Tenth Step Done Right Is Steps 4, 5, 7, 9, and 12 Rolled Into One Night – Milt L.

About This Speaker Tape

Milt L. delivers a lively, no-nonsense Big Book workshop from San Diego, walking his audience through Steps 9 through 12 with the plain-spoken directness that earned his talk the title "Dumb Guy's Approach to the 12 Steps." Starting mid-stream in Step 9, he emphasizes that amends are not just remorseful mumbling but a complete housecleaning with family, and that Steps 10, 11, and 12 begin the same night you start making amends — there is no pause between the maintenance steps and the action steps.

The heart of the talk is Milt's breakdown of the daily procedures built into Steps 10 and 11. He shows how the nightly review and morning meditation are not new inventions but simply the procedures already learned in Steps 4, 5, 7, and 9, now applied every day. He counts them off on his fingers: when I spot selfishness, that is Step 4; when I ask Higher Power to remove it, that is Step 7; when I discuss it with someone, that is Step 5; when I make amends quickly, that is Step 9; when I turn my thoughts to helping someone, that is Step 12. The daily tenth step, done properly, contains all of them.

Milt closes with Step 12 and the practical realities of working with others. He acknowledges that the cold-call techniques described in the Big Book are largely obsolete now that treatment centers and meetings exist everywhere, but insists the foundation principle — intensive work with other alcoholics — remains the surest immunity from drinking. He walks through the sponsorship cycle: he sponsored Morgan out of the Big Book, Morgan will now sponsor Alphonse the same way, and the chain multiplies. He is blunt about boundaries — he will take newcomers into his home for a few days, feed them, and help them get a job, but if they do not want the program, they hit the door. The talk ends with his characteristic humor and the reminder that love and tolerance of others is the code, that bottles were only a symptom, and that the real miracle is not fighting alcohol but simply serving Higher Power and fellow man until sobriety happens automatically.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Picks up mid-workshop in Step 9 — sitting down with family, cleaning house, asking for patience, tolerance, kindness and love each morning
• 5:00 Transition to Step 10 — we vigorously commence this way of living as we clean up the past; there is no pause between 9 and the maintenance steps
• 8:00 The daily procedures breakdown: Step 10 contains Steps 4, 5, 7, 9, and 12 done daily through learned procedures
• 12:00 Love and tolerance as our code — the ugly shirt bit and the humorous demonstration of practicing tolerance with someone who irritates you
• 17:00 The promises at Step 10: sanity returns, we react sanely and normally, the obsession is removed — so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition
• 22:00 Step 11 evening review — constructively reviewing the day with yes-or-no questions about selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear
• 30:00 Step 11 morning meditation — asking Higher Power to divorce thinking from self-pity and self-seeking motives before planning the day
• 38:00 If Higher Power does not talk to you then the Big Book is a liar — the old-timer conference story about Higher Power speaking to alcoholics
• 42:00 Step 12 begins — working with others, cold calls versus modern meetings, the foundation of service remains even as techniques change
• 55:00 The sponsorship multiplication: sponsor one person from the Big Book, they sponsor one, and the chain grows from 50 to 100 to 150