Studying the Book Line by Line for the Primary Purpose – Katie P.

feisty little firecracker just like myself, if not more so. Matter of fact, passionate, excited, enthusiastic about recovery has been through hell and high water and has stayed sobering, continue to be of service and practice these principles in all our affairs. Oh, Lord of Jesus, have mercy. I'm excited to hear your experience, strength, and hope tonight because I know you have a lot of it so everybody please help me welcome I believe my trudging buddy uh Katie Parker come on up thank you I uh I'm Katie Parker I'm alcoholic I I gotta tell you Teresa and I are Thelma and Louise okay if you're ever wondering Thelmo and Louise going over the over the, you know, I guess it was the dead end of a mountain, but we have served together on many podiums and had a ball, and we are exactly alike. So, you Know, if you ever get in a pinch, just call either one of us in, and We'll kick some serious ass. You Know, I got to tell you, once again, Ali, thank you for this invite. I am unable to say no to Ali. I told him earlier, It's like I'm in a blackout. You know, this is the night of my home group and I chair the meeting. So I was like, I had told him yes. Then I spoke in Toronto and we had lunch together and he said, Katie, you are still speaking on Tuesday. And I said, when did I say yes to that? And he told me and I thought, well, son of a gun. It's in my phone, I guess. Yes, I am. So Ali, this is it, buddy. I can't surrender Tuesday again. I'm always honored. It's a huge privilege to come to this meeting. I hate that it's on the night of my home group, but thank you for asking me. I have been sober since October the 28th 1984. This year, October 28th, I will celebrate 40 years of recovery. That is mind-blowing to me. I mean, I swear I'm like blown away that I have 40 years. Where did it all go? I love that we are able to share our experience and what our paths look like because everybody has just a different experience in their path. My home group is the primary purpose group. We study the book line by line in Austin, Texas at 730 on Tuesday nights at Faith United Methodist Church, which is now called the Austin New Church. But if you ever get a chance, come on by. So many people come into that meeting and visit with us. It's really just wonderful. We study the book line-by-line and we talk about what the founders found necessary in the book. Interesting way to learn the book, little bit different than an open discussion meeting. My husband Charlie always like to say I was a little bit like taking a drink out of a fire hose. I'm a lot coming at you and that's just accurate. You know, I like to say I'm not the power. I merely the vessel to get you connected to the power that I can help you with. I don't want to be the power I don' t want to tell you what boy to date, what car to buy, what job to take. I do think I know what boy today but we'll leave it at that. And so the truth is I want to help you get connected to the power so the power can answer those questions. Just very briefly, you know, I was 26 years old. I chased a boy into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. He had six years. I had a five-year-old daughter who I absolutely loved my daughter with. She was an anchor. That's how it was. I treated her like that. She just stood in the way of me and drinking. I was a single mom and I know pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization. You can't help it when you look in the eyes of a kid when you're just drunk all the time, loaded all the time. And so I like to qualify by saying when I start I can't stop and I can'T stop starting. You know, it's interesting. I moved into this room and a buddy of mine took a picture. He had me yesterday or day before I did another talk, and he took a picture of it. His daughter walked in, and it was up on the TV, and he said, Dad, is that Miss Katie? And he sent me the picture, and I thought, oh my God, my head is this big, and my glasses are this big. So I have moved away from the screen, and I put on a different pair of glasses. I'm like, oh, that was just a lot of noggin coming at you. Dr. Bob says he made a statement that I think is profound, and its got a lot of legs to it. He said that the directions are clear cut, but everybody has a different experience. And I think not that I'm here to find anything wrong with Alcoholics Anonymous, but I think a lot of things are misunderstood. So it's not right or wrong. My gosh, I was all over the place for many, many years. And today I'd like to think I have settled on some clear guidance, but I misunderstood a lot of stuff. And I Think sometimes people call me and they say, Katie, I was just wondering if you've ever had experience with this, and I understand what the purpose of that means. Sexual abuse as a child, physical abuse, those things are horrific. Those things need specific people to talk to them, but the rest of life falls under a lot of what the book is telling us and what the guidance of the book is, right? That's all we need is the guidance of the book. So I don't have to have been divorced to talk to you about divorce. I don'T have to have been fired to talk TO YOU ABOUT FIRED. That's the kind of thing I think we get lost in. Spiritual growth comes like maturity. So in your 20s, you're bulletproof. In your 30s, you start trying to define your life. In Your 40s, You start looking back and seeing what you think about it, which by the way, I think I'm 66. The 40 decades were clearly the best. Not that 66 is not bad, but the skin I can just do without. So you got your 40s and your 50s, you start really chilling out. And in your 60s, You're looking back and life is just not a big deal most of the time. Well, spiritual growth comes the same way, except it comes in the fives. So I think it's zero to five. You have an experience. Five to 10, you have another experience. 10 to 15, another experience And what tends to happen is the gifts of sobriety take you away. So around double digits, 10 years, you will watch people crash and burn and they don't know what's happening. They didn't pick up a dream. Managing their life so much that everyone is bugging the crap out of them. And what used to work at three years doesn't work at five years. What used to works at five year doesn't works at ten years. And that's what I'm talking about. So, you know, Mark was really big about saying, you know, turn statements into questions. Ask yourself, has that been your experience or have you just coasted since you were five years sober? I think it's necessary for spiritual growth to hit walls. This is an 11th step talk, which I love because you got to kind of add on the front end of it before you jump into the 11th steps so you kind of understand what you're looking for. I think It's easier to get an alcoholic to stop drinking than it is to get one of us to quit playing God. That's the hardest role in the whole wide world. Alcohol was the solution, not the problem. Alcohol is the only thing that treated the pain of living my life on self-will, self-reliance, right? It says you got to understand that third step. Once again, I took most of the steps off the wall. So it said, you know, turn my will and my life over to care of God as I understood him. That is the third step, let's do it, hit your knees, I didn't understand what the root of my problem was. Says in the third step that the first requirement is that Katie's got to be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis, I'm almost always in collision with somebody or something, even though my motives are good. I'm like, what? Who would want to surrender self- will? I mean, I, I tell you what? If I laid out my whole life, you would go no way. Yeah. Yep. Way. I left home at 15. The principal still let me go to school. I graduated. I cheated through school. I got jobs nobody thought I could get. It was unbelievable what I was capable of pulling off. And when somebody explained self-will, I'm not doing it. I'm just not doing it. You guys might need to, but I don't have the selfishness and self-centered you talk about, right so the way the way self shows up behind a kind motive is let's you hold a door for somebody which apparently has become a male female thing it's just common courtesy people has nothing to do with who's holding the door but you hold the door for someone you expect them to say thank you or they just bust on through and you're like wow what the heck was that in traffic you let somebody in right you give them the wave and come on in and you expect one of these not that or you're on the hike and bike trail and you see a plastic bottle and you pick it up, throw it away. But when you pick It up, you kind of pose. I'm the giver, I'll go throw it away. See, we don't these are subtle little ideas to watch for it. But I don't realize behind a kind motive that this is what I'm getting myself in trouble with. And the third step, what I call the second surrender is selfishness and self centeredness that we think is the root of our trouble, right? Do you believe that? I'm driven by so many forms of fear. It would be too difficult to figure it out, right. I don't think too much of myself or too little of myself. All I think about is me, right, self-centered fear. I'm scared to death. I get it now. I am scared to death.I'm going to lose it. I never lost the fear and the book warns me I'm going to get angry and afraid. I do not have the freedom to stay there. The book is always implying trouble, right? It's always implying trouble. And it talks about those mere code of morals or better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism. Many of us would have recovered long ago. Somebody just saying, well, doggone it, I'm just not going to be as selfish. I'm juste going to be a giver. And then before you know it, you're resentful at everybody. The book is talking about a lot about different ways that it's not it's a dilemma, right. Page 25 says, blot out our intolerable situation or accept spiritual help. Intolerable situation. Take a minute to think what's intolerable in your life. Crushed by a self-imposed crisis I couldn't postpone or evade. God's either everything or he's nothing. These are two very bad situations. And then page 133, the deliberate manufacturing of misery. God didn't do it, but when trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize on it so you can show his omnipotence. That is not a good day. You see, it's either it sucks here or accept God. They both don't look good when you're in trouble. If I need 200 bucks by tomorrow, I'm not gonna just go, boy, God can figure out how I can get that 200 bucks. I'm gonna start pawning some stuff. And see, that's not good, bad, right, wrong. That's just something I have to look at. Now, granted, I'm older, I'M wiser. I've got a lot of spiritual work behind me. So when trouble comes, I can pause most of the time. Currently with my current situation, haven't lost Charlie. I've not lost it, which is a big deal. But boy, have I wanted to in my head. I mean, what the verbiage in my hand has been very challenging and yet it hasn't come out. So I'm giving myself an A check. There's something that I like. It's that there's a direct link among self-examination, meditation and prayer. So you really can't talk about 11 without talking about 10, right? Because you've got to know what you're taking into 11. Taken separately, they can bring much relief and benefit. But when they're interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation of life. I like to talk briefly about, I think a lot of people do on awakening because I did this myself. I talked to enough people in the country that it's a pretty majority. We just want to sit in prayer and meditation, read a couple of cool spiritual books, you know, and then maybe do a three-minute breath work and rock on. And that's a good practice, except that's chicken soup for the soul type practice. The book is trying to get us to understand that I must take yesterday into today. I have to take the good, the bad, the right, the wrong into today, And in the 10th step, it talks about it's easy to let up on this spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. Very easy. That's the only time it says something that's easy. and it says we're headed for trouble if we do. Alcohol is a subtle foe. Subtle means crafty and don't lose sight on what that's, that's a straight up warning. It says, is he in the third step, it says, Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Well, victim is I'm tricked or duped by my delusional mind and I can seize by force, right? Rest that satisfaction about being right. You know, people say, would you rather be right or happy? Well, first of all, I'd like to slap you when you say that when I got a big problem, but if you want to know the truth, I want to be right. And if happiness follows, lucky me. I mean, that's just being honest. Now that's not what you see me do. I'm completely different when I'm showing up, but what's going on up here is a whole nother ball game. And I love the word delusion. You know, it says we're tricked. We're a victim of our own delusion? It says an impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is accepted as reality. Typically a symptom of a mental disorder. I mean, those are my people. That's all I can say. He says the 10th and 11th. Now think about this. The idea of watching for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear is much different than waiting for it to show up. This is a difficult practice. We're trying to get into watching the mind, right? Watch for resentment, dishonest, selfishness and fear and when these crop up. So we're watching for it, not waiting for me to step on somebody's toes. This practice is so difficult. I encourage people to just do it for an hour. Don't go past an hour don't think you know i'm going to start watching from here on out, won't happen. You'll fall back asleep and dream you're awake. You just won't. It's a very difficult practice. It is right up there with somebody saying I need to lose 30 pounds so I'm going to eat good, I'm gonna go to the gym, I am going to start getting sleep. All of it is going to be a failure. You have to just eat a meal right now. That's it. If you are going to the gyms at 6 o'clock don't think about that until you are getting ready to go to the gym it's got to be broke down and that's the whole point of the steps is to get us to try to stay in the moment right oh well there's my dog uh the promise it oh and the cat just shot under the bed wait i i think somebody's here it's like well isn't that just great okay so the promises is that we begin to sense the flow of his spirit into us to some extent we become god conscious Though I remember those two words together, I didn't understand. It was like I was speaking Swahili or someone was talking to me speaking Swohili. God consciousness? I mean, can we call it good consciousness? Sure. Whatever works for you to get this process started. It talks about our thought life will be placed on a higher plane, right? We've begun to develop this vital sixth sense. We had it drunk and sober. Let's do that. You knew drinking. Don't go. Don't get behind the wheel of that car. We heard that voice. See, God loves us no matter what, period. That's it. I won't surrender the God. You can call it whatever you want to call it. I call it God. And this thought life and God conscious life are two very interesting things to consider, because my thought life is constantly running. My God conscious is when I bring God into this situation and begin the process of understanding what is my thinking? What's going on here, God? Redirect my thinking. So this 11th step, if you take it off the wall, you may misunderstand it like I did. That's why I said when we retire at night, because I think three-fourths of Alcoholics Anonymous since think the 10th step is the evening review. And I could give you the nine reasons why I think that happened. I thought it was too and I wasn't doing it anyway. So don't hear me judging anybody. I mean, I remember somebody having an argument in a meeting that the 10th step is this the evening review? And I'm thinking, who cares? We're not doing it anyway. Come on. You know, I mean that, that was my AA for a good 17 years. Right? So the 11th step in the book suggests prayer and meditation. And I don't think meditation in, in the thirties was what meditation is today but you know be it what it is the dictionary for meditation was use an example like a general meditates the war for the next day he's making sure that all his equipment is in place that his men are in the right place he's considering what's going on in that day I don't know that it's the sit quiet and levitate if you do that practice that's totally fine. I don't think that's what the book's talking about. You get to add anything into your 11th step that you want, but we're talking prayer and meditation. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than us are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it. Well, now that attitude is a pretty powerful word in the book. On page 55, it says we can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps sweep away prejudice. Now, think about that. We agnostics is not so much about trying to get us to understand about this religious God. It's trying to getting us to look at our prejudice. Watch yourself throughout this talk, what you agree and what you disagree with me. Now keep it to yourself, but that's what we do is when somebody's talking, we just judge it the entire time. And that's not a good thing or a bad thing. It''s just a thing to be aware of. So it says if our testimony helps sweep away prejudice. Enable you to think honestly, which would allude to the fact that maybe I can't think honestly. What would be the opposite of that? And then encourage you to search diligently within yourself. That's the swallowing and digesting large chunks of truth about yourself. One of the coolest things about our steps, it tells us when to take them, how to take him. I mean, this is a textbook. It's not designed to be sat down and read. It is designed to be studied and follow the directions. My buddy Blind Dave does this really cool thing with the three-tier fountain, and the top tier is your evening review. Your second tier is on awakening, and your third tier is the 10th step, the drama of life, right? And the water comes out and it flows to the evening review, it goes into on awakening and it comes down to the drama of life. If you stick your finger in the hole where the water's coming out, everything stops, which tells you that the evening review, I think is the most important thing to do. It just gives us too many questions that we have to stay accountable to. When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Constructively is a powerful word. It doesn't just say we review our Day. They want you to spend a little bit of time, 15 minutes. I think pen to paper is the magic that happens there. Don't underestimate pen to paper. This texting and apps and stuff not a fan of it and i will stand firm on that as a matter of don't even bring that to my attention i disagree with it pen to paper is magical and spiritual it says we were where were we resentful selfish dishonest and afraid where what why what did i do what was i thinking and i like to write just some one-liners about that not just a yes or a no do i owe an apology Maybe I do. You know, you don't want to fall on your sword all the time going back cleaning stuff up. I'd like to do it in a moment. Have we kept something to ourselves which should have been discussed with another person? Right there is the 10th step, right? Did you do a 10th steps? And then there's five more questions. I also caution people on don't answer all those questions for months on end. Make it more personal because prayer and meditation on awakening evening review get very stale if you're not careful. And I think it gets stale in about six weeks. So you've got to start kind of adding a different spiritual teacher in your literature, not every six weeks, but maybe another book that they wrote. Start to read a paragraph. Ask yourself what each line means to you. You must study these things. It's really, really something so personal. And I'm a huge fan of studying. I love Emmett Fox. I don't know why he spoke to me. Thomas Merton didn't touch me. Eckhart Tolle, not even close. But everybody's unique. So if they touch you, man, rock on, stick with them. It also goes on to say there's a warning, but we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse and morbid reflection because that'll make me feel bad. No, it's not useful. Diminish your usefulness to others. This is so important. oh well there's oh there it goes so this is where uh when it's just you it's like okay it's me and the dog dog's gonna go have to answer the door uh so then it talks about these corrective measures God's forgiveness we have to be careful not to just take that and go God's forgiveness as Fonzie and I were talking about that today she goes she said it three times She goes, and I asked God's forgiveness. And I go, you're saying that kind of like, you know, pass the ketchup. What does, what's that look like? And when she finally started seeing that, she goes, wow, I really am just making that a formality. Check it off the list. We all go through that. That's why we help each other so much. She can do something that I know exactly what's going on because I just did it. So we're looking for these corrective measures to take when we're doing this evening review and then it says on awakening right so on awakening it gives us clear-cut directions and i like to start my own awakening i caution you to be very careful not to look at your phone i use the insight timer app and i have to be Very careful to just open it and that's it if i scroll the top down where it says who's emailed you who's texted you I'm dead in the water. Man, I miss that brief moment of time to not do anything but be me and God on awakening three minute breath right then. And then it says we consider our plans for the day. I like to do three pads. Now, once again, I get to tell you my practice. You don't have to take it, but it's nice just to have something thrown out there for you to look at and consider. So I got the one pad that's my evening review that's going to have my corrective measures on it right and then I have a second pad that is my to-do list because I don't care who you are if I think oh my god I got to remember to go by and get laundry detergent that can derail my entire meditation so I just put laundry detergen set it aside back to focus so I have it to do list over there to just get that stuff out of my mind so it's not bogging me down while I'm trying to get connected. And then my on awakening is I've turned it into love letters. So I write a love letter to God. It's the two-way prayer concept that Bill Wigmore does a beautiful job at teaching. I've just condensed it for my own personal use, which I hope that's what you do with anything I suggest. Make it yours because this is designed to be you and your creator. You got Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism Christianity whatever you want throw yourself into it mix it all up get it all I love I typically lean towards uh Christianity but I love uh Michael Sawyer I think it is the untethered soul it's all about spiritual principle and spiritual principle to me is what it's all about. Spiritual laws have changed my life and I don't have the time to read them But in Emmett Fox, around the world with Emmett fox, it's from January 26, I believe to the 31st are all the laws or you can email me and I can send them to you. I've got them typed up. So it's talking about these love letters to God. So I decide what I'm going to call God. I call God Father God. He calls me my child. Dear one, you can do whatever floats your boat. And you could say, you know, dear spirit, whatever it is. And then I just start writing that love letter to God about my mind. And let me tell you something, I am in a challenging spot right now. I've just, it's a lot of things are going on in my life, very difficult decisions needing to be made. And I'm having a really tough time and I'm in a very flat spot. That has not been the way it has since I lost Charlie. But right now that's how it is. And I am, I'm definitely scared, but I know because I'm old enough and I've been sober long enough that I'm taken care of. But I'm just a little scared, and I've got to make some decisions. And I'm asking for an intuitive thought or decision, and then I'm relaxing and taking it easy during prayer and meditation. And this love letter's got it beautifully. And then when I'm out of the love letter, I typically read a piece of Emmett Fox. He just, like I said, he speaks to my soul. And you know, paragraph, go back through, ask yourself what each line means to you. That's how you study don't just read a page you just read for knowledge and um and then I write my love letter back from God and he always it's it's so profound it's a completely audibly different voice it is so clear the voice of God and I just let the pen write I don't even think about it and I have people do this practice you don't have you can be blocked and you'll steer her still hear the voice of God. And then after I'm done, I open Jesus Calling. I like to just open it to a page. I've never liked to follow April 2nd. So I just open it to a Page and he affirms exactly what I wrote. I mean, to the point to where by this point now I'm crying. I'm so connected to my Creator, even though I feel lost and hopeless at times, I'm still deeply connected because I don't ever surrender 10th Step on Awakening Evening Review. I don' t surrender those, but it took me years to get into that. I don''t have two kids running around. I don'T have to be out the door at 6 a.m. There's a lot of things that come into your life that derail this stuff, so be easy on yourself. Don't be hard on yourself. Don't not do it. I don ''t care if you're at work and then you have 15 minutes for a coffee break. Go sit in your car. Listen to some quiet music. try to connect the best you can. And then throughout the day, it's Charlie loved this phrase pars. It's a spiritual gift. Pause asks for mind and say when I'm agitated or doubtful and today in life, I'm way more doubtful than I am agitated. Should I do this? Father God, what's your direction? If I hear nothing, I'll do nothing or I listen. So if you ask, you must watch. See, these two must go together. You know, people are like, I've been praying the whole time for it. Well, I think you might be praying and falling back asleep. You got to pray and watch, pray and watch. Watch your thinking, watch your surroundings. All of these people in the world, my life and me and theirs for a reason. I try to have conversations with everybody I'm by. I do a hike and bike trail thing. I love my hike and hike, me and the dog every morning. We do our little deal. And the guy that comes by at the city of Austin and empties the trash can. Thank you so much for that, man. Without you, we'd be lost. I don't say that to him. I just say, hey, buddy, thanks. Right. But to me, I don'T know that anybody on that trail thinks about that. We've been given this incredible second chance in life. You know, take it with zeal. Talk to strangers. Return calls. Get to know people in your home group there. this is a world you don't want to miss if you're feeling flat study a vision for you that is what this is all about this is going to take the place of all that ho-hum stuff people go oh i've got an anxiety disorder oh i'm just pushing the room boy i'm right one girl said that at the international one time she wouldn't walk in the big room she goes i didn't even know who she was i go what's going on she goes I can't do it I can'T do it and I mean I just got behind her and pushed her and She's doing this number, you know? And then she got in there and go, now that wasn't so bad, was it? And she goes, no, it really wasn't. Now, thank God she didn't have a nervous breakdown right then and then I'd have felt terrible. But you know, nine out of 10 times it does go well and nobody's going to the hospital or being arrested. That's a good thing. Now, I want to read these things. I told myself I'm saving five minutes. I'm a huge fan of affirming. So when I watch my thinking, I tap the brakes. God, I'm not willing to believe this delusional lie And then I affirm something positive because of spiritual law. I believe so strongly in it. So if you are estranged from your family and you want to get this relationship back together, you have to affirm that this is happening. We have a great relationship. People go, well, I don't believe it. I don'T care. You don'T have to believe it, you just have to do it. So I've got enough time to read these two. I get thousands of letters of people and I say, you got to affirm every morning and every night and throughout the day when you're thinking about it, because families are destroyed, right? So it says, Katie, I can't tell you what an impact your experience, strength, and hope has made on me. We talked about the power of positive affirmative prayer. I shared with you my situation with my youngest son that's been estranged from the family. I took your suggestion and prayed each and every day and night and morning. The past New Year's Eve, I had my entire family, two sons, two daughter-in-laws, three grandchildren and my husband at my dinner table together for a family dinner. This was exactly what my positive affirmation was. I visualized this scene in my head for more than a year. The event that led up to this were all God placed and centered in love. I used the counsel of others and let God take over. We are now a family again and my husband and granddaughter and myself are going to Tucson in April for a visit. We were invited. Yes there is still work to be done, but the door is open. In a short period, this happened in a year period of time. This is amazing stuff that happens. Families reunite. That's what this is all about is families reunited. This one was mind-blowing what happened. It says, I hear your description of positive prayer and wanted to start trying it. It started about two weeks ago. I was at the point of starting to do it in the morning and during my prayer and meditation time. Wait a minute, let me back up. To say my husband's ex-wife and I had a strained relationship would be the understatement of the year. She hated me and she had every right to. Now they're in a very small town. At 90 days sober, my husband and I got together when she was, they were still married. A little bit of a problem there. My husband could not stay sober so there were very long drawn out custody fights, screaming arguments, restraining orders. There isn't enough time in the day to describe the hell we've all gone through. She remarried a year later and we did and it seemed about five years since this all started. We are all in AA in a very small town and they have refused to be a part of anything we are a partof, would not be at the same meetings, would not contribute to anything we were involved in, etc. I started the positive prayer two weeks ago praying that we had a healthy relationship. We were able to talk about his two daughters. I could share experiences with the girl and with her, and we'd work together as a unit to raise the girl. Last Sunday, my husband got a call from his ex-wife asking for us to come and visit the girls at their house. We went, and her husband apologized for drawing a line in the sand with us, looking on us as evil and realized the harm it was doing to everyone and the girls. They wanted us to all get together for everyone's sake, especially the girls, so they could see that we all get along. She and I exchanged emails all last week. She even called me on Sunday and asked if I would help her put together a little celebration for two women in AA. It absolutely brings me to tears every time I think about it. This has been a huge, huge struggle in my life for the past five years, and God wiped it out in two weeks. The power of God is just absolutely mind-blowing. I know we still have a journey ahead, but this is a great beginning. I just needed to share my miracle with you. Please keep doing what you're doing. You are touching countless lives, lives of little girls who don't even know who you are. Thank you. I'm telling you guys, this is a simple, simple practice that yields unbelievable things. You won't believe it. I'm never going to ever be able to speak to my sister again. She hates me. I get it. We're going to affirm that you guys have amazing relationship. The law of substitution and the law of subconscious activity are in effect. See, when there's turbulence in your mind, it's very muddy waters, but when it's calm, it's much clearer and you can see. You start to bring a different place. In our book, it says when Ebi was talking to Bill, my friend promised that these things were done, I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator. What a great thing, right? That I would have the elements of a way of living which would answer all my problems. Belief in a power of God plus enough willingness honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things were the essential requirements i say thank you god and thank you bill wilson it's been a real honor and a privilege thank you for having me who's doing the recording and thank you Teresa thank you so much for a beautiful share Katie John alcoholic V welcome in come on in hi this is my name is Donna I'm an alcoholic um let me see if i can turn my camera a little bit i guess i'll just okay i'll look um thank you for your share thank you for coming just real quick i'm at that five year to six year mark you know and um i'm not that place so you know where i just don't want to read anymore i don't want to um i just i'm tired um and sadly is i just started to make this a part of my life like writing and and and doing inventory and making doing the morning prayer and then all of a sudden i'm just like i'm so tired i just don't want to do any of this um what was the do you recall getting to that place and what it was that, I guess, pulled you out for you. It might not be the same for me, but I'm just wondering what it is for you, and also, can you repeat the, you mentioned the positive prayer. Can you repeat what that was? Thank you. Sure, sure. That's a really good question because, like I said, you hit these walls. These walls are required for spiritual growth, just like growing up, right? In our 20s, we're bulletproof. Well, by the time I'm 50, I'm not running up on a ladder getting on the roof, right? You climb up a ladder, you look down and you go, oh, I am going back down. You know, it is just the nature of it. So when you hit these walls, instead of looking at them as, I just dread this, you have to cheerfully capitalize on it and know that God is going to show his omnipotence if we stay disciplined. So my question would be, and without you and I getting in great dialogue, you know, I'd be curious to know what your spiritual teacher is, what your understanding of this power greater than yourself is. And you're going to have to start to dig a little bit deeper in there. Do you have enough sponsees? Is your whole program working the way it needs to? And lots of times prayer and meditation get very flat. They just do. And I was like, I've been an athlete all my life. So if I did the same thing at the gym every day, it would get very flat. So I have to realize, I'm sorry, I ate right before I sat down. So I Have to Realize, I have To Change These Things Up so that I've got your evening review, you can do it in the morning. Do you scribble out inventory quickly? I like to write a piece of inventory, see that I'm a hypocrite and I get freedom right away. but those love letters to god are a good way to start launching you into something different and um i i uh send me a message and i'll i'll send you my phone number and and we can talk a little bit more because that's that's a tough spot to be in but there's hope at the other side of it i promise but it's kind of well-rounded several things are going on at five years great question beautiful answer thank you Katie come on in Jamie hi everyone my name is Jamie and I am an alcoholic um Katie P thank you so much you motivated me to share and just ask a question and let you know that um I really I'm getting a lot out of this, my taco Tuesday, I call it night with you all. You know, I'm walking with God now, right? I'm in the spirit. I'm living in the Spirit. God is my employer. I're not making, you know, my life. I'M NOT LIVING IN THE WRECKAGE ANYMORE. I AM HEALING. I LOVE WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT the families i i think that it's very important to heal those relationships if you can i met my sister all the way because she wouldn't meet me halfway and we're now we're best friends and it's not for everyone right and it doesn't but you know there's a reason god brought families together for a reason and you know so anyway um my question to you is how you use your zeal. I read this book recently, and one of the 12, I'm not religious. One of the 12 gifts is zeal and zeal is spirit. It says silence still it is ever urging you onward to fairness of your God self. And so my question to you, Katie, is how do you practice your zeal in your day-to-day life and share it? Well, that for me is really easy. I'm extremely outgoing and I talk to everybody. So did Charlie. We couldn't make it through an airport without talking to 8 million people. And I am such a firm believer that every person in my circle, right, wherever I am, grocery store, wherever, God put them there for a reason for me to say something like, I like that hat or what a cool t-shirt or something to engage somebody. And before you know it, you walk away and some people are like, well, I'm somewhat antisocial. Oh, well that should work well for you then. Let's try to figure out the gift you've been given and you're antisoical. Well, I talk all day at work and I don't want to talk after that. Well that, I mean, do you see you've set yourself up completely for failure? Just try the next time you're out and about and you see somebody, strike up a conversation. You're standing in line. I mean, people are looking at their phones. They're looking at their feet. We are losing so much to these phones. And now I won't interrupt you if you're on your phone. I just won't do that. I'm not going to break, try to change the world one person at a time. But I do, it's not lost on me that my life is a gift and I like to share my gift with everybody. So that's my zeal. Thank you so much, Katie. You're welcome. Come on in, brother. Hello, everyone. My name is Calvin. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you. Thank you, Katie, thank you. And a few years back, I'm talking about eight or nine years ago, I heard you in New Jersey, right? He was at the Jersey Shore Roundup, you and Charlie. And I heard your voice and I heard you say something that touched my soul. And you said that because, you know, like some people are or real quiet inverted they don't say much and some people extrovert they say a lot he talked and you said it's all right to be either one of them people and that touched my soul deeply because i always thought i gotta be humble and i gotta put down my you know head and and that ain't who i'm wired i'm not wired like i'm worried a lot like you you know i'm outgoing i say things i talk i interact with people and you gave me a a reason to be comfortable in my own skin to be who i was well you know when when you were sharing about you know having people come on down i thought i'd have drank with him and that's the highest compliment in alcoholics anonymous ever i would have drank avec you you're my kind of guy you know it's like let's go let's go let burn it down and i thought that right away just you put out speaking of the zeal you put out that zeal see and that that we're gifted with that not everybody is but i always say man find it you got it just don't don't stay closed in that box and get you put your phone down you're standing in a line put your foam down you don't have to just stay glued to that thing it's gonna it's gonna it short circuit your spiritual growth if you ask me that's my my opinion but thank you katie and thank you calvin oh did you oh calvin did you have something else i'm sorry just real quick i don't want to take up and i know it's a lot of people behind me but you have said something back at that time you said we're a place where you've experienced god visited often you are i never forgot what you had said you touched my soul that deeply thank you thank you you bet thanks that always always is great to hear welcome i think you're oh sorry john i'm doing your job sorry so much katie i've heard you chris and charlie speaking according to your talk i think he would have drank with any one of us to be quite honest you know you're coming up on 40 years and 40s and you talked about the gross verse but 40s is very spiritual number it's mentioned a lot in that other book and you talked about the spiritual guide and my nephew had overdosed and was in a was diagnosed brain dead and our spiritual guide had us go speak god's word over him for 25 days and he came out of it he just celebrated seven years of sobriety last month and bill wilson talks about the spiritual kindergarten and how many of us run around here not knowing what power we God has given us he talks about entering the world of spirit but we don't want to talk about that we don' t want people to think we've been rocketed or something and the question now becomes do we stand on that or do we rely on the fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous rather than the fellowship capital F of the spirit capital S and you said you would give us your contact information I saw someone else requested, would you please put your phone number and email in the general chat so that we can get ahold of you and bombard you and distract you from your homework? Teresa does that. I will do it individually, but I don't like to have my phone number. And Zoom made it way too easy. I could hand out my card at every talk I was at. I could hang out 300 of them and two people would follow through. But on Zoom, you guys jump on the bandwagon and it's a bit overwhelming for me. So if you hit me, shoot me a personal one, I'll do it. And no offense to anybody, but right now, if I got bombarded with 30 calls, because I got to return all my calls. So I take it really personal. But what I want to say about that is in my spiritual growth, I have seen a lot of things that I'm not a big fan of in AA, right? I mean, come on. It's a bunch of... But I learned the, I call it the evangelical stage I was in. I'm going to set the fellowship right and they just are missing it. And what I didn't realize is I was them, right. I'm such a hypocrite. I was then at one time. And the truth is, the book says I must grow in understanding and effectiveness. And that understanding and effectiveness, I can't punch in the nose or it's ineffective. Right there. No drunk is going to let you say that you're doing it wrong and we're doing it right. I think Chris Raymer is the only one who could pull that off. And even at that, he catches a lot of heat. So I really believe that it's kind of like when I thought the 10th step was the evening review and I'm watching these guys argue and everything. And I wish somebody would have just raised their hand and said, golly, you know what guys. I thought the 10th step was the evening review. I wasn't doing it anyway, but I've come to find out on the bottom of the page right here, it says that, you know, and you kind of guide people into letting them see it a different way. It's never been effective. There's not one drunk I've ever met that I can come at him and go, you Know, I'm not going to stand down on the God thing and I'm Not going to do this now I'm saying it my head. But otherwise, I must say, Well, you know what is you get to dance on your own path. But I can tell you with my experience in being an old timer, I had to take a four-year-old girl down at a meeting not too long ago at a group conscience and she did okay with it, but I pulled her aside afterwards. And I said, I'm just baffled why you wouldn't ask an elder statesman that question before you came in here and drove it through the group conscience. And she started crying and I hugged her and I said oh, hon, I'm always here for a conversation. You know, it doesn't have to go like that. And that's what I think is the most important thing for us to do is to show up as tolerant, kind, loving, and then guide that. And some fellowships, I'm just not meant to turn them around. And then I can positive prayer them into better existence. Oh, everybody's asking for my phone number. mm-hmm it's just bleep bleep ollie you can go in there and oh i guess they're personally senator too well everybody's just gonna have to hold them that's a beautiful way to end things thank you