The Down Escalator Analogy for Sobriety – Don C.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a special edition of A Vision for You. Today is February 9, 2014. My name is Leah, and I'm your moderator. The share ID number for Friday, February 7, is 5886. This morning, A Vision for You presents Holding on to the Gift. Steps 1 through 9 are the recovery process resulting in a spiritual transformation. We have had a spiritual awakening, a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery. The channel of grace in us is cleared. The sunlight of the Spirit deep down inside us is allowed to shine up and through us. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. We are ready. began eating in my particularly in my late teens and in early 20s i was using food as medication uh this is hindsight of course using food as medication and then it just took more and more and more and more and eventually i crossed some magic line like the big book talks about i crossed that line where i no longer had any choices i had to eat i couldn't stop eating once i had that first bite so i moved from the obsession into the compulsion and uh into addiction and that's where i am today and that's why i call myself both of those things step two from seeing and hearing recovery in the oa rooms i gained the hope that kept me coming back to meetings that's all step two was for me in the beginning the atheist uh none of this god stuff none of this high power stuff there was some but there was recovery in the rooms if there had not been recovery and hope in the rooms i wouldn't would not have kept coming back but there was some of that not everybody of course but there was enough for me to say well maybe i'm not trapped after all step three um i committed to work in the program in other words the rest of the steps so for me surrender wasn't so much giving up as it was deciding to cooperate with all these crazy people and these 12 steps that i didn't understand but somebody kept telling me i'm not going to do it again and i'm not going to do it again and i'm not going to do it again and i'm not going to do it again and i'm not going to do it again and i'm not going to do it again and me, you don't need to understand. Just trust the process. It worked for us. It'll work for you. Just trust the process and keep going and keep taking the actions that we suggest that you take because it's what worked for us. So that's what step three was for me, a commitment to work the program, kind of a contract. I signed a contract and said, okay, I'll do it. And then I jumped into the real action steps where the real pay dirt is. You know, one, two, and three are kind of the preparatory, the foundation steps. Four through nine are actually the change steps or the transformation steps. And then 10, 11, or 12 are about holding on to it. So steps four, five, six, and seven were the real, real change steps for me where I began rebuilding myself into a new person. Personality change was the definition that I had to use. I didn't know about all the spiritual awakening stuff, but I went out. I read Appendix 2. By the way, if Appendix 2 were not in the book, I would not be here because I read that. A guy sent me to Appendix 2 and I read that and I said, okay, maybe, maybe I can identify with this personality change stuff because I know there's obviously a problem here. So maybe I'll stick around and work this silly process and see what these people are talking about. So I began to rebuild myself through the steps. I began to, and I'm really talking about four, five, six, and seven now and everything I'm going to say now. I began to face and deal with life rather than whine and eat. I began taking responsibility, no more blaming others or circumstances. That was the first realization that I came to in the program is that I did in fact have choices. I was not trapped, that there was a way out, and if I would just continue doing the work and following the directions. I began to let go of my own self-image. I began to let go of my own self-image. I began to let go of my go of self-centeredness. I never ever thought I was self-centered, but the book and others began to show me how, in fact, I was. I was all I thought about. I began to let go of self-centeredness and controlling. And again, I never thought I was a controller, but the big problem for me was this mental master planning. In other words, imposing shoulds and oughts on people in my head. And they should do this, they ought to do this, etc. And of course, they never did any of that because they didn't know the instructions that I was giving them in my brain. They couldn't mind read. And so that kind of thinking set me up to always be frustrated because of the people and the situations. They never went the way I thought they should. So shoulds and oughts, shoulds and oughts. I began to let go of the self-sabotaging perfectionism that was in me that ensured that I would always feel not good. And I began to let go of the self-sabotaging perfectionism that was in me that ensured that I would always feel not good enough. You know, perfectionism is one of the stepchildren of fear. And so it caused me to work too hard, impose these impossible standards on myself. And of course, I could never meet those. So it was just self-sabotage. I was always not good enough, not good enough by my own measure. I began to let go of selfishness. There was a gradual, gradual paradigm shift for me from how do I get what I want to how can I be? How can I be useful? How can I get what I want versus how can I be useful? I began to think about how can I contribute? How can I be of help rather than how can I get mine, get mine, get mine, get mine? And of course, the 11-step prayer admonishes me to seek to comfort, understand, and love rather than to be comforted and be understood and be loved. I began practicing acceptance and letting go of anger and resentment. I began to practice courage rather than fear. For a long time, it was simply white-knuckle courage for me. White-knuckle courage. I had a tough, tough love sponsor in the beginning who says, I don't give a damn. If you are afraid, go do it anyway. Just do it anyway. Just do it anyway. Just do it anyway. And a long time ago is when I first heard the slogan, courage is not the absence of fear. It's doing it anyway. And that was my first sponsor. He said, do it anyway. I began to be real or authentic. Fifth step is all about it. It's all about integrity and getting real. And so I began to be authentic and real rather than a phony. I spent most of my life on stage, always pretending, always seeking strokes, always seeking the accolades, always seeking the affirmations. I began to put discipline and structure into my life, starting with the eating, of course, but extending into everything else. But all that discipline and structure, and that's the key theme of everything I'm going to talk about today, is the key theme of everything I'm going to talk about today. I'm holding on to is the discipline, discipline and structure of just doing it, just doing it, daily disciplines, I call them. But I began to put structure and discipline into my life, starting with the eating. And before that, I had this delusion that I should be living spontaneously and free. And if I put structure in like a food plant, it was somehow or another going to take away from my life. And of course, that was just rationalization and stupid thinking. The fact is, when I put structure and discipline into my life, I became more free than ever before, and I became much more productive. In my work life, I used to work 15 hours a day or something like that to get X amount of work done. And as I changed through the transformation process of the steps, I began to get more and more productive there. And I found myself doing in eight or nine hours what used to take 15 hours or something like that. So I became more and more productive. And I began to get more and more productive. And I began to get more and more productive as I put discipline and structure in. So that's some of the things that began happening to me in steps four through seven. Not overnight. That's a slow process. But I had to identify that stuff and what the problems were, whether you call them flaws or shortcomings or whatever. Steps eight and nine for me, making the amends and forgiveness of others. I took full responsibility for what I had done. I made amends. And I put the past away. Just put the past away. I was able to let it go. I didn't have a lot of amends, but there were about a dozen. And it freed me. So I was free. New day, new life. And that was a gift. As I said, my abstinence date is not from the beginning of the program. It took me a couple of years of on and off. There were long periods of abstinence. And then I would decide to experiment and go out and do something else. And I would do something else. And I would do something else. And I would go out and do my restaurant thing from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant and then get sick and then think, well, that didn't work out so well. So it took me a little bit. But I finally got abstinent in about two years on a permanent basis since today, one day at a time. So I put the past away in steps eight and nine. And the healing really began. The healing came. Sometimes I say these steps are not for me. They're for me. They're for me. They're for me. They're for me. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. It's God that heals. What happens in the steps is that the process of doing the steps seems to open me up to the healing power of God. I'll use the word God. It opens me up to the healing power. But I have to open myself up to that. It's like finding God deep inside of me. I have to open myself up to that. So the healing came. The obsession was lifted just as it's promised in the big book. And so today I hold on to the gift by actively living in steps 10, 11, and 12. Step 10, every morning I inventory. I'm going to come back and talk more about this in detail, but just to finish up the summary of the steps useful for me. Every morning I inventory my emotional and spiritual condition, make the necessary corrections in my thinking or behavior. I continue to grow as well as keep the slate clean as I go. Step 11, every morning I seek to understand God's will for me through prayer and meditation. And I'm going to take you through my prayer and meditation. And I'm going to take you through my prayer and meditation. And I'm going to take you through my prayer and meditation. And I'm going to take you through my exact process detail of what I do, what I did this morning and what I do every morning. I say my own prayers as well as the serenity, third, seventh, and eleventh step prayers, plus the big books direct my thinking. Today, God keep it free of self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives. I also always say the just for today affirmations from OA that I started saying back in the 80s. And I still say those every day, every day. They're very helpful for me. Those affirmations. And I'll talk about that a little bit later. Step 12, I devote a great deal of one-on-one time trying to help others who share my disease, as well as a lot of time doing service for intergroup region and world service. So the disease is arrested in me, but it's still there. I know that I'm always one bite away. Not picking up that first bite has to be the most important, most important thing in my life. And it is, it's more important than my wife, my marriage, my kids, my grandkids, even my grandkids. It's the most important thing because if I pick up that first bite, which sets off the craving, the compulsion, then I run the risk of descending back into the hell from which I found my way out back in 1980, 82. So I stay free only as long as I remain in fit spiritual condition, as Lee was saying. And I'm not going to go into too much detail on that. I'm going to go into more detail on that a little bit later. But I'm going to talk about the three steps that I took a while ago, which in concrete terms means continuing to take the actions outlined in the 12 steps. Freedom is not free. I say that more often than a lot when I do retreats. That's always the theme of the retreat. Freedom is not free. Freedom is not free. So that's kind of the step process that I went through, transformation process, personality process, personality change process, and then I went through the process. So let me switch gears a little bit now and talk about holding on to it. I'm often asked because I'm an old timer, as they say around here, I often ask, how come it still works? Why are you still here? How come it still works? And so I have written down an answer to that just so that I give it this way. And let me just run through what that answer is in net, net, net, and then I'll elaborate. How come it still works? Because it's not a program I'm on. It's a way of living. 2. OA teaches me how to live, not how to eat. Yes, I did have to learn about eating in the very beginning, but ultimately my problem was not the food. Food was the symptom. Because if I never picked up the first bite, then the compulsion didn't start. So I'm going to go through that. So foods just weren't forward Speaker 1 So occurs to us as adults who are lying to ourselves and the mind struck. So food sugar and refined veg scwidth, to operate and touch, loss, and repotrivity … Two R-O, different names a copes with some Today hospital diversity diet and nutrition science framework So eventually, people are From healthy to healthy, which was equally critical starting the day. It's one thing in a hotel4 braid These goddamn sight là They're smart, there are people… Women 003 They still А It's about escape. It's about comfort. 4. OA gives me a new way of thinking and living that takes away the need for the food coping mechanism. When I practice these principles in all my affairs, when I live according to the design for living that's laid out in the literature, both AA and OA, I don't need the food. The obsession doesn't start. If the obsession doesn't start, then I never have to fight off the first bite. My big five on slogans, which for me, slogans for me are basically a shorthand of the basic philosophies of the program. So my big ones are one day at a time, first things first, easy does it, live and let live, let go and let God. And how important is it, really? Those six kind of encompass. My basic philosophy, if you think about each of those and what it ultimately means. I try to live by the other principles of the steps, and I'll talk about those more. I've let go of the past. I've let go of my faults. I've got a new basis for thinking. I treat the program as if I'm kind of like going up a down escalator. I have to keep moving and doing. I have to keep growing. I have to keep going forward, keep working the program and practicing these principles every day. Every day, every day. Or I go backwards. There's no such thing as standing still. No such thing as standing still. So the down escalator for me is a pretty good analogy. I just have to keep doing it. I try to live a spiritually centered life rather than self-centered. Asking all the time, what would God have me do? And as I go through my 11th here in a second, you'll see what I mean. I'm looking for what I can put into life rather than take out. And. My daily disciplines of tools, prayer, meditation and affirmations. So. We give you one more little list I have in front of me. That in case I forget it, I might forget it later as I get, get bogged down, get, get into the intricacies of 10, 11 and 12. And that's my list of wrong thinking or mistakes that lead me into trouble. What are the things that lead me or potentially lead me back into relapse? And of course, you know, in our program, oh, a program, the relapse rate is 75%. And so. While it may happen, slips and relapse doesn't have to be inevitable. It's for 25%. It doesn't happen. I'm one of that 25%. So what's the wrong thinking that leads me into trouble? I've listed seven things here. Thinking about what the world is giving me rather than what I can give to the world. Important. Thinking about what the world is giving. Me rather than what I can give to the world. Two. Obsessing on problems rather than possible solutions or letting go and let God. Big Book talks about if we focus on the problem, the problem increases. We focus on the solution. The solution increases somewhere long, long time ago. One of the major shifts or paradigms for me was don't focus on the problem. When the problem occurs, immediately start thinking about. All right. What are the possible responses? What are the possible. What are the possible solutions? What are the possible actions that I can take? So it doesn't do any good to whine, whine, whine. I spent my life whining about problems and the program helped me to let that go. Three. Third example of wrong thinking that leads me into trouble. Self-reliance. Not asking God and others for help. Depending upon my self-will. That was part of my quote unquote religion when I came to the program. I thought self-sufficiency was one of the highest virtues known to mankind. I got that from my father. He said, never ask for help. It's a weakness. Men don't do that. You don't need help. If you ask for help, you're weak. So I thought self-sufficiency was it. And then he also said, my mother said, and then of course, if you have somebody helps you, then you owe them and you don't ever want to owe anybody. So examples of bad thinking. Four wrong, wrong thinking or mistakes that lead me to trouble is letting up on prayer and meditation. Not nurturing my conscious contact with God. As I understand. God, him, her, it, whatever it is. Five, letting up on service to other compulsive eaters. That's a biggie. I must do that. I must pass it on. Certainly as people in this big book study know, Bill only held onto it because he was trying to help people those first six months. He didn't help a soul, but he kept, kept sober. Six, forgetting that I am an addict and therefore not using my drug of food as a drug of food is the most important thing in my life. And that's easy, easy for people to forget sometimes as they get farther and farther and farther and farther away from having used it. And lastly, seven, not, not working and living the 12, 12 and nine, as I call it, the 12 steps, 12 traditions and nine traditions and nine tools. Those are the disciplines of the, of the program. All right. Step 10. I, I do step 10 a lot of different ways. The big book of course talks about selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. It says, watch for these. And it says, when, doesn't say if it says when these occur, because they will occur, they will occur in everybody. So that's, that's part of, of what I do every day is, is on an ongoing basis, really asks for, really check and see how am I doing today on selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. In the 11th step, of course, there's also part of the 10th step there in the, in the, you know, what we do at night when we retire at night, that's a kind of inventory also. I do do that in the morning as part of my 10th step work. Was I selfish, dishonesty, resentment, or afraid? Do I owe an apology? Have I kept something to myself, which we should be discussed with another person? Was I kind and loving toward all? What could I have done better? Was I thinking of myself most of the time? Was I thinking of myself? Was I thinking of what I could do for others, et cetera? So what I'm doing here in the third step is, in the 10th step, is taking my spiritual temperature. I have to keep measuring it just like a navigator on an airline has to keep paying attention to where he or she is flying that aircraft, because if there's slightly off, they have to make corrections. Well, 10th step is taking a measure of myself and seeing what corrections need to be take, taken. And then I'm going to take a measure of myself and see what needs to be cleaned up so that I don't accumulate any mistakes as I go along. But even more importantly for me in the 10th step is to say, how am I doing on those things in steps four, five, six, and seven that I'm working on changing? That's the important one, is linkage back to what I've identified there, and particularly in six and seven where I work on changing. You know, I look at, I differ in certain places with certain things in the program. So in six and seven, for example, while I say the seven-step prayer every morning as part of my 11-step work, I always go on beyond that and talk about my part, because I look at life as a co-creation with God. My life is a co-creation. Everything that happens during the day is a co-creation. I put myself in a position to be a part of God. I'm in a position for many things that happen. I happen to have free will. I have choices, and many of the choices I make might set me up for good things, might set me up for bad things. So not everything that happens is God's will for me. Stuff happens. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and that's just the way it is. So my step seven is very much a, what are the new behaviors, what is the new thinking that I need to be working on? What are the things I need to be let go of? So in my seven-step, after I say the prayer, I say specifically God, help me today to live in faith rather than fear or worry. Help me today to live in a mindset of surrender rather than trying to control and manage life. Help me today to live in acceptance rather than resentment and anger. Help me today to live in tolerance rather than judging and criticizing. Help me today to take responsibility for myself and my actions and what happens to me rather than blaming or playing the victim or thinking I'm some kind of prisoner of bad things. And right on down the line, I have a list in front of me all the time when I'm doing my tenth step. And as you see it, the seventh step is kind of part of the tenth step. So I'm looking at the stuff that I'm trying to change. How am I doing on that? Am I making progress? Am I sliding backwards? What am I doing? So those are the things that I'm asking myself in the tenth step every day, every day, every day. And then taking me according to the actions that need to be taken. Sometimes there's amends, but very seldom. Not too many amends need to be made when you really truly practice these principles in all your affairs throughout the day 24-7. But this gives me a mechanism for doing that. Now, eleventh step. I'm going to tell you, let's see, it's 9 o'clock. So I'm going to tell you my precise process here for the eleventh step. Remember, I came to the program as an atheist. And it's been a long, long, long, long spiritual journey for me. And I wouldn't call myself an atheist anymore because, but my conception of higher power, which I'll call God today, is my own. It's whatever works for me. And that's the wonderful, wonderful thing about this program is that there are as many definitions of God as you want. When I came in, I had all kinds of definitions, all kinds of synonyms. I'm looking through my notes here to see a stack of synonyms that I had around. But I don't see it now. So we'll forget about the synonyms. But had a lot of them. Today I'll just call it God. Call it Spirit of the Universe. And I'm going to tell you actually what my current articles of faith are as I finish up on eleventh step. So this is the precise process that I go through every day. Remember the daily discipline that I talked about, about holding on to this, holding on to this. I did this this morning. I do it every single morning, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what. Sometimes, almost never, but sometimes things will happen that I can't do it first thing in the morning if I'm traveling or something on an airplane. But I can start the day at any time. Day starts any time, any time. And I have often started my day with this eleventh step work at noon or even in the afternoon for some peculiar reason. But 98% of the time this is my opening in the morning. And this really is within the framework of everything that you read in the big book. You read in the big book in 88, 86 to 88. I get up in the morning after I do all my whatever it is and have my coffee. Then I sit down and I say my opening prayer on awakening, right, in the big book, page 86. On awakening, here's what I say when I sit down. Good morning, God. Thank you for the gift of another day. Gift, gift, important word. Help me use it wisely. Grant me the discipline to be productive and useful. And the power to abstain from the evil. And the power to abstain from the evil. And the power to abstain from the evil. Find from toxic food, toxic thinking and toxic behavior. And then I say the line out of the big book. Direct my thinking today, God. Keep it free of self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Now on my sheet here I have little notes of some of the things that are currently the things that I need to look at. So what do I mean by toxic foods? I've already mentioned for me that sugar and flour or toxic eating would be something other than 3 mls a day. day. So destructive eating, toxic eating, that's what I mean by the word toxic. So that's the toxic food. Toxic thinking, specifically what I mean by toxic thinking, fear, that's the self-destructive thinking, fear, self-pity, negativity, resentment, judging. Those are my top five examples that I always have right in front of me every day as I do the 11th step, right? Power to abstain from toxic thinking, fear, self-pity, negativity, resentment, and judging. And toxic behavior, what kind of toxic behavior? For me, that the top five are procrastination, controlling, trying to control others, whether it be my spouse, my whatever, my inner group, my OA meeting, my whatever, whatever. Criticizing, complaining, and phoniness. So that's what I mean specifically by toxic food, toxic thinking, and toxic behavior. Then they direct my thinking today, keep a tree of self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives. What do I mean exactly for me on self-pity? I have to be careful that I'm not blaming others for how I feel. My feelings are up to me. I am free to choose. I have to be careful that I don't, that I'm not working these scenarios in my head around if only, if only, if only she would do this, if only they would do this, if only Congress would, if only my mother would, whatever. Or another one, another phrase, as soon as. As soon as she dies, everything will be great. As soon as whatever, fill in the blank. This is all part of the self-pity. And someday, someday this will change, someday that will be better, etc. So, avoid the if only's, the as soon as's, and the someday. The dishonest part of that, keep it free of self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. The dishonest part for me, I always look at two parts to that. One is the disease itself. I am a compulsive overeater, and I have to have a structured way of eating, and I have to avoid certain toxic foods, and I have it forever. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, terrify my Stefanie's family with an Ellen White ratios. And that's why this cycle is so boring. ever until my dying day, be able to handle food like a normal eater. So I cannot ever begin to rationalize and water that down. I am just as much a compulsive overeater and food addict today as I was when I discovered that I was 32 years ago when I came into the program. The disease is there. The obsession has been lifted. I'm not fighting it. But I'm not fighting it only as long as I continue to do all this stuff that I'm talking about here that keeps me in fit spiritual condition. But it's there. It's always there. So I cannot play with that or rationalize, oh, it's been a long, long, long time since I've done that. It won't hurt. That's nonsense. There's probably many people on this telephone line right now that have thought that at some point and picked up the whatever, the donut or the pizza or the bag of chips or whatever it was. And the next thing you know, you were gone and you're out of control. So I cannot rationalize that. The other thing there about the dishonest motives is phoniness. You have to be careful. That I'm being real. Real, real, real. I must be real and authentic. Don't play games. Don't be on the stage. No role playing. And then the self-seeking motive is watch out that I'm not just trying to get my way. You know, there's a thousand ways that we can try to manipulate people, places, and things in order to get our way, our way, our way. And, of course, it's nonsense. We have to be careful. I have to be careful of that. The other part of that self-seeking motive is strokes. Be careful that I'm not just... Seeking strokes of one kind or another or affirmation or accolade or whatever it is that I'm chasing because I feel insecure in myself. So that's what I mean by those two prayers. Second thing I do, I plan my day. This, by the way, is a ten-part. My 11-step is a ten-part process, believe it or not. So one is the opening prayer I just said. Two is to plan my day. I write down three things. I write down my plan of eating for the day. I write down my plan of eating for the day, which I did this morning. And the second thing I do is to write down my prioritized activity plan. It's like a to-do list, but it's prioritized. And you could even call it action plan if you want to talk about the tool in a way. But I've been doing this forever and ever. So it's a prioritized activity plan. And then the third thing, and I don't always do this, but more often than not, I do write it down. And that's an attitude plan, believe it or not. If I've learned nothing in this program... It's that I'm in charge of my attitude. And I can change how I feel by changing the sentences going through my head. I'll talk about affirmations in a few minutes. But that's the attitude. I can change it. So I write down what it is, what attitude I want for... I'm going to really pay attention to today, and I'm reaching for my journal to see what I wrote down this morning. I wrote down can-do attitude. The can-do. Focus, focus, focus, can-do. I have 1,000. I have 1,000 things to do. I didn't write all this down on the list, but I have a lot to do. And I need to have a positive can-do. I can do these things. So those are my list. Number three is right out of the big book. If there's an indecision on the plan, on this plan that I'm making, I ask God for guidance. And that's on page 86 of the big book. God, what would you have me do about fill in the blank? Show me your will. Show me your will for me on this issue. That doesn't often happen that I use that, but occasionally it's there. So that is the process. How do I know what's God's will for me? Good question that I'll ask myself. I have a criteria that's just for me for today. And I say, well, I think it's God's will if I do this, it will likely bring me self-respect. It will likely leave me feeling peaceful rather than conflicted. It's loving toward others. And it's consistent with the principles of the steps and traditions. So if something that I'm thinking about doing meets all of those qualifications, then I think, well, for sure it seems like it might be God's will. Number four on my daily discipline is read my daily meditation books and write on their applications to me. So I read several books every day, sometimes a few or sometimes more. This morning I read three books. I read the AA Daily Reflections. I read the Four Disciplines. Today book, AOA's Daily Meditation. And I read the four Voices of Recovery today. It was interesting. Today's Voices of Recovery is about holding on to the gift, believe it or not. February 9th. Why did they fall from grace, it says? Because they have a chronic incurable disease that requires daily application of this unconscious surrender to God, etc., etc. So it talks about how we fall back into the trap of the disease by not working. It's not working. It's every day, every day. And I write in my journal on those applications to me. That's been a big part of my slow, gradual personality change is reading these little books, these truth books, I call them, and gaining lessons in there about how to live my life. Five, I do a gratitude list absolutely every day. I have depression in my family. I've had depression ever since I was a child. It's still there. I've never taken drugs for it. I manage it with the program, with affirmations. But it's important for me to do a gratitude list every day just to try to keep things into perspective. And I did a gratitude list this morning. It looks like it had eight or nine things on it. Six, what I do then is prayers. And I do the serenity prayer. And sometimes, as I did this morning, I wrote down some things. I write a little list of things. Things I can change and things I cannot change. I always do the cannot first. What can I not change that, in fact, is causing me some difficulty or some agita or whatever it may be? And I wrote down this morning my age, my mom, Congress, my disease, et cetera. I can't change any of those things. What can I change? I wrote down this morning my attitude, my priorities, the number of meetings I go to, what I read. And my exercise program and my faith. I can work harder on cultivating faith. So that's a very useful little exercise for me to write down as part of the serenity prayer what I can and what I cannot. Just some of the things that are going on in my life at the current time. Then I say the third step prayer, offer myself to thee, et cetera. Then I say the seventh step prayer. And as I said before, when I say the seventh step prayer, at the end I say specifically, God, can you help me today? To live in. And then, as I said before, on the inventory, faith rather than fear, cheerfulness rather than gloominess, humility rather than pride and self-centeredness, the present versus the past, compassion rather than indifference, et cetera. I say the 11th step prayer. 11th step prayer is an important prayer for me. It's St. Francis prayer. It's in the AA 12 and 12. It's where I learned it from. Particularly the last. The last part that says, help me today. Granted, I may seek to comfort, understand, and love rather than be comforted, be understood, and be loved. That is a total 180-degree paradigm shift from where I came into the program. Seek to comfort, understand, and love rather than to be comforted, be understood, and be loved. I say the resentment prayer. I have a 94-year-old mother. In dementia. In a nursing home for whom I am responsible. And even after all these years, she still causes me some trouble sometimes, pushes some of my buttons. But there's also just the ongoing challenge of managing that situation. I'm it for her. She has no one else. So I'm it. So I say the resentment prayer for her. God help me remember that. Mom is a sick person, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And that I need to show her the same patience, tolerance, kindness, and love and pity. I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Show me how I can be helpful to her. Keep me from being angry. Thy will be done. I say the fear prayer almost every day. Even though there's not much fear there. You know, the fear prayer is right out of the book. Remove my fear, God. Direct my attention to what you would. Have me be. Page 68. And then I have personal prayers that I will say. And here are my, what I'm reading from is the one page, front and back, that I have in front of me every morning, every morning. It's all right there. And so it's just laid out in front of me. And I just follow down the process. Some of my prayers. Here is my day, God. Guide my thoughts, words, and actions. God, grant me the discipline to be productive and useful today. And the power of God. The power to abstain from toxic food, toxic thinking, toxic behavior. Another one. God, take away the clutter and clamor in my mind and life and help me do what needs to be done. Today is a precious gift. Help me not waste it. Four. God, help me deal with every situation today with a calm mind and steady heart. God. Five. God, help me to live the principles today of one day at a time. First things first. Easy does it. Mindset. Live and let live. Let go and let God. And how important is it really? And I have four. Five others there. So that's the prayers. Then I do an emptying out meditation. About ten minutes or so. And then I recite my personal articles of faith. Or read through them, actually. I don't recite them in my head. I read through them. And I'll go through those really quickly now. Remember, this is a lifelong atheist move to agnostic move to believer in something. And this is what I've come to believe in after all this 32-year spiritual journey. One. One of the manifestations of God, which I'll call the spirit of the universe, is the quiet voice of truth and love within me. Which means that God is in me and I am in God. It's an important concept for me. God is in me and I am in God. There's that quiet voice within. That's where I believe is one of the manifestations of this God. Whatever this God is, I'll call the spirit of the universe. Two. God, through the spirit within, will show me the path if I pay attention. My job is to keep my life aligned with this quiet voice within. Three. God loves me unconditionally. He wants me to be all. He's given me the ability to be. Four. God will guide and support, but he doesn't do for me what I need to do for myself. Five. Each day of my life is a co-creation with God. He's given me the power of choice to do good or bad. I can do bad or I can do good. I have... I have the choice. And that's what I mean by co-creation. He's not going to do for me what I need to do for myself. He may give me the strength and the direction and the courage to do something, but I still have to pick up the shovel, right? God doesn't move the mountains, but he'll give me the strength to find the shovel in the shed and get out there and start digging. And that's the way I approach life. Six. Although I have the power to make choices, ultimately I'm not in control. I'm in charge of actions. God's in charge of decisions. I'm in charge of results. I really can't control the results, just the actions. Seven. God will give me what I need to deal with whatever life brings. Hasn't he always? And I guess that one maybe even ought to be first on the list. God will give me what I need to deal with whatever life brings. That's just pure old faith. And I have to keep saying this, keep saying this, and try to believe this, because who knows what the future may bring. I have lots of things going on in my life that are a bit cloudy and where they're going to... end up including my own disability. So I'm just going to have to trust that God will give me whatever I need to deal with whatever comes. Eight. Wherever I am in my life is where I am. Whether I put me here or God put me here. What is, is. Deal with it. So I'm a realist and a pragmatist. Here is where I am. Don't whine about it. Deal with it. What can I do? Nine. Life is unfair and unjust and insecure. Okay. Accept that and deal with it. Do my part, then let go and let God. Ten. All life has changed. What is now will pass. Whether I see today as good or as bad, it will pass. Everything changes. Everything changes. Eleven. Life's discords are learning opportunities. You can use the word challenges, problems, whatever, but life's discords or challenges or problems are learning opportunities, not torture. Life is to be lived fully, not simply endured. Pre-program, I was enduring, enduring, enduring and not doing so well and wanted to kill myself. Today I know that life is about living, living and giving. Twelve. There's more good than bad in the world and more often than not, good begets good. As I give to the world, so the world will give to me. I grew up in an environment that said the world is basically bad. All people are basically bad. Beware. That included my early spiritual bringing up also in conservative, conservative, conservative Appalachia. Thirteen. I must continue to grow spiritually or regress. I need to be a lifelong learner. And lastly, the purpose of life for me seems to be unselfish. Love and service, love and service. And all the many manifestations of those words love as manifested in patience, tolerance, kindness, acceptance, understanding, a calm mind and steady heart. Calm mind, steady heart. And service for me is manifested in sharing my experience, strength and hope with still suffering, compulsive eaters and doing whatever I can to keep away healthy. I'll say that again. Service is manifested in sharing my experience, strength and hope with still suffering, compulsive eaters and doing whatever I can to keep away healthy. Those are my so-called articles of faith at this point in my spiritual progression. So I say those. And then I do some affirmations before my closing prayer. Examples of affirmations. God will give me the strength to deal with whatever life brings. I have nothing to fear today or as long as I let God take charge of me and all the circumstances in my life. I love myself unconditionally as God loves me unconditionally. There is no problem I cannot take to God. And none for which. God does not have a solution. I do not waste who I am by living in a dream of who I wish I was. I leave tomorrow to God, but do today what I think God would have me do to prepare for tomorrow. That's an important one for me. I leave tomorrow to God, but do today what I think God would have me do to prepare for tomorrow. So, you know, surrender is not about abdication of responsibility. I just can't give my God my future and do nothing. He's not going to do for me what I need to do for myself. So whether it's buying food or financial planning or whatever the case is. But again, I'm in charge of actions. God's in charge of results. I leave the other one. I leave the judging of others to God and keep my eyes on my own path. Important in a way. I leave the judging of others to God and keep my eyes on my own path. And the last one. I have. My examples here. The light of God surrounds me, fills me, blesses me, heals me, inspires me, calms me. Wherever I am, God is. God is in me and I am in God. So and then I do a concluding prayer, which is kind of a wrap up of everything. That is my 11 step process every day, every day, every day, every day. Daily discipline, if you if you want to call it, which brings us to step twelve. Three parts, obviously spiritual awakening. Carrying the message to others. I have no choice about that. I must do that. And practicing these principles and all my affairs. Page 97 in the big book, helping others is the foundation stone of our recovery. Whatever gifts I receive from God are meant to be given away to be passed on to others. There's an old story that says to be clear, a lake must have an inflow and an outflow. Right. And so the inflow is program outflow is me is me giving. If I feel gratitude in the program, I must have received some kind of gift. If I feel gratitude, then I've received some kind of gift. And that's the magic of the program. I don't pretend to know exactly how it works. All I know is I followed the process. I followed the instructions and the miracle happened. It just changed. I changed. I received this and I have to pass that on. Pass it on. Pass it on. You know, this is our way. We exist for only one reason. Our fifth tradition says that our only purpose is to carry the message to the positive over either who still suffers. Of course, I have to be the message. I have to have a message. What's the message? You know, the message is that there is a solution, but I have to be the message. An example is worth a thousand sermons. I can talk all day, but if I haven't got the program, I'm not really carrying the message. So. Have to do that, have to do that, and you heard my. Last principle in my faith was that I that my life is based upon or I think life is about love and service. Service, service, service, service, giving, passing on this great thing that that I have received. Practice these principles. Well, let me say a bit about spirit, a thing about spiritual awakening first. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. A lot of different definitions of spiritual awakening. One in in the. Twelve and twelve and page one of seven is often quoted. He's now become able to do feel and believe that which he could not do before on his own and on his own, aided strength and resources alone. He's been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. He finds himself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind and love, of which he has thought himself quite incapable. What he's received is a free gift. And yet he's made. He's made himself ready to receive that. That's as good a definition as any for me. But as I've said before, it was also. For me, a coming to grips or coming to realize that there was this hidden inner resource in me deep within. There was this thing that I had been blocking all my life. By refusing to look for it and by my selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear, et cetera, et cetera. I had been refusing to look at that and getting sober as in abstinent and beginning to work these steps opened me up to the realization that there was, in fact, something there, something bigger than me. Which I didn't fully understand, and I spent many, many, many years. Foolishly trying to understand, foolishly trying to build the model. This is God. This is how God works, et cetera. All of those years of trying to figure it out exactly really were all about control. When it really comes down to it, I was trying to figure out the formula so I could control and know exactly what it was that I was supposed to do in order to get what I was what I wanted, me, me, me, self centered, self centered, self centered. The breakthrough in my life came. I don't remember what year. A few years in the past. The program came to me when a guy said to me after a meeting on the street outside the church, I remember exactly where it was and what town and what city in the country in Connecticut happened to be in Connecticut. The guy said to me, give it up. I said, what are you talking about? He said, give up the fight. Give up the argument. Give up trying to explain it. It's unexplainable. It's a mystery. It's a mystery. We don't know exactly except the mystery. And move on. And so that's what I did. I gave up trying to figure it all out and accepted the mystery. And so came to eventually see that there was this thing that God. Is everywhere and nowhere. God is inside of me and outside of me. God is as close as my breath and as vast as the infinity of space. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. No, Don did not write that happens to be from Voltaire. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. We cannot see God, but we can feel the presence. God is intuitive without proof. God is in our nature, in our gut. The spirit of God is in me and I am in God, as I've said before, wherever I am, God is. So a spiritual awakening for me was about becoming aware of this presence, the conscious contact that the 11th step talks about is connecting to this spirit connection to this spirit, which for me comes to the connection to that quiet voice within. So this is where the the power comes from. For me, I get the power. To remain abstinent. Right, we we start out by admitting we're powerless. Well, where does it come from? When I work this process, power begins to come. I get the power to remain abstinent, free from the compulsion by following the design for living outlined in the steps, traditions, tools and slogans. So if I wanted to, I could actually say that God isn't even involved there specifically, but collectively, these are my higher power steps, traditions, tools and slogans collectively are my higher power. They're obviously a power greater than my willpower. They're a process of being and thinking and acting. It includes a clear plan of eating, having a sponsor, studying literature, doing service and helping others go into meetings, living by the moral principles outlined in the program. Which are in reality, just an accumulation of the wisdom of the ages, which includes patience, tolerance, kindness and love, those words out of the book, forgiveness, acceptance of the past, humility, integrity, honesty, self reflection, prayer and meditation, willingness to change, open mindedness, not trying to control the uncontrollable. And I guess living my life based on the model of how can I be of service to God and others rather than how do I get what I want? The compulsion stays arrested for me as long as I live in this spiritual way. So to reiterate that thing on power. The power that keeps me away from the first bite is the collective power of the program, the steps, traditions, tools and the slogans, the fellowship itself. So that's my short answer to the newcomer or the new person. Because where do I get the power? You know, so God is the composite of all good in the same way that God is the collective power of the steps, traditions, tools, slogans and the fellowship. And in the second step, there was no need to think mystical or the third. Which is turning myself over to the program. It was easy for me to to do this, to just turning myself over to the steps, traditions, tools, slogans and the fellowship. So that's that's something about my higher power. All right. Practice these principles and all my affairs. Accepting reality, you know, pain is a part of life. But. If everything's painful. Then it's my problem, not life's. Pain is a natural part of life. When one thing is solved or ended, another thing always comes along. Life is simply an ongoing unfolding of challenges, just like it's an ongoing unfolding of today's. Right. Tomorrow is just an unfolding of today. I can serve God and myself best by assuming the mindset of a problem solver. Get out of the poor me's and the if only's in me. As soon as this is finished, everything will be OK. Don't think like that. There's always going to be another thing. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. That's reality. Sun falls on the sun, shines on the unjust and the rain falls on the just. That's reality. Seems like everything in life is a duality. The more you think about it, there's no day without night, no sun without darkness, no love, without hate. No pleasure, without pain, no joy, without despair. No forgiveness, without anger, no courage, without fear. So I can't know the answer to the mysteries. I have choices. I have free will. I can choose to embrace the darkness or I can choose to embrace life today and live. And that's what I've been doing. Let me just wrap this up with two things. Practice these principles. Principles as I see them. I have a long list and a short list. Considering the time. Well, I have a little time here. Let me take five minutes. Let's practice these principles. My long list. I need a clearly and honestly defined food plan. Two, I need to let go of trying to control life. By the way, before I go on this list, there's the easier practice, the simple practice when it says practice these principles. It's each of the steps, right? Each of the steps has to do with the first step is remembering I'm powerless over food, that I need a food plan. It's called honesty, honesty, honesty. I need to be honest with my food. And then there's the simple hope of the second step. The faith of the third step, committing myself to the program, committing myself to a power greater than myself. Step four at its simplest level is about having the courage to keep looking at myself. Five is about honesty and integrity. Being honest with myself, being honest with others, being true to myself, having my inside and my outside match up. Six is about open mindedness and willingness to continually change. Seven is about humility at its simplest level. Eight forgiveness. Nine is love. Ten is perseverance. Keep on keeping on, keeping on, keep on checking myself, keep on living. Eleven is about contact, finding God and seeing what he wants me to do and then doing it. Well, that's an interesting short version of eleven. Finding God, see what he wants me to do and do it. And twelve is helping others. That's a simpler, simplest level. I have a little deeper level when I talk about the principles here based upon the whole program as I understand it. So that's what I'm reading here. Now, I need a clearly and defined, honestly defined food plan. I need to let go of trying to control life, trying to run things my way. Three, I need to take responsibility for my thinking and behavior rather than blaming. Four, I need to do an ongoing self-assessment, selfish dishonesty, resentment and fear. Five, I need to change the self-destructive ideas, attitudes and behaviors that lead to eating. Self-destructive ideas, attitudes and behaviors that led to the obsession, that lead to the first bite, that lead to the craving and the addiction. And those are anger, resentment, criticizing, negativity, phoniness, perfectionism, impatience, selfishness and others. Six, I need to make amends for harms done. Seven, I need to never stop my spiritual development. Eight, I need to give service to others and to program. Nine, I need to live in honesty, stop lying to myself and others. Ten, I need to accept myself and others and the world as it is, not as I wish it were. Life on life's terms. Eleven, I need to learn tolerance of things not like me. Live and let live. Twelve, I need to forgive myself and others for being human and making mistakes. Thirteen, I need a loving heart. Fourteen, I need to be kind to all. Fifteen, I need to live a proactive rather than a reactive life. Life is to be lived. You know, what's the slogan? Boats are safe and ships are safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are for. Sixteen, I need to follow the quiet voice of the spirit within rather than ego. In other words, God's will, not mine. Seventeen, I need to fellowship with people who are on the same path as I am. Eighteen, I need to have a sponsor as a balance from whom there are no secrets. And I have a sponsor. I always had a sponsor. I sponsor and I have a sponsor. Nineteen, I need to practice faith and trust rather than worry and anxiety. And this goes on 20, you know, down to 29. So there's a bunch of them there. Last one is 29. I need to look for the good, listen for the good and feel for the good in others. Remember my depression thing and my negative mindset. This helps me. It's one of my one of my affirmations that I will say. I need to look for the good, listen for the good, feel for the good in others. I think I didn't go through some of my other affirmations on the 11th, but my time is running out, so I won't go back and do that. My my prayer mantra. And one of the prayers I say is God, help me practice patience, tolerance, kindness and love, help me accept what it is and deal with it. Help me surrender to the reality of powerlessness. Help me let go of mental master planning. Help me maintain a positive can do attitude. Help me stay connected to you and help me pass on the gift of the 12 steps. So I could spend all the rest of the day talking about 10, 11 and 12. But I'm going to. I'm going to stop. It's been about an hour for me. I'll just wrap up, I think, with some Don's basic truth. What is this? Eight basic truths here. And this is happens to be on my little sheet that I have with me in front of me every day. On basic, basic truth. One, I accept that I have a disease of compulsive eating and I'm addicted to certain foods and eating behaviors I cannot and never will be able to deal with food the way normal leaders do. I need a structured plan of eating and a way of thinking and living that keep me in fit spiritual condition. That's number one. I have the disease and I need a structured plan of eating in a way of thinking and living to keep me in fit spiritual condition. Two, I get the power to remain abstinent. By staying aligned with the design for living outlined in the steps, traditions, tools and slogans. Three, God, the spirit of the universe has many manifestations, one of which is the quiet inner voice or force for good deep within. Therefore, I am in God and God is in me. He resides somewhere in the spiritual space between my intuition and my conscience. In meditation, I tap into that spiritual space from which I gained strength and guidance. I remember when I wrote that phrase down two or three years ago, but, you know, again, trying to figure out all this stuff and I couldn't quite figure out. Is he my intuition? Is he my conscience? Is he my soul? Whatever it is. So I finally said, well, someplace in there, in that spiritual space between my intuition and my conscience, there's something which I'll call God quiet voice within. For God doesn't make everything happen that happens, but he's always there to help me through it. Five, life is unfair and insecure. Accept it. Deal with it. I am responsible for how I feel in my actions. Do my part, then let go and let God. Six, live my life based on the model. How can I be of service to God and others? And that is truly 100 percent the model that I live today. How can I be of service to God and others? Eight, base my life. No, seven, surrender by saying to myself many times each day, I will be done. Out of page 86, surrender by saying to myself many times each day that I will be done. And eight, and I've said this before, but this is key to my to my life, to holding on to a good life and to holding on to this gift that I've been given through the program for which I am eternally grateful. Base my day in life on unselfish love and service. Love is manifested in patience, tolerance, kindness, compassion, acceptance, understanding, a calm mind and steady heart. And service has manifested in sharing my experience, strength and hope with still suffering compulsive eaters. And doing whatever I can to keep away healthy. And I think I will stop there. That's enough talking for me. So, Leah. Thank you so much, Don. Thank you for your time and for this revealing and transforming presentation on holding on to the gift, steps 10, 11 and 12 in particular. Thank you so much. Before we get started with our question answer period, Don, can we have some contact information from you? Sure. Sure. Well, email. Well, email is FOBB1234 at Verizon.net FOBB, F O B B, which stands for a friend of Bill and Bob. Curiously, right? 1234 at Verizon, V E R I Z O N dot net. And the phone number 914. New York Eastern Standard Time, 914-824-1509. 914-824-1509. Eastern Standard. Thank you very much for your contact information. Thank you. Now we're going to open the floor for questions. I didn't get the email. Can I have the email? I'm sorry. Yes, I will repeat that for you. It's F as in Frank. O as in Oscar. B as in boy. B as in boy. 1234 at Verizon dot net. Thank you. And now we're going to open the floor for questions. Please limit your comments and direct it more as a question, if you would, so we can make the most use of our time. Don, thank you again. We had about 260 people on the line this morning. So we thank you for that. Hi, Marilyn. Go ahead with your question. I wanted to find out I've been in and out of food programs all my life, practically, and new to Vision for You. I would like to find out I've always found after a while things become repetitive and boring. Saying the prayers become boring. How does one make the rather than just seeing them as words, how does one make them come alive every day? In fact, is that possible to make them come alive every day? I don't always make contact, but I do it anyway. If I've learned nothing in the program, it was that first sponsor who says, I don't care if you don't want to do it, do it anyway. So there's a line someplace in the literature that says, on the gray days, we just follow the path of duty. We just do it anyway, do it anyway, do it anyway. So I get up and I shave in the shower and I have my breakfast and I do my exercise and I do all that stuff, even if I don't want to do it, I do it anyway. And some of this stuff is like that. But if the prayers are boring to you, I change the prayers. I also say the prayers very slowly sometimes and think about what I'm saying. It's real easy to get in the once you know all these things in your head, you just say you can just say them and they mean nothing. So I say them very slowly sometimes and listen to the words and think, what does exactly that word mean? Like when I went through the prayer, direct my thinking, keep it free of self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. You see, I have to define what those words mean. And I gave you the definitions that I'm using for today that might change next month or the next month. So there is. Yeah, that's what discipline is about. Repetitiveness, repetitiveness, repetitiveness. But I have to keep it as fresh as I can. Same way with the program. Thirty two years, you go through little slumps, you go through cycles and you have to renew yourself. So from time to time, as I start getting a little down or whatever, bored, I say, OK, what? I need a renewal program. What am I going to do? And I plan out a little renewal and it might be go to six meetings this week or something or seven meetings. Or it might be go to the woods and do some writing or go to the whatever, whatever I have to renew. It's more for me. It's more than likely has to do with giving more service. I have found that there's nothing there's no better way to fix myself than to forget about myself by helping others. No better way. You know, Bill's story, right? When all when all else fails, reach out and try to help somebody. That is a truism, truism, truism. I totally get out of myself when I try to help somebody else. So, yes, sometimes it gets boring and that's when I have to do something about it. I am not a slave to this. I can change how I feel by changing my actions, changing the sentences going through my head. OK. Thank you, Marilyn, for your question. Who's next? Jason. Jason from Pensacola. I heard Jason, I believe. Go ahead, Jason. Hi. Thanks for moderating. Don, thank you very much. My question is about the spiritual, the spirituality and your kind of your process and maybe your advice for me. But I didn't start as an atheist. I started kind of as a I kind of jokingly refer to myself as a recovering Southern Baptist, but a very sort of deep south, very conservative version of Christianity that I'm struggling with at the moment. And I'm only about four months into my recovery. I've worked through steps one through nine. And as I'm in 10, 11 and 12 now trying to I find myself wrestling with that. So I guess my question is, what advice would you have as I'm trying to build my own understanding of God, starting from a point of a spiritual tradition as opposed to atheism, and I would just be curious to know how you would direct me there? Yeah, well, we all start from different places. I come, by the way, from that Southern conservative area, Calvinism type beliefs that basically said we're all sinners, we're all bad. And I was convinced by the time I was five, six, seven years old, I was doomed and going to hell because all I ever heard in that four or five times a week that I was taken to my church was that if you think bad thoughts, same as doing bad thoughts. So it pretty much distorted my life. So a lot of people come to the program and they have to reinvent farther their old God that didn't work very well and get something that does work. I cannot. For me, God is about love, acceptance. Understanding, compassion, strength. The God that didn't work for me, the God of punishment and the God of judging the gray beard, sitting on the throne, telling me what to do and threatening me with my life. So I had to let go of that and work on something else. So I was I was where you are, perhaps in the very beginning before I turned to atheism in my teens and then later in years. There's no magic. Except about maybe the next time through the steps, you would begin to find something that works for you. You know, you're going through the steps for the first time. It's just the first time. That's like the introduction. You know, now you just you start again and you go deeper and you start again and you go deeper. We keep getting deeper. And as I said, my journey took a long time and it was a long time before I could come to grips with exactly what it is that I believe. So I keep an open mind. I don't know if six months from now, if I may. I'm going to change what I believe. But don't don't be discouraged because it doesn't all nicely fit in some model. What you know is that the program itself works. It must work for you or you still wouldn't be here. So you just have to keep doing it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. And keep an open mind and just let it flow. And don't worry about whether it all fits together with the firm God of your understanding or the God of your childhood or where you came from. It really doesn't make any difference. This program is about spirituality, not about religion. It's about you and that quiet voice within that spiritual voice within which I which I call God, which you can call whatever you want to. So stick around. Keep an open mind. Keep going. Start the steps again. Go deeper if you can. You never know. OK. Next. Kim in Louisiana. Thank you, Jason, for the question. And who's next? Rose. Rose, your turn. Thank you. Thanks, Don. Thank you. And my question is about tolerance. It happened to be number 11 on your list. Practice the principles. And from when you started talking, I was hoping I'd ask about I did my steps last year with Big Book Step Study process. So I did a very thorough cover of my own defects and house cleaning. And and I'm living in 10, 11 and 12 to the best of my willingness daily. And I'm finding those onion skin layers are really showing. The biggest one is this intolerance. And you you did mention this and I'm asking, are there particular disciplines that have worked for you? I mean, I'm talking about intolerance across the board. And the person I thought I was of accepting everybody and all that stuff, of course, doesn't has been revealed to me that that's not the case. But if you have a specific particular direction to the big book here. Yeah, I can't. Yeah. The word tolerance is used in the big book 13 times, by the way. So it's rather important. And it starts in our meetings. That's where we learn to practice acceptance and tolerance and unconditional love of people that are different from us. And so it's a really important subject. And my for me, this is for Don. What I found on on tolerance and acceptance. Intolerance and unacceptance was that it was all about me, me, me, me, me. Again, back to the tough love for sponsor. He said, you spot it, you got it. Meaning the things that I found most distressful in others were the things that I found the most distressful in myself. Some place deep inside. So I remember I remember way, way, way back. There was a woman in a meeting, particular meeting that I went to who was driving me crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, because she was a controller and she controlled everything. And she was the program chair and she directed everybody and everything. And she drove me crazy. And finally, that's when I learned that you spot it, you got it. So he had me work on myself for quite a while. And he said, you know, you need to work on yourself, work on the steps, work on unconditional love toward everybody, work on accepting yourself, yourself, yourself, and changing the things that you need to change. And yourself. And every once in a while, go back to that meeting and see how you feel about her. So I stopped going to the meeting except once a month. I would go there as a barometer to test my own progress. And after about three months. She bothered me less and less, and I began to see that it was about me. It's it's that I had to learn to totally love and accept myself and all of my faults and flaws and imperfections. And then once I. Accepted my own self. Step seven, I was able to accept others in all of their imperfections and their their their flaws. So for me, it was all about changing me as I accepted me and my imperfections. I could accept others as I accepted the fact that I am human. No better than no worse than I make mistakes and I admit the mistakes. As I was able to do that, then I was able to accept others. Who are different from me, who do other things, who make mistakes. It doesn't mean, by the way, that I have to like everybody. There are people that are different from me. They do other things. I particularly like them, but I don't have to hate them. I have I accept and and have tolerance toward them. They are who they are. What is is it just is. The world is made up of every kind of people and I'm not in charge. So it only hurts me if I can't accept reality as it is. So that's the pragmatic approach. It is what it is. Is I accept them as they are because I accept me. I'm OK. So they can be whoever they want. Hence the I said my top five slogans. One of those was live and let live. That's all about tolerance, tolerance, tolerance, tolerance of others live and let live. That says live me. I have to live, but let them live what they want to be. OK, that's next. Thank you, Rose. Hope that helps. This is Jeff. Yeah, I have a question. It's Hilda from South Florida. Hilda first and then we'll go to Jackie. Thank you. Hi, I'm Hilda. Proposed to read it for South Florida. I have a question. I don't know how to really phrase it, I guess to say. I mean, I've been in program in and out my whole life and 52 and I'm still struggling with letting go. And where it means program and action and when to take the responsibility for the consequences. And I, you know, I heard you say something about that. He doesn't owe everything that happens isn't because of him, but he's always there. And somehow when things go really wrong, even though I keep hoping, you know, having strength and doing the action and things keep going wrong. I feel I feel like a sense of abandonment. I. I'm God, you know, because I feel like he's there for me. Things should start going well if I'm doing the action. And I don't know how to resolve that. Maybe you can help. Yeah. Well, things don't always go well and there's nothing we can do about it. Shit happens is the way that what the bumper sticker says, right? It happens no matter what we do. Shit will happen. You know, I can sit here and I'm passing a message on whatever, whatever and anything could happen to me at this moment. I could have a heart attack. You know, the gas. Gas thing could explode. A meteor could fall on the house. Some some robber could walk in the front door. Anything can happen. Anything can happen. Anything can happen and has nothing whatsoever to do with with what I'm doing with my life at the at the at the current time. Sometimes I'll bring on things by certain behaviors, but, you know, that's just what is that seems to be reality. Reality is I influence, but I'm not in control. I'm not in control. And no matter what I do, I'm not going to be able to control and stop bad things from happening. They just do. And, you know, and if I look at life in that way, then I'm always going to be a victim. I'm looking at a victim and thinking that God's supposed to control and not make bad things happen. That was one of my fallacies. But I thought if you had lived life right, bad things didn't happen. And that's not, of course, reality. So stuff does happen. I can't control. The program is not about ensuring that stuff doesn't happen. The program for me is talking me talking about how to face calamity. Well, I forget the quote, right? Face calamity with with I forget the quote, but you know what I'm talking about? I suspect in the big calamity happens. It comes. Death happens. Disease happens in my life. I've been around a long time. I've been through everything. I've been through the death and the divorce and the disappointment and the layoffs and the disabilities and the cancer and the and the whatever, whatever, whatever. I just had a major operation three months ago. Don't know what the prognosis is for the rest of my life. Well, so what? It just is life is to be lived today. And I'm taking responsibility for my life. And if stuff happens, I deal with it and move on. And so it's kind of a hardcore, pragmatic. What is is what is is that's the way I've learned to to deal with it. Has nothing to do with God. God is here to give me strength. God doesn't control things. God doesn't make things happen. God, if that if that were the case, then I'd have to explain all of the atrocities that are going on at any given time. And I'm not going to be able to explain all of the atrocities that are going on in the world right now. And I can't figure out a God that would make those things happen. So that's not the way the God of my understanding works. OK. Thank you, Hilda, for the question. Now, Jackie, your turn. Yes. I wanted to know if he could explain the difference between a spiritual experience and a spiritual awakening and at what point does a person receive spiritual enlightenment? Whenever whenever you come to realize that you're not at the center of the universe, maybe, you know, when I come to realize don't get hung up in the in the terminology, it can mean same thing, different things, but just coming to coming to realize that I'm not at the center, that there is something something in me, around me, everywhere, some something that I am, in fact, a spiritual being living in a physical body, that most of my life, in fact, goes on in my head and in my heart. It doesn't really go on on the outside, but something is there. And that if I can clear out enough of the debris around my brain and get quiet enough, I can find that deep, quiet inner voice way, way, way within. And so for me, that was the that was the awakening that something was there. But again, I don't get messed up and trying to define the terms beyond what they are. The 12th is having had a spiritual awakening. Well, coming to grips with the fact that there is something bigger than me and accepting that, accepting that I'm not in control, accepting that there is there is this thing which we'll call God, that I can connect to conscious contact just means awareness. Conscious contact means awareness of awareness of this spirit within the spirit of the universe, this thing called God, awareness of conscious contact is making awareness of being aware of this thing. So for me, that is a awakening, a coming to realize, coming to be aware that that is there. OK. Thank you, Jackie. Hello. Kim, please identify yourself. Kim in Louisiana and Louisiana. And who else did I hear on the line? Anyone else at the moment? OK, let's start off with you, Kim. Thanks. Thank you, Donna. Appreciate your experience. You have a lot of years in the program, and I'm just curious about the timeline. When you initially went through the program 30 years ago, you have 30 years of abstinence and you really got it, how long did it take you to go through the steps initially? And then also, I was curious about your daily discipline. I realize this has evolved over the years and your step 11 process is so detailed and you're retired. So obviously you have more time to do that in the morning. But when you were working before, you know, early on, maybe a year, how long did it how long was this morning process for you? This daily your your rituals with the prayer and step 11? Yeah, yeah. In one one form or another from the beginning, sometimes shorter. I have the time now, but I can do this process that I talked about in 15, 20 minutes if I have to, or if I have the time and I just want to sit around the door for 45 minutes, I can do that. But it can be done. You know, you don't have to do all these things. You don't have to say all those prayers. You don't have to do whatever. The point is that you do something. So all my sponsors, you know, I say you must do something. Yes, I know. You've got to get the kids ready to go to school. You've got to get out the door to the other job, you know, then get up in time to in time to give yourself the ten minutes to do to read one book, to do to write one thing, to do prayers, to do three or four prayers. To do your plan for the day. OK, because what you're doing is spiritually packing for the day when you do that. And I learned this very early on, very, very early on, because that's the instruction in the big book, this is what we do in the morning. This is what we do when we go to bed. This is what we do as we go through the day. So I was following the instructions right from the very beginning. Not as elaborate as I just went through with with you, but it was always there. It was the same thing. It was always reading, writing prayer, meditation. Meditation and writing down a plan that's been in place for 32 years. Always, always there. But you do what you do, what you can. But spiritually packing for the day isn't important. If I don't do if I don't make this connection or attempt to make this connection with my higher power in the morning to start my day, the day doesn't go well, always, always. It goes so much better. And I center myself and I surrender the day to God and move forward to carry out the plan that God and I made for the morning. It always goes better. Always, always, always. Maybe that's maybe that's one of the other answers to why I'm still around and haven't relapsed is that I got that got this in the beginning and just do it. I'm I'm a great one for discipline. Just following the damn directions, as he as the old sponsor used to say, I don't care. Just. Follow directions, follow directions. And that's what I tell newcomers. You don't have to understand it. Trust the process. You follow the directions. The directions are really clear. The directions are really clear in the big book on ten, eleven and twelve. Some of the most clearest directions in the entire book on ten, eleven and twelve. I didn't talk about Chapter seven, the sponsorship, but very valuable information. There are two very valuable approach. It's a little bit different for all readers than for the alcoholic. But the the technique that that is laid out for talking with people initially, the newcomer is perfect and I follow that also. So, yeah, you can we can do what we choose to do in the morning. We can always make excuses, but we need to do it. It's part of the daily discipline that I talked about. Go ahead. Thank you, Kim. Thank you. Hello, I'm Donna from Seattle. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Donna. If everybody else could please remain muted. That'll keep the noise level down. Thank you, Donna. Go right ahead. Oh, thank you so much, Don. See, that was fantastic. Thank you so much. And thank you, Leah, for your monitoring the meeting. And thanks, everybody, for being on the line. Don, I wanted to ask you. This may sound kind of trivial, but I'm kind of curious. Do you do you eat before you do this practice or do you maybe have coffee, do the practice and then and then eat? And then I had another question, too. Yes, coffee and do this at the same time. OK, right. And and and I let's say it again. Coffee. Eat. Do this. Yes. Because this is my discipline. I don't know. I'm not sure that it makes any difference. This is what I happen to do. I happen to I have my coffee as I watch the 6 a.m. news and I watch 15, 20 minutes of news while I'm having my coffee. Then I have my quick breakfast, which takes, you know, all of five minutes. And then at 630 or so, I start I start my 11th step work. I finish my breakfast and I'm having my second cup of coffee. That's just me. That's just that, you know, that's. It could be done any way. It works for you. OK, and then another question, I'm I'm new to the program and I'm working in steps with a sponsor. I'm on the six step moving into the seventh step. And I have some friends that I love and have been lifelong friends. But I'm finding now that I'm that I'm kind of. Not the same as I was, and I'm finding that I'm seeing their fault. And wondering about my relationship with them, if it's going to be harmful to me because they're they're not in the program and there I can see the defects of character that I am now seeing in myself in them. And it's kind of getting me all stirred up and and bothered and I'm not sure what to do about it. Do you have any ideas? Yes. Getting well. For me, it was about becoming a new person. A new person because the old one didn't work very well. If the old if the old person with my thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors worked really well, I would never, ever find my way into a 12 step program. So something didn't work. And that included all my relationships and all and all the friends and whatever. Now, some of them may be perfectly good, but something didn't work. And that's what the steps helped me to do to rebuild myself, rebirth myself. In my case, it was almost a rebirth. There was so much substance. Change. And that means I'm going to if I'm going to become a new person, that means my relationships are going to be different with others. And sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't work out because those people are not really good for me. They're not what I need. So getting well for me over the over the over the first two or three years was about redoing social social things, different people. There were some people that I just literally walked away from. Quietly away from because they were not good. They were negative people and they did not represent the kind of values that I needed to wanted to have in myself that I was becoming. And so, yes, it doesn't. That happens. We. Can sometimes really outgrow people. Our spouses, maybe, you know, it's important as an aside for me, it's important that if I'm really working on changing myself, that my spouse, be involved in some way, know what's going on so that maybe we can grow together in some ways, because it's real easy if your spouse is not involved at all. If your spouse isn't supporting, it's really easy to grow away from them. And of course, you know, end up in a real problem with the marriage. So, yes, relationships, of course, change. And there may be people that are not good for you. And there I can think of three or four guys, for example, that I used to hang out with pre program that I just let go of. They were just not the kind of. Guys that I wanted to hang around anymore as I became a better person, changed my language, for example, to use a raw example, right? These are these are guys whose every other word out of their mouth was a four letter word, angry at the world, just totally talked about people all the time. Just angry, angry, angry, angry. I didn't want to be around that. Didn't need that. And so I pulled away. So you may find that happens. You may find some of your friends become even better and some. You just quietly don't call so much anymore. It can happen. It's part of the changing and rebuilding yourself process. When we become new people, we become new people. Transformation process equals new person, new person, rebirthing. Go ahead. Thank you, Donna. Who's next? Hi, this is Kathy in Boston. Hi, Kathy. Good morning. And who else came in with Kathy? Anybody else? Susie and me, Susie and me. Kathy, you're up. Thanks for your service. Don, thank you so much. It was wonderful to hear you. And I want to ask a follow up to the last question. And that has to do with how we share our program with our staff. I've been in program a long time. And recently worked through the steps again. And one of the things I became aware of is my husband, fortunately, already lives by many of the principles that the 12 steps are based on. So I'm fortunate in that regard. I do sometimes feel like I want him to know more about my recovery process. I've made amends to him. He notes changes in me. I'd be interested in any thoughts you have about how you connect with a spouse who's not in the 12 step program about your recovery process. Yes. Well, first of all, someone who is not an addict will never, ever understand addiction. They can't get it. They never will understand why in the world you just cannot put down the fork. Why in the world? When you say you're not going to eat that, why in the world would you eat that? So they'll never quite get that. And they may not quite get exactly how this process that we have in the 12 step program works, that doesn't mean, though, that they can't appreciate and support. And they often do. It doesn't mean that as you are working on certain things that you talk to them about, because some of the things may involve them, right? Relationships all the time involve the spouse. So I sponsors that I all I do is take people through the steps. All my sponsors are just just that. And they often will talk to their spouse about some of the things that they're doing, like like they're working on, you know, certain things that don't work very well for them, like tolerance we were talking about before or some of the other things that might come up in the fourth step. I don't mean things that would damage the spouse. But if you have a good relationship, it's about sharing and being honest. They don't have to understand the process totally. But if you are more open with them about the things that you're trying to work on and trying to change, like amends, and they don't need to know things that they maybe some things that they don't need to know, so, you know, you have no business hurting them just to make yourself feel better and there's nothing that says you have to tell them. And that's the kind of thing that you write, you know, never leave a journal lying around where you've poured your heart out. Never leave that lying around for some spouse to pick up where they might not understand and might do them harm. But I think it's a good idea to involve the spouse as much as possible. But don't if they don't understand, don't you can't make them understand and don't get angry at them because they don't want to be involved. But just do what you can. It's all about. It's about intimacy, right? It's about just being honest with another person. If you're married to this person, then, you know, you're going to be married to this person for a long time. If you're changing, they need to be part of that process in some way. They need to understand what it is. If you're going to change your values about something, they need to understand that and understand why you're doing this. If you need to, you're going to change your priorities. They need to understand this. So communication, communication, communication, communication. It's a good thing. I'm not again, I'm not suggesting that you give them your first step or that, you know, that you go through all this history with them. They don't need to know all the bad stuff that might be in there or any of that. But they need to know what you're doing. That's my opinion. I made serious mistakes on this in my early years and program serious mistakes where I did not involve my spouse. And we had well, that was part of the we had a marital problem there from the beginning. So I did not really involve her as much as I probably could have and should have. But, you know, hindsight is really great. 30 years hindsight is really terrific, but I couldn't see it then. So that's one of the things that I do regret that I didn't try to involve her more. Now I've been married to my current wife for 26 years and we happen to have met in an O.A. meeting in Paris, France. So, you know, it's always a great story there. How did you meet? Well, we met in a church basement in Paris, France, and everybody says, oh, what a great story. But of course, we don't tell anybody non program that it was in an O.A. meeting. So so we have a good relationship after all these years. But we both work our program. And just one more point on this. We work separate programs. She has to work her program and I have to work my program. And we've learned that I'm not responsible for her. Happiness and she's not responsible for my happiness. You know, we don't always eat the same things. As I often we don't eat the same things. She eats certain things that I don't and vice versa. She's a three meal a day person as I am. Sometimes we go to meetings together. Sometimes she's it goes to meetings separately. So we have individual lives, but we and we both live our programs and we both communicate freely, freely, freely about what we're doing. So. Hopefully it answers you a little bit. OK, next. Thank you, Kathy. Susie, your turn. Hi, this is Hi, this is Susie. And I just had a question for you. You mentioned this part of your step 11 process and being out there. I heard you correctly. I'm sorry, what was it? What prayer? You mentioned an emptying out prayer. Is that what I heard of 10 minutes during your step 11? Oh, the meditation. I just skipped right over meditation. I said, yes, if I yeah, if the time I don't always do it every morning. But meditation is about the emptying out the Zen type of meditation. I do do that. And that's very helpful to me. Is that what you're talking about? It is. Yes. Yes, I do do that. And I don't that doesn't have to be in the morning. I can do that at any time. If I go out to walk in the park or out to walk in by the river or out to walk in the woods, I will sit down and do that. That same same thing. The very useful process for me, the emptying out type of meditation, the Zen type of meditation, because it energizes and relaxes. My blood pressure goes down substantially when I do that. It's just this wonderful, wonderful thing. And very often I come out of that. Ten minutes with some new idea, new thought, new feeling something. Not always. Not always. And sometimes I can't even make contact in there. I can't stop the noise in my head and the clamor in my head. But when I can, it's a it's a really good thing. I use a visualization type of of thing for me where I visualize myself in this field and forest and beside the stream. It's. I'm using all these visualizations to take myself down and down and down and quiet and quieter and more quieter and then try to stay there for as long as I can. Sometimes I can stay there for a few minutes, sometimes a lot of minutes, and sometimes I can't even get there. So again, back to the just do it, do it, do it, do it. Practice, practice, practice and whatever works for you. So that's what I do on meditation. Go ahead. Thanks, Susie. Who's next? Star one, unmute. Hi, this is Marion. Hi, Marion. Go ahead with a question. Thank you so much, Don and Leah. Thank you so much. I just want to double check that I heard correctly. My spouse is like, I guess, quote unquote normal or whatever. He doesn't have an addiction. That's not to discuss the program with such a person. No, no. I said I said I encourage you to. I encourage you to be as open as you can, reasonably open with your with your spouse. He doesn't have to know all about history stuff that may be sensitive to you or whatever, but I encourage I encourage people to be open with their spouse and talk about what they're doing, because if you're really working the program, you're spending a significant time away from him or her and, you know, focused on something other than him or her, and it's a natural thing for jealousy to occur. That certainly happened to me in my early days at about nine months into my program, which, by the way, was just when I was finishing up. I finished step nine in the ninth month. Just accidentally had nothing to do with the month of the time. My spouse was very irritated by all. Where I was, there were no men. I was it. So every meeting was all women and me. And so making phone calls, I was told to make three phone calls a day. Well, OK, it had to be the women and women were calling me and my spouse, who I did not involve enough, as I said before, got was getting distressed at all the women calling and me taking the time on the phone. And at one point at month nine, she said to me, all right, it's them or me. And. For a little bit, I entertained the well, OK, you and I'll I'll forget them. But it didn't take me long to realize, no, I can't do this. I need the support of the program, even if it is here, all women. And eventually I began to meet men and things changed. But it's natural for somebody to get jealous over something they don't know what's going on or why you're spending time with these other people going to meetings or talking on the phone or why you're sitting in. A corner with a journal doing writing and all that stuff. So I say communicate, communicate, tell them what you're doing, tell them what this thing is about, and they may not understand it. But if they will just if they truly love you, they're going to say, well, I understand it. But if it's good for you, then good. And hopefully that's the way it'll happen. OK. Thank you, Marianne. Anyone else this morning with a question? This is Jackie in West Virginia. Hi, Jackie. Go ahead. Hi. Hi, Don. Thank you very much for your share. I do have a question about your work and the evening process in particular. Do you write every night or do you save that kind of work for the morning? That's it. Thank you. Yeah. At the very beginning, I did it at night, as the big book suggests, you know, when we retire at night, et cetera, but it didn't work for me very well. It just it just didn't work. I couldn't it seemed to always be too tired just and it didn't work well with my spouse. And then it would I would have things open up and then it would keep me from going to sleep. And so this is just done. And so I just I finally pretty quickly started doing it in the morning. Doing my 10 step review in the mornings rather than in the in the evenings for me. You know, it's a question of what works, what works for you. I'm not a slave to every single suggestion in the book. I have to look at them and see what works for me. So everything I do is within the framework of the big book suggestions. A lot of must in there, too. What? Sixty, I think, must. It's within the framework, but it's what works for Don and that I have developed over the years. OK, I have a question. What one other thing is that my sponsor insists that I work do this work at night. And for me, because I am tired in the evening, it just becomes shallow. And I'm just trying to get through it. You think I should talk with my sponsor and. And discuss. I guess that it's not working for me at night because in the morning I could think of a lot more character defects than I come up with at night. Yes. Well, as I said, that's what works best for me. It's between you and your and your sponsor. But from my perspective, we have to do whatever works for us. If it works better for you in the morning, then then that's what you need to do. But I realize that's not exactly what the book says. So, again, that's why I changed. So I'm not again, I'm not not a slave to that process. Your sponsor may be trying to do something else to get you to follow exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I don't know. Again, it's between you, but I'm a pragmatist. Do whatever works, no matter what. Whatever works, whatever works. OK. Thanks, Jackie, for the question. Anyone else before we wrap up this morning, John from Illinois, Miriam. Miriam. John and then Miriam. Go ahead, John. I spoke before. Can you hear me? I now we hear you, DeVorella. OK, so if you were before John, go ahead. DeVorella, then John, then Miriam. Thank you. Now, the way I understand, by the way, I just want to thank you very, very much. And Leah and all the people who make this meeting possible. The way I do the 10 step is I write down I have fear that this person doesn't like me. I have fear that this person disrespected me and I have fear that on and on. And then at the end, I say, God, can you please remove my fears? I pray only for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out. And I don't know if that's the right way to do it. The right way is whatever works for you. Really? And I don't say that with tongue in cheek. The right way is whatever works for you. Fear. Fear is a hard when you mentioned fear. You know, I ask God, I say that fear prayer and fill in what it is that I'm talking about. If I'm talking about fear of going to fear of fear of visiting the Social Security office, fear of whatever it is, help me with this. Give me the courage to do this. Take me. What about it? If I'm anger, if I'm angry at somebody, do I have to write it up as a fear? That's what my sponsor told me. The one the sponsor I used to have. And it confuses me because some of it I wasn't afraid of. I was mad at certain people. And she told me to write it up as a fear. Well, anger is it depends on on on. She may be working on a particular model from her experience in the big book or whatever. But again, you know, anger is anger. Anger is different. Anger is a different feeling than than fear. And the the the the opposite of I think, you know, think problem solution, problem solution or antidote problem antidote. And the antidote for anger is different from fear. Fear is about antidote for fear is faith and courage. The antidote for anger is acceptance, tolerance that we were talking about before acceptance of what is. And that's there's different prayers, you know, their acceptance prayers and resentment prayers and and fear prayers in the book. So those are those are different manifestations. But they're all flaws, defects. They're all the self destructive. Any of those are the kinds of things that lead me to the food as a coping mechanism. Oh, the idea, you know, all starts with fear is or the fear for you with the anger for your reason in the big book. I don't know where they are. Yeah, well, in the fourth step, I don't have the page number handy, but go back into the fourth step and that's where you'll find the resentment prayer, which is an anger prayer, anger, resentment, same thing. And the fear prayer is also in there in the fourth step. Somebody may give you the page number. I don't have a book in front of me. But that's where you'll find resentment and fear prayers in there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Devorah Leah. You might want to take a look at page 67 at the top for some prayer. Thank you. And now we move on to somebody. My pleasure. Now we move on to John. Your turn. John Star one to unmute. John. John. OK, it's John from Illinois. Go ahead. OK, thank you. Thank you for your very inspiring talk, Don. And my question is, I'm very new. I'm within the first six months and everything you said rings true to me. And I just want to know if there's anything that as you look back on your first six months that you would emphasize. In particular, try to avoid or anything like that. Any advice you might give to somebody who's still very new. What step are you on, John? I haven't started them yet. OK, you answered your own question. If you don't start those steps very soon, you'll not be around in another six months. All right. This is this is not a food program. This is a this is a step program. It's a 12 step program. And it's kind of a race, actually. Sometimes we can use willpower and the power of the rooms and the fellowship to put the food down and get abstinent. And I see this all the time. And you're very enthusiastic and you got the food down and you're feeling better. But that only goes on for so long. That's all right. If you don't begin the real transformation process of the 12 steps, you will lose. And I cannot encourage you enough. If you were my sponsor, I would be kicking you. And about my number 11 foot and saying, get to work on the steps, get to work on the steps, you know, or you will regret it. That's the perfect answer to my question. Thank you. OK. Thanks, John. And now, Miriam, your turn. Thank you, Lea, and thank you, Dan, very, very much for your chair, your experience, and hope. Yeah, I have just a little question. You said that you've done the process many times since you came to program in whatever, about 30 years ago. I just wanted to know whether you did it right from the beginning from the with the instruction from the from the big book or in other ways where the fellowship do it. Yeah, thank you. I, I, I started in a rehab. I was in really, really bad shape. Grossly obese, as I said, and I was suicidal. And I actually started in a rehab in North Carolina that was run by a doctor who was an alcoholic and a Demerol addict and a compulsive eater. And he started up this clinic because he had been kicked out of the university where he worked because he was a Demerol addict. So he started up this. He was a doctor in a clinic. So that's where I began. And the first day, second day I was there is when my first meeting occurred. I was told to go to room one or one that night. And I went to room one or one and there was the ten women in myself. And it was my first meeting. I had no clue what was going on, but it was there. But I was handed a big book and I was handed the twelve and twelve. And I was told that all the instructions are in here. This is what we're going to study. This is what we're going to work out of. And you're going to go to meetings every day and every day and every day all the time that you're here. So I started in the big book and went through the big book first. Then I said then I worked on the twelve and twelve. I found, for example, that. The big book wasn't quite enough for me in certain areas, like the four step. It wasn't enough for me to just look at the fear, resentment and sex. I had to go deeper. So if you look into the twelve and twelve, you'll find a whole nother set of other things, a lot of the things I talked about today you'll find talked about or in page one forty five of the big book, you'll see our worst talks about our worst things. And it goes beyond the fear, sex and and resentment. So I had to go deeper than the big book. And I used other things in those early days until today. I used other things that are not programs that are helpful to me. But it was the big book from the very beginning. And then the O.A. literature came along much, much later. And I use it now for when I sponsor. I use the two twelve and twelve in the big book. And those are those are what I use to help people with the instructions on defining the nature of the disease and the solution and and how to hold on to it. So basically everything I said today was within the framework of the of the big book. But I had to go beyond it, beyond it myself and go a little deeper on certain things. Like I don't look at six and seven like the big book looks at it. You know, back to my co-creation idea. For me, it takes more than just saying a prayer and asking God to remove these things. I have a part in that and I have to I have to define the new behavior, the new thinking. And my part is to go practice that new behavior and that new thinking in step six and seven. And that's the way I show God that I'm truly willing to change by living in the solution, by practicing the new behavior. And what happens is after I practice it for a little bit. That happens, that God changes me and I become that and the problem has been lifted. But I have to do my part. So but the big book is the is the is the granddaddy of all this stuff. It's the foundation of everything. Go ahead. Thank you, Miriam. Don, we may have a few more questions. You still have the time and energy. Thank you, Don, for your answer. Thank you so much. Thanks, Miriam. Yes. Yeah, a little bit more. OK, a little bit more. OK, thanks. That's up to you guys. OK. Anyone else with questions? This is Heidi. Heidi, your turn. Who else is waiting with a question? Anyone else? All right. We'll make that the last one then. OK. OK, Heidi, wrap it up for us. Go ahead. Thank you so much. And thank you, Don, for sharing with us today. I'm very new to the program. This is my first month and I'm working my steps. I just began step four and I'm feeling so grateful to have been kind of grabbed by this and so much enthusiasm and energy. It's fabulous. My question is, I find if I can say this concisely. Yes, I'm in step four. I've worked that very thoroughly and I have no illusions that I'm doing anything but step four right now. And yet this connection to my higher power, I find myself of a more generous spirit, looking for ways I can help people in all kinds of ways, or I might be wanting to sit quietly in a meditation and just enjoying that connection with my higher power. And sometimes I worry that I'm not focusing solely on where I'm at, but that I'm leaping ahead and that could serve me poorly. Or maybe it is that this is the nature of things. And I should be grateful for all help and energy and all this working at the same time. Any thoughts about that, sir? Thank you. Well, it's not a perfect world. You might have heard that someplace. And each step builds upon the other. Each step builds upon the other, like that arch through which we pass to freedom. Right. It's referenced in there someplace. So each one builds upon the next. But that doesn't mean that you're going to go to meetings while you're working on these things, things are going to happen. You do not have to wait until you get to the 11th step to start saying prayers. You do not have to wait till you get to the 12th step before you can be of use to newcomers, talk to newcomers in the meeting. You do not have to wait for all those things. But this is a gradual process of change, change, change. We keep on building. We keep on building. But you don't be what's the word I'm looking for? Compulsive. You might have heard of compulsive. I have that problem myself in that if it's this is the process, then I find myself I cannot deviate. I cannot deviate. So don't get trapped in the in that too much. Yes, you're going step by step, but you're going to go to meetings. You can talk to people. You can say prayers. You like the prayer. You say the prayers. You do whatever you can as you go along. But you just keep on building, keep on building. So relax and stay within the spirit of the program. Keep on working the steps. Keep on moving forward. Follow the directions. And it sounds like you feel good about this whole thing. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy and. Stick around for the miracle, because even though you feel good today, you may feel even better later. OK. All right. Thank you, Heidi, for the question. Of course, Don, thank you so much for your time and your energy this morning. We appreciate all your experience, strength and hope that you shared this morning. Thank you. And I'm going to much appreciate it. I'm going to close a vision for you meeting this morning in the way that we always close the meeting, and that's from page one sixty four. Found in your big book in the chapter entitled A Vision for You. Our book is meant to be suggestive. Only we realize we know only 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 haven't 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 of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then.