Step 8 — Made a List – Chris R. – FOTS Toronto – 2020

I'm a grateful, recovered alcoholic from Ingram, Texas. We're back down in Central Texas, about 60 miles west of San Antonio. And it's so good to see y'all. Dadgummit, there's a whole bunch of like-minded folks on this little gathering. And it was, I'm glad y'all stuck around. Hope you got some lunch. These afternoon sessions we've got, guys, are a little shorter than the ones this morning. We're in proportion with the soreness of your butt. We're going to kind of shorten them up and kind of cut to the chase. One of the things that we spend a lot of time doing, both Myers and I, and I know a bunch of other folks, we spend a lot of time trying to do is simplify some of this. I know we've got some new people in here that are just joining us. And, you know, it's just so cool to have you. I watch a lot of people come into our rooms and sit and listen to 400,000, 200,000 pieces of opinion and then end up leaving, you know, because it's too complicated. It's like Myers was talking about. I mean, literally, I worked with a guy one time and he said, you've got to have at least 300 names on your inventory or you can't get well. And it's like, guys, nowhere in the book does it say that. That's just crazy. You know, we just, yeah, it'd have a lot of other people, you know. I think we would have a better fellowship if everybody would just maybe slow up on the opinions and just kind of focus on what's actually in the book. It's pretty simple. I mean, it seems to be working, for heaven's sakes. So, a lot of people don't ever get to it because they've got too many people out there telling them. So, I was literally, you all think I make this up, I was literally in a meeting the other day and I was overhearing, it was my home group, and it was before the meeting, and I was listening to this old geezer. I see him occasionally. He comes and monitors our meeting and our AA meeting. We, you know, we introduce ourselves as recovered alcoholics and, you know, we're pretty focused on the literature. And, you know, it's just, you know, he didn't stay very often, but he was there and he was talking to the guy before the meeting. And, you know, and basically he just said, he's telling this little newcomer, guys, stop, don't worry about making these amends. You know, after you've been sober a few years, you can go, you can go clean up this wreckage, you know. But, you know, God wants you to make that amend, he'll put it in front of you. And it's like, buddy, that is so not what the big book says. And because I'm walking the spiritual program today, I didn't have to thump him in the head either. And I was just like, everybody gets a chance to share. And I don't know what to tell you. My big book says this. And so, big book, steps eight and nine are outlined on page 76 to 84. There's eight and a half pages that talk with, about the, making the amends. And in this short time I got with you, I just want to maybe kind of cover some of that information. From the fifth step, when we sit down and do a fifth step, and real quick, because I'll forget it. Myers was talking about putting your name on the, on the, on the inventory. Guys, it's just real, real clear in the, in the book, what it says to do. It makes this real clear case about, sometimes it was remorse on page 66, and then we were sore at ourselves. You know, it's just, put your name on the, on the inventory. Guys, I do workshops all over the creation. And I've got to tell you, none, and I've said some stupid stuff on podiums, guys. The one thing that anybody has ever come up to me and really, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to. To me and really took exception with was that. If I do a four step workshop someplace, there'll always be four or five guys come up after I, I do that, that little workshop. You don't put your name on that inventory. My sponsor told me not to put your name on the, I said, then put my name on the inventory. Because the big book says, to put your name on that, on that inventory. And some of you beat yourself up a lot. And this is a great place to get that down and, and put it on paper. From the inventory. Guys, I'm sitting there reading it with a, with a, a sponsor, a closed mouth friend. I might mention that if you can't keep your mouth closed, please don't hear fifth steps. Cause I don't think that's important. You know what? It's kind of private and confidential. That's what we're supposed to do. So don't be sharing any of that information with anybody else. I guarantee you. But from that inventory, when I'm sitting down with a little newcomer, I got me one of these little trusty little notebooks right here. And I'm always sitting down and that gives me a little doodling round. So I, you know, if this guy's bored me to death, I can draw a little pictures. Cause I'm, I do that, but there's a little, there's two little sheets, little paces I'm looking at. I'm looking at an eight step amends list, and I'm looking at six step character defects. Cause an hour, an hour after we do the fifth step, they're supposed to go get quiet with God and do a, do a seven step prayer. We're going to, we're going to go to God with our character defects. They're going to need a list of the character defects. They're going to need a list of the character defects. So I'm just jotting them down while he's, while he's dumping them on my lap and just kind of keeping it organized. And then on the other side of the little piece of paper, I'm writing down any names on there that might, that you might need to make amends to. I'm not going to send you out. Um, well, we're going to talk about it before I let this guy go make any amends. I always make everybody do it. Y'all do, y'all do this little, little, little promise with me. Cause I know some of y'all are new, y'all hold up your little hand. This is a little oath. All right. Everybody needs to do it. All right. Hold it up. Repeat after me. I promise not to make any amends until I talk to somebody about it first. Got it? I've seen some disasters out there in AA land when people just want to go out willy nilly and start, start trying to clean up the wreckage of their past. I, um, God dang it. You know what? Yeah. It's not any. If I'll sit down with these guys, usually the next, the next day or the couple of days after sometime we do a force that fifth step and we do six and seven, they're going to go an hour. And so that ready to do this first time I can get with them, I'm going to sit down with them and help them organize their eight step list. So I'm going to let them make a list of the people they think they owe amends to. And then I use these little four by five index cards, little ruled ones. So, cause I write terribly. My, my handwriting, Myers was talking. I come from a three year old. just talking. I come from a family of world famous artists. God, you just, and I'm talentless and my writing sucks. And so, you know, I have anything to keep it organized and I'll put the name and how much money I owe them or what I owe the exact amend for and just try to keep this organized. It's also easy to rubber band these together and stick it in my briefcase so that they're always there. The urgency to finish these amends, folks, is pretty clear. Bill Wilson in those eight pages, eight and a half pages, he talks about two places. He says, remember, we were willing to go to any length for victory over alcohol. And the other one, I'm paraphrasing, he says, remember that we're willing to go to any length to have this spiritual experience. I mean, Bill Wilson's getting crystal clear in this. This is important stuff. And who wants to make amends? I mean, nobody wants to make amends. But sometimes you don't realize the weight, old quote, of something you've been carrying. Until you feel the weight released. I got to tell you, guys, I've sponsored, I mean, it's amazing the relief that this could happen. I didn't see sunbeams from Jesus when I finished the fifth step. But I got to tell you, guys, right up in the middle of my eighth and ninth step work, I was connected as I've ever been. And I started seeing God in everything I touched. And that's just, Bill Wilson alludes to it. It's exactly what he's talking about. And I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. So that we can, we can get clear. Any area of my life, relationships, finances, any, any of these areas in my life that I'm having trouble in, I can guarantee you, I can connect to amends that you haven't made. Y'all stick with me, because I got to hit it pretty good here for just a second. This is what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to put some good stuff back out in the universe. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been a taker all my life. I've harmed a lot of people. I got to, I got to clean this mess up. And, and as I do that, what happens is I clean up this little disaster over here. And what happens is it frees me up over here. You know, they don't expression what goes around comes around. Yeah. Yeah. It's not making the mistake folks that hurts me. It's continually defending it. That causes the problem. We're all going to make mistakes, friends. We just, we got to get in there and clean it up. And sometimes it's going to take some effort. Sometimes it's going to take money. And, but the sooner we can get through this process, the better it's going to be. I know it's going to take some, a little time for some folks. It's surely me, but the book is talks about the urgency to make our first approach. A lot of times that's, that's all it takes to get some relief. Don P, we were talking about Don Prince. He passed away a long time ago. He was a great man. He was a great man. He was a great man. He was a great man. He was a wonderful guy. I hope some of y'all had ever had an opportunity to sit with that old man. He was as kind as it could be, but he spent a whole bunch of years in prison and he got sober and he was trying to make amends from prison. And he wrote letters, letters to every one of them. Basically it said, if you become willing to let God help you with this, you can become willing to make that amend. You're going to feel immediate relief. Just it's just, even before you make the amend, you're going to start feeling some relief. And I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great relief for this. When I see that person, I am willing to make this amend. And, and, uh, uh, Don's got a, uh, he did a little quick article in the grapevine about it. I I'll send it to you in a heartbeat. If you want it, uh, it's, uh, uh, y'all email me and ask for a Don P article. And, uh, it's, I mean, it's pretty cool, but that little eight step list, our job as a sponsor is we're supposed to sit down and we're supposed to help these little newcomers organize that list. Help them get this organized. We don't just pat them on the butt and say, go make amends. No, we need to show them how, because the step's pretty clear, you know, unless to do so would injure them or others. So I know it would be nice to, you know, throw yourself on the sword to make an amend, but, uh, you still got a family to support, you know, you going to jail is not necessarily going to fix it. But a lot of times folks, y'all stick with me. A lot of times making an amend directly. Sometimes there's other ways to make the amend without going straight to that person and making it direct. And I'll, I'll, I'm going to give you a couple of examples. Uh, but, uh, I've never known any amend that couldn't be made. Maybe it's not the exact way we would like to have it made, but, but there are definitely ways to make the amend. So, uh, our job as a sponsor guys is to, is to, uh, half my job as a sponsor is helping people understand what this amend is about and how we can make it without causing more damage. I got every young guy I sponsor wants to go make a first thing off before they even make amends. They want to go to every girl they ever dated to make amends. And it's like, you know, first of all, you might want to check your motives here. Some of these little knuckleheads, they don't have a very good motive anyway. And, uh, you know, they want to go out. Yeah. I mean, some of them, it's like an ambush. They're going to go knock on some doors. She's in there with her husband and three kids. And now you want to go make amend on her front porch. That is not how to do it. If they're not willing to hear your amend, you need to back up. It's that simple. But that's my job as a sponsor is to help them walk through that, help them figure out what the, what the, uh, what the best way is it to do it. And this is not about just saying, I'm sorry. This is about saying I made a mistake. I was wrong. Somebody gave me an old quote the other day is one of the best. I'm going to keep it forever. A lot of growing up takes place between quote unquote, it fell and quote unquote, I dropped it. I spent, y'all get it. I mean, that's great. I just, yeah. Yeah. I'll make amends, but I'm going to water it all down. And it's like, sometimes it's just like saying, God, I was a bozo. I said something stupid. I shouldn't have done that. You know? And, uh, and you can, you can, you can make some amends pretty quick that way, folks, you can get free. Again, I go back to what my old sponsor used to say. My current sponsor says it too. How free do you want to be? If you just want to not drink one stupid day at a time, you can have that. I want to be free. I don't want to be driving down the road, looking at every cop that passes me. You know, I don't want to be worried about my finances. I can't go to the bank and borrow money because I owe money. I want to clean this mess up. And, and I guarantee you those, a lot of us in this room, I know people that have been around a bit can help any one of you newcomers to show you how to make these amends. It's just, you're going to feel everything better in sobriety folks. And you get out of that. You get out of the yoke of alcoholism and that stuff starts affecting your life. You're going to start feeling all this stuff. It's called guilt. Yeah. I mean, come on guys. We all know right from wrong. And I kept it all tamped down with the alcohol and now I don't have alcohol to do that. And now all of a sudden it's, I'm out there when my outsides don't match my insides, there's going to be conflict. Can y'all relate to that? There's going to be conflict with that. It's easy for me. To sit in the meetings and talk like a spiritual giant. And then I walk outside and I owe every person on earth. I'm in debt up to my butt. And you think there's, yeah, that's not spiritual. Poverty is not spiritual. Indebtedness is not spiritual. We, we can help you. You may be wealthy and just be able to go out and write checks. And you may like me and at 35 years old, when I first got sober, I was like, I'm going to go out and write checks. And I'm working for my twin brother, but I'm not making a lot of money. And I owe a lot of people. And it was one of those situations where I had to go make the best. My first approach was, buddy, I owe you this money. I know I owe you $200 and I'll pay you back. I just, what, what, what could I pay you that would be okay? I'll pay it every month until I get this thing paid off. Okay. He said, you can pay me $20 a month. How's that? And then you, you go without food before you miss that $20. You just, you pay it off and you can get it. Guys, it took me, it took me, uh, almost three years, I think, to get the IRS paid off. I owe them knuckleheads a lot of money. And yes, I owe them money. And it's real easy. You listen to people. You don't need to pay those people. You better pay them off. They'll come get you in the United States. I don't know about, you know, Europe, but I guarantee you they'll, they'll make your life miserable. Pay them off. But guys, I got to tell you, and I'm going to move on. I don't know any, I never, I had one credit card company that wouldn't work for me. The IRS worked with me. All the other credit card companies worked for me. They just like, Chris, what do you mean to do? We'll relieve these, these penalties. We'll reduce this amount. We'll just, what can you pay us? It was only one credit card company that wouldn't do it. And, uh, and I've told them several times, I wouldn't own your card for a million bucks because when I needed some help, you wouldn't help me take that. Okay. So yeah, I'm sober a long time, but I'm still not well. But the others, you know, what the heck we get them paid off guys. It's just the whole purpose of this has become maximum service to other people. One more time. I can't be a maximum service to other people. If I owe a bunch of amends out there that I'm not cleaning up guys, there were parts of Texas. I couldn't even come home to, I couldn't even visit because I owed so many people money. I I'd harmed so many people. You can't be a maximum service if that's the situation. And I watch a lot of people with long-term sobriety, sobriety, still struggling with this year's end. You know, I had a friend of mine that we were going to go to Iceland and he couldn't go because he couldn't get a passport. I said, buddy, you've been sold for 35 years. What do you, what, what? He said, no, there's some stuff on my, on my legal stuff. There's a little, some tickets I didn't pay 35 years. You still hadn't paid those tickets. It's not free. That's not free. I got a passport today because I paid off my stuff. I got clean. So I'll throw it out there. Be a couple of things, be persistent. There's a difference between being persistent and stalking. You know, if you contact somebody and my first wife didn't want to have anything to do with me. I tried to make amends after I got sober and she said, made it pretty clear that she wasn't interested. And I got to tell you, I kept, I had my little card. It was all in my glove compartment forever. And I had to go to Houston and, and do a talk with, with an old sponsor. And, and I left a message with her brother and I asked to see if it was any possible way I could make this a man. It was just something that I thought about all the time, laid down at night and I'd be thinking about it. God dang it. I owed her, I owed her a bunch of amends. And, and anyway, long story short, she left me a message back and I called her and we hooked up the next day and she, I changed my flight plans. I said, yes, I'm going to be here. And we went to dinner together and I was able to talk to her guys. I was able to explain what I'd done. I was able to explain what I'd done. And, and try to clean it up. I got to tell you, I'll never forget it. We're in this restaurant. And she, she looked at me like that. She kept shaking her head and she said, I appreciate what you're doing. I've been an Al-Anon for years and I appreciate what you're, what you're trying to do here. And she said, and she took her little finger and she slid her coffee cup off to the side and she said, you don't have a clue what you did to me though. And then I got the privilege of keeping my mouth shut and letting her tell me what I did. Man, we think we know the truth. The truth of the matter is we don't. When I owed her amends for her, I thought was this, this blatant, you know, buddy, she lived in financial insecurity the whole time we were together because of my craziness out there. And, uh, you know, was able to, I don't know guys, 13 years, it took me to finally sit down and get to make amends to her. And I was so grateful for it. We're not friends today. I don't ever keep in touch with her like that, but I know I don't, I don't have to think about that stuff. And as it, you know, as it drives me crazy, don't create, uh, most of the amends that we try to do, we try to do face to face. Um, I know some of these, uh, we don't get a chance to do a letter perhaps in certain circumstances. Back when I got sober guys, we didn't even have the internet. This was like in the prehistoric days. He's like, it's hard to believe I was ever this old. Gee whiz. And now of course you, there's no, I got people that I don't want to find finding me, you know, it's just, it's amazing out there with Facebook and all this other. So the chance that the only excuse I can't find them is usually pretty, is pretty much that it's an excuse. So if you really want to, I would ask that you'd be real careful sending emails to somebody. If they see who it is, they'll usually delete it and they won't read it. You think you've made an amend and you haven't send a letter. You might have better, better luck, but generally speaking, if you're going to email or you're going to use a letter, ask if there's any possible way that you could do it in person. It's just short and sweet guys. This is not this long drawn out four hour amend. This is really, how long does it take to say I was wrong? I would like to make it right. It just, it doesn't take long unless they got some stuff that they want to talk about, which is, which is a good thing. I, I, I don't know. You, you, you can do it. I, I, um, my brother-in-law who I love had, uh, lent me a bow one time and, uh, wanted me to sell it. It was a left-handed bow in case y'all didn't realize. I noticed I'm blind in one eye and I, I use a left, I'm right-handed, but I use a left-handed bow and, and, uh, it was a good little bow. And he wanted me to sell it for him and I didn't have the money and, and, uh, to buy it. And, uh, and I ended up hawking it to buy some outside issues. And, um, and I told him about it when I got sober, I told him that I needed to, uh, make amends for, to abscond with the money. And he said, you know, like we hear so many people say, you know, Chris, don't worry about it. You know, it's just, uh, you know, just stay sober. That's how you can make amends. He was a kind of sweetest guy in the world. Okay. But every time I got to tell you, every time I get over to his house and I, this is back in the day, I'd smoke, I'd smoke a cigar. I'd walk out on a porch and buyers and be out there smoking with him. And he was a big smoker back then. And I'd walk outside and he'd get real quick. You know, he'd put his cigarette out half, you know, and, and walk back in. It was obvious that he didn't, don't have anything to do with me. Hey, how you doing? Merry Christmas, Chris. And he'd walk back inside. And I knew that there was a problem. So I, uh, when Patty and I got married, um, I married a little Yankee girl and she got, we got married up in Dallas and I stopped at Bass Pro Shop. He was a big sporting guy and I've got him a $200 gift certificate. And, uh, and I'm making plenty of money now, guy. Back in the day, I didn't have a penny and I'm flush. And, uh, but I got it and we got married and I'll see him out there smoking. And I got me a cigar and I walked out the front porch and damned. He had a cigarette about half full and he stuck it out on the, on the side of the, you know, and he was going to walk inside and I, you know, buddy, stop. Just what? And I said, I said, there's tension between us. There always has been since that bow deal. And I am so sorry. And I, I mean, I, I need to make it right to you. And I stopped and I got you this little gift certificate and, and, uh, here, go buy something you don't need. And, uh, and, uh, and he took it and he looked at it. Thank you. Folded it, stuck it in his pocket and lit his cigarette again. I got invited to the cabin. We go fishing when I can. Y'all, y'all, I mean, just sometimes guys, you just know that there's something not right. Get in there and try to clean it up. If you possibly can, it may take a little, a little persistence, but, but you never know the, uh, willing, uh, I made amends to a old employer one time. I was never going to move back to Kerrville. And so I wasn't making any amends in the Hill country. I was living up in Dallas. And then I, I married this girl that lived in the Hill country. So it was obvious I was coming back here. And, and, uh, when I got back, we had a catering company together. And, uh, I, uh, I, uh, I went, I stopped by the place of his business. He was a contractor in town and stopped by to see him. And I wanted to make amends because I left him in the lurch for that. And I took the, I had the catering company and then I left one night, went back to Houston, left him holding the bag just financially. And, uh, and I walked in and I could see him back in the office and he looked up and the, you know, the little receptionist had told him that I was there and he just shook his head. And, uh, and I, she finally let me in and I walked back there and tried to shake his hand. And he just looked at me with his folded arm like that. Says, what, what do you want? It was not good. And I explained to him what happened and I was loaded and I was trying to, yeah. He said, Chris, we took care of it financially. Don't worry about it. Why don't you do me a favor? You could make amends this way. If you see me on the street, you walk on the other side of the road. It's a small town. Y'all understand? I don't want anything to do with you. So why don't you go bye-bye? And I just, you know, I left, walked out to my pickup truck and took the little card and tore it in half. And boy, I could feel the AA love now. You know, it's just, yeah, buddy. It's like, you know, did the best I could do. You know, he didn't want to hear it. Anyway, fast forward about three, four months later, I, this was before caller ID, but I picked up the phone and it was his voice. And he said, hey, is this Chris R.? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, are you still, are you still going to those AA classes? I'll never forget. I said, yes, sir. And, and he said, so that means you're still sober. I said, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I'm about five years sober now. And he, he just liked that. He said, do you remember my son? Long conversation, guys. I says, of course, which one? And he was the older son. We used to drink together. And he says, he's in trouble. And he was crying on the other end of the phone. You could hear him. He was tearing up. He got in trouble. He got a car wreck in town and hurt somebody. And you end up in jail and a drunk driving charge. He said, do you think there's any way maybe you could go talk to him? You better believe it. I know the cats because I'm not anonymous out there. I'm anonymous about being in AA. I am, not anonymous about being in recovery. And I went over and I said, absolutely. I'll go see the kid and I'll see what I can do. Took him to some meetings, guys. He stayed sober a long time. I don't know where he is, but I got to tell you now, every time I'm in town, if I see that guy in town, the, the, the, my old ex-partner, we battle to see who can pay for each other's dinner the first, you know, it's just like, it's like, I mean, that relationship was made whole. Do you think he would have ever called me had I not made that attempt? That maximum service, that, that, that amend that I thought was, was going to be worthless turned out to be quite successful. I was able to go help his son because of that. Guys, you just don't know. Our job is to put one foot in front of the other and make the amend, do what we're supposed to do. Sometimes they'll sound like they're not working, but the truth is God's all over this stuff. You can see this stuff work out. And I don't know, just, it's one of the things. Old, older people, folks, some of the subsequent AA literature talks about it. Y'all be real careful making amends to young kids and making amends to older people. Guys, really in a general way, they need to know I was sick. I was not there as often as I would like. I could have been a better husband. I could have been a better father. You know, whatever the situation is, they don't need to hear a fifth step. I surprised, I watch a lot of people do this. They get in there and they want to dump all this crap. Tell the 80-year-old grandmother about them eating out of dumpsters. Your 80-year-old grandmother doesn't need to know that. And I guarantee you, your six-year-old kid doesn't need to know that. It's none of their business. Don't make anybody's load heavier by making your load lighter, is the old expression. I've had people that I've sponsored, guys, that came and wanted to make amends to me. And they wanted to talk to me, even in fifth steps, and they wanted to. And they were on the list. And then they, you know, but they were just, they made my load heavier by making their load lighter. I don't know. It's just disrespectful. I'm just, don't, don't do it. It's, it's just not necessary. Can you make amends to dead people? Yes, you can. And I guarantee it's quite, quite valuable. I was about three years sober when Pops died. And we were thick as thieves, guys. We were, we were just, we were close as could be. And years, later, I guess five, six years later, I, I was doing a lot of therapy at the time and needed to after years of being an alcoholic. And, and, but a lot of stuff about my dad kept coming up. These weren't, weren't any kind of problems. We've thought about things, blah, blah, blah. There was just a lot of stuff that I never got a chance to tell him. My love of the weather, meteorology, geology. I mean, he took, we were, from my earliest memories, we were out there on the side of the creeks, hunting rocks and stuff. I mean, it's just beautiful memories, but I never got to tell him thank you for any of that. I never got to talk to him. I mean, this stuff weighed on me. And I, I wrote him a letter. I wrote, I wrote a letter and I went out to a place we used to go fishing. I'm, I'm right out here on the Guadalupe River, guys. And it's, it's free. You can walk all over this river and go fishing. But there was a place that you had to crawl across onto property, a private property down here in Texas. You crawl through a fence to go fishing. That's where my dad, he always went. He said, the bigger fish are over here on this private property. All right. So it's, it's illegal. You're not allowed to go fishing. You're not allowed to go fishing. You're not supposed to do it, but we did it. But I went over there on that property where dad used to go fishing. And I went over there and I read that letter. And guys, I got to tell you, there was some relief and there's nothing in me that believes that my dad didn't hear that letter. There's some real freedom to be had with this folks. And, and, and hopefully some of y'all will experience it. Uh, y'all start thinking about this list that you're working on. Go back into your history and see if there's anybody in there that you might be able to, to clean up. I don't believe in just, I know people in AA that just want to go make amends every time. I just, I'm feeling low. I'm going to go make some amends today. Quit. You know, you're again, you're just stirring up more hornet's nest than you have to. But if these are legit amends, you, uh, by all means, please do. One of the things that, um, I was on the internet the other day, was looking for something. And I saw another one of these scripts and some of y'all may be using them, but I'm going to ask you guys to be very, very, uh, careful with those. Um, like I said, the internet's full of them. And I saw one in a sponsor of mine came up and he was going to, he's showing it to me. Somebody in AA had given him a script and, and it's a, I understand. Do you want to try to organize yourself? That's why I use these little, these little index cards. If you, if you, if you can organize, and figure out how much you owe and what you owe the amendment, you can't just go up. I know you some amends, but I don't know really for what that's, that's going to be a bad amendment. You know? Yeah. These scripts have helped you kind of organize your thoughts a little bit. That's fine. But please guys, y'all got to promise me don't walk into somebody and read from a script. I mean, literally guys, I've had people do it to me. Dozens of people. It's just terrible, just terrible. Yeah. Go. Can you imagine this? I'm going to go to my mother, right? I'm going to make amends to my mom. You know, I got the script, right? Hi. It says, hi. My, my name is Chris Brammer and, and, and I'm a recovering alcoholic. I'm going to puke and I'm not going to stay sober today unless I make amends. And I'm going to make amends for laundry list. Y'all thought, yeah. And she's going to look at you like you've got three heads. The word is disingenuous. It's fake guys. She knows I'm in AA. She knows I got a problem. Y'all understand? She knows. Oh, let me get this straight. You don't actually want to make amends to me. What you want to do is save your own little skinny, but one more time, you just, this is all about you staying sober. Why don't you just say I was wrong? I need to clean up my mess. I looked my mom in the face and I told her, mom, there were so many times in my drinking history when I just flat wasn't present in your life that I was, that I just would disappear. And I tell you, the amendment I'm going to make is that I'm going to go out of my way to be there until you're not here. She lived to be 92 folks. She lived close to me and we stayed as thick as thieves. Is it always convenient to be there? No, it was not. So what? But it was the time I could be. She didn't want my money. I borrowed money from her. She was not interested in me paying her back. She was not. Yeah. It just, it was one of those deals. I owed her $500. She sent me one time. She said, you don't have to pay it back. And I took that money because it's not my money. And I gave it to charity. I gave it to Alcoholics Anonymous is what I did. You know, I put it right back out there in the universe and, uh, and, and, and, and saw the results. It's like guys, what goes around comes around. Same kind of stuff. Sometimes you can't make. Yeah. I've got to look at this rule. Tell you about this. Uh, if you go to a place like Walmart, I don't know what it is about drunks, Walmart and TVs. All right. If you steal something from a place like Walmart and you're going to go talk to the manager, cause I've been with sponsees when we were going to go clean this mess up and I don't want them to go to jail. I've never known anybody go to jail. From making these amends, just usually they'll let you go. Cause it messes up their, their, uh, bookkeeping. It's just, they've already, they've already written it off. So that's a deal. If that's a situation, if it's me, I was just like, you know, the manager is sitting there and says, listen, my name is Chris Ramer. And I, you know, years and years ago, and I was anyway, I ended up was drunk. I'm in the program today. I'm trying to stay sober, but man, I need to clean this mess up. I stole the TV out of your, out of your showroom. And, um, and they'll look at you like again. And, and they'll say, you know, buddy, you're not going to do this anymore. Are you? And he said, absolutely not. And, but you got to tell them what you are. Cause they'll think you're crazy. Yeah. If you just say I stole a TV, you might be in trouble. Tell them you're in recovery. And I guarantee my experience, home Depot, Lowe's, all these big department stores, they don't want to put you in jail. They don't want to cause you a bunch of problem. This thank you for clearing it up. And then I took that $350 that would have paid for the TV. And I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, I give it to a sponsee. I give it to again, charity. I've got lots of places out there, folks, especially today in this circumstances in our world, they could use a little extra money, food banks. Yeah. It's not my money. It's somebody else. Yeah. It's, it's God's stuff. Just throw it back out there in the universe and see what happens. I know some of you are living from paycheck to paycheck, but I've seen this a thousand times. You start cleaning this stuff up and I guarantee you, your finances start clearing up over on this other side. I've just, I just never seen it fail before. You know what you look up one day. I'll never forget guys. I'm looking up one day and I realized that there are no active amends that I haven't made. You know, that this, this stuff, I mean, it literally took me years for this. I sponsored a guy right now that had to spend $650,000 to, to, to clear up his debt. And he, and he did. It's a lot of money. I don't know if I could have done it and he didn't pay it all at once. He paid it off. It took him years to get it paid off, but he's the freest guy you'll ever want to come across. You could look the people straight in the face and, uh, and be the person he's supposed to be. Remember, I'll say this, I'll wind this down. Remember what we're talking about guys, when my insides are not matching my outsides. And yeah, I guarantee you guys, you're going to feel uncomfortable around some of these amends because it's not the person that you were supposed to be. I got to tell you, I used to be embarrassed to look myself in the mirror for some of the crazy shit that I did. I'll tell you another one. Let you go. I, uh, uh, when I first got married to Patty, uh, uh, I had to explain one of the amends that I make. I agree with living amends. There's certain situations, but if I owe you money, I need to clean that up and then continue to make living amends. But I was in the food business for years and I, uh, I harmed a lot of waitresses. Uh, not, I just, I was just brutal. If you're going to bring me beer while I'm on the shift, y'all understand, you know, flirt with me. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're tight as could be. If you're not, guess who's going to get all of their orders all at one time. I'm, I'm the little hothead in the back of the kitchen and I'm just waiting, wait, wait, Hey, you know, pick, pick, pick up, pick up, you know, and now all of a sudden you you're behind, your tips are going to be through the toilet. I mean, this is vengeful, nasty stuff. I'm embarrassed to tell you about that. You know, I'm just, I, I did. And I told, you know, we were eating one night and I left this tip and she looked, she kept looking, she kept looking back at the table. She said, you know, Chris, that service was really good, but it wasn't that good. And I looked at her and then I went walking her to the car. I explained, this is the way I can make amends to those waitresses. There was a couple of waitresses that I knew when I got sober that I was able to go back and make direct amends to, but there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of waitresses and waiters that I, I abused that I was never able to make amends to, to this day. If I go out and eat tonight, after this is over, Patty, we're not going to go eat. She's leaving town for a few days and we're going to go eat in town and wear our masks. Oh my gosh. And, and I guarantee you when we go, it'll be the same stuff. She knows to figure out how to figure my tips. Now she understands. Yep. Okay. And I'm going to leave a big old fat tip. I don't care what kind of service we get that cat that waitress can sit down on a plate of cat turds and I'm not sending it back. I'm just not, I'm not going to eat it, but I'm not going to send it back. That's just the way it is. And I, it's the way I can do just nonstop, just continue to make amends to that industry, the people that I harmed and all of y'all, y'all will figure out ways to do this. It's just, if you ever want to bounce it off, email me and give me a call and, and, and we can bounce it guys. It's just, it's the coolest step that there is as far as I'm concerned is getting a chance to get clear of all this wreckage of our past. And, uh, you know, the old quote, remember the old saying, you kick at the universe and it kicks back and it'll keep kicking back. And that's why it's important to kind of clean up this wreckage and, and, uh, I don't know, start on square one again. Y'all have been great guys. We're going to take a little break here and I'm sure Allie will take over this. And then when we come back, we're going to go do steps 10 and 11. So y'all go pee and come back quick.