Steps 11 and 12 – Big Book Study – Part 3 of 8 – Scott L and Matt C

My name's Scott Lee, and I am an alcoholic. Hi, Scott. Hi, folks. Thank you. Welcome back. I'm going to talk a couple of minutes about steps 11 and 12. We never do seem to have sufficient time. I want to just sort of reemphasize a couple of things that Bob said. On page 86 says, on awakening, I like to observe what it does not say. It doesn't say after a shower and shave, half a pot of coffee, two over easy and ham, and a fight with her. That's not what it says. It says on awakening, and I bought this particular watch actually from a company in Fort Lauderdale, strangely enough, that has multiple alarms on it. And this morning they were set 10 minutes apart. They're normally somewhere between 10 and 20. And most mornings I wake up with Ms. Linda on the other side of the bed. The second alarm is the get-up time. When the first alarm sounds, my wife and I cuddle. We do our morning prayers in each other's arms. that's exactly right if you can find a better way to start your day call me collect i want to hear it um yes an amazing way to Start the Day and uh and then the second alarm sounds and i will grant you that there are mornings where the second alarum awakens one or both of us i give you that but it doesn't say achieve through prayer and meditation it says saw it and on those mornings where one or both of us went back to sleep, we saw it. And then we get up, I shower and shave, she makes coffee, we meet on the sofa, I read my two pages in the big book, reread some other spiritual literature, ask me outside of a meeting, I'll be happy to tell you what it is. It's not appropriate here. And then, we do a different kind of meditation and that's how we start our day. We hold hands and pray over three meals a day and we pray together at night. So, we say we got God in the middle of this thing, We mean it. We're trying really hard to make that happen. Bottom of page 87, a gift from a friend of mine in my home group. It says, as we go through the day, we pause when agitated. Those three words, pause when Agitated. He took the first letters, PWA, and he used them as a screensaver on his computer screen at work. He's got PWA bouncing around in there. A couple of his coworkers came up to him one time and said, what's PWA? And he said, pause. Pause when agicated. And they said, wow. Yes. This is something else that I do, and I actually learned it from my wife. And it's the idea that you can send love. And without telling the whole thing, I actually do a meditation on it. But this idea that love comes out of heaven, it's round, it' s white, it shimmers, goes down through the top of my head and out to wherever I want to send it. And I send love to all the places I'm going to be today. I send it to this room. I send if to breakfast. I've sent it to our trip to the Miami airport, to the check in the bags, to the walk-in, to term, to flight, all the way. I've also sent it some friends of mine. I've got a couple people in need of healing now. I don't tell God to heal them. I send them love. And I had an experience a few years ago where I had an assistant and she was a very gentle spiritual woman. And we had a client that was a royal screaming pain. This woman had a national reputation. We were absolutely certain there was a broom in their parking lot. And I said that she'd been that way ever since that house fell on her sister. And we were starting every morning running this woman into the ground, hoping we didn't have to deal with her. And finally one morning Sheila said to me, wait, we're doing something. We don't believe in this. We are doing the wrong thing here. We talked about it, and that was on a Monday or a Tuesday. And we decided to start the first five minutes of every day of our business day with the phones turned off, sending love to this woman. Later that week, the woman called our office to chat. A few weeks later, I guess two months later,I went to the National Trade Show. I walked into a suite bigger than this room, a couple of hundred people in there. and this woman was bumping into people knocking them down to get to me to hug me the room came to a halt to hugme to tell me that sheila and i were the best reps in the country if she had more people like us to deal with her job would be so much better there were jaws on the floor i spent that entire weekend answering one question for 200 people what did you do how did how did you how how what what what did u do and my answer was always the same well i'll tell you but you're not going to believe it. So that's part of what I do each morning. Another gift, this is a friend of mine came to my beloved backroom group one morning. He'd just been to his grandfather's funeral and he said something struck him very hard and he approached his grandmother and he said, I think you were a fabulous wife for my grandfather. And she said, I should have been. I prayed to be that every day. Well, that hit me hard. You know, it's always about me getting to the right question. When I ask God for what he wants me to have, I get a lot of help. It's about me get into the right question. And I generalized that and I began the next morning and I do not think I've missed a morning since it's been over a decade. And i asked God to help me treasure my wife. That's the word I use. We know the word treasure is a verb. Normally we use it as a noun but treasure is kind of an unusual use for it. Within two weeks of when I started doing that, I walked through the den one day and overheard her say on the phone to somebody, Scott treasures me. When I ask God for what he wants me to have, I get a lot of gifts. Do you all talk about the next right thing? Is that something that you all hear around in meetings? We hear that a lot. I've discovered a last right thing. For me, the last right think is to go to bed at a reasonable hour and set my two alarms so that I can get a good night's sleep and awaken in the morning with plenty of time to start the next day on a spiritual basis. If I fail to do the last write thing tonight, I will not be in a position to do it again. I will do the first write thing tomorrow morning. So those mornings where I don't have time to do this stuff, the problem probably wasn't in the morning it was probably the night before um i want to share this is a gift from my wife again i'm her second i'm Her third husband she's my second wife we got history and um we dated and courted for a long time before we we got around to the physical part of the relationship we talked about that and decided it was the best way to go you know how to spot a recovery couple on their second date don't you they're pulling a u-haul that's how you can spot them and uh and we didn't do that and um when it and uh this is the way she tells i'm gonna tell her that she does but as uh as it as we finally made the decision and got to the point where we both believed that a physical exchange between a man and a woman who love each other is a gift from god and a celebration of love and we wanted to be healthy and yet the ghosts are going to show up the old haunts and the questions and all of that stuff and she prayed about it and got a gift. And this is the way Linda says it. Before we're going to have a physical exchange, I just simply say to God, please help me stay in the moment. It's Linda's bedroom prayer. And she said it takes away all the ghosts, all the what ifs, all the wondering about my history, all of the concern, will it really be okay? Did he notice I gained weight? All of that stuff that can go on. And mother nature takes care of the rest. And that's been my experience. And as you get from my wife, I had an experience when I was sober six years, I moved out of the home my first wife and I were living in. And I moved down because I was about to strike her. I'm 6 feet and 200 pounds, and she's 5'5 and 105. And she told our daughter a couple of years ago that when I got sober, I changed, and she didn't. And I think that's exactly what happened. I agree with that. And she was tearing into me one more time, and I just couldn't stand it. And I realized, I got this moment of clarity, and the moment of charity was that I'm about to give her a straight right to the face, and when she goes down, I'm going with her. She's on the way to the hospital. I'm on theway to the jail. It's a bad plan. That is a moment of clarity. That's what that is. And I did an about face and walked out the door in mid-screech and got in my car and drove away, got a newspaper, looked at the want ads, looking for apartments. 48 hours later, I moved because I knew that it was not going to be pretty. And I didn't believe in divorce. I also knew if I lived with her, it was a question of time I was going to hit her. And I did know what to do, and I did what you've taught me, is I asked God for some help. And I'm not asking you to believe this came from God. I believe it did. What I was given was three prayers, and I prayed them each morning. And the first prayer was, God, if it's your will for us to be together, put us together. The second one, God if it is your will to be apart, put us apart, those are the easy ones, here's the one that counts. God, if it's your will for me not to know today, leave me not knowing. That's the one. That'stheone. It's never been not knowing that made me crazy. It was needing to know. My sponsor said serenity is not freedom from the storm. Serenityis peace in the midst of the storm, and the only way I can have that is like Bob says, may you find him now. The now isn't when I find God, it's where, it'S to be there. and I prayed that prayer each morning and I didn't know for about two and a half years and I didn't have a girlfriend I was celibate for right at three years and that's not accurate I was actually celibat for about 1400 days one day at a time which is a very different thing it's a very very different thing but I was able to pray that prayer and mean it and be at peace not knowing and whenever I have a big deal I believe in big deals I hear people say there aren't any God bless you uh i mean my daughter shot herself i sponsored two men she's doing all right she just had brain surgery again but she's done fine i sponsored too many of head teenage sons killed don't be saying there are no big deals in front of those guys don't do that there are big deals i think that's why i need a program that's what i need to sponsor that's where i have to do the steps that's how i have this daily program of action because they're big deals when i'm in the middle of a big deal. When I can pray that prayer, God, if it's your will for me not to know today, leave me not knowing and mean it, I can be at peace in the midst of the storm. It's one of the most powerful lessons I ever got. I'll talk very briefly because we are going to be tight on time and I apologize for that and I'm also thrilled about it. This has been an absolutely spectacular weekend for me. I have gotten... No, oh no, not that, not for that. But I have received in large measure i think one of the great spiritual truths is you cannot give without receiving and you cannot receive without giving i do not believe it's possible um it says 12 having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs i wonder sometimes as i look at that if that's so much something i'm instructed to do or description who I will become as the result of these steps, and I kind of lean toward the latter, that that's who I've become. I'm someone who tries to carry this message to alcoholics, and I try to practice these principles in all my affairs, which would be different from practicing them in all of my affairs. Talk a little bit about sponsorship. I don't find the word in the basic text. I find the description on page 96. i've been talking for several pages about a 12-step call somebody said they were willing to talk to us walked over talked about my drink and he talked about his we laughed a little we cried a little left him the book middle paragraph suppose you're now making your second visit to a man so that was the first he says he has read this volume says he's prepared to go through with the 12 steps of the program of recovery so there's the definition of the programme again laid out very clearly. And for me, it defines someone who's responsible. He's read this book. By the way, have you ever had the experience of trying to read something and your eyes are moving across the page and your mind is moving across the universe? Have you had that one? Read out loud and that will trap your mind in the moment. The retention is so much higher. A lot of times I require the new guys to read out loud when I am reading the big book. But look at me for a second if you would. It says he has read this said he's prepared to go through with the 12 steps. I'll go through. Okay, that'll be great. We'll take that. We don't get that many eager ones. So we'll settle for go through width. So for me, it defines someone who's responsible. He's made an attempt to read this book. He understands the 12 Steps are the program and he's prepare to go thru with them. Great. Then it defines sponsor. To me, says having had the experience yourself, you can give me much practical advice. What experience? Experience of going through the 12 steps? What advice? Advice on how to go through the twelve steps. Sponsorship in two sentences. Don Roy was my sponsor, spiritual advisor, confidant of Don Pritz for a number of years and was on his deathbed when I was sober 11 years and I wasn't even thinking about looking for another sponsor And he went home to die. I mean, that was it. The discussion was had. We can make him comfortable. That's it. I'm not even looking for a sponsor. I can't imagine the world without this man. If you read all of AA's literature, you'll be reading some of his handwriting. He was involved in some of the pamphlets. This is the guy. And he died, and I don't have a sponsor, only so for 11 years. Boy, that's not enough to be unsponsored. I guarantee you that because within two weeks, I was as squirrely as a tall oak. I mean I was weirded out. and uh i um i started looking around for a sponsor and i don't know what i'm looking for and don had been my fifth sponsor and I got a gift and the gift was that I sat down in inventory the five men who'd sponsored me at that time I had had the five finest sponsors any man has ever I've been the victim of fabulous sponsorship from the very beginning and uh these were different as individuals but they had some common characteristics and I was able to ferret them out and figure out what they were and so he told me what I was looking for and I'm going to share them with you just this is what I look for in a sponsor they were all sober men I don't sponsor women I don' t have women sponsors I know people that do I don''t have an opinion on that but I haven't seen an unattractive woman since the summer I turned 12 years old and I just don't need to get confused about what we're doing here it's life or death so it's a sober man who's done the 12 steps at my home group They say you can't anymore give away something you ain't got, and you come back from somewhere you ainít been. So I've got to have a sober man who's done the 12 steps, who has a sponsor himself. I hope it means he's surrendered. I guarantee it means the day I take him to the question he can't answer, we've got a plan. It's got to be someone who will tell me the truth I don't want to hear. Bob just talked about that. I got a phone call eight years ago from a guy I used to drink with, and he said, I'm serious, I'M in treatment, would you sponsor me? And I said, we're not friends starting right now because I'm going to make suggestions and you're going to take them as orders so this isn't going to work. He's carrying an eight-year chip now, and it's not because I'M a genius. It's because what's in this book works. There's got to be somebody who'll tell me the truth I do not want to hear. Got to be someone who's active in service. My sponsor said the only thing attitude and gratitude have in common is they rhyme. That's all. He said gratitude is not an attitude, it's an action. Gratitude is take a meeting into a jail, a prison, a treatment center, or an insane asylum, a hospital room. Gratitude is show up at central office and answer the phones. Gratitudes is go early to your home group and set up the chairs and make the coffee and snatch the newcomers out of the door and give them sponsors. It's do something. All the winners in my eyes are doing something to give it back. They go out of their way that somebody else might have a chance at this thing. It's one of the characteristics. And the sixth one, page 132. in the dead center of the page that would be 17 lines from the top and bottom and two words in from both margins says we absolutely insist on enjoying life i've got to have a sponsor that laughs a lot because i believe laughter is the sound effect of recovery that doesn't mean they don't cry it doesn't means hard things don't hit them but by and large they're having a really good time i mean why did you drink all that stuff was it to have good time do you still want to have a good time get a sponsor that's having a good time i don't see i've seen people get sour puss sponsors and i can't figure that out to save me i watch it at my home group and just shake my head i do not i guess it's masochism i can'T figure it out but so for me it's a silver man who's done the steps who has a sponsor who'll tell me the truth i don'T want to hear who's active in service work who laughs a lot and there stood ice cream steve and i said would you sponsor me and he said no and he said i'll pray about it call me tomorrow. And he said, okay, I'll sponsor you. And I said, give me my marching orders. Tell me what you want me to do, not do. And don't give me 150 hoping I'll do a hundred. Give me 150. I'll do 200. I'm surrendered to you starting right now because that's what I do. And he started laying it out. I want you to open and close your days following the directions on 86 and 87. I wants you in so many jails a month. I once you in some of these treatment centers a month, he started to lay so many meetings. He started laying them out. And one of the things he gave me was the exact opposite of what Don had me doing exact opposite. I didn't even tell him. I just started doing it the other way. He didn't know. A year later, I spoke at a conference, and I mentioned that when I talked, and it was recorded, and he got the tape. And he called me, and He said, I've got you doing something that's the exact opposite of what Don had you doing. I said, That's right. And he didn't ask me what it was, andI didn't tell him. I am not telling you. Because that's not the point. The point is my sponsor's final authority on my program of recovery, And I don't argue with him. I don' t argue with him. And it's so important to me. It's been necessary for me to change sponsors a couple of times. Some of the, I think some of the most beautiful things I've had to say this weekend came from the man I'm about to talk about. And I changed sponsors because I realized that he was sleeping with new women and he was married. And I judged him. And I learned so much from him and God bless him. And so it was necessary for me to change. It was necessary for me to do that. It was for me to change another time because the guy was just unavailable. It's one of the most, that stuff I talk about on six and seven is from Mike and he just wasn't available and I called him on a Friday night, Friday afternoon to tell him I was changing sponsors and I left him a voicemail. It was the following Tuesday afternoon when he returned my call and I was in the middle of a divorce at that time and he was still one of the most spiritual men I'll ever know but he had so much going on in his life that I wasn't getting what I needed. And, and I've been dropped a couple of times for that reason. I travel a lot. I think that's an excellent reason to change. And I said to him, because Don told me how to change sponsors. How do you, how do you do that? And you say, thank you. Thank you for all I've learned from you. Thank you. For the time you've taken with me. Thank you. God knows you've been a blessing in my life, but it's only fair for me to tell you I've asked someone else to sponsor me. Adults do not have to answer questions. If he had asked any questions, I would have told him. I think he knew why. Also, if he goes nuts about that, it's a clear indication I've done the right thing because it'll mean he's got his ego tied up and sponsoring me. And by the way, he's gotta sponsor to process all that with or I wouldn't let him sponsor me in the first place. That's what I've learned about that. So it's been necessary for me to change a couple of times and yet I've got a guy I've been sponsoring for 21 1⁄2 years. I had a long conversation with him last night. So some do, some don't. I think you're on your second sponsor? Yeah, I'm on my seventh. I've had a couple die. It's been necessary for me to change for other reasons. I'm not hiding any of that. That's just how it's been for me. But I think the critical piece is that I have a sponsor today. I'm in contact with him, and he's final authority on my program recovery. I want to talk about something that's pretty controversial again. I seem to draw that. i had an experience at five years over this mike i was just telling you about i was sober five years and i called him one day i said rata da da da this guy i'm sponsoring what should i do and he said drop him and i said come on mike i'm being serious i'm you know i'm trying to help this guy what should I do and he says drop him. And I said I don't believe you and he said believe me I said i don't leave you this is the most spiritual man I had known in my life at this point and I said I don't get it and he said he asked me a series of questions he said what are you asking him to do that he's not doing and I said well let's see call me every day look for a job call his parole officer go to a meeting every day start his fourth step and and open and close his days following the directions on 86 and 87 they said how much of that's he doing I say he's doing any of it he said you are not his sponsor he is you are his fire chief and when his tail feathers are ablaze he calls you and siphons off some of your serenity and puts out his fire and goes right back to doing it his way and you are not helping him and and then he said how do you feel when you work with him and i said i feel like they pull the corks out of my heels and the blood ran out i feel like he just drained just i get feel wrung out and he said well how do you feel when you work with Bill K? And I said, man, he lights me up. He said, really? And what are you asking Bill to do that he's not doing? I said well Bill's doing it all. He said uh-huh sure he is. He said you can generally tell how you feel working with somebody whether you're the sponsor or being sponsored. Not all the time but generally should feel like something's going on and this one clearly isn't. You're just being drained. And then he said could you stay sober on the program that guy's working? And I said, no, I don't think so. He said, can he? And I said I don' t think so." He said you are probably right and when he drinks again he could go to prison or kill somebody or kill himself and you're going to have to sleep knowing that you told him the truth because the truth is he's in the fellowship of AA because he says he's in it but he ain't in the program because he's not letting you coach him through it and he doesn't have a sponsor because he isn't doing what you ask him to do and you You are currently co-signing a lie. And I went with heavy heart to tell this guy that I wasn't going to sponsor him anymore. And the next time I saw him, he bounced off of both sides of the door coming into the clubhouse. He was so drunk, he couldn't walk well and was arrested out of the building. His car was parked up against somebody else's in the parking lot. That's the last time I see that guy. I did not throw away his chance at recovery, he did. And we've got a guy that shows up, he's just been there recently, a guy shows up at my my home group every six months to two years, and we have the same conversation every time. He says, now I know I didn't do what you said last time, but I'm really serious this time about you being my sponsor. Please, if you, I'll do anything you say. I'll say, okay, I want you to read, and I'll just make something up. I want você to read the first eight pages in Bill's story. I wants you to look up two words in the dictionary on every page. Call me tonight at 815. I wonder what the words are. Well, he didn't call, and he doesn't think he's got a sponsor, andI don't think so either, and l'm not throwing away his chance because the first time he calls, we're going to rock and roll. Yeah. I cannot be co-signed in any lies. The other side of that piece is that the next time he wakes up in a jail cell in a pool of his own blood and vomit, I want him to have three options. And the options are to continue to live that way, to commit suicide or to try the program of Alcoholics Anonymous knowing he hasn't tried it because I told him the truth. Because if I don't tell him the truth, I've signed his death warrant. And that's the way it is. Before you come to disagree with me on that, I'd ask you to read the middle paragraph on page 95 and the top of 96. We're not going to go there, but if you want to argue with me about that one, please read those paragraphs first. Here's another piece too. I had an experience a few years ago and I went to this guy. Whenever I go to drop one, I always go with a heavy heart. And I hope he's going to say, no, no. Please don't drop me i'll do anything you say that's what i want him to say because i'm going to give him an assignment i want you to read these four pages look up two where i want something that then when he calls me tonight we're going to know if he did it or not both of us and um this guy said no no please i'll doing anything and he did he did for about two weeks and then i realized i'm putting more energy into his recovery than he is again and um so i dropped him again he's no no i'll do anything and needed for about 2 weeks and we did that cycle a number of times i talked to my sponsor about it and uh there's a country song entitled give me one more last chance and uh and he said you've just given him his very last chance and don't tell him that and the next time you have to drop him make it stick you're going to last chance him into his grave and the Next time I went to him I said I said Jerry it ain't working I'm dropping you so no no I'll do anything I said no no Jerry this time it sticks I'm killing you and I sincerely hope that you get a sponsor that you'll surrender to and do what he says. And Jerry will tell you today I saved his life that day. He went to another long-term member of my home group and surrendered. And he tells the story every time he gets the chance. He says, I was killing him because he was faking it, doing that thing. I was co-signing the lie. I have coached all of the men that I sponsored through dropping somebody at least once. And I tell them, I hope it tears your guts up. I hope it makes you sick at your stomach. A guy whose sponsor I sponsored called me two weeks ago. He couldn't get hold of his sponsor. He was literally as thick as his stomach. He had just had to drop one for that reason, and I said, good. I'm so glad to hear that. I hope it tears you apart because who are you if it doesn't? Doing the right thing doesn't always feel good. It doesn't always feel great, but it is so critically important because now my job is to make it easy for him to come back, and the first piece is I've got to tell him the truth. I don't drop people lightly. I have never dropped one for drinking. I think that's stupid. Of course he's drinking. Let's get him into this program of recovery. One of the things I like to do and I'd like to suggest for people who've been around for a while and just keep going through the washing machine, we call it intensive care. One or two of us will take them on a Saturday morning about 7 in the morning and about dark that day they're on step 9. And we just let them drink out of the fire hose. Get them going on this thing. you ever wonder how your sponsor knows every time that you're full of it? I'm going to tell you. There's a phrase that a sponsee uses that lights up the sponsor, that everything after is BS. And the phrase is, yes but. Everything after yes but is BS, and it's always that way. Page 164. We could do a whole weekend just on step 12. We don't have the time. This, I told you earlier, they sneak into my bedroom and add stuff to the big book that wasn't here. They added this in June two years ago. For those of you who may have missed it, I I think it should be a grapevine feature, you know, new stuff in the big book this month. First full paragraph, still you may say, but I will not have benefit of contact with you who write this book. We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you must remember that your real reliance is always upon him. And then they added this. He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave. Crave is a powerful word. I tell my earthling friends that I don't think they should use it because they don't know what it means. They don't. I say, you want to know what CRAVE is? Hold your breath for the next five minutes. For the last 30 seconds of that, you'll know what GRAVE means. We know what TRAVE is. I have craved fellowship all my life. I've never had it, but I've craved it. At one time in my Air Force career, I was flying a mission that was classified above top secret and some stuff, kind of one of those really secret things. And there were other flyers on my base who were not on my crew who were bugging the guys on my crew to change with them so they could fly with me. And I never felt like I belonged. Never felt like a belonging. Never had fellowship in my whole life. I got to hang out with you, but I'm doing this act. I'm showing you this act over here, and I'm during the act all the time. And I do the act, and physically I get to hangout with you. But I don't get to participate in fellowship because only this part can participate in fellowship, and ain't showing it to you. And what I learned here was to show you this part. This is the only place I've ever felt safe to show you this part. And I didn't get here feeling that way. I've grown into it. And I've shown you some of the worst things in my inventory this weekend. I'm quite comfortable with it. And I am participating in fellowship because I'm showing you this part. One of the hardest lessons for me was that choice is always plural. Whenever I choose anything, I choose all the things that go with it, and I also choose to have none of the things that can't go with it. I've got to be very careful with my choices. Bob mentioned something that a friend of mine says, is that most of the problems I have today are actually solutions that I chose to previous problems. Mess with that a little bit and see what you get as you look around at the problems you've got. You know, you've Got a Problem at Work? Well, you applied there. And I think you'll find that that one holds some truth. One more quick one, and I'll turn it over to Bob. At my home group, they tell us the difference between a good habit and a bad habit. Do you know the difference? Good habits are easy to break. If I'm going to have a good habit, I'm gonna have to pay the price and continue to do it. I read two pages a day in the big book. You know how you do that? You read two pages every day. You don't miss it. Yeah, one at a time. You don' t miss any days. That's it. Bob.