother could not. They were way too afraid of those obstacles. And my brother said, I'll take her to rehab. Todd knew how to get me to rehab. Todd knew how to get me good and twisted up. So I'd walk in the way I needed to. So they'd keep me. And he knew how to manage drunk Sonia because he'd been managing me and I him for 25, 30 years already. We were out there together. And but when I got into this part of the program, I would talk to Todd and I would always hang up the phone feeling like God. God. He doesn't even care. And I over time with Yvonne and other people, they said, you know, he's not that guy. Like you got other guys for that. You got people for that. But he's not that one. And it's not a mean, bad, terrible thing he's doing. He's just not that guy. Let him off the hook. OK. So I had to figure out what that was like. And that was hard. And that's why those two mom and him were the hardest. The hardest relationships to get through to right size them emotionally in sobriety because they were the strongest players in my emotional game. And they were my everything. And I had to grow up. I had to let them go from that illusion of who they were because I wasn't that person anymore. And if I expected them to treat me different, I got to look to them differently. I can't keep. I can't keep showing up and being that way. So, you know, God has given me so many new people who are my family on this journey. And every single one of them, whether I've seen them again or not, have been part of my journey that have been important. And, you know, the spiritual awakening, I had to have that to have all these gifts. You know, the promises came. These spiritual gifts came true for me. These spiritual gifts came true for me. I understand and can recognize the principles in my life today. I'm awake to see the miracles, to recognize they're happening, to embrace them, to pause and say, I'm going to enjoy it. Or to pause and say, I need to stop. I'm going too fast. I don't deserve to treat myself this way. I need to take care of Sonia. You know, whether it's. The temple my soul resides in or if it's my mental condition, whatever it is, I needed to learn how to nurture that inner child. So she feels loved and I feel whole as an adult. And my journey today is whether it's in my day job or, you know, Rick and I are very big program people. It's like what we do. We kind of like do a lot of AA and it fulfills us. And to share that with somebody is amazing. You know, my children. Are 20 and 18. And when my daughter was a senior in high school, she told me she was transgender. And oddly enough, my first thought was it went back to I told you about that guy, Michael, who brought me to my first day a meeting. I'll never and I didn't connect or anything. The big book went out the window. I remember when he showed up on his doorstep before he even came into our home. He said, Bill, I can't believe it. My daughter's pregnant and she was 15. And I was in the background and I thought all disgusting thoughts like bad and judging all that stuff. And Bill. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. Bill said, my former husband is so easygoing. You have no idea. And he was like, wow, congratulations or whatever. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, this is going to be that afternoon. So we're all sitting in the living room. And he proceeds to go on and on about, well, it is what it is. And she wants to keep it. So his parents, we're going to rally and we're going to do this and we're going to show up. And I'm thinking to myself, what planet is this guy on? No wonder I don't want to be around him. I mean, look at these behaviors. He's got about 40 years in AA now. And he knew he had feelings and he could get upset about it and berate his daughter and make it a shit show. But at the end of the day, he knew he loved her. He didn't have to go down that road of all that yuck and making everybody feel like crap. Because he knew no matter what, he was showing up for his daughter and his soon-to-be grandchild. So he skipped the mess. He skipped that mess. And I just looked at my daughter. And I have no problem with any of the community that is transitioning, gender, gay, lesbian, LGBTQ. I don't, it doesn't faze me. I want everybody to be authentic because I know how painful it is to not be authentic all those years. So I don't care how you have to be, just be. And I looked at her and I said, she hadn't told me her new name yet. And I said, Atticus, I love your soul. And she looked at me and she said, so what does that mean? And I said, what that means is it doesn't matter the flesh it's in. When God gave me you, it was only for a short period. I had you for nine months in me to grow your flesh. God gave you to me for many years to influence condition. And to certainly love. I said, and now my job is done. I said, your flesh can look any way it wants. But I will never forget the gift of that soul that resided in me. I said, that bond can't be broken no matter what. I said, honey, you're going to have to help me navigate this. But I can promise you, if you teach me, I will conform. And she just cried. And I held her. And I could never have given her that gift before. Not to that level. I wouldn't have known those words. I couldn't have been that person to show up for her. And, you know, my kids, my little one, I let him spread his wings. You know, he travels all over the globe. He loves it. He's going away to school far away. I'm excited to go visit him. I don't need to helicopter him and control him. I just need to love them. You know, love is all I need in my life. And serenity is a byproduct. And compassion is a byproduct. And every single day, that's the bottom line. It's the true bottom line. And it's not always great. But if I look through my glasses, through the lens and perception of love, it is definitely better. So thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Oh, you need this. I get to follow that. Morning, everyone. I'm Rick Alcoholic. Hi, Rick. And just like Sonia, I want to thank the committee that saw enough in us to allow us to come up here. And thank you. We'd like to thank Happy past instance post還 sounding up to it. I've learned that again, just to follow what you already did. I would really appreciate a little bit of support and I'm, especially and I'm. This show only has… Toip with you on a preventative football. Hey Energy Fuels. So this gives me a little bit of a little bit of a tough and. It gives it atı So that gives me a sense of overwhelm. And so going to your house to pray and to help each one of you here. Or to help the weather. So thanks for the. Some. 29 years I drank and drugged and I'm still working on trying to control emotions I guess. You know this 12th step when I first came into AA I admitted I was powerless over alcohol and my life had been a mess. It was easy to see that. After I was in AA for a while I used to joke around I'm doing the 1, 2, 3, 12. I'm skipping all the stuff in between. But if we pay attention to what step 12 says to us, step 12 says having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to other alcoholics. Practice these principles in all our affairs. Not knowing what the principles were how can I carry those if I don't even pay attention to what they are? And not having had a spiritual awakening and doing the steps what kind of message was I carrying? You know I was staying sober but I wasn't really carrying the AA message. You know and over time I've learned through this program that my sobriety has evolved. And I like to think of it like you're a kid playing with Play-Doh. You mold something up to make it look pretty and stuff and it looks good for a while until you get a little further down the road. And you learn a little more about art. And you learn about things. And now you can take it. And the good thing about Play-Doh is you can remal it and build it back up again. And I think for me that's what this program is. We come in broken. We don't know anything about this stuff. And we're here and we learn a little bit. And we think we're getting better. And then somebody says, well, you know, you're not. And then somebody points out to us that there's more to this program. You know when I first started coming to AA, there was smoking meetings. And I know some of the old timers understand that. And they used to say to me, you know, you need to clean the ashtrays and don't tell anybody. I wanted everybody to know. You know, I wanted you guys, and that's just how I was. I wanted everybody to see. And that my ego was so big, I needed to, you guys needed to bolster that ego by patting me on the back. And again, over time, that Play-Doh got molded down again and got rebuilt back up. And over time, I've realized what this step really means. You know, I think when we first come into AA, we're all consumers. And we sit in the back of the room and we just kind of suck up the knowledge and the stuff that comes in here. And over time, we mold that Play-Doh again. And hopefully, we don't stay consumers and that Play-Doh doesn't harden up and become just a crusty ball of mess. You know, hopefully when we come in here, that our sobriety and our recovery stays pliable and I stay learnable. I'm grateful for the people that came before me, the people that helped me, the people that showed me. That's what's changed my Play-Doh. You know, it's, it took time for me to do these steps. It took time for me to develop that spiritual awakening that we talk about here all the time. You know, we use that phrase, but we really don't pay attention to what it means. You know, my God of my understanding when I first walked through the door of AA was that Catholic God, that robe-wearing, long-haired, bearded God that we think about. And over time, AA's molded that Play-Doh again and changed that and changed my belief in what I think of a higher power. And, I think that's the message that this step is trying to point out to you. If you think you're doing service, you think you're doing something, you're doing something. doing stuff by making that coffee, and yes, you are. But that's not 12-step work. We have to get a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. I have to go through these steps to get a good conscious contact with my higher power. And that's the message. It says right to it. It says, after having had this spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message, that you can get a higher power. You can get a God conscious of your own belief through doing these steps. It doesn't have to be my belief. It doesn't have to be Sonia's. It doesn't have to be anybody's. It can be one of your own. You can mold that higher power into whatever you want it to look like. And you want it to look like a light bulb? Then fine. You know, make it look like a light bulb. Service work comes from everywhere. You know, like I said in the beginning, it was clean the ashtrays. As I mentioned on Friday night, you know, that Goya group taught me that there's a few more jobs in the group, you know, and like I mentioned, they had every one. And you know what? That taught me a lesson. It taught me service work. That's the beginning. That's how meetings try to blend you into what service work really is. You know, they give you the coffee commitment, even when you don't know how to make coffee. And that was a lesson to be learned, I'll tell you. But, you know, service work is not just here. That's the funny thing. You know, this. This is teaching us how to be productive citizens out in the real world. I own an auto repair business. And my dad had a philosophy. When we were working and somebody would walk through that door, he never looked at that person as a dollar sign. He looked at that person as somebody that needed help. How can I be of service? My dad, I mentioned he's not. He was an alcoholic to the extreme. And he was not a recovered alcoholic. He was not. That's just the way he ran his business. And he taught me how to do that at an early age. That we don't look at people like they're a dollar sign when they walk through the door. And just a plug here is if you're taking your car to a dealership, you understand what I mean. You walk through that door at a dealership. You are a dollar sign. They look at you on how much money they can make from you. They give you that laundry list as you walk out the door of projected repairs that you need to have done to your car. Right? You know, you're not. They're not being of service to you. You know, they're trying to take advantage of you. They're trying to just bleed you dry, I guess is the best way to put it. So my dad had a different philosophy. I carry that philosophy into my business today. And it's funny how, you know, I've, I've. My, my service work has molded into something different here in AA and I listen and John's probably sleeping back there, but I'm going to, uh, don't wake him up. So I, um, I'm at work. And, um, and this guy comes in and he, and he tells me I need some help. He says, I got a rattle in my car. And, um, and, and I'm okay. We can help you with that. We can try to listen. He says, well, I know where the rattle is. And I said, okay. He said, well, he said, let me elaborate for you. And I'm like, okay. He said, well, I'm, uh. I'm an alcoholic. And he said, I, I used to hide my nip bottles behind the access door to my taillights. He said, and, and, and one of those nip bottles fell down and I can't reach it. And I'm sitting here listening to it and I'm like, oh my gosh. Um. Okay. And he said, um, he says, you know, so I know exactly what it is, but I can't get to it. I said, okay, leave me the car. I'll take care of it. So I was able to fish the nip bottle out from that, that compartment. And, um, of course I didn't give it back to him. Um, I threw it away. But, um. But when he showed back up, we started having a conversation about alcoholism when we had that conversation about, um, alcohol. And um, I was able to be of service to him and I showed him my AA coin and he looked at me like, huh? And I said, yeah. And he was telling me about how he had just gotten back from. Um. Uh, Plymouth house up in New Hampshire, recovery place up in New Hampshire. And I went, huh? Come with me. I walked in and I took out my, my business card folder. I keep in my desk drawer and flipped through the pages. And in there is a Plymouth house business card that I keep on hand at my shop just in case. In case. In case somebody comes in and I need to be of service and need to be of help. And he kind of went, huh? And he asked me to be a sponsor later on. And um, and you know, it's funny. I'm able to be of service in that avenue. Just another, another quick story is I had a customer come in. Needed to work on his car. He was a little bit busy. He was a little bit busy. He was a little bit busy. He was a little bit busy. He was a little bit busy. He was a little bit busy. And so he took out the car and, um, and, and I don't know why he told me, but he proceeded to tell me that, that he was an alcoholic and, you know, again, probably just needed to get it out there. And um, he was an alcoholic and he's, you know, in recovery and he's, you know, just, didn't, and I don't have anything in my business that kind of does, shows that at all. And um, I reached in my pocket. pocket and I took out my AA coin and I put it in his hand and he looked at me, his jaw dropped and he said, you're kidding me. And I went, nope, I've been around a while. And I forget how many years sober I was at the time. And he looked at me and he said, would you be my sponsor? I said, of course I would. I'm taught that we're not ever supposed to say no, right? We're not ever supposed to say no, we're told. So when we're asked to go on a commitment or asked to be a sponsor or asked to be something, we're not supposed to say no. So over the years, I've never said no. Sonia will tell you that. And, you know, I've always tried to be of help. So I've always tried to be of help. So I've always tried to be of help. So another story about Rick's business and how being of service kind of is the way I kind of try to run it. This guy came in one day from a hydroseeding company. He needed to bring me something to fix. And he walked in and he's showing me the part I need to fix. And we're having a talk and he says to me, he says, is that your motorcycle out there? I said, yeah. And I'm thinking he's Harley guy. He wants to talk about my bike. And he goes, you a friend of Bill? My helmet has the triangle on the back. And I said, oh my God, yeah, I am. And he reached in his pocket and pulled out his AA coin. And he said, yeah, I've been around a long time. And he still calls me today, every now and then. And, you know, sometimes for business, sometimes just to see what's up. But that's the crazy part about this is we don't know where we can be of service and how we can be of service to those people that put, I'm a, I'm a firm believer that God puts people in my life for a reason. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So we ended up, I ended up in Connecticut. I'm living in Connecticut and I was married to a girl that passed away from cancer. And I'm sitting on my couch and I'm saying to myself, I got to get out of myself. I'm just, I'm in a mess. So I went and played golf. And after I got done playing golf, I said, you know what? I need to get to an AA meeting. So I fumbled through the AA list I had back when they printed stuff. And I found a meeting in Eastford, Connecticut, not far from my house. And I'm like, awesome, I'm going to go. So I go. And it's an atheist meeting. Okay. I didn't know that when I walked in. You know, they don't have separate literature, you know. Maybe they should, I don't know. But so I walked in and they kind of warned me. They said, yeah, we do things a little differently here. And I'm sitting there listening. And I'm listening. And I'm like, I. I don't know if I agree with this. But I'm going to sit through it anyway. And any time that I could share, I brought God into that room. You know, and they let it happen. They let me do it. And the next, I called my sponsor and I told him where I went and what I was doing. And he looked at me and he said, so you're not going back, right? And I said, you shit me, I got to go back. I said, you know, it's like a train wreck. You know, you can't keep your eyes off of it. I got to go. And so I go back. And now I make it a regular thing. Now I'm going back every week. And I'm sharing about God at this atheist. AA meeting. And they're not giving me crap about it. So now I bring my buddies down from Massachusetts. And Johnny's laughing over here because this is all about him. But, you know, I bring my buddy Henry down there. And some of you guys know Henry. Henry leaves. He's like, yeah, I kind of like that man. You know? So then. So the next week, the next week I bring Johnny down to that meeting. And. And the gentleman across the table starts talking about how Bill Wilson was a liar and Bill Wilson did this. And he's he's just he's just bad mouth in this program. Crazy. Crazy. And the next thing I know. Him and Johnny are going back and forth across the table. And I'm sitting there shaking my head going, oh, what did I do? I'm trying to pull Johnny's shirt tail down. And I'm kicking him under the table. And, you know, when I when I got done. The bottom line to this is pretty, pretty good, actually. You know, I said to I said to that. I said, you know. I said, you know. I said, you know. I might not agree with that gentleman's way of thinking and what he does. I said, but, you know, my my experience here is is God. My experience in AA is is higher power. I said, you know, when I share at a meeting, when I try to be of service by sharing at a meeting, you know, what comes out of my mouth might help you might help you might not help you. But it might not help you. I mean, who knows? Who who it's going to touch? And the same thing is for him, too. What comes out of his mouth might touch him, might not touch him, might touch him. So who am I to say what he's doing is wrong? I mean, he's just being of service, too. That's why I look at it. That's the way I look at him today. You know, I all they're trying to do is help another alcoholic. That's all we're trying to do. Right or wrong. Who am I to say what it is? It's not my job. It's not my job. So. Now I'm in Connecticut. All my AA is up in Massachusetts. My big book men's big book meeting is up there. My, you know, my my. Regular big book meeting is up there and and. I don't have any AA in Connecticut. But that atheist meeting. So now I'm I'm saying to myself, I got to find something else. Because because I'm not an atheist. You know, I believe in I believe in a God and I believe in a higher power. And so I venture off and find different meanings. And we ended up at. At Day Kimball Hospital in Connecticut. And there's two meetings on the weekend. One on Saturday, one on Sunday. And. So I'm going to the Saturday meeting and I'm starting to become part of. You always hear that phrase a part of or apart from. When I walked through that door the first time, they made me feel at home. And that was the first time I had been through that door on a Saturday. Morning. And that's that was a pretty big meeting, you know, 30, 40, 50 people maybe. And and and they made me feel at home. And I felt at home there and and started hanging around that meeting and and found out they had a Sunday morning meeting. And I started going on Sunday morning meeting and the Sunday morning meeting was small, very small. You know, maybe ten people. And it was a commitment meeting. It was they they didn't go out on commitments, but they brought people in to speak and share their story. And the reason it was small is because they were just getting people in that little circle. And and people were sick of hearing the same old story about about this guy's family and this guy's family just didn't want to hear it. So nobody was coming to that meeting. And so. I had a friend of mine that was in charge of getting people to go to that meeting. And she's here. I'm not going to put her under the bus, but but but we love her. That's right. And and she she was in charge of that meeting for a long time. And it's one of those meetings where nobody else wants to step up and take that, take the job and be of service. And nobody else is doing their thing. And I showed up one morning and she's going off on a tangent about how she's done. I'm not doing this. I'm nobody else wants to step up here and everything else. And I said to her, I said, look, I said, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. And she looked at me. I said she said, I'm like, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. And I had a men's meeting going on at my house at that time. And and I said, my. Men's meeting will take care of it. So I went back to the men's group and I didn't even ask him. I just said, this is what we're doing. I pointed to the first guy. I said, you got the job of getting two speakers for next week. And you got the job for the week after and you got the job after that. And they looked at me like. OK. And then I started bringing guys down from Massachusetts. That had never been down there or had never, you know, that people had never heard. And then all of a sudden that meeting started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And, you know, I'm not telling you this story because of my ego. I'm just telling you this story. That's how we be of service. You know, and we don't know how we can be of service. And that was something that just popped up. And I said, we've got to do it. And we started bringing guys down there from Massachusetts. And and the story that. Got around the word got around that that meeting had different people coming in. And next thing you know, that meeting got to be big. And and it was awesome. It was awesome to see it happen. And and COVID hit. OK. But, you know, COVID changed the landscape of AA everywhere. Everywhere. And and so. People said, you know, hey, I think this is our last week here. We're going to they're going to close it down. They're going to shut shut down the hospital. You're not going to be able to come back in or anything else like that. What are we going to do? I said, I don't know. We'll move it to my house. They went, huh? I went, yeah, we'll do it to my house. I said, so we brought it to my house. And remember, when COVID first hit, you couldn't be you had to be six feet apart. You had to be you had to be no no meetings bigger than 10 people. It was just it was it was just the best phrase I can come up is asinine. But but so so we moved it to my house. And now there's cars all over the street. You know, people are like panicking, like, what are you going to do when the cops come? I'm like. I'm going to tell them the truth. I'm more afraid of alcoholism than I am. COVID is what I told them. I said, so we started having that meeting at my house. And then we heard about a kind of fumbling, a having problems with with money because now there's no meetings. There's no collections. There's no stuff being sent to AA. So I came to the group and I said, look, I said, how are you guys? What do you guys feel about taking up a collection and sending it to AA? I hear they're struggling. And everybody was all on board. Of course, everybody wants to take care of AA. So we started taking collections and I started sending the money to AA and then started getting letters in the mail back from from service, from from from central service and from everywhere. The district, everybody's sending me letters. Who are you? You know, what group do we apply this money to? And what's your what's your number? And I'm like, we don't have one. And then I'm thinking, all right, well, this was the this was the church. I mean, the other hospital meeting. How do I how do I you know, what's that number? We tried to find we tried to find that number so we could put that number on there and nobody knew the number. So I was like, OK, what's it going to take to get a number? And that's what it took to get a number. So we so we filed to AA for a number and they put it in the book. So if you guys are looking for a for a meeting in Woodstock, Connecticut, on a Sunday morning at 10 o'clock, you're going to find my house. And fire pit. So we've been you know, that's. That meeting moved over there in covid of March of 2020. And it's still there today. As a matter of fact, it's 1030 right now. If I brought the cameras up on my house, you'd see that it's that that meeting is going on right now. We're not even here. We're not even there. And and that's the that's the cool part of being of service. Our our spiritual well-being gets molded into different things. You know, I hope that that something that you guys heard this weekend, maybe maybe changes your Plato. Maybe it helps you to mold your your spiritual life into something different. Something. And. Than it was when you first walked up here this weekend. You know, maybe you'll understand what it means to be of service. Never miss that opportunity to be of service. It's everywhere. And I don't mean just here in the rooms. I mean, out in the real world, holding a door, you know, just picking papers up that you see on the on the side, you know, of the road or or or or just. You know, I'm not saying that we're not going to do that. But I'm saying that we're going to be of service. God will put those people in your life. And you have to recognize that time that it's a time to be of service. Don't turn your back. I mentioned when we first came in here that we're consumers of this program. You know, hopefully the program gets you to be a provider of the message. That's what our goal is. You know, that was what my goal was, was to to come in here. And and and be a consumer and suck up as much knowledge as I possibly could. And not to not so that I could just keep it for myself. You know, we have to be able to for me to stay sober. I have to I have to be the person that's given back that message to this weekend was awesome. You know, I I have to tell you. I never my wildest dreams thought that I would be. The guy sitting up here. I've been in your seat for 17 times, 17 years. And I never thought that I had a message to give you guys. I hope that you got something out of this because I know I did. You know, being of service is is this 12th step of this program. And this is a this is a this is. The step we have to carry for our life. You know, we can we can mold ourselves into better people. We can change that play-doh. And before you know it, you know, I can I my soul looks like the Taj Mahal. You know, when I came in here, it was that blob of play-doh on the on the table. You know, and all because I kept coming, I hated that phrase when the people used to tell me, you know, just keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I only wanted to show myself like that on on YouTube. I was trying to be a more like, I just want to be the Fotov. But she just said that I was always.識 The idea is having fun and having fun, as much as what she says and what she says. Yup. It is a very good word. Yes, there's a lot more unlike it where I am. There's big nieces and nieces and nieces. Okay. Never mind. and today we were able to be providers of a message of help. And thank you again. Thank you.