The 12th Step and Service – Big Book Study – Part 3 of 3 – Joe H.

My name's Bill, I'm an alcoholic. You know, like I was saying, if I seem a little sentimental tonight or reminiscent, because I kind of have mixed feelings. I feel a little sad and I feel very full for several reasons. In three days it'll be my fifth birthday. This is the last night of these tapes. We're going to finish up on the 12th step tonight. And, you know, it's a good feeling. But I'm an alcoholic, and I always hate to see things come to an end. I usually use things until they absolutely quit working. And they're a little easier to let go of when things are still good and you have to give something up, which I've had to do sober. It's a little harder. So we're going to take a little more time tonight. If anybody wants to or has to leave at 7, that's okay because there's a few things I'd like to talk about. I'd love to talk to you and I'd also like to talk about the 12 steps. I'd want to talk about my experience and the benefits that I've gotten from service and the tradition and the concept a little bit which are relatively new to me. There's as much in the traditions as we've covered in this book and what we've covered in this book has only scratched the surface it can go on and on and I hope for a lot of you people it will. Then there's as much in the traditions, and I've just begun to experience those because I got into service. And then there's much in The Concepts. You know, and I think it's kind of interesting that we started these tapes on the title page with the circle and the triangle, and several months later we're all the way back around to the circle and the triangle where we started to experience the next part. When I hung out in the fellowship I didn't feel like I belonged. When I got involved in the scholarship I felt like a member. When I studied and read the steps I didn' t understand. when I experienced the steps I felt more like a participant in Alcoholics Anonymous and some major things happened in my life and I had my own spiritual awakening and have had you know they're on a daily basis even if it's just the realization some days that I'm still sober but I think it you know the 12th step takes me to the next place you know you don't get to rest very often in this program you're either moving in one direction or the other and it's kind of like the 12th step took me to the next part of the program because I needed to experience all three parts and then I think that circle comes into play because all of a sudden I feel a little more whole than I did when I was new a lot more whole than I was when I did when I knew because I got involved in service which is the next part of the programme If I could warn anybody that's interested in this big book at all about anything that was probably my greatest lesson would be not to get so carried away with dotting the i's and crossing the t's and every word in this book. You can get lost in the dogma, and believe me, I had my period and probably still do, of being a little dogmatic sometimes a little intellectual but it's really about the spirit of these steps it's about what happens inside when you do this work so I guess my warning would be if if you get involved in this big book if you start a workshop that we're going to talk about here in a little while if you work these steps don't think that sitting in a big book group studying and underlining your book, talking about each word is going to do much good for you. It's about doing what's in this book that will change your life. Chapter seven, working with others. And, you know, I think the first word, you know, not to mention getting caught up in words, but the first Word in this chapter is very, very important to me because I remember before i ever read this book saying to my sponsor this thing better be real and it better be practical and i had done a lot of weird crazy drugs and and had some strange experiences coming off of alcohol and um i'd had spiritual experiences and i'd seen weird things and i wanted whatever this was going to do this spiritual experience that you were talking about that i was supposed to have as a result of these steps i wanted it to be real the kind of spiritual experiences i had didn't do much good the next day or the next week i couldn't draw from them i also wanted this thing to be practical to me that means what can i do with it after i walk out of this place what can I do with It after I walk out of these rooms you know does it work in my life you know and I think that's the test we get to see in the 11th step we were talking about last week. But it says here that practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion. Carry this message to other alcoholists. You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember, they are very ill. And I think the reason that magic happens is that he relates to my garbage. And he understands me because that's what happened for me was finally one person sitting across the table from me who had been where I had been and felt the way I had felt and didn't have to do that anymore. It was kind of like I saw his garbage but it didn't stink anymore. I knew that he had been changed. Somehow the stink was off his garbage and it was a great jewel to give. It was a gift. And if somebody would have said to me five years ago that my experience for 17 years or my entire experience could one day benefit somebody, you know, I would have thought you were crazy. I never thought my... I thought my experience was not only going to hold me back if I could ever possibly do anything and I didn't have much hope for that but I didn' t see how it could ever help anybody because I had tried to do that. You know, I didn''t go to college and get a degree and try to work in the field just to find out what was wrong with me. That was my main motive, but I was also hoping that maybe someday I could help somebody, and it never happened. It never happened while my garbage was still stinking. But I guess when the miracle of this program happened and all of a sudden I saw that that was a gift, and it's an absolute miracle that I've been able to help anybody show up here sober, have five years, do this. I don't take any of that for granted and I don' t take the credit for any of this. I cannot do this on my own. I was never able to stay sober 30 days for 17 years. I couldn't talk to people when I got here. The first time my mother heard me speaking to me, she said, I've never heard you talk like that or that long. My own mother. real scary sometimes because I know I haven't pulled this off much more than maybe the first few days or weeks. You know? I haven' made it go any further than that. I've shown up and I've been willing and I'v done the work. I didn't even have the power to do most of this work. It also dawns on me on a regular basis that you people haven't done that for me either. You've been there when I've needed you, you've been here when I haven't needed you've been there when I've liked you and you've been there what I haven't like but I know that you haven't moved my life on the way it's gone you've inspired me he's given me hope you've encouraged me you called me on my stuff you've loved me but I know it's something more than what then human power and that scares me a little bit because what if that stops or what if I turn away from that what if i get so arrogant that i don't need this program anymore because i need the fellowship just as much as i need recovery as much as i mean service but i'm glad i need all three probably one of the most humbling things that somebody i sponsored once said was i'm going to have a sponsor who's sick enough to need the whole program and i do and i've often thought what what that don shared with me could i stop doing because he got me right into it right away going to lots of meetings doing this work being involved in service now what can i leave out you know when i get a little complacent when i getting a little tired and i don't know i don t know because i know it's all part of a whole great promises here on this page life will take on new meaning to watch other people recover to see them help others to watch loneliness vanish to see a fellowship value to have a host of friends this is an experience you must not miss we know you will not want to miss it frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives and if somebody would have said that to me when I was new one of the bright spots of my life would be sitting in my living room doing this work with another drunk you know that wasn't me my motives were not like my motives were to get what I could get at any cost and I wasn't interested in other people but I have to tell you tonight that one of the most exciting fun rewarding things that I do is sit in my living room with drums and do this work I look forward to that and that's not me my motives have changed and I don't know how that happened there are a lot of directions in this chapter for working with others. And I guess you could be as dogmatic or pragmatic and letter of the law as you want. You know, never do this, never do that. My God, I learned how to 12-step from guys that used to take booze in the car with them to the other extreme where people think they've made a 12-stepped call when they talk to somebody on the phone or take them to a detox and drop them off. In my opinion, that's not a 12-step call. You know, do you go back? Are you there the day they get out? You know are you willing to sit up with somebody all night? Are you willing to sit down and go through this work with somebody which takes more of a commitment than I have on my own power? I have to pray every time I meet with somebody to go through these steps. There's days I don't want to and all of a sudden I watch that change and I get excited about what's going on then. I think probably the most important thing I've learned about working with others or a 12-step call is prayer. No two have ever been the same. I mean, when I'm working with somebody that asks me to be their sponsor the only thing I really know is to go through this book and to do what this book says but there's exceptions. You get somebody that can't read you get somebody that can write You get somebody that for five or six months they can't just pick up this book and start reading it. I've had that. You pray. You pray before a 12-step call. And it's about God anyway. Probably the most important thing that I've ever learned that I heard a guy from Minnesota say about a 12 step call is that if a man's not ready there's not much you can say that's right. And if a men is ready there's no much you could say that wrong. I was also told the only bad 12-step call is if I get drunk. I see some fine lines there. I don't see that as black and white anymore either. A lot of people think this is a selfish program. I'm not so sure the program is selfish. I think it's a very selfless program for very selfish people because selfishness is the root of my trouble. Now, I also understand my sobriety better come first, but I also know that I can't make it I can't make my sobriety first and pull that off. That sounds like I'm the one that's doing it. I better put my commitment to my relationship with God first. But that was an unearned gift, you know, so there's a lot of fine lines here. And I think if any part of this program taught me that it's not all black and white, it's the 12th step. And it's probably the part of the program that got me out of being so dogmatic and letter of the law and that you only do it this way. You never do it that way. I was practicing the 12th step and getting involved in service and going out there in my life to practice these principles. I think I used to be a little screwed up about the 12ths step and I thought that carrying this message was practicing these principles and I think what I learned at practicing these principals is carrying the message. There's a man in Denver that I love very much that talks about, you know, the way you live makes so much noise there's not really much you can say. I think probably some of our best 12-step work is when we don't know we're being noticed. Just going on with our life and somebody at work or somebody here or somebody there says something. I've been watching you. I've bee watching you and I wonder, you now, what is it you do? I think being open to the 12 steps through the first 11 and especially to work in the first nine and be in there for step 11 opens us up to all kinds of incredible experiences. There's a little girl in, and I don't know why I'm saying this, but there's a Little Girl in New York City who called me a couple months ago and she said that she was in a meeting in Dallas, Texas and that she would die 10 years sober had lost God he shared this with the group and the group told her to accept that and just keep coming back he said when they said that she felt really empty and that this guy came up to her afterwards with a strange look in his eye and he said that those people that told her that were full of shit because she didn't have to accept it because she was dying of untreated alcoholism and she said he started ranting and raving like no one else she'd ever heard in ten years. And she heard something, and he suggested that she give me a call and see if I knew about anything in New York. I told her about a group that attended this over in Brooklyn and all sorts of incredible things started happening for her. my sponsor was there not the next week or the next month because he goes there every couple he was there the next day he got a chance to go through these first three steps and started inventory turns out there's a lady there in Denver that's done this work that she was like right in contact with couple weeks later she calls me up and this little girl is on fire and she said all I did was say a simple prayer and it just all opened right up to me I mean, you never know. You never know how it's going to happen. So there's a lot of directions here. On page 90, it talks about when you discover a prospect for Alcoholics Anonymous, find out all you can about him. If he does not want to stop drinking, don't waste any time trying to persuade him. He may spoil a later opportunity. This advice is given for his family also. They should be patient, realizing that they are dealing with a sick person. At the same time, you know, we see some real miracles happen with people that we stick in there with and let them know that we'll be there when they're ready and keep going back and keep coming back. You know, I'm glad they didn't give up with me after my ninth treatment center and that in my tenth one there was somebody there. I think the neat thing is, though, he told me he was there to save his ass, not mine it always seemed like when there was these do-gooders and they're up here and i'm down here and they had all these places i went it was like i couldn't they were so high up there i couldn t see what they were saying but when a guy was honest enough to say and look right across even with me at a table that he was just like me and that he wasn't there to save me he was there to save him so he could stay sober and he told me about his drinking and what he was like and how he felt that i somehow heard that sometimes it's wise to wait till he goes on a binge the family may object to this but unless he is in a dangerous physical condition it is better to risk it don't deal with him when he is very drunk unless he is ugly and the family needs your help wait for the end of a spree or at least for a lucid interval. I didn't have very many of those. Then let his family or a friend ask him if he wants to quit for good and if he would go to any extreme to do so. If he says yes, then his attention should be drawn to you as a person who has recovered. You should be described to him as one of a fellowship who as part of their own recovery as part of their own recovery try to help others and who will be glad to talk to them if they care to see you. You know, I think sometimes, you know, I don't know, you know... I don' t know how Bill and Bob would feel about it but... You know? I don''t think they meant all this stuff about you know are you ready to stop drinking for one day? You know... I think we''ve kind of taken that to an extreme. Because every 12-step call I see in here, the one that Bill and Bob did earlier on, what they just said here, they talk about, are you ready to quit drinking alcohol for good and all and live life one day at a time? You know, I don't ever want to drink again. I live life. One day at the time. I think it's also part of the damage that the short form of this third tradition has caused in AA. The long form says that our membership ought to include all those who suffer from alcoholism, yet the short-form has been stretched to such a dangerous extreme that it says the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. If he does not want to see you, never force yourself on him, Neither should the family hysterically plead with him to do anything, nor should they tell him much about you. They should wait for the end of his next drinking bout. You might place this book where he can see it in the interval. Here no specific rule can be given. The family must decide these things, but urge them not to be over-anxious, for that might spoil matters. Later on in page 91, it talks about see your man alone as possible. At first, engage in general conversation. After a while, turn the talk to some phase of drinking. Tell him enough about your drinking habits, your drinking habit, symptoms and experiences to encourage him to speak of himself. If he wishes to talk, let him do so. He will thus get a better idea of how you ought to proceed. If he is not communicated, give him a sketch of your drinking career up to the time you quit. But say nothing for the moment of how that was accomplished. If he is in a serious mood, dwell on the troubles liquor caused you, being careful not to moralize or lecture. If his mood is light, tell him humorous stories of your escapades, get him to tell some of his. When he sees you know all about the drinking game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic. Tell him how baffled you were, how you finally learned that you were sick, giving him account of the struggle you made to stop. Show him the mental twist which leads to the first drink of his spree. We suggest you do this as we have done it in the chapter on alcoholism. If he is an alcoholic, he will understand you at once. He will match your mental inconsistencies with some of his own. I wanted to hear that a man was like me and that he had done those crazy things that I thought I was so alone in doing and I was the only one that felt like that I was not I was the only one that did that you know the day I drank on my dad's funeral when they asked me not to you know I left that and went back to that hospital feeling like I was the only person that probably ever did that you know and I found out here that I wasn't I think this next statement although you know I'm trying not to be so critical about this is very important to what's going on in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I don't think we spend enough time doing this. In our group, with a 12-step call, it says here, if you are satisfied that he is a real alcoholic, begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the malady. You know, how many people spend time doing that nowadays in AA to help people find out, you know, what are you? What's wrong with you? I mean, if that's the first question we come in here with that's been plaguing us for however many years, what's wrong Withney? It only makes sense that that should be the first question that gets answered. And it's amazing the number of people that have been around here for a long time and are still way up in the air about what's going on. What's going wrong with them? Am I this? Am I that? Am I an addict? Am I alcoholic? Show him how your own experience, how the queer mental conditions surrounding the first drink prevents normal functioning of the willpower. Don't at this stage refer to this book unless he has said it and has seen it and wishes to discuss it. He could and be careful not to brand him as an alcoholic. Let him draw his own conclusions but at the same time be satisfied that he's a real alcoholic. If he sticks to the idea that he can still control his drinking, tell him that possibly he can if he's not too alcoholic, but insist that if he is severely afflicted there may be little chance he can recover by himself. Continue to speak of alcoholism as an illness, a fatal malady. Talk about the condition of body and mind which accompany it. his attention focused mainly on your personal experience. Explain that many are doomed who never realize their predicament. Doctors are rightly loath to tell alcoholic patients the whole story unless it will serve some good purpose, but you may talk to him about the hopelessness of alcoholism because you offer a solution. You will soon have your friend admitting he has many if not all the traits of an alcoholic. If his own doctor is willing To tell him he is an alcoholic, so much the better. Even though your protege may not have entirely admitted his condition, he has become very curious to know how to get well. How you got well, I'm sorry. Let him ask you that question if he will. Tell him exactly what happened to you. Trust the spiritual feature freely. If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of God. He can choose any conception he likes provided it makes sense to him. The main thing is he'd be willing to believe in a power greater than himself and that he lives by spiritual principles. When dealing with such a person you had better use everyday language to describe spiritual principles There is no use arousing any prejudice you have against certain theological terms and conceptions. that he may have, about which he may already be confused. Don't raise such issues, no matter what your own convictions are. He goes on to talk a little bit more about that and sums it up on page 94. We are dealing only with general principles common to most denominations. Then it talks about outlining the program of action. Explain how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past and how you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him. It is important for him to realize that your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital part in your own recovery. Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him. Make it plain that he is under no obligation to you and that you hope only that he will try to help other alcoholics when he escapes his own difficulties. Suggest how important it is that he placed the welfare of other people ahead of his own. It goes on and gives a lot of circumstances, a lot things that might happen. The top of 94 talks about unless your friend wants to talk further about himself, do not wear out your welcome. Give him a chance to think it over. If you do stay, let him steer the conversation in any direction he likes. This is sometimes a mistake. if he has trouble later he is likely to say you rushed him you will be most successful with alcoholics if you do not exhibit any passion for crusade or reform never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop simply lay out the kit of spiritual tools for his inspection show him how they worked with you offer him friendship and fellowship tell him that if he wants to get well that if she wants to go if he doesn't want to get well you know it's a long time before a lot of people hear that nowadays that you can get well here and in some groups it would be travesty to even heresy to even say that tell him if he wants to get well you will do anything to help and realize at the same time that you're not going to keep any of them sober nor do you have the power to get him drunk if he is not interested in your solution, if he expects you will act only as a banker for his financial difficulties or a nurse for his freeze, you may have to drop him until he changes his mind. This he may do after he gets hurt some more. If he is sincerely interested and wants to see you again, ask him to read this book in the interval. After doing that, he must decide for himself whether he wants to go on. he should not be pushed or prodded by you his wife or his friends if he is to find God the desire must come from within if he thinks he can do the job in any other way or prefers some spiritual approach encourage him to follow his own conscience you have no monopoly on God we merely have an approach that works with us but point out that we alcoholics have much in common and that you would like in any case to be friendly and let it go at that. Don't be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. You are sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer. Isn't it amazing you have to be totally desperate to really get it? I remember sitting in a treatment center one night where I had been and I was, I don't know, five or six months out of there in the program and they brought these two women in one of them was really beat up had marks all over her arms all beat up said she'd lost everything and the other one was dressed really nice and had a continental outside still has a house up in the mountains and stuff and i talked to both of them for about an hour and i looked at one of them and i said you know you're going to have a much harder time with this program than this other girl here. And the one I was talking to was the one that still had a lot of stuff. Funny thing is, five years later, the one that was all beat up is still sober and the one that still has some stuff is out there losing some stuff to get ready. I'm going to go on a little bit and hit on some of the main points because there's so much here in this chapter to learn and it doesn't really mean much if you just learn it and you don't experience and the best way to learn about the 12-step is to get out there. I mean, they started taking me on 12-stepped calls when I was new. Sometimes you make a 12-stop call with a newcomer and an old-timer and the wet drunk relates much more to somebody with just a few months because he can see that. You know, 26 years is like... Sometimes you hear the man with 30 days when you're still out there page 97 gives me the stone we've been talking a lot through these tapes about the cement from page 17 and the foundation in the first step and if that first step is strong you don't ever have to fall any further than on top of that foundation no matter how crazy you get I want that foundation to always be strong but I know who mixes the cement and put those stones together it ain't me and that first stone, the cornerstone at the second step and the keystone, page 97 says never avoid these responsibilities but be sure you are doing the right thing if you assume them. Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn't enough. You have to act a good Samaritan every day if need be. I was told the rest of that paragraph are the 12-step promises and I'm not going to read those but I think we each have to discover those in our own way if somebody said I was going to go through all this work to finally get to a place where I could experience the description on page 97 I don't know and to think that today I'm grateful for all those things that have happened there's some great guides along the way I like what they talk about on page 98 and third paragraph says burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone the only condition is that he trusts in God and clean house talks about domestic problems and divorce strained relationships conditions we put on sobriety bottom of page 99 talks about remind the prospect again that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God. So often nowadays we hear new people talk to like these people and getting them to a meeting is what's going to keep them sober or a sponsor. We've seen men get well whose families have not returned at all. We have seen others slip when the family came back too soon. both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress if you persist remarkable things will happen when we look back we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in god's hands were better than anything anything we could have planned and i can't tell you how that statement touches me for working with somebody and using prayer and moving on through this work and for my own life. If I would have put a list of things that I would like to have seen at the end of each year, they would have been much less than what's been going on at the last five years. At the end if each year I've been sober. I made one of those lists in my last treatment center five years ago. What I'd like to see happen in my life I think my therapist said make a list of what does Joe Hawk need to be happy and I actually thought I knew what I needed to be happy then but I made that list and I didn't look at it until I was a year sober and a lot more everything on that list had happened and more and I just started crying it was unbelievable I like when they talk on the bottom of page 100 about assuming we are spiritually fit we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do you know and yet I sit around meetings all the time and i hear oh you can't do that oh you you're you work in a bar oh leave the job you're miserable with your wife she's still drinking leave her can't go around that can't do that i mean i don't hear a lot of freedom sometimes you know if they would have done that now and on all these years a lot o f us would have been screwed they said they told those women and those men in al-anon you can get free whether he gets sober or not and we don't we don t do that that much here oh you can't miss a meeting for a week because the business you better you better forget that one of the most rewarding experiences I had in this program when it was me and God for three weeks in Mexico with no AA and I was only about a year and a half sober and then later to sit in Montreal at the International at the loners international meeting with 5,000 loners and internationalists who don't have the privilege of meeting to stay sober and hear their stories. I think we can't do any of this or any of that, or you can't go there. This program's about freedom. Doing this work is about getting some freedom in your life. What if a job calls, you're back in your life, you get back into mainstream and something really big happens and you're jobbing for three or four weeks, you can'T be at AA every night. Can you stay sober? Sure you can. What if the wife is drunk, or the husband, and you're sober? Can you get free to stay in that marriage? Or can you get freedom to leave? Some of us are in those relationships that I know all too well. You can't stay or leave. And I think sometimes we push it off too easily and just give them the easiest route. Oh, leave. And I like to tell people, listen, you can get free right where you're at, and when you're free where you'RE at, maybe you'll be able to move on or maybe you'll be free to stay. You know, we limit ourselves so much in this program. Oh, I can't go do that. Oh, it can't be. I mean, my sponsor. My sponsor wouldn't be there. You know? I wouldn't have anybody to call every day. God forbid Joe didn't show up at the meeting tonight and if they don't see me for three days they'd probably think I'm drunk. You know. That's not what I came here for. I came her to go on with my life. And the miracles happened is that I love AA to go to AA. And I love talking to my sponsor. And I loved going to meetings. But I don't need those things today to stay sober. I hope I never get too far away from that and forget where I got this and give back to the program, even to try to give back to the programs a smidgen of what's been given to me will take the rest of my life. we don't hear a lot about the people that go right out through AA we hear a lotta people that go back out drinking we don' t hear a lot about the people that move on and get discouraged with AA a lotta those people never drink the sad thing is we never see them and they never tell us the freedom you can really have and they forget where they got it and who knows about those people that's not what i want to do but i also don't want to be tied down to the program like dope or a penitentiary or methadone and the miracles happened is that i now love aa i don't have to go i want to and i love to about getting back out in the mainstream and back into your family and back into a career and back into business, back into love and service and trying to get some balance. Page 101 talks about we meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them still has an alcoholic mind. There is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be someplace like the Greenland ice cap and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything. In our belief, any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself, he may succeed for a time, but he usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed. So our rule is to not avoid a place where there is drinking if we have a legitimate reason for being there. That includes bars, nightclubs, dances, receptions, weddings. Next paragraph talks about you will note that we made an important qualification. Therefore ask yourself on each occasion, have I any good social, business or personal reason for going into this place? Or am I expecting to steal a little vicarious pleasure from the atmosphere of such place? If you answer these questions satisfactorily, you need not have apprehension go or stay away there's the freedom go or stay but be sure you are on solid spiritual ground before you start and that your motive is in going is thoroughly good do not think of what you will get out of the occasion think of what you can bring to it if you are shaky you had better work with another alcoholic instead I like next to the last paragraph On 102, your job now is to be at the place where you may be of maximum helpfulness to others. So never hesitate to go anywhere if you can be helpful. You should not hesitate to visit the most sordid spot on earth on such an errand. Keep on the firing line of life with these motives and God will keep you in harm. Last two paragraphs on 103 talk about someday we hope that Alcoholics Anonymous will help the public to a better realization of the gravity of the alcoholic problem. But we shall be of little use if our attitude is one of bitterness or hostility. Drinkers will not stand for it. After all, our problems were of our own making. Bottles were only a symbol. Besides, we have stopped fighting anything, anybody, or anything. We have to. I remember a 12-step call with my roommate and I, and I guess I experienced the benefit of going with another person because we went to this guy's house and about halfway through the 12-step call he pulled out a shotgun and I was glad that I was with somebody. I remember being sad when people I pitched or 12-stepped didn't stay sober because I was still taking the credit and I remember taking the crédit when they did and watching my ego do that and taking the blame for something I did or didn't do when they got drunk. You know, I don't have that kind of problem. I've seen amazing things happen in 12-step work. And I can really say as crazy as I've gotten, as hard as I tried and nothing else has worked, that getting my ass out of the house down to a detox, down to Skid Row back to the treatment center where I went and to talk to a new man sure works when everything else is I also had a feeling one day and I don't know what this is about but I'll share it with you maybe I'm way off because I heard myself saying at the meeting and I guess that's what the meeting was about and you know talking about you know, I was feeling kind of bad today so I went down to and it was like you know I came off this mountain and I went back and I was down to Skid Row to the detox and I Was talking to a new man and boy I sure felt better and the thought came you know when are you going to quit lobbing off people's misery to feel better you know and that the spirit of the 12th step is that maybe I really do want to give someday and that I'm really in an okay place and I've got to quit using people's misery to make up my gratitude list. But sometimes I'm in a place where I really have to remember where I came from. So I guess there's fine lines there all the way through this step for me. I used to see it as real black and white. I've learned a little bit about service. I started out making coffee and cleaning up ashtrays and I was doing it out of need because I was miserable. I wasn't doing it to give to AA or the group. And then I started doing this work and my insides changed and I had some peace in my life and things were changing and I, and I have a desperate desire to give back to Alcoholics Anonymous because it had saved my life and I wanted to find out what a GSR was and what they did. Got to go to these area assemblies crazy places all over Colorado and meet some great people. I remember the first time I walked into a DSR meeting at an area assembly and it was like I looked around and there was every winner that I respected from every meeting I'd been to in Denver my first year. And I wondered, what are they all doing here? I want some of this. And I got hungry for service. So I became a GSR and got involved in that you know, hated by the group when they have to give you a report, asking for their vote, not being very popular. Going to district meetings, we're out of a district with hundreds of groups of five or six people, and you wonder why everybody isn't doing it, and then somebody reminds you that you're not doing it because they are or they aren't, you're doing it to stay sober and save your ass. That's the one thing that's helped me when I've gotten real critical Philip, when I'm in the service position, why isn't everyone, you know, and I'm reminded, you're not doing it for them. You're doing it to stay sober. And I got involved at treatment centers. I did a lot of work in the penitentiaries, and that was amazing because when I got sober, I said, I don't ever want to go back to treatment centers, and I don'T ever want TO GO BACK TO THE PENITENTIARY. I just DON'T WANT TO GO AROUND THOSE PLACES ANYMORE. when I learned a very important thing about service, don't ever say never because you'll end up doing it. Because most of the service I've been asked to do in my short time of sobriety has been in treatment centers and penitentiaries because that's where I got this and that's what I've done. When you've been to the penitentiary and 10 treatment centers and you've got this message that's kept you coming back until now in a treatment center, I guess that's the way you go to carry it. I think I was two years sober and I got asked to be on the state committee, the H&I chairman for Colorado. I can't begin to talk about what an incredible experience that was to see the dedication of the people that do that kind of service. And I was always inspired by my sponsor. He was the state delegate when I met him. I didn't know what that was, but I learned about what that is. He's gone down the scale a little more and he's a trustee now. after this he'll probably have to go back to his home group and make coffee be important again and I've learned he's been my guiding light in the fellowship and recovery his dedication to his service and I hope that's always like that you know I felt real sad for a man once in Denver he said that he looked around the program lately and there was no one that had what he wanted anymore you know I hope there's always those guiding lights and alcoholic synonyms for me to say you know I just don't know how Don does that he goes and goes and goes and gives and gives I saw some dangers in service that didn't wrap up in a title and I saw some patterns for me that needed to be broken in the last year and a half I guess it's been a process of surrender and self-will and surrender and self will I had to let go of that title, and moving out here was a big growth step for me to leave that safe little area and having my sponsor right there and my home group right there and working with a lot of people on the state committee. To move out here wasn't a big risk, and I don't have grown from it. Without having a service title, I love to talk to drunks in treatment. I don' t go there as anything because I had took all those things I was involved in to extremes had to go back through the work again and see where I was using it wrong stopped doing some stuff for a while you know trying to tell someone about services trying to tell somebody about what happens when they do the work or like trying to tell somebody what an orgasm is like before they've had one you could talk and teach study and learn about what recovery is about but you haven't done it you never know and you can listen and learn and read about what service is about but until you start doing it you just really don't know what it feels like to see a guy across a table dying in a treatment center who was just like you and to see yourself again and just to say a prayer and start talking and watch some hope come through a dying man I mean, it's just unbelievable to be a part of that I feel sad sometimes when I hear at different groups that the traditions are to the group but the steps are to the individual because here we are once again selling ourselves short because the people that share this program with me said yeah the groups use the traditions NAA as a whole uses the traditions but you know there's as many in those traditions, there's as many principles in those traditions for you as an individual to live your life anytime you're dealing with more than one person as there are in the steps. Then all of a sudden, in my selfish, self-centered way, I'm a little more interested in the traditions because before that, when I think they're just for the group and they have a traditions meeting, I'm the first one out of the door. But when I heard that the traditions might have something for me to learn from, to use in my life when I'm dealing at work or in a family or anytime I'm dealing with more than one person because I have a little idea that maybe I'm supposed to get out of myself once in a while and deal with more than just me that those traditions have guiding principles you can use in every area of your life in a family their common welfare comes first recovery in that family depends upon unity for this family's purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. I mean, I've just started to experience those in my life and see how I can take them out into any area. And I would encourage you to do that. See how those traditions and those concepts can be used in your life. And maybe then someday you'll care enough about that they go on and work for Alcoholics Anonymous. and maybe one day you'll care enough about you'll have a thought that if your son comes in here in 10 or 20 or 30 years that you might like AA to be the way it was when you got here and that's what service is really about at those levels not changing AA it's about stewardship from what I've learned a steward on a ship makes the room the same way each time and he wants the next passenger to have it just as nice as the passenger before he doesn't remodel the room every time a passenger leaves see I thought service was about going in there to the H&I committee or whatever it was I was doing and make all these renovations and make things better because I got a little better plan than what's going on and I learned that service is about keeping things the way they are because they're work and I thought what if my son came here in 10 or 20 years wouldn't I want the message to be here that I was given Wouldn't I want AA to be like it was when I got here? You know, I could talk for hours about sponsorship and I guess the same guiding principles as service. You just pray every time you sit down with whoever you're working with. I do have found a way to eliminate a lot of the bullshit as it was done with me. my sponsor let me know that what he did was sit down with people and went through this book and i knew that if i was to go on with don it was going to be serious business and it wasn't going to about calling him every day and dumping my problems on him and having him work on my life and help me with this or that that we were going to meet in his living room once or twice a week and we were gonna go through these steps because he said he couldn't fix my life and he said he didn't have a lot of answers and he says if i called him with the same problem more than two or three times that he wasn't going to listen to it, because I wouldn't believe that there was what the solution was if I wasn't doing that. And I find that I don't get calls from people who want to just use my name, or just call me every day and have me make them feel better, because they don't see that as very loving. I think the most loving thing to do is to tell people the truth rather than everything is just dandy and wonderful. I used to think that was the most loving thing. People know because that's all I can do because that is all that was done with me. We sit and we read this book and we go through the steps together. And I tend to get people that want to sit and go through this book and work those steps with somebody. And there have been exceptions and it's not black and white. And there were people that I couldn't open the book for a couple months. And there are guys that couldn't read and there were guys that couldnít write. So I guess it's about prayer. What's the right thing to do? My experience with my sponsor, I could go on for an hour. I mean, he told me the day would come I wouldn't call him for answers. That I would have done enough of this work to find my own answers within and then I would call him and we would talk about those answers I came up with. He tells a story about a sponsor and the person he's working with and I don't buy these words that I hear. Pigeon. Baby. You know, I don't... My sponsor never introduced me as a pigeon or a baby in public to someone else. And he never called me that to my face. And he Never referred to me as that to anyone else. So I don' t. Because that's the way I was taught. I have friends that I work with that are no different from me and are no lower than me and they deserve a little more respect than to be called a pigeon or a lady. but he tells a story about a sponsor and the guy he's working with walking down a path in the jungle and they come to a fork and the the guy he's walking with says I'm going this way and the sponsor says well I don't know the last time I went down there there was a 2500 pound gorilla and he he beat the everloving shit out of me and the the guy he's workin' with says well I'm gonna go down that way and the sponsors says well I I'm gunna go this way and the guy he's working with comes back a couple days later all beat up. And they walk down the path a little further together, and they come to another fork. And the guy who's working says, I'm going to go down this way, and the sponsor says, well, I think we better go this way because last time I went down there, there was a 5,000-pound gorilla. And the guys he's workin' with decides to go done there, and he comes back in a couple of days later, all beat-up, and they finally walk on the path together. and the moral of the story is if you tell someone there's a 5,000 pound gorilla down that path and they go down there and there's only a 10 pound chimpanzee they're never going to listen to you again now I had to think about that for a little while because I was very sick and I didn't understand I remember going to Don with incredible realizations I just realized this I just learned this and he said well I've been waiting for you to see that and I'd say well why didn't you tell me it would have saved me a lot of pain and a lotof misery and he'd say because I love you more than that I loveyou enough to allow you to have your own experience of course we share our experience with the people we work with but we I don't think I think we serve them a great injustice to try to fix them every time they call and put little band-aids on their symptoms because that's all it is we deny them of their own experience in this program and recovery and in life and it's the hardest thing to do sometimes when you see somebody going way off track and you want to say you want just save him like you think you could or stop him trying to stop an alcoholic from doing what he's going to do we should know that's futile anyway to go through this process with somebody has been my own personal most rewarding experience because I saw that I finally laid it out for one person, the whole deal. I was always the guy to take bits and pieces here, bits and piece there. The way I felt after a fifth step, the way I fell when I started making amends and he looked at them, my sponsor looked at me one day and he said, you know, I feel like we're peers now and that we're friends or the first time he read a tenth step to me or the first time he let me drive his RV with his family in the back. I mean, I thought, my God, this guy really actually trusts me. And from where I come from, those are absolute miracles. And I think every time I get involved in the 12-step, it takes me all the way back to the first step because I see that I'm powerless and I can't keep him sober and I can't get him drunk and I kan't fix him. And then I'm at the second step because I better believe that there's a power that can do something here. And I make a decision to let that happen and I say a prayer and we get on with it. There's a word that has been important to me since I took the third step and they reminded me about the chicken and the pig. And we don't hear this word talked about a lot and that is commitment. Commitment. People shriek, shirk, or whatever you call it. Tremble. When you hear that word talked abut as a topic in your relationship? Really late. You have a telephone call. Commitment. Am I really committed to this program? I have to ask myself that on a regular basis. When I've gotten way off track with service, it's because I didn't remember that it was to save my ass. I thought I was going to be saving some people or changing or making things better. To get into the traditions and to start to learn about the concepts, it just gives me an added incentive to go on. You know, there's enough there for a lifetime. To get into the AA service manual, I mean, there are unlimited things to get involved in this program. I was asked, and I'd like to talk just a little bit about the step workshops. I think it was 1970 or 1975 they had the International in Denver, Colorado and a man from Canada came down there named Max Jeter and talked about a group of men up in Canada who couldn't stay sober and they all wanted Max to be their sponsor. And he said he couldn't sponsor them all but he knew what they could do and they could pick a time when no one else would come and they could sit down and they can work the steps together as a group and they called them the golden slippers and they met every Sunday morning at 7 or 8 in the morning, people that were serious about recovery came and they sat as a groups and worked the steps and they found these men staying sober those workshops caught on like wildfire in Denver my sponsor tells me they're catching on all over the country I know there's a lot of people in Dallas doing them with 16-week outlines and 28-week outlines. People getting excited about the big book all over the country. I'd been in two of those in Denver and they put a sign-up sheet on the club. So-and-so's doing a step workshop. All interested, please sign up. And they get 20 people and they close it. So they don't call themselves an AA group. They don't called themselves an AA meeting. So they're not violating the traditions. They call themselves a closed step workshop and it's usually about 20 or 25 people sometimes it's all men sometimes it all women sometimes it co-ed and though they found people in Denver who could never stay sober getting involved in these workshops and staying sober and both of my experiences as a participant were incredible and my home group that I was a member of for four years evolved into an idea could we do that same format as a meeting for anybody any alcoholic can come regardless of where we are and it became a regular closed meeting in Denver but we use the same format we go through the book we pause we stop we do everything it says together as a group and that was a very rewarding experience to be a member of that group when I moved out here several people were interested in this that knew me and uh we started one and unfortunately i told them about group conscience and they don't let me run it and i'm not their fearless leader or the guru or the teacher and they call me on my stuff too and we merely sit down 18 of us and we go through that book and we do what it says together as a group and we call ourselves the big book works up by the sea the tuesday night big book worked up by the sea and um there's more than one requirement to be a member so we don't list ourselves and we don' t call ourselves an AA meeting or an AA group because there' s two requirements you have to have a desire to stop drinking and you have to have a commitment to go through the steps with 18 or 20 other people and show up as much as possible here' s the amazing thing we started last December 1986 with 24 people the second week the first week was business and we decided to format secretary and treasurer and food person. We even have a greeter at the door who hands out parking permits. The next week, we had 22. The next year, the next week we had 20. The fourth week, we had 18. And since the end of December, we've had 18 people for the last eight months. We've had18 people. That's amazing to me. The people in Denver that have done a lot more of these than I had said, if you start with 20, you'll be lucky to end up with 10 or 12. We have 18. We've been since the end of December or the middle of December on the first five steps. It's now August 14th and we are all finishing up our fifth steps. It takes a real commitment and it's an incredible experience and the bond that happens between the people in that group is incredible. it's like family I'd like to read just a little bit of our format to give you an idea of what we do we have a written format and we have a different reader each week they you know good evening introduce themselves welcome serenity prayer introduce ourselves we read the foreword to the first edition that first we of Alcoholics Anonymous with more than 100 men and women who have recovered blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person and besides we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. Our purpose. It is the purpose of the workshop to experience the recovery process as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous either for the first time or again so we may better carry out and understand our primary purpose to stay sober and carry the message to the still suffering alcoholic. We do as the Big Book suggests, as a group, in a one-and-a-half-hour meeting, followed by a 15-minute group conference. We have a different reader each week whose responsibility it is to keep us on track with what is being read. The reader will pause at each paragraph for comments, questions, problems, or experience with what was just read. We are here to talk about recovery only and go through the 12-step processes outlined in the Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is not an emotional or an intellectual exercise. This is a spiritual exercise so we can all recover and experience the recovery process as we read it together. Crosstalk is allowed in a loving, supportive manner. Please try to keep your crosstalk experience to your experience only with your questions or comments. We also have a regular Tuesday night beginners workshop at 630 for all members of this workshop to discuss questions or problems pertaining to where they are in the work. Reader begins reading. You pause at the end of each paragraph, anything anybody wants to say. We get to a question and we use a lot of the statements through the book as questions. We consider those questions as a group. Do we now all believe this? Do we believe this ? Do we do it together as a group? We get to a direction. we stop and do that as a group and we don't go any further until it's done at 8.50 the reader asks if anyone has anything they'd like to share for the last 10 minutes pass the basket at 9 o'clock we have a 15 minute group conscience we learn about an ongoing group conscience we learn that last week's group conscience can change we learn than a group conscience changes and it's not written in stone and then an ongoing informed group conscience is the spirit of a group and everybody stays for the group conscience. So we get a conscience of that group. I always thought it was funny to have a group of 50 or 100 people and they call a group conscience and you've got 5 or 10 people at the group conscious. You're not getting a conscience for that group, you're getting a consciousness of the people that stayed after the meeting. And to learn about group conscience and watch it happen is absolutely unbelievable. Somebody makes a motion, we vote, after discussion, pro and con we vote and everyone in the room votes for it except one person so we hear from that one person the minority opinion and what he says changes the whole vote back around and you watch absolute miracles in group consciousness we then close the meeting with a meditation different person does meditation each week from the book and close with the Lord's Prayer we've broken the book up into sections we take each section one at a time we've broken it into 14 sections and they pause at the end of each section and review what we've covered you know that might take an hour and it might take one meeting the first section is from the title page to the doctor's opinion up to the director's opinion we spent two weeks on that the second section was from the doctor'S opinion and up to page 23, step 1, the body. We spent four weeks and one week in review, approximately. In section 3, we went from page 23 to page 43 up to the end of chapter 3 to look at step 1. The mind. Section 4 was page 44 to page 57 up to chapter 5, step 2. Section 5 was from page 58 to page 64, up to the instructions for the fourth step. That was step 3. Section 6 was from pages 64 to page 67, up to the Instructions for the Fear Inventory. That was Step 4, Resentment. Section 7 was from Page 67 to 68, up to the instruction for the Sex Inventor. That was the Step 4 of Fear. Section 8 went from page 68 to page 71 To the end of chapter 5 And that was the inventory on The section inventory And the summary about the fourth step Section 9 will be from page 72 to 76 Up to step 6 That'll be step 5 Section 10 From page 76 up to the instructions for step 8 That'll been step 6 and 7 section 11 was from page 76 to 84 up to step 10 that'll be step 8 and 9 section 12 will be from 84 to 88 up to the end of into action that'll be step 10 and 11 and section 13 will be page 89 to 103 up to The End of Working With Others that's step 12 And then our last section will be from 151 to 164, a vision for you, review what we've done and decide what we want to do next. For me the workshop's been an incredible experience. Doing these tapes has been an honor and a privilege. It's kept me sober and I'm up here.