Steps 10 & 11, Courage to Change – Earl H.

All right, here we go again. We have many things to discuss here. I've got new questions. Ah, also, for Annie. Annie, you're not here, but I wanted to say hello and extend my very best wishes to you personally, and I hope we meet soon. None of you know what just happened, and that's just fine. So, question. When a sponsee says, what happens if I quit and find out later that I didn't have to? May I suggest that a normal man would not ask this question? Because a normal men would recognize that if that were the case, all you'd missed was a few drinks. In this individual's case, I would suggest if you found that out that you would have missed an awful lot of drinks. So, I would just simply say, I wouldn't worry about that. Keep moving. More will get revealed. If you're not an alcoholic and you've missed a few drinks, big deal. If you are an alcoholic and have missed a few drinks. Big deal. ah an alternative opinion to what I stated about resentments regarding your sponsor what if you do your inventory and when you're finished you realize you still have resentments against your sponsor an alternative opinion was voiced which I think is very good that what you do is that you take these resentments in this aspect of your inventory to a third party an alternate third party possibly with a significant amount of time and that you can read this stuff and when you get to your part you can then go back and make amends to your sponsor. Love that. Thank you, Ava. That came directly from a member of the Bagels and Big Book group. Our sponsor. I love that. Earl H., sponsored by the Big Book. And let's see what this is. So watch with the eyeball-to-eyeball thing on the ninth step. out, like I can't get to South Dakota to make this amends. Want a letter due? Help. Okay. Okay. Send them a letter. Make them a videotape and send them the videotaip. Asking them to burn it immediately after watching it. Kind of a, what was that show? Kind of an Mission an impossible thing. This all is anyway, isn't it? South Dakota, yeah. If you can go to South Dakota, go to the South Dakota. If not, give them a phone call. Read them the letter. Make the amends. Write them the letters. Do what you've got to do. We're willing to go to any lengths to do this stuff. So if you tell me you can't go to south Dakota, I say okay, you can' t go. But you can get significant communication regarding this matter to that individual, can't you? And be available for their response. So if they have some need on the other end to say something to you about this, that they have the opportunity to do so. Here's a good one. In the eighth step, how serious does the harm have to be? Whoever Whoever wrote this, I love you. It's kind of like, you know, I was shooting to kill, but it was only wounded. No amends necessary. You know, I loved that. Harm is harm. If you have harmed someone, one. We don't have degrees of harm, right? Harm is harm. If you've harmed someone, make amends. You don't know that the impact this has had on that particular individual. It's not...we don't decide for someone else how much harm we've caused them. We don't know the extenuating circumstances of their lives. We don't know. I mean, I can be goofing around at a party and push someone into a pool, right? And all I've done is embarrass that person publicly, and that requires an amends. I apologize for embarrassing you publicly. I had no right to treat you that way, and I apologize if there's anything I can do to set this right. Please tell me what it is, and then I'll be more than happy to engage in that activity to see that this is made right by you. However, I might be at the same party and push another person into the pool. It's the same action, right? That person almost drowned as a child and is deathly afraid of water. And this is a terrifying experience for this individual. Brings up a lot of their past. I mean, it's really, really a remarkably unsettling experience to them that throws them into a semi-catatonic state as they sink to the bottom of the pool and someone has to dive in and save them. Did I harm them the same? I did the same thing to them I did to the other person. Is that what it's about? What I did? I make amends, right? I make a man. You make amens. You don't sit there and go, well, you know, they got wet, big deal. I got to make aments to the person. I traumatized with the other person. That's minor. No. Make amends. Harm's harm. Set it straight. Set it straightforward. It's like, well, you know I make amends for all you know I pay back money in excess of 10 grand. or I have limited liability in all theft, and I only pay up to $10,000. No! Set it straight, alright? What was the other thing? Somebody else mentioned to me something that I say that was pertinent to the ninth step. Speak up. Where are you? You came up and you shared with me something that you said There you are, naturally right in front of me and I couldn't see you. Yes. Right. It's like what's the point and the value of all this stuff, right? When I came to AA, you see, conceptually these things all tie together. We may have to go back to the tape and review, but I'm certain that they do. I came into AA and believed that there was, you know, because there was in it for me me, the self-centered nature of being new. I believe that if I came in and I was honest with you, then you would be honest with me, that this would be the result of my action. Because for me it was all about the expectation I had on the back end of the action. Do you get what I mean? I'm not being honest with you because that's a good thing to be. I'm being honest to you so you'll be honest to me. That's what I'm after. I am still, do you notice here, I'm doing the right thing but I'm still attempting to control and manipulate my environment. You see how I'm doing that? I'm being honest with you only so that you'll be honest with me. I'm trying to get you to give me what I think it is I need from you, that if I love you, then you will love me. What am I doing this for? I're doing this so that you'll love me because I need to be loved. It's about me. I'm attempting to manipulate the situation, right? If I show you respect, then you will be respectful of me. And I was completely wrong. That's selling it You're selling it short. Way short. If I'm honest with you, the reward is that I become an honest man. If I love you, then I become a loving man. If I am respectful of you, then I becomes a respectful man. These are the rewards. It changes me here. What you do with my... Because I was honest with your life. and you lied through your teeth to me. I showed you respect and you embarrassed me publicly for no reason other than to dampen my light so yours would look a little brighter. not you personally but you get what I'm saying though I did find this one question a bit challenging kidding everybody that put a question up here is going little shit's talking about me Earl you get what I am saying this side of the street I do this to be this to become this not to get from you what you do is your business I am powerless over that one of the great gifts of sobriety serenity prayer remember everybody talks about God grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change the courage serenITY to accept things I cannot the courage to change things I can't the willingness there wasn't no difference willingness this is an example of sleep deprivation God grant me the serenITY to accept the things I cannot change The courage to change the things I can and the willingness to know the difference. Everybody gets caught up in a lot of that. Remember what the first three words of that prayer are? God grant me where I seek this. This will all make sense in a minute. Where I seek it. Where I see this, right? That's, I have to pay attention to that. What can I change? Me. What can't I change ? Norman. God, I have tried. To no avail. Norman remains delightfully Norman. Right? I got to focus my attention on what I can do something about. I can't help it if you lie or you don't lie. Right? I can be an example for the newcomer that comes in. I can become a part of the human chain. Right? That's Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can make a difference and I can see a guy who's doing better and better and more. I can set an example to that guy So when that guy comes in and says all I hear all this blah blah blah, blah blah. Blah, blah You know what? I'm talking about. I can say oh, yeah It's all I heard But I can feel something here. I feel something there's something that I can it's palpable tan I can't feel it here you people are doing something different What's the key to that doing doing something? Different you people living a different way your your act the action of your day is fundamentally different than mine And I want that. How did you get that? This. What keeps me... I've worked one through nine. What keeps my mind what keeps me going, what keeps in the game? 10, 11, and 12. I think of them all as action steps. People say, well, you know, there are the action steps and then they're... Well, I think they're all action steps。 10, me, 11, God, 12, you. Nobody else to play with, right? 4 and 5 was me. me. 10 is me. 6 and 7 was God. 11's God. 8 and 9 was you. 12 is you. Nice. That's kind of tight, isn't it? That kind of covers it, doesn't it. 10, what am I doing with 10? What am I going? It's a pop quiz. Come on. I thought you were going to get to sit there after lunch and just listen to me go on and on and on in you come on what are we doing in 10 continuing to take personal inventory personal inventory my inventory not yours and when wrong promptly admitting it why promptly because I'll develop a resentment towards you and we'll get around to it, June. Right? I will wrong you and think, oh God, I've got to clean that up, you know, eventually. I'll make a note of some kind, you know, get to that. Wrong. I've got to get it done now. Resentment's the number one killer of people like me. I will fester and I will die. I got to get it out of my head. I So I review my day. The book, again, very specific. Start the day, review the day. Great stuff. Great stuff, and you know what? It doesn't even have to be a day. That was a very, very interesting experience for me. I remember being new, about two years sober. I'd been going to Ohio Street Monday night, no, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. Four nights a week, I'd be going to the Ohio State for two years. Right behind the podium at Ohio Street is about a three-foot by four-foot painting of the Serenity Prayer. Two years after having begun to go to Ohio Street, I spotted that painting. And I read it and I thought, you know, that's snappy. Loving that poem. Poem to me. I call up Donald and go, Donald, there's a poem. of me. He goes, you mean a prayer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Prayer. Yeah, prayer. There's this prayer I read at Ohio street. Incredible. Shortest prayer I found. Love it. I'm going to say it now. He said, no, no you're not. I said, what are you talking about? It's the shortest I can find. He goes, no way too much going on there. You're going to screw that all up. I did fine. Then if I'm not allowed yet to say this, the, the prayer, the serenity prayer, um, what do I got to say? He goes, here's what I want you to do. Here's your prayers. Are you listening? Yeah, I'm listening. All right. When you wake up every morning before your feet touch the floor, you pull the covers down from your insane little head and you look up and you put your palms up like this and you say, whatever. I said, I like that. That's good. I said now when you get in bed at night and you get into bed and you pull all the covers up to your crazy little head, I said, I want you to put your hands up like this and I want you to say, enough. And you go to bed. And I said got it! About three weeks later 9 a.m. rolls around and I'm done. I've had it. I called him up and he always answered the phone. Donald Madden. Donald Searle. How are you kid? Donald, I'm doomed. he said how did you spot that kid he said I'm done I can't take it it's 9 a.m. I'm not going to make it to tonight man I am not going to make the call I'm going to take it I'm over I've had it nice effort thanks for your help I'm a dead man he says hold it I can help well thank God because you're the one and only call I'm making here he says alright I want you to take a deep breath that was a deep breath for me I was a little constricted take a deep breathe alright now he goes say enough I said enough he goes okay wait a second alright take a deeper breath he said okay now say whatever you can do that it's 9am he goes so what He goes, that day wasn't going well, was it? I said, no. He goes then end it and begin another one. This was like a spiritual experience for me. I'm looking at the clock going nope not gonna make it. I didn't have to. I just had to let that go and start my day over again. I can do these things along the way. Right? That are tremendously valuable to me these little ways of getting on through just getting from meeting to meeting meeting, getting from sponsor call to sponsor call, getting from opportunities to read the book. Let it go. Take it back. Let it Go. Take it Back. Let it GO. Take it BACK. I mean, I turn my will and my life. You know how many times I turned my will in my life over the care of God between Los Angeles and New York? I'm surprised over the loudspeaker we didn't hear, okay, Earl, this is God. Why don't you just keep it till you land and we'll get back to it then, okay? Because it's back and forth that's driving me crazy. Because it's, here God, bump. Yeah, it's mine. Oh, Jesus, here, God, bump. Yeah, that's mine, right? It's just a nightmare across the country. Got me, got me, got me. All that matters is is that, like Donald used to say, your life is like a tapestry, right, that's being sewn. I guess that's what you do with a tapestry, right? You sew it. Have I got that right? No tapestry people? Loven. woven. I'm writing that down. Woven. Nice. As the tapestry of your life is being woven, my job when the needle comes through is to just push the needle back. Right? That's all I do is just push it. I just push. I push. Push the needle back. There's another way to put it. The door opens, walk through it. What's in here? I don't know. Why are you walking through it? Because the door opened. Is that reason enough? Apparently. Had a remarkable life happen as a result of just doing that. Another thing. Oh, I'm losing it. Another think. Anyway, even though I've gone quite mad while standing up here. here. Oh, it went away, never mind. Yeah, it did, it went away. All right. No, it's not going to help, I'm sorry. That fell into the black hole. I just, I've gone. Yes? Bobby Egg, step 10. I'm sitting in my first step study meeting with Donald Madden. We're all being very well behaved, right? Bobby's sponsored sponsored by Donald. Bobby has the most time in the room under Donald, right? He sort of sits at the right hand of Donald, right? Very impressive fellow about that tall, right? Mighty fellow. We're all very impressed with Bobby. We're very serious about the steps. Very serious. Working the steps! Quiet over there and working the steps steps laughing there is no laughing in steps a laughing life and death steps we're talking about the tenth step oh it's very serious very serious nobody's no screwing around in here get the bobby bobby says well i recall the first time i heard the 10th step, thought it was fascinating. Continued to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it. So I immediately wrote a long letter to a friend of mine pointing out all of his defects of character, and I apologized for not telling him sooner. All these serious faces. Eyes twitching, you know what I mean? What the hell did he just say right donald's like that's the greatest thing he's ever heard right now we're all like completely shook up bobby's looking at us like lighten up just lightenup this is not how i feel about it now this is a process this isn't fine got it good go it's a process more is revealed as we go says i don't feel that way about the step now i preface this by saying when i first heard it. I saw it as simply an opening to give this guy a hard time. Got it. Have you noticed we've been laughing a lot in here? We've laughed a lot today, haven't we? It's the healing for us. We got to have a good time. We've got to play a little bit. We got to look at the stuff. If we can't laugh at us, we're screwed. Okay? Because Because let's face it, ripe for some good jokes around here, huh? All you've got to do is go, hey, let's listen to one another on Earl's good ideas when he was drinking. Right? It's hysterical. We've got be able to laugh at this stuff. Don't get so, I can't get, so, you know. Christ. What did he say? What did He say? Slow down! I haven't got every word here. Because when I'm done, I'm tearing this crap apart. Writing you a long letter, pal. May call central office about you. Get a little AA cease and desist order out on you, pal! Christ almighty, right? Put me in your inventory, who cares? Ten, continue to take personal inventory wrong. Why? Because I didn't get it perfect the first time around. I'm screwing up all the time. You know why I'm screwed up? Because I'm pushing the envelope. I'm not leading a safe, little, careful life. I'm out there mixing it up with the normies. You know what I mean? Occasionally, a little bit more of me pops out than they're comfortable with. And you can see it in their eyes. You know, I'll be a little too tired, you know. When I get tired, it's like truth serum for me. You know what I mean? All the filters just seem to melt and I just start telling the truth. Oh, I'll get a little animated or I'll be talking to somebody and I'll forget they're not in AA. It's just somebody I know. And all of a sudden you see that look in their face. That's just that. You know when you go, you usually think, whoops. I went a little too far that time. That sentence is usually ended with, but I'm just kidding. Or sometimes it even happens with new people. You've got to be careful around certain new people There's been a lot of education in the community over the last 25 years, okay? A lot of people are getting to AA with higher bottoms. Now, a lot OF the old-timers, you know, seem to take exception to that. I think it's remarkable. I think It's wonderful. Why should somebody have to suffer as much as I did to have a right to be here? That's crap! If you made it here, congratulations! I don't care if you dropped a champagne glass by the pool and went, that's it. And then you came. None of my business. It's not my business I mean all the way to the normie coming in and saying, you know what? This is cool. I want to learn from this. Book says, anybody could get a lot out of this. We got open meetings. Why the hell shouldn't we let them come? Encourage them to stay. Encourage him to grow. Work with them. Share our experience and strength and hope with them. But remember, some of the new ones that happened the other day, it happened Thursday night. I was sitting in the meeting in the house, step study, little workshop thing we got going on, right? There's a newcomer girl sitting over there. She got about 23 days and I was making a point and mentioned something I'd done while I was drinking and using. It was, to my way of thinking, a rather moderate tale. I just briefly looked to my right and realized she wasn't seeing it that way. She was looking at me with absolute horror on her face. And she looked at my wife, and my wife went... I don't know if she's going to come back. I don' t know. It's got to be easy with the new ones. Kind of get a sense of what... You know what I mean? We don't want to jump them too hard and too furious. I believe that this isn't a cookie-cutter program. We bring them in, we stamp them this way, we guide them through this, we put them through these stuff and on. I know a group somewhere in the Midwest, they're so serious about this thing, and I mean serious, that you come into their group, you get interviewed as to whether or not you're going to be in their group. If you come in to their group there's an interview process to become a member of their group if you join their group you're advised to take the next 30 days off from work now I don't know about you but to think that if a newcomers got a job and then to actually ask them to not go to it is that kind of goes against the grain for me but I mean and I mean I actually did damn near an exorcism on a member that group getting them back out in the to AA, right? I mean, the pressure that was being put on this woman was horrible. The manipulation and control that was occurring. But that seems to work for some people. There's other much more moderate groups that have additional aspects to them outside what one would consider the mainstream of AA, Right? There's people in AA that are incredibly loose. There is a guy I sponsor sponsor named Britton. He came to me and asked me to sponsor him, and I said, well, what's up with your first sponsor? And he said, Well, he told me to work the steps unless it was a hassle. I'm thinking that's not going to work for me. I'm going to come to you. And I said cool, right? That guy's staying sober. That guy is still sober. He works the steps, unless it's a hassle God bless him. You know, I figured that that could easily turn into why stay sober, unless it's a hassle. But that's me, that's not him. Find your way. Ten. Continue to take personal inventory and when you're wrong promptly admit it. That allows me to not find myself going into a deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper state of resentment, dis-ease, disharmony because I'm only going to do an inventory every five years that that builds over a period of five years until I get some relief. No, I want the daily experience of the relief being there, of this working, of being free. I don't want to slowly over time in sobriety gradually become tethered once again to the disease of alcoholism. I don'T want to end up with the obsession of the mind returning. Now if there's another guy I know in the program that says I think I could stay sober and comfortable that way doing half of the things I do. The only problem is they don't know which half that is. So I just keep doing all the stuff that I do. I'm with that guy. I'm a great person. I'm always with that guy. I have a great life as a result of what I do if it works. Don't fix it. Always gone to lots of meetings. I've always been sponsored. I've been sponsored for every moment of my sobriety except for three hours. That's how long after Donald When Donald died, I had another sponsor. I'm of service. I sponsor a lot of guys. I sponsor some remarkable people, absolutely remarkable people. And I also sponsor knotheads. I sponsor the Knott family. I sponsor one guy who's been around 12 years now. I think he's still with three weeks again. And I've sponsored him for 12 years. Question. Pastor, if you have someone who continuously relapses, Earl, shouldn't you encourage them to seek another sponsor? Yeah. And if he doesn't go, fine. It's not my decision. It's the person's decision. It's it's not up to me. It's believe me, I'm not the weak link in his game plan. He has been exposed to everything that is necessary to become comfortably sober and stay that way. He just doesn't choose to do it on a regular basis. So, he regularly gets loaded. And then he gets to the place where he wants to put a gun in his mouth and he calls me and he comes back. And when he wantsto tell me how much pain he's in, I don't listen to him. I say, I don' t want to hear about the problem. Let's talk about the solution. I'm familiar with the pain and the madness. Let's talked about how we stay sober. Then we'll do that for a while and he'll get relief and the minute he gets relief he stops doing it because he's got the relief. And then it goes away because he stopped doing it. That's the part he seems to miss. You get it because of what you're doing. Then keep doing what you are doing and you will keep getting it. You stop doing what your doing it's going to go away. You with me? That's amazing. So, eleven. We're getting close, aren't we? Getting close. Eleven. I seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. I think it's a self-explanatory step. What do I pray for? What should I be praying for? How about I pray for knowledge or His will for me and the powerful to carry it out? Period. The end. Thank you. Why don't I pray for knowledge Knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. Now, I can pray for world peace. I can prayer for a new bike on Christmas. I can prayed for her. I can praying for all of you. Anything wrong with any of these prayers so far? No. What could I pray for that take all that into account? Keep me out of the solution. Keep me our of expectation as result. Well, keep me out of everything except my part in this. And align me in a position to be of maximum service to God and my fellows. What could I do to take all that into consideration? How about I pray for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out? Just right back, boom. Nice and simple. Nice and simply. Pray for that. Can I add stuff? Sure. Can I do stuff instead of that? Absolutely. Absolutely. Donald had a horrible prayer. He'd get mad at somebody, he'd pray for them to get what they deserve. That was as gracious as he could be. He used to get a kick out of it. Somebody'd say something to him in a meeting or something that he didn't like, we'd all go, well, he's going to be praying for that guy. Knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. That's what I pray for. That's not what the step tells me to do. I seek God. It's on me. I don't stand there waiting for God to present himself to me. I seek god. It's an action step. I seek gods through prayer and meditation. Now, when I went to Al S., after Donald, we sat down and we reviewed my program, and he said, Earl, you're firing on all cylinders. You're doing great. You're catching the buzz. You're spreading the word. You're dealing the deal, man. You're delivering the message. Love it. He goes, now about this meditation thing. Do you meditate much? I said, well, what do you mean by much? I'm coming up on 14 years and actually not yet, no. He says, well, I think you should explore meditation. I said, okay. Being a good little AA sponsee, I was deferring to the thinking of my sponsor. I called up a friend of mine, said about this meditation thing, I think we need to explore it. He said, great. We found a place that was a school for meditation. We took a six-week course on meditation and we began to practice meditation on a daily basis. Jesus, why on earth would I, a Westerner, a linear thinker, not so much anymore, but at least my culture raises me to be that kind of way, think in a very linear fashion, not to approach this spherically at all. Don't let me get started on that. Okay, right? I'm here. Right? I meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come, I can hear them. I don't get letters in the mail from God. God doesn't talk to me through the radio anymore. But I do get a sense of what the right thing is for me to do when I pray and meditate. The answers come to me in the form of a thought, an idea, an intuition. The book tells me that I'll come to rely upon these things, this sixth sense. It comes to me through meditation. Meditation is one of the most powerful tools available to an individual like me. It is not the nature of the body to be still. It is also the nature the nature of the mind to be quiet. quiet. When I meditate, I sit still and attempt to quiet the mind. And people are always coming up to me and saying, well, how do you do it? I mean, give me, I say, well you want a real, real simple, easy way to meditate? Fine. Sit down on the floor, sit cross-legged and if you're, you know, you got a bad back or you got this and you can't do the lotus thing, don't worry about it. It's in the chair. Just sit down. Sit Down, get comfortable, spine straight, relaxed, palms Palms up, in your lap, get loose, get easy. You know, head upright, get comfortable. Close your eyes if you want to. If you don't, fine. Mouth slightly open. Breathe in through your nose in a slow and easy motion where there isn't the sense of breathing. So you're not getting that... But just... And then very slowly out through the mouth. Just very slowly. It's working already. Two guys just went like this. All right? And you breathe in slowly, and you breathe out slowly. Right? Very simple meditation. Count from one to four. One, two, out with two, in with three, out with four. And then start again. In with one, Out with two, in with three, out with four. I will guarantee you that the majority of the people in this room when I just counted from one to four twice didn't stay with me. You thought about something else. You found some way to object to that. You were in conflict on some level with it or you simply just started to think about him or her or it or when or how or under what circumstances you just went into something else because that's what we do. This isn't about getting good at staying on 1, 2, 3, 4 1,2,3,4 for the next 20 minutes this is about recognizing when you've wandered off accepting and acknowledging that and coming back to 1,1,2 it's not about staying at 1,234 it's about being willing to come back to it because you're never going to stay there we wander the body's being still The body doesn't like to be still. The brain subconsciously, while you're counting to four, will say, tighten up his left butt cheek. And you'll go one, two, God, my ass hurts. Never mind that. Back to one, deux, trois, quatre. Back you go. One, two. Girl in the fourth row is very attractive. Oh, sorry. Sorry. One, two... The guy over there to the left laughs a lot. I like him. He seems to be pleased with me. That's all that's required for me to like you. Shit! All right, wait. One, two... You just... Right? It's the nature of the mind to scurry about. The body doesn't want to sit still. Right? When the glute tension didn't do it, right? It'll say, make his left foot cold. What? What? Why the hell is my left foot cold? Because your brain is trying to get your ass up out of the chair to go do something. Sit still, be quiet. But if you keep coming back to this and just experience your resistance to it, which is fascinating when you think about it, that you can't sit still and be quiet for five minutes. That's alarming. It's absolutely alarming. You start to see the urgent need for the meditation. So you sit and you begin. And this will happen to you. If you do this every morning, it's going to come. You're going to sit down and you're going to count the four once. You're gonna open your eyes and it's been 20 minutes. And you're gonna feel a lot. You woke up exhausted and you sat there for 20 minutes and you got up and you feel balanced. You feel peaceful. You feel calm, but you feel a great sense of energy. Not the caffeine kick, right? This steady, smooth, easy energy is there for you. And you are going to go, wow. Wow. And you're going to be very, very comfortable with decisions that have to be made that you were really stressing about because it's just clear that this is the right thing to do for you and you can make the decision and then let it go and not sit there second-guessing yourself for the next two days. You can make a decision and move on with your life. Next. Bring it. Next. And it's okay. It's a remarkably powerful tool. Prayer and meditation. I seek God through these things. things. Why do I do that? Because without God, I'm in charge. Need I say more? Bad situation. Earl's in charge, oh God. We've seen his handiwork. Back to prayer. Turn it over to God, give give it to God, give it to God. Whatever. That's a great prayer by the way. Whatever. What does it say? Whatever. I surrender. Screw it. Take it. It's up to you. I'm your humble servant. Thy will, not mine, be done. I'm just going to go out here and attempt to maximize my service to you and my fellows. I'm going to go to these meetings not to take from them but to see what I can bring to them so that when the newcomer walks in and goes anybody in here got what Yep. And it has nothing to do with my best thinking. Good news for us all. That's cool, right? So that's what I do. I seek God through prayer and meditation to improve, to continually, to constantly, to hopefully, without ceasing, improve my conscious contact. Contact, contact awake, conscious, here, now. Conscious of a contact with a power greater than myself. You bet. You bet, I have relationships with a few of the people in this room. I can assure you that the nature of those relationships is remarkable to me. Some of the stories I can tell you about things that we've done. A buddy of mine that I haven't seen in a while, I saw him last Friday the 13th when I came here. And he said he walked in today after the break and I got to see him. And whenever I see this guy, it just lights me up. He's not in the room right now. He's in the back so I can talk about him. So when he comes in, shh. His name is Steve. Right? I love this guy. We never talk. We don't have to. He's on the planet. It's a better place for me. I love them. I just love them, we were sitting on a beach in the Bahamas one day, right? First of all, need I say more than that, right, this maniac and I are sitting on the beach sitting on an island, sitting on beach in The Bahamas, beautiful sands, water, birds, rocks, I mean, we're paradise, two pagans in the middle of paradise, right and we're sitting there, this is back when we smoked and I said, he said, so you've been smoking these Cuban cigars and I said, yeah, tasty, huh? Yeah, I love them. It's great. And we're on a little island in the Bahamas and I think it was called Eleuthera, right? That sounds like an illness, you know? Not an island, but there we were. Beautiful place. And I said do you think we could get some now these are a couple of old dope fiends, right In an hour we found Cuban cigars. We got up off the beach beach, got a ride into town, immediately went to the liquor store. Found a couple of guys. You know a guy that would know a guide that could get us right? We need to tap into the Bahamian underground, right? We're tapped in in eight minutes. We go through a store to the back of the store to meet Mama So-and-So, who knows the guy who says the word to the bartender over at the club.