The 12th Step and Working With Others – Bronx Big Book Step Study – Part 2 of 3 – Tommy T.

Very good. Here's my alcoholic opening to the 12th step. Okay. I hear other people. Can everybody mute themselves, please? Well, this is the problem with a 60-year-old alcoholic and a computer right now. So that's what we're experiencing. My name is Tommy T., and I am an alcoholic. And I am thrilled and honored to be here to speak on Step 12. with a couple of hundred like-minded folks uh there's really nothing i would rather be doing right now uh the way my work life has been going lately it's been pretty hectic and uh just to slow it down to say no to a couple or city hall meetings and to be here with you folks you're making my day so it's kind of the 12th step in action right now you folks are helping me greatly and I appreciate it. My sober date is April 8th, 1995. My sponsor is Joe K in Ohio. You'll probably hear a little bit about him tonight or today. Just a great man and a kind soul. And my Christian friends, they wear bracelets that say WWJD, what does Jesus do? I wear that same bracelet and it says, what would Joe do? And this man has spent 23 years of his life trying to mentor me and try to get me to guide it on spiritual principles and into the service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, you know, if God gives me another 20 years on this planet and I do it for the rest of my time here, I think I'll come up short in the death that I owe AlcoholicsAnonymous. But that 12th step, that's my ticket to pay back for my previous life and the previous way. that I lived my life and, uh, which was not a good way, which was Not a Good Way. It was a tough way. Um, you know, I had the opportunity to catch my friend Chris this morning, uh opening up this conference and, um, he's, he just, he did a great talk on step one. And, uh you know what? You hear a lot of folks in Alcoholics Anonymous these days saying, you know, I'm going through the work. I'm goin' through the WORK now with my sponsor. I would like to clear that up for the new people. you're not going through the work when you're going through the 12 steps. You are going through a spiritual process that will transform your life, and you better just strap in and hang on because you don't even know what's coming your way. Going through the Work, the Work in Alcoholics Anonymous is having the big life that God gives us here, restoring the family life, restoring the job life, restoring uh helping others and doing all the things we do here and then you come home after that 14 hour day of work and there's that sad sack sponsee sitting on your front steps and oh geez i forgot it was wednesday here we go and uh you know in our heads we'll complain about it the rehab commitment comes up i don't want to go to football games on whatever But isn't it true every time we go, we feel uplifted and we've taken out another little credit towards our own sobriety. My friend up here in New York says the 12th step, that's the good dope here. And I really believe that, you know, it's through spiritual activity and helping others that I believe I've been given the life that I've given by you folks um and you know when we talk about the 12th step we could easily could easily spend an hour talking about working with others and just helping others but i hope i get to drift a little bit to uh practicing these principles in all our affairs because equally as important is is of helping others is how we attract folks here and uh you know people might be we might be the only people uh living version of the big book people see on any given day uh and my sponsor tells me to act like nobody's uh act like i'm watching but when nobody's watching and that's how i try to live my life today how am i going to do things when i'm not talking to sponsees when i m not talking at a zoom meeting of alcoholics anonymous how am I acting in my with my wife with my kids with my stepkids um you know that's equally as as big as a spiritual demonstration is having the 10, 15 sponsees or being the chairperson at the home group or the GSR or doing all those things. I got those things confused a lot for a long time. And I think I did a lot of activities in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I didn't take a lot of spiritual action for a point. I did things to check boxes. I wanted to have the most sponsees in the home group. I wanted the big position in the Home Group when I was young in Alcoholics Anonymous. And well, those things helped me grow a little bit and all. They just fed my ego and put me in a worse place. You know, when you start to think you're somebody in an anonymous program, you're really in trouble. You know? It's our job to just stay low-key and just help everybody we can. And that doesn't just mean alcoholics with a big book and sitting down and reading with them. It's opened the door for somebody who doesn't look like you, to somebody who Doesn't Sound Like You, to maybe put a couple of bucks in somebody's tin cup when you've been blessed to have your job back, to live the type of life that we should as citizens and as sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I think that's more the overall picture of the 12th step than it is just sitting down with a spot seat. Everybody can sit, sound really spiritual and really good sitting at their kitchen table when they got a new man or a woman across the table. Well, what are you doing when that guy cuts you off in traffic? What are you dealing when somebody disagrees with you politically or something else in this crazy world we're in? Me? I remember our preamble and I just don't get involved in that. You know, I've been saved from death and I've given a new life here That stuff just doesn't seem to matter. And it's all because of the 12th step. And Chris was saying this morning, you know, which I really liked, was he was talking about, you Know, if you have a problem with any of the other steps, even the 12-step, you're probably having a first-step problem, right? I would go a little further to tell you that if some man or woman in Alcoholics Anonymous took the time out of their busy, recovered life to sit with you and to read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, to take the time to answer your questions, to listen to hours and hours of newcomer nonsense because we all come in with it. And they sit and they're patient. We know now, I know, they're just praying. They're not really listening to me because that's what I do now, right? but to do all of that and if you're not giving this back my consideration to you would be to give a good hard look at your program of recovery and see where you're at because i don't care what anybody does for a living on this job i don'T care what uh on this meeting i DON'T care WHAT ANYBODY HAS AS A FAMILY UH UNIT RIGHT NOW I HAVE AN ALCOHOLIC WIFE I HAVE FOUR KIDS I GOT THREE dogs and they fight all the time. I had a real busy job, but I'm telling you, I'm crystal clear on my singleness of purpose. And that's that new man or woman that comes into my home group. I wouldn't have any of the other stuff without that. So if you've been blessed with a spiritual transformation based on these 12 steps and you're not giving it away to someone, I would just give you a serious consideration to take a look at that because I'm tellin' ya, it's delusion if You don't think you can't do it. Oh, I'm not suited that I can't have people in my home. Okay, so meet them at Denny's. Meet them in the park. Meet them somewhere else. Oh, i don't read well. Okay, let's get you some audio books. That's fine, you know. Okay, maybe taking people through the 12-step isn't your thing. Let's start riding people to meetings. Let's stop doing some service in our service structure. There are tons of things to do here. All equally is important to keep this wonderful thing going and growing and saving lives. You know, I'm sure the Bronx is exactly like Staten Island with the rate that we're losing people nowadays. We lose a kid a day here. And now at 60 years old, they're all my friends' kids. I can't tell you how many calls I get to go talk to somebody. It's almost like when I came in in 1995. You know? We kind of gave up all our 12-step work or the detoxing part of it And the first conversations kind of gave that away to therapists and treatment centers and things like that. At least that's what I see here on Staten Island a lot. But when I came in, I would get a call at 1030, 11 o'clock at night. And to the old guys that I hung around with, that was pretty late. And they'd say, we're coming by. We've got to talk to a new guy. And we come into a house and the house is in shambles. The wife is crying and there's a guy drinking and he's crying and he says he wants to stop. And without hesitation, these men who had very busy lives would stay there until 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning. Two of us would go home. One would stay with them. Then the other one would go back. I'd go to work. The other one Would go back at 8 o' clock and they'd get him into a detox. I don't see a lot of that now. You know, now some of the young guys in my home group, they'll send you a text if you don't get back to them. Sorry, you know, you don' t know where we are. We're down at Decker Avenue. You can come down and see us. But I will go anywhere, anytime. I will disappoint my family. I will disappointment my wife because she knows what it brings us as a family for me to get up and make that active 12-step call on someone. It is my duty. Men did it for me. I hope, I hope I never, never get away from that because that's really where it's at for me And, you know, we say we're going through those 12 steps and I've come around to be looking at it as, you know, it's not a linear thing. It's we don't go through the 12 steps. The 12 steps are a circle. Right? Every time I come around and I try to help somebody, I'm back in one with myself. I mean, anybody here, this is a big book conference, right? So we've all read the book a few times and new lines pop out all the time, right? It's like there's a spiritual editor there somehow like, hey, where'd that come from? I've read this thing 200 times. Where did that line come from?" The divinely inspired book written by Bill and others is just amazing to me. It's amazing to be 25 years into this thing that I still see things that actually spin my head and help me in that day that I'm going through something. Because these 12 steps did not take away life from me, they gave me life. So a lot more, quote, grown up things are happening in my life. And I'm not a grown up. I'm just not there, you know? And I read that book with others and I find my answers. You know, I think that's a simple way of how this thing all comes around and works. You know, there was a time in my sobriety that I was that militant, three, four year sober guy, went through the 12 steps, telling all the guys with 25 years that they're doing this wrong, that meeting makers don't make it and all this stuff. And I was telling them, you know, there's a holy war coming in AA and you're on the wrong side. You better change over. I mean, I was out of my mind, you Know, I would be that burning desire just to blow up a good discussion meeting because they weren't talking about the steps uh we had a lot of spiritually arrogant fun going through this i had a good good group of road dogs to do it with and uh you know it talks about it in the big book right the guy that gets so spiritually intoxicated he can speak of nothing else i didn't know anything else and when i found something that started working at 37 years old only two years sober uh or abstinent at that point man this was like the greatest thing since sliced bread and it still is it still um my enthusiasm for this book and for this program has not dwindled i think it's increased because now i see more and more manifestations of it in my life each and every day uh you know there's a line in the second step my sponsor pointed out to me and they were talking about the uh the correlation between uh electricity and how everybody just takes for granted that it works you know and it says this power this power that we we get here in Alcoholics Anonymous through these 12 steps and through helping others it says you will see feel direct and use it they're talking about electricity in the book but my sponsor told me to circle those lines. And he said, at some point in your AA career, you will see, feel direct and use the power of God every day. I'm there. I're there now. I walk with my head held high in Alcoholics Anonymous and I see God all the time. And where do I see it? I don't see it from my sponsor. I see from the guys that I try to help. I say it all the time. We're like that little kid in that movie, The Sixth Sense, right? I see dead people. I see that people walking in every Monday night. The lights are just out in these kids. They're just glazed over. I mean, all right, given it nowadays, they all got an iPhone, they got a $400, $500 vape thing and they got brand new sneakers on, but they're just morally bankrupt. There's nothing in the spirit. And then I see them after they hook up with one of the young men or young ladies in my home group, and they start going through this book, and we get to see that transformation happening. If you remember the time that you went through the 12 steps, if you have gone through the 12 steps. You don't really see it that way in yourself. But boy, what a joy it is to watch it happen in others. To see that kid that couldn't even read a paragraph from the 12 and 12, and now he's telling you, hey, I'm going for acting lessons. Like, what? You couldn't even read in the home group. Now you're going to, you know, he's going to go audition somewhere. And that's not the anomaly. I expect that here. I see it all the time. I see these guys that are divorced three, four times. When they're out there, they come in, they latch on to one girl and they stay there and they work through things. And all of a sudden, this is a family man of God. how does that happen? How does it happen to a guy like me? I got three stepkids now. I wouldn't even take care of my own kids when I was out there. The miracles that happen here at Alcoholics Anonymous because of this 12-step is just truly amazing, and you know, a little thing on our singleness of purpose, you know. It's not that we're arrogant. We think alcoholics is just a better disease than everybody else, and to hell with you drug addicts, you Know. I came in, and I was the kid that first started saying, I'm an alcoholic and an addict. Because I knew no better. I didn't have a first step at that point. And I did a lot of other substances when I was out there. But after sitting with a sponsor and going through the first step, I was crystal clear. I'm An Alcoholic Drug Abuser. I'll do anything you got. It doesn't matter what it is. But my deal is alcohol. And why is that so important? It is so important that the person identifies as an alcoholic here, because only then, and if you believe I know the game of alcoholism, will you trust me enough to do the things that you possibly cannot see coming in the 12 steps? Unless you have that deep down identification of alcohol-ism, you will not just trust this process. And that's what it is. You can't intellectualize this process. This process itself isn't the treasure, it's the map. You just got to trust enough and be broken enough to continue to go through this. You know, I had literally hundreds of people tell me I had a problem with alcohol. I had priests, guidance counselors, wives, girlfriends, friends, good drinking friends of mine telling me like, you really got a problem, you know? And I'm like, stop, I'll just get new friends. That's easy enough. I'll just go to the after hours and go to lower level bars and I'll be fine. I will fit in somewhere. It was not until I had a skirmish in an outpatient program when I got my second DWI and they were going to throw me out and that would have gotten me in some legal trouble so I conned my way back in and I said, listen, I'm not going to listen to that woman tell me about alcoholism because I asked this woman. She started to tell me what it was like to be an alcoholic and then she told me what it was like the son of an alcoholic. And I said, are you an alcoholic? And she said, that's not relevant to this therapy. And I said, well, I know you're not a son of an alcoholic, and I don't think this therapy is relevant to me. And I flipped the desk and I started to run out of there. Thank God they gave me another counselor and down comes the hall comes this surly old guy with a little stupid, like captain's yacht hat on you know his name was Francis he was 25 years sober and he said so you don't want to talk to anybody who's not an alcoholic huh and I said they got nothing to tell me you can't learn how I feel in books then he says you know I agree with you he says my last drink was about 25 years ago they found me uh naked three miles out of the Las Vegas strip and I was eating pinto beans out of a can and I didn't know how to get there. And I said, you I can talk to. And he became my one-on-one counselor. And, uh, he was the first guy that really explained alcoholism to me. And he used our big book. He was a member. Uh, he wasn't supposed to be using the big book in the treatment center he was in, but he did. And uh, I am truly grateful for that man. uh there's something about the magic that happens when one alcoholic not only talks to another but our hearts meet when we can laugh at each other and the person knows i'm not laughing at you i'm laughing with you because i did that or i did worse uh that's a big thing and we go through this process and we trust because maybe if i feel like him and i drank like him maybe i can get that smile that he has. And that guy for me was a guy named George. Lucky George, they called him. And he was a real meeting maker guy and he had about 15 years sober, but he broke down because he almost wanted to kill himself here in Alcoholics Anonymous with 15 years. And he went to one of these taboo big book workshops that nobody, we were not supposed to go there. Don't go there. Those people are crazy. And he went, and when I met George, that boy was on fire. And he saw that I was struggling, and he offered me his home, and he took me through this book. And man, I've never looked back. And everything that George said to me, I did not believe in God going through step two. I was willing to believe because George showed me clearly at step one how bad my life was and how bad my decisions were and how badly my heart hurt. How guilty, how shameful I was. He made the fourth step easy. He heard my fifth step and laughed at my worst stuff. He said, hey, that sounds like fun. Hey, I never got to do that. You know, I mean, he made my worst stuff sound like nothing. And all through the whole process all he said to me was Tom, the only thing I ask of you is that you you do this with others when you're done i will honor that to the day that i die i will never let george down on that promise i call him every april 8th he's in florida and i thank him for my life and he's how many people are you working with you know and we laugh and we laughed because i was the first one he took through the 12 steps and he hasn't worked with a lot of people over the years but he'll tell his old time of friends but i worked with that kid Tommy up in Staten Island, he's doing a good job up there. He's a surly old guy now. He's about 85 years old now. But that's the kind of camaraderie and the kind of heart meshing that we get here. I love that guy. I love that guys. You know, we do our service. We do what we can in the 12th step. And you know, you can debate yourself all the time. Do I do it because I know what it gives me. Who cares? You took a third step. You signed up to be one of God's kids. You signed Up to help them regardless. We do it and what happens? My God comes back to us two, three, four, five-fold. Sometimes because of our old thinking we don't even think we deserve this life but the only thing I do in my life without motive is help another alcoholic. It's the only thing pure in my life. I can corrupt and pollute every good thought in my life, and I can put a motive or try to manipulate an outcome behind every other thing in my wife but not working with another alcoholic. It makes my heart sing when I see the lights go on in a young person. And I just pray that they have a chance now because, you know, when we sit down with people, they don't have that chance. They don't have that chance. A couple of years into the process George started to stray a little bit and then he moved down to Florida and I was not sober enough to have a long-distance sponsor. So 23 years ago I asked this man Joe K to be my guy and I asked him to be my service sponsor because I was going into GSR and he gave me the best advice ever and I give it to many in GSR now. He said I will do it but I see that you're young and, you know, you're on fire and we have a lot of vacant commitments here. I will be your service sponsor if you promise me not to take any commitment in here for six months until you know the lay of the land and what's going on. I said, well, there's some easy directions I can follow. I'll just come to the meeting. I'm good. And we started to go through the traditions at Joe's house and we started to build that alcoholic trust, that alcoholic confidence. And I started to get a taste for the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and the traditions And the whole time I was kind of interviewing Joe, you know, is this guy going to be my sponsor? And I watched how he lived with his wife, Patty. And I watching how at, I'm going to say at about age 40, he turned from being a Harley Davidson guy, a part salesman for Harley Davidson Motorcycles. He went back to school and he became a Montessori kindergarten teacher. He shaved his big red beard off and he put Y-rim glasses on. And he always had the calm tone, but now he had the look to go with it. You know, the Brooks Brother type look. And I was like, wow, look at this. This is a physical transformation. So I asked Joe to be my sponsor. And he said, if I'm going to sponsor you, we're going to share inventory. That's what we do. And he got me into a discipline with the 11th step. I heard the end of Chris's talk, really good stuff. You're not going to hear anything that deep from me, believe me, about a metaphysical wave of God. You're Not Going To Hear That Stuff. That's Not Going to Happen. But Chris did a real good job with 11. But Joe told me that we'd write inventory, but the way that we see what do we do in 10 and 11 in checking ourself and praying and meditating, you're going to see the actions of those in 12. What are you doing to help another person? And he always said person. He never just said alcoholic. it. The expectation was I worked with others, of course. But he would always ask me, how am I doing with my girlfriend? How am I dealing with my son, the boy that I had abandoned for seven years? Have I patched that up? How is that going? Are you going down to see your alcoholic father in the bar? And he had me go down there every Saturday for an hour and sit. He said, I don't care if you got to stare at the clock for that hour. We're going to put this relationship back together and i would do that and my father in his cups would rip me up and he'd rip alcoholics anonymous up and i'd sit there for an hour every saturday and uh when i'd leave he'd say thanks for coming and one time i went down there my father was real sick and he he wasn't there and i asked the bartender this guy frank i said frank where's my old man he says oh man he had a rough night and he was he was really you know sick and uh he says but i gotta tell you tommy when you leave, he can't stop talking about you, man. He looks forward to Saturdays every day and all this. I would have never done that. I wouldn't have ever done that without a sponsor, without the leadership of another man that could look at my life without my fears, without my selfishness, without my resentments, without My Agnosticism and tell me what's right. Joe never gave me bad advice. He gave me some uncomfortable stuff to do. He never gave me bad advice. And he walks this journey with me. We do things together. It's a clear-cut relationship. He is my sponsor. We have become friends over 23 years, but not like buddy-buddy. I share inventory to him and he says things to sting me, and I get it. He loves me enough to tell me the truth. And I try to do that with my guys, He said, sometimes I'm not as kind and loving as Joe. So some of my guys will tell you that I'm sarcastic. Well, God hasn't taken that from me yet, fellas. I don't know what to tell you. But it comes out with love. And it comes it comes up with love and it comes down with because it's not just after a while here of just trying to stay away from the drink. What do I got to do to stay with the drink? I haven't thought about a drink in 24 years. But you know what it is about. It's about being a better man tomorrow than I am today, each and every day. And you know, when I met my wife now in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was already a two-time loser. I was divorced twice. I had a son that I had put up for adoption and never seen, and I had another son that i was trying to put back the wreckage of running out on him for seven years. This girl had three kids. Joe said, you are not to put your hands on her. I trusted Joe enough that I listened to him, and I did not. And we became friends for a very long time, over a year. And when it started to get closer, we courted, for you older folks, people know what a courtship is. A courtship isn't just Netflix and chill for you younger folks, right? I did Not put my hands on my wife for a Very long time. and we built a friendship. And I'm with that woman for 13 years now. And she was married twice before we got together. And we laugh because all of our marriages put together don't even come close to what we got now. There was no prayer that I ever said in Alcoholics Anonymous that said, God, please send me a crazy alcoholic single mother with three kids. It just wasn't there. That was Joe that led me down that path. But he said, you don't touch her until you can except the responsibility that comes with those kids. I don't want you going in and out of kids' lives like that just for your own selfish needs. Where does that come from? It comes from our big book. It comes form the principles behind this. It doesn't come from Tom. I'm not capable of that. I would have had her in the sack maybe second, third date. That's the guy I am, you know. But it led to the life that I lead today. it i tell you folks it's amazing it's an amazing life and she's my best friend oh my kids have never heard me raise my voice in my household 13 years and people say ah you're full of stuff or my wife man she's been walking 10 step i've never done it i i have in my head throat punched each and every one of them i can tell you that i have slapped them in my head many times. We got a deck in the backyard. I just walk out in the deck and I pray for the strength not to lose my stuff. And God grants me that grace. And I walk back in. And now somehow through these principles, I hear my son say, and all I want to do is be a man of integrity like my father. Man of integrity? Tom T? They don't go together. They have never gone together. but in my kids eyes they go together and that's because of you folks that's what you taught me that's the path that you have me on it's not always comfortable it's hardly ever convenient but my god we cannot we cannot disavow the outcome i'm living a life if if if what i thought my capabilities were here I'm living a life up here because of you guys. I always think I'm in over my head. I never think I're good enough, and I pray, and I meditate, and I write inventory, and I talk to another drunk, and I know I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and God wouldn't give me anything that I can't handle. And then I go grab another new guy, and I take him to a meeting, and I listen to his nonsense, and realize, my God, I am just a couple of steps away from where this guy is. And it's just a great big circle. It's just a great Big Circle. This is a game that you cannot beat. Joe Keegan is an exceptional man. And he's a man that I want to be like. He's dying now, and we do a Zoom meeting on Saturday mornings with the guys he sponsors. He doesn't comment about what's going on in his life. talks about us he tries to help us I tried to get out of my 945 call with him and I said Joe oh I feel really silly sharing my inventory with you on on Tuesday nights because it's nonsense and he said unless you're firing me Tom you're gonna keep calling because that half hour I spend with you is a half hour I don't have to spend thinking of myself the man you have in front of you today i would be curled up in a ball in the fetal position blaming the whole world for my condition joe's worried about his wife and he's worried about 15 knucklehead sponsees all that have 20 years or better our 12th step just an amazing amazing thing and it's amazing thing to witness it's not what we read to people, it's not what we tell people how we live in. I am constantly aware that the biggest thing I can give to somebody is my time but is it quality time? Am I praying before I speak with someone? Am I pausing when agitated? Do I have restraint of tongue and pen? am I being a man of integrity and dignity that you taught me to be? Or am I still the selfish little kid that I want to be all the time, that my mind tells me that I am all the time. But the men that I associate myself with alcoholics anonymous will not let me sit in that. They will tell me you are being selfish. You're not looking at how this affects your family. You are not looking for money. You are looking at the bigger picture here. you are they will just chop me down and I wouldn't have it any other way I don't want to talk to somebody and have them tell me oh yeah your wife she's a real doozy you know this and that not oh no no no I called Joe and I mentioned some resentments about Cheryl and he says well you know that's that's something she's got a sponsor you know she'll work that out but how'd you act he turns it on me in 30 seconds and I'm like geez I didn't get much relief out of that You know, it's just an amazing journey that we get here and we get to go on it together. And none of us are perfect at it. We're perfect in our imperfections is what we are. And thank God that we have 10 and 11 and 12 to make ourselves to repair some of those things that we did. Those feelings that if you felt like I did, that I would never rebuild the damage that I did. The hurt that I caused. Get over the guilt and the shame that I did? Well, I got about, I don't know, 10, 12, 13, 14 sponsees that just, they call me and they're looking for guidance. They just need somebody to talk to. Do I have the time to talk with them? Do I turn off the TV when they talk? I got a couple of guys I don' t even like. I say that quick prayer before I pick up the phone and let's go what do you got you know and it's just it's crazy it's crazy how this works it's just an amazing journey and it is a journey I don't think I could have done by myself I don' t think I would have done it through any I tried a lot of self help I tried therapy I tried psychiatrists none of that here, but a little bald-headed bookie from Brooklyn and now this red-headed farmer from Ohio. These guys just set me straight. The other thing that I'd like to touch on a little bit is the life we lead here, it's got to be a transparent life. You can't have those secrets. For the men, you can't be doing the porn and this and that and then coming out Hawks Anonymous and talking about God. You're sabotaging yourself. You can't just scream at your wife at home and then talk about being kind and loving in the home group. Something's got to change there, and the change is worthwhile for us. See, because when we're doing that one deviant thing or gambling or whatever it is, and then we'll go into our AA group, we're putting ourselves in a self-appointed purgatory. See, I got this deviant guy that really wants to get down and nasty with some sexual stuff, right? But I got this AA guy that talks about God and he screws this stuff up. And then I got this God guy that at times can just do wonderful things but here's this other guy trying to drag him down and I never get to experience the full joy of the light live a transparent life here do the best you can make all the mistakes you can you're gonna make a ton of them if you knew you're going to make a ton of him if you're old i mean i'm still making them this is not something i've grown through you know what i mean I see my friend Jose there I know he knows oh you know these are just the things we do but we surround ourselves in that herd mentality and we get in the middle of that herd and we stay there you know it's those little stragglers that get picked off not the ones in the middle of the herd and we help that guy next to us and if he's dragging a little bit we put our hands out and we pull him up and we don't knock anybody down here unity in our first tradition huge here huge here there was a time in my my sobriety where I would call a meeting down the street that open disgusting meeting you know because they weren't talking about our liturgy I would bash another member of Alcoholics Anonymous just because he wasn't doing things the way that I was doing it. There is no fighting in this life raft here. There's no room for that. Don't make waves. Get in the life raft, grab your strap, hang on and pull somebody up. We're not here to knock anybody down. Don'T judge anybody here. If I was to judge anybody here i would say well let me look at myself first because i fall i hold you to judgment standards that i can't hold myself to that's the alcoholic you have in front of you talking about 12 today um the mistakes will come and go the 12 step keeps us in line the 12th step keeps us sober keeps us moving keeping on a path that really goes somewhere and uh you know i think i'm going to end with, since I didn't really talk about traditionally your 12th step the way maybe some big book folks would want to, why don't I end with the last couple of paragraphs from A Vision From You. And it tells us our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you've not got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road to happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you till then. Thanks so much for having me, folks. Love you guys.