The Half Measures That Get You Half Results – Steve M.

Well, one thing as a parent, men have a little better deal with the bathroom than women. Okay. Well, we're going to head for the home stretch. We've gotten a little bit behind. I feel a lot better with Peggy here. Where are you, Peggy? Okay. I feel better. I feel much better. I felt better last night. I heard somebody yell at me last night, and I turned around. It was Peggy. I always feel better when she was there. I noticed people were moving around a little bit when they said that about Peggy doesn't run their life or something like that. There was about five women right in front of me turned around and looked. I think they took exception with that. Anyway, what we've done now is we're not going to spend much time reviewing because we've got an hour, and we're going to try to get through 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, so we've gotten a littlebit behind here. sufficient to say that some major things have happened by the time that we get to this point in the program. Some very profound things have happened. We finished up around the sixth and seventh step and I was talking about those being the least talked about steps in Alcoholics Anonymous and I've never been able to talk about them as much as I know about them. I've had the experience of something very profound happens at this point if it's all done right. This is a transitional thing. This is where I anchor down. I suppose everybody has their moment when they know that this thing In fact, again, we usually don't talk about it in these terms. It's like when I said it a couple hours ago that we usually don't talked about being angry at God or being spiritually confused but when the new person comes in here they're in deep spiritual, tremendous spiritual distress. Well, I don't think I've ever worked intimately with an alcoholic that's been sober or protracted period of time or listened to somebody who hasn't shared at some level that they came upon a period of times in their life when they knew that the drinking was over with. They knew that. And I suppose, I just personally like the way I happened to say it to my great aunt at that time that I thought I'd found a way of life that I would not have to drink again unless I demanded to drink. It'd be foolish to say that any alcoholic couldn't get drunk but you know, I'm not going to just walk off and get drunk. That's just not goingto happen. You know, it's simply not goingo happen. I've got to do some other stuff to get out of what I'm in. You know I've gotta demand some stuff here. I've gonna start to demand my rights. I've go to start to lie or something. I've gone to start doing something. And I've got to start telling my wife stuff that ain't right. I mean, I don't do anything else except go to Alcoholics Anonymous or go to work anyway. I mean I don' t do anything anything else. I mean if I do it, it's with AA people. If I go to the ball game, it' s with AA People. Whatever I do is with AA Peoples. So I've said, you know, if I'm going to start chipping around on the side, I've go to start tell my wife, I'm go over here to Charlotte to an AA thing. Going to take me four hours to get over there and four hours to get back and three minutes to do what I want to do. You know, who knows? Well, it's a joke. But you know what I'm talking about. I've got to start lying. It's not going to happen. This thing is powerful. By the time we get to this point in the program, there's been a tremendous transition. There's been something that's happened now. You know, I've become aware. I'm starting to be awakened. I'm beginning to realize and I'm getting to know what's going on. For me, it happened with the sixth and seventh step. That's where I anchored down. That's why I took my place as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's when I knew I was connected to something. I've never been ashamed of being an alcoholic. From the very first time when I became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've ever been ashamed to that. It stopped being something that was filthy that very moment. You know, it changed immediately for me. The alcoholism was never my dad after that. It was never that. It was just something much better than that. It was not something that did not work. This was a way of life that I knew I had connected on to something that if I would do what was available to me to do, then things would happen. So we finished up around the sixth and seventh step was a place where I'm taking my place now. I'm anchored down. Things are changing. I'm aware of where the power is. I know it ain't me. Let me launch off with this thought. About 1997 or 1998, I started sponsoring a guy. He's a really good member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He came out of the penitentiary in Alabama. They taught him how to be a welder in the penittentiary and he's got a giant welding shop. He's been sober. I think we're coming up on his 16-year anniversary. Great member of Alcoholic Anonymous, very dedicated, very sincere. I started sponsoring him in 1997 or 1998. He was working with a lot of people. He lives about 50 miles from where I live. He had driven himself to the absolute point of exhaustion trying to fix what was wrong with him. It's not that he didn't read what those steps said in 6 and 7. It was still somehow he was trying to fixed what was long. And I'm telling you, it's going to be a long day if you're going to fix whats wrong. Like I said before the break, I've never been able to fix anything. Everything I've ever worked on has gotten worse. Anything I've never put my energy on and went up against has gotten worse. So it's a matter of getting connected to those steps. And I think at this point, again, it's place where it looks one way but in truth it's another. That's a place where you need really good guidance because otherwise it really truly looks like filler material. What it looks like when you look at the sixth and seventh step is who wouldn't want to feel better? That's what it looks lik. But this is about legitimate change and remember we finished up around the thought this is a difference now between root and branch remember now i mean you know branch is good or whatever it is just lopping them off i mean that's good as far as the season goes but remember i told you what my sponsor told me in 1994 you've been socialized and that won't hold over a long period of time you know where it talks about it comes in there that there's there comes a time when only a higher power there comes a time when you really got to look at what's going on. There comes a time when half measures, it looks like half measures ought to at least avail you half results. I mean, it works like that. Again, this is the stuff that doesn't respond to logic. It's an illogical illness. Why wouldn't half measures get you half result? Half measures get nothing. Alright, so we've done some stuff now and for me it was a critical turning point. This was when the sixth and seventh step became to my life what the first step was to my alcoholism. Then things began to happen to me. Things started to change. I saw things altogether different. Life is different now. The eight steps has made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. What does the eight steps say? I want to be literal about that. Let me see what it says here. Made a list OF ALL PERSONS WE HAD HARMED AND BECAME WILLING TO MAKE AMENDS TO THEM ALL. One of the things I've found, the step's telling us to do two things. It's telling uns to make a list and become willing. That's what it's telling. It doesn't tell us to anything else. One of things I have learned about the 8th step is I don't have any trouble becoming willing if I've done all the damage. If I'm the one that's done all of the damage, I don' t have any troubles at all with my willingness. Where I have trouble with willingness is when there has been spiritual warfare, when I feel like I've been damaged. Very difficult. For example, getting ready to pay money back or anything like that. I mean, that's a walk in the park. It might be hard to come up with the money, but that's got to be the easiest mend in the world. So I like to be very literal about what the step says. It says get the list and get willing. This is also the place, this is the only place I know of where Bill Wilson talks about where our alcoholism comes from. In the 8th step in the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book, it says something to this effect. It says the cause of all of our woes, including our alcoholismo, is our inability to form relationships with other people. That's what the book says. I didn't make it up. You know, in Alcoholics Anonymous, we always talk about we don't care where the alcoholism comes from. The fact is, I think you can correctly say, I think he could say this honestly, until somebody quits trying to figure out where their alcoholism come from, it's going to be short-lived, their sobriety. I think at some point you've got to give up the ghost. It doesn't matter where it came from. What's that old deal about the horse is in the ditch? Get it out. It doesn' t matter how it's in there. That's never been more apropos than to the first step. So we're not interested in where it cam from. You hear all kinds of stuff. You hear people say they had it before they took their first drink, they got it when they took the first drink. All kinds of things. Probably an illness that you can't buy over a counter. Probably the truth. Can you drink yourself into it? I don't know if you can or not. It doesn't make much difference. I know I got it, had it for a long time. In fact, drinking was the it I was looking for all my life. And then Alcoholics Anonymous was the id I was looking for after that. So in the eighth step we become willing. But it does say that. it says so you know there's a lot more going on here remember all these steps have tremendous things that go with them there's things that happen in the eighth step one of the things that happens is is that we want to extract it says something to the effect that we want to find out everything we can about what's been wrong with our relationships with other people and start to have something different with that it's sort of like if the if the relationship is going to work it's going to have to be on a different footing than it used to be if things are going to be different it's going to have to be different. I mean, you don't have to have a lot of brains to figure that out. If it hasn't worked over here, then if it's going to work over here it's going to having to be different. So I get the list. Now for me, getting that stuff down on paper was very telling. There's so many things to do with this that, you know, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends them all. I had my list left over from my fourth step. And a lot it was just, you know, it was very concrete. You know, some people didn't, you you know, they couldn't get away. Like my family, they were right there. Then I took a lot of money from people. You know, all of that had to be paid back. How do you restore a life? What is it that you do if you've done something like that or you played a part in something like this? How do you fix that? All of those things, I mean, they're right there now. All the stuff that made us problem drinkers in the beginning, what Bill Wilson seems to be saying at that point is that our inability to form relationships with other people was a cause of all of our, I think the word he uses is woes, including our alcoholism, then that's an awfully big statement. And it's going to take an awfully powerful thing to start to get at. So I think the principle again that I need to have with that is willingness. It's like I have a buddy who always likes to say that it doesn't matter if you say I've injured you, I've injured you, is the way he likes to approach it. You just need to be willing with that. So we've had wonderful things to happen with that And it's been a very clearing thing for me. You know, when you start to go into the ninth step where it says make direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. I've had wonderful things happen with that just based on my willingness and starting to move with it. I've literally had the experience of going out to make amends to somebody, getting out there, doing what it is I came to do and leaving and realizing that person physically looked different than they looked 20 minutes ago when I came in the door or an hour ago. My experience has been that the people have always been extremely gracious. Now, I've had a couple of people who didn't answer, you know, like when I wrote them. They didn't ask me to do it. But I took that in that case as graciousness. But I've heard wonderful things happen with this, all kinds of stuff. And there's so many things to do with this. One of the things I like to do, like, for example, like I said, financial amends are the easiest amends to make. It may be hard to come up with the money, but they're the easiest amends to make. And what I like, and sometimes, you know, with those kind of amends, like for example, I don't know why it took me so long. When I went through that experience at 19 1⁄2 years, there was some stuff I had never, mostly it was minor stuff, and there was just some stuffI had never done. There was a lawyer in Fremont, and again this was before they decriminalized public intoxication. They used to charge me with second offense public intoxification. That's all they had was first and second offense. It's in the old days, like they had first and third offense drunk driving. and all they had on public intoxication was second offense. You could get up to six months in jail for that. So they would appoint me a lawyer. Well, I would never remember being arrested to start with. Well, he would plead me innocent, and we would stay in court two or three hours. We would keep these policemen up there that worked the night shift. He would plead my innocent, and we Would go through this long, drawn-out deal. I wouldn't even remember being Arrested. So what they started doing was just charging me with first offense. So one day when we left the courtroom, he didn't give me a lawyer, so I went and got him. So he handled my case. He basically knew I didn't have any money. I'm homeless at this point. When we were leaving, now, you know, you can't even talk to a lawyer even at that time. I don't know. I think the county was paying him like $180 for doing that or something. So when we were leave in that day, he said, Now, if you think you don't owe me anything for this, he said you think again you owe me $20. Well, 20 years later, I finally get around to go and see this guy. So I go in there to give him his $20. I talk to him, and I tell him what I'm there for. And he listens and hears me out and says, well, I appreciate it. He said, I Appreciate What You're Trying to Do, and God knows I'm grateful you're in AA. But this is what he said, I don't need the $20, he said. What I want you to do, and I don'T think I can wait 20 years and pay a 20-year bill with $20 I need to pay some interest on it. He said but I really don't Need It, I Want You to Give It to a Charity. He said I'd Feel Much Better About It. Well, I appreciate that. But what I'm here to do is get it straight with you. I want to pay you. You do what you want with it. I had one of my drunken uncles that's retired from the military and he wanted to see me when we were in Vietnam and I wouldn't do it. Now, here's a guy that's given his entire life. They had a tough time as kids. They had drunken father, didn't have enough to eat sometimes. He went in the military when he was a 17-year-old kid and rose to the top of his profession. He was an E9 when he got out, had been for a long time. He was the senior enlisted man at Fort Gordon. but he wanted to see me when we were in Vietnam. I wouldn't see him. I have a vague recollection of being in a bar with him drunk and telling him some stuff, what I thought about him and the military and all kinds of other stuff. Well, I'd seen him a few times over the years and I don't know why I had never taken the opportunity to get that straightened out. Well, during this period of time, I wrote him a letter and told him what I was trying to do and that I would be well willing to come to Augusta to see him where he's retired. Well,I got a letter back right away saying that your atonement plus 20 years of success is quite enough. Then he had some stuff he wanted to say. But those are meaningful things even though they don't seem real big. So for the most part, I've been able to get it current. Now one of the things that I just recently thought my sister mentioned to me about a friend of hers, I guess she was an old girlfriend of mine. You know how it is when you're drunk. I mean every once in a while you try to do something together. but what we really were we were drunks and but I stole a diamond ring from her and I sold it in Bill's bar for ten dollars I just remembered that the other day and she just contacted my sister now I forgot about that I'll get that straight but there's all kinds of ways you know like I stole a lot of money from people I did a lot of things I remember sitting in the airman's club in Wichita Falls Texas in 1968 I saw a guy's billfold drop out of his pocket I waited until he got up and walked off. I went over and took the $75 or whatever it was in there and threw the billfold away. I don't know who the guy was. He might be in here today. I wouldn't know it. But what I've been able to do is put all of that back. There's so many ways to do stuff. And what I try to do is I try interact with people in such a way. I most always, when servers in restaurants introduce themselves, I'll generally introduce myself to them. I've had all kinds of things happen because of that. There's a lady, I stop at a McDonald's on my way to work every so often And in North Carolina, we've had a terrific influx of Mexicans. And she learned how to speak English 30 years ago watching Sesame Street with her kids. But she runs the McDonald's in the morning. And if you interact with people, you have all kinds of opportunities to do stuff, I mean, to get in the game with people. And people start to treat you different. You get this. This isn't the reason to do it, but stuff starts to come into you as a byproduct. I was in there one morning and there were a whole bunch of people in there. Well, she's the best I've ever seen. and we're really scrambling to get interpreters. But she's the best I've seen. It's almost like she's talking two languages at once. It's Almost Like She's Speaking in Spanish and English at the same time. Everything with my little bit of understanding of sentences, but she enunciates perfectly. Everything's perfect. But she fired a woman one morning while I was in there. Well, it was just embarrassing to me and everybody else. I was just trying to get out of the way. When she got done, she come around and explained that to me. She fired her in Spanish. I don't know why she come about and explained to me, she said, McDonald's gives you a uniform They tell you how to wear the uniform, and they tell you what time to come to work. She said, I don't make the rules. But I explained to her that the next time she'd come to work late and didn't have her uniform on right, I was going to fire her. So she comes around and explains that to me. I'm in there one morning, and she says to me, I didn't ask her for anything. She just says, I'm putting some extra sausage in your order this morning. I said, well, I appreciate it, but I don' t need it. She says, no. She said you eat what I tell you to eat. She said. This is what she said. She said, it's important you have a good breakfast. Well, people start taking care of you. People start doing all kinds of stuff. Think about it. If you go into a McDonald's, they either have a good experience with you in there, they have a bad experience, or they have an indifferent experience. That's all that's available. They either don't remember you, something good or something bad has happened. So what I try to do is interact with people. My sponsor's sponsor and I were in a restaurant one day, and the lady server came over to us. We introduced ourselves to her. We couldn't get rid of her. over about the next two hours, we were trying to talk in there. She basically came by and did a fifth step with us. I mean, she wasn't an AA. Husband's in the penitentiary, molested her kids. I mean she's just waiting for somebody to talk to, tell us all kinds of stuff. So at the bottom of the ninth step, I heard this from a guy named Bob Azantz. I wasn't there, but I heard it on a thing I think he did in Omaha. And I'll tell you, it's one of the most profound things. This is what he said. He said, if you can get to the bottomof the ninthstep, If you can get to the bottom of the ninth step, what you've got right there is you've got a jet engine for life. You're just out there operating. You're not coming from behind anymore like when you're resentful and you're not out there in the future like when your afraid. I'm a baseball fan and big units my man, Randy Johnson. He's probably the best there is. The unit brings his fastball at about 100 miles an hour. He'll tell you himself sometimes when he gets in trouble even though he knows better he'll try to aim the ball. You can't aim the balls. You have to just live. He said, he's the best we've got in baseball. He can't aim the ball. He just has to bring it. And if I'm living my life measured all the time because I'm stuck somewhere to what's went on in the past that I'm still confused about or resentful or blocked off or somebody has done something to me or they haven't done something for me, remember the book says it doesn't make any difference, wrongdoing of others, fancied or real, or I'm stiil frightened about what's going to happen tomorrow or next week, then I'm going to be in trouble with that. Well, the ninth step allows us to get it straight. The other thing the ninth step allows us to do is it allows us to get it straight so everything is new. That's been a tremendous thing that happened to me with my children. You know, I was married to the same woman for 17 years and I don't want to be unkind but I really don't feel like I got divorced. I feel like I escaped. I mean... Well, I mean, my kids were... How old were they? They were like 16 and 17 maybe? Anyway, something like that. Well, I think I was a good parent when my kids were little and then there were some very tough times there. And then I think during that period of time, like when they were 16 and 17 or 17 and 18, whatever it was, we got it straight again because we got it all straight. We got it said. We said the things that were necessary to say. My oldest daughter was doing some stuff that I really wasn't pleased about at all. And I remember my sponsor pulling off the road. He had a car phone then. he pulled off the road to talk to me and he said well when you talk to her tonight don't go up against that stuff here's a kid she's a senior in high school she's getting a's and b's she's working a part-time job she's buying all her own school clothes she's doing very well if i hadn't had that i would have went up against what she was doing because it was scaring me well it changed the whole nature of things but anyway through that experience we got it all said what needed to be said so now when something comes up it's not like all that stuff again you know what we've God is we've got an opportunity to operate. At the bottom of the ninth step, it's not as bad as it used to be when I first went to North Carolina, but they used to read, they would read How It Works, The Twelve Traditions, and they called the promises at the bottom of the nine step. Well, there are promises at the bottom of the ninth step that are very profound. All of those things have happened in my life. But it seems to me that all of AA literature has promises. It'll explain what will happen if you do what you're supposed to do. It'll explain what will happen if you don't do what it's supposed to. It talks about that in the fifth step. It says the best reason for doing the fifth steps is you may not overcome drinking if you don't do it. Well, it points that out on the fifth set, but I think that you could say that about any step, couldn't you? We can't afford to leave any step out. Remember now, the steps are all of equal importance, not at the same time. One step is more important in my life at a time than another time, but they're all of equal importance to the well-ordered life. What I'm looking for here is a way to live. I don't want to be connected to the past. I don't want to be afraid about the future. I want to be free and able to operate. I want to think about other people. So when I go by McDonald's in the morning, if I haven't been in there in a couple weeks, I'm always rolling. I'll think, man, I need to get in there and see how Margarita's doing. I wantto be thinking about other people. She's in there doing what she does. She is in there operating. But I want tobe connected to other people, I want to be a part of things. Remember, we've been alone long enough. If alcoholism is anything, it's lonely business. My mom's spiritual commitment is that she visits a couple old ladies in nursing homes. That's what she does, and one of them, she's done it for many years. If one of them dies, then she's assigned another one. Well, she breaks up their loneliness when she walks into the room. The proximity of people doesn't do anything to break up the loneliness of alcoholism. How often you heard somebody say they were alone in the arms of a loving woman? They didn't belong in that family. They felt like they'd been dropped off from there. You know, how often that's the case? Well, that's what that is. I mean, I'm not interested in living it. It's kind of like having sex by yourself. It can be done, but I don't want to do it. And it's the same way with staying sober. You know, I want to be connected to other people. So at the bottom of the ninth step, there's promises that happen there, and there's great things. You can read them, you know, yourself. I think that's page 83 or something. Tenth step, continue to take personal inventory. And when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Well, I like to say that I'm prompt no matter how long it takes. But, you know, I think too that I started practicing the principles. We were talking about this the other night in my home group and the girl chair in the meeting, the same girl that read that thing about fear about Bill Wilson made that point that she started doing that when she got sober long before she got to that step. That's true. I think I started practice in some of the elements of that. But I don't think I got the intention of that step until I got there because I'm clearing away now. See, I've gotten current. what the 10th step, I think in its full ramifications is designed to do. It's designed to keep me current connected to the power right now and each day is March. I think it even says something in the 12 and 12 about long-standing problems ought to be postponed until you can get with a sponsor or spiritual advisor. I think that's it. I'll tell you one of the most challenging statements in all of AA literature is in the 10 step where it says it's axiomatic. It says it is a spiritual axiom that no matter what the problem is it's my problem. Well, again, if you want to see how profound it is, something, just check that out against the bar. You know, almost everything is going to have to change. That's an awfully long ways from the way we were living. If somebody would have said when I got sober that all this stuff had to happen, the first thing I'd have done is wanted to jump out the window. I mean, that stuff can't happen. So continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. It allows me to take care of everything as it comes along. It allows мне to stay in each day. It allows me to do my part of the thing. It doesn't matter now what other people do. It matters what I do. I'm here to sweep off my side of the street. And I love that statement in the 10th Steps where we stop fighting anyone or anything. I tell you, I'm almost ashamed to admit this. In about the last two or three months, I've just been on a tear. I mean, nobody loves their sponsor-sponsor more than I do, and he was my boss for God's sakes for, I don't know, 12 years or something. I reported directly to him. Now, he's work, though. I mean, he's tough. We had a thing about two or three months ago. He's retired now, and I'm still at the same place. Well, we had a think about two or three month ago where he found out about some stuff at my operation where I work that he didn't like. I don't think he was right then or now. And I met him in a restaurant. I had forgot that that's, I mean I just, I meet with him about every month. We just get together and have lunch and hang out and talk and talk about AA and doing stuff. I'm getting ready to do a sponsorship thing in his home group, and I see him a lot. And Keith is gone now. Keith has gone to Ocala, Florida, been there since June 1st. So I meet with Tom all the time and catch up on things. But this day, now you probably wouldn't know this part of Tom. I mean, you just know him as a great AA member that he is. So I'm waiting. He's waiting for me in the restaurant. He barely exchanged niceties before he, you know, if it was a fight, it would have been that he hit me and knocked me down. Well, so I told him, I said, well, Tom, I mean, it's just one of those times where I just didn't agree with what he said. And so we have about a two-hour fight. Well, I mean... It wasn't much of a fight. The only thing I... He did pick up the tab, Mike. But, I think, I mean it wasn't very much of a fight, but somebody told me later, they said, well, what difference does it make? Tom doesn't have any authority over you. I said, oh yes he does. He's got spiritual and moral authority over me. The kind that really counts. And then another thing that happened a little bit, I'm talking about the thing about cease fighting anything or anyone. I haven't always done that. Then another thing That happened, a guy that I sponsor discontinued sponsorship with a guy a couple years ago. Well Tom gets involved. And you know how that thing will, you know, so by now it's gotten all kinds of confusing. The guy I sponsored, great guy, he called me and said well, he said, man, I'm really disappointed and mad at Tom. I said, well, so am I. And I'll be meeting with Tom tomorrow. I mean, when I left, I did meet with Tom tomorrow. When I left there, I just felt like I'd been beat. You know, I didn't have enough strength hardly to get across the street. You know? And it put all of that energy into stuff. Then we've got some stuff in the Department of Corrections. We've got a senator who did a whole bunch of stuff inthe Department ofCorrections that he handled the politicization of a whole bunch of stuff and he's recently been charged with some felonies and he is on his way to federal prison well I got so much energy out of that I was just wild I mean I'm just wild I'm walking around I said I'm going to write the paper and Julie says well you let me see that before you send it but I mean I'm not just wild I said I've heard that guy speak he's around there with that patronizing stuff and you know we're going to wipe out crime And then I get on about the insurance industry. There's never been a prison loan shark in the world as dirty as these people. You know, you get on all of this stuff. Here about a month ago, I look up one day and what I saw them down the hall, but I said, well, these are, this is a, I saw him in the morning, but it really didn't catch my attention. There was a guy probably about my age and a very good looking young woman. I said well they're attorneys. But nobody called me so they just went on down the hallside. I said, it's a good thing. I really didn't think anything of it. About noon, I saw them again. I said oh my God, auditors. So about 4 o'clock and the Department of Correction in North Carolina is very formal. Even today, it just makes my gums hurt. People have been working together for 20 years. Some of them are probably sleeping together calling each other Mr. and Miss. So a lady comes down the hall and what you got is you can't have petty cash so you can use the budget for some of the stuff we do so you have what's called special funds accounts And you can't be in charge of your own special funds account. But I have a special funds account where we make money through taking pictures of visitation, of inmate visitation. We also collect pop cans. And we make hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars of that and we do a lot of stuff that we're not able to do with the budget. We do stuff for inmate leaders and we have a big annual peer counselor conference thing where we bring inmate counselors from prisons all over North Carolina and it's a... But anyway, this lady comes down the hall and she She's a clerk, nice lady. I know her down in the administrative hallway. She says, Mr. Mitchell, she says the auditors want to know about this expenditure. And it was $473. I knew it was illegal, but I didn't think the audators would come. It's true now. And so she said, Mr., Mitchell, the audutors want to go to the administrative hall. They want to learn more about this. And I said, well, tell them it was forms. I bought forms, which was true for inmates. And so she went down to the back of the hall, and as soon as she got back down, it was 4 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, I'm trying to get out of there. I get the phone call, and I hear this voice, Mr. Mitchell, would you step down to The Administrative Conference Room, please? So I get down there, and here's the auditor and this young woman, probably just out of graduate school sitting there. She don't know if she's on foot or horseback. This guy is doing all the talking. He says, Mr. Mitchel, he says this $473. He said, what was it for? And I said, well, I told you, it's for forms, for inmates. He said well, I don't know if I can go along with that. So I tried to make a joke out of it. I said well what are you going to do? The money's gone. But I mean it was received fairly light. So you ever hear yourself saying something you know you ain't supposed to be saying? He said this is a problem. I said problem? I'll tell you about problems. I got a whole hall down there where guys ain't got a visit. got a guy down there ain't seen a naked woman in 25 years you talk about problems we got real problems and I mean I knew well I mean this is just I said you know I got a whole different agenda than this I can't be worried about forms I'm out here I can not I can get pencils I mean I got real problems out here and just just crazy and I mean talk about cease fighting anything or anyone you know that takes so much energy to get on one of those things about the senator who's now on his way to federal prison does he deserve it of course he deserves it he's been around there i mean obviously they got him that's not my job if i you know the clear thing to me is if i'm going to get feelings if i feel good and i'm vindicated about that kind of stuff there's something wrong with my spiritual condition and you don't you don'T get some satisfaction out of that kind of stuff without paying a price one of the things i've learned is is that you can't give anything away in life. Whatever you send out comes back. You know, and then you get worked up like that, and I think I used to live like that. I mean, there's a certain amount of energy that goes off of that kind of resentment. I'm just pumped. I look at the paper every day to see if there's anything more in there about it, and now they've got another guy they're close to indicting, and I mean I just love it. It's sort of like when you sit in the bar, you know, in the Jimmy Swaggart deal. I mean, drunks all over the world just love that stuff. You know, if there's anything we love, it's when we find out that the minister down at the Baptist church is poking the organist down there. I mean you just love that kind of stuff. You know I mean it's like we sit in church and talk about the phony church people because it vindicates us. So I think that what that means in there is that that stuff is not going to work for me. It just means that it's not going to work. If I get involved in that there's going to be a price to be paid for that. So the 10th step is, for me, clearly to check up on each day and each day's march. It's got very specific questions in there I can ask. And remember now, when we launched into the 6th and 7th step a couple hours ago, I talked about how I think the program is narrowing. My sponsor is fond of saying, not just to me, but just to saying, period, if you check up and you ain't a better AA member than you were last year at this time, if you're not a better parent, if You're not A Better Worker, Employee or Employee, You're not a better husband. Whatever it might be, something's wrong because we're supposed to be moving towards. We practice perfect principles. We can't continue to practice perfect principals without getting better just like we can't let our guard down and not practice these principles without paying the price. It's sort of like a boxer. The only one that didn't have to hold his hands up was Muhammad Ali. If you look at the old films, he kept his hands down. And sometimes when people couldn't hit him, he'd even stop moving his feet. He'd just stand there and hold his arms. He'd put his hands on him and he still wouldn't get hit. But the whole idea about being a boxer and holding your hands up is that you can deflect all of that. That's what these steps are for. This is what we're moving into now. See, we've gotten this stuff where we've got that root and branch in 6th and 7th. We've went at this stuff in the 8th and 9th steps so that we can get current. We've cleared away the wreckage of the past. And then the 10th step, so we can keep it, so мы can operate. And the 11th step. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him. Praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. this is what I think God's will is for me it's to stay sober and carry the message one of the things Bill Wilson said it's always certainly been true for me he said that the alcoholic more than most seems to want to know what it's all about that's always been the case with me the other thing that's always been true with me I've always thought I should have been better than I am I spent all of my drinking and a good bit of my sobriety when I was sober 20 years I had an you know I was coming out of that that awful dark night thing I wrote down 20 years of experiences of things that had happened that couldn't happen starting with stopping drinking, starting with a horrible resentment, starting with this or with that. Just 20 years of things that had just been removed. So I don't think that I have to worry about getting better. I think I have to worry about practicing these principles to doing this stuff. But the thing that came to me out of that time was that I don�t think I should be better than I am. I think if I look at the steps correctly I'm very fortunate to be as good as I am You know it really is true it's again it's a perfect principle but if I've turned my will and my life over to the care of God then how I'm doing is God's job and the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous will continue to move me I don't need to be concerned about that I need to being concerned about applying these things and trying to be of service to my fellow man even I didn't talk that much about my drink and I talked enough about it to let you know that I belong here and that's what we do at speaker meetings we identify my favorite meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous is really a speakers meeting as a listener because it's the purest form of meeting that there is, is actual meeting. One alcoholic talks or two, like we had last night, we had four alcoholics talk. The rest of the alcoholics are family members or whoever was there to listen. Well, we know that great things happen when alcoholics talked and listened to each other. Remember the book says that we have a way out. We have a common solution on which we can agree that we practice these principles and then we move forward. So what I think God's will for me is is to practice these principals in all my affairs and carry the message. Then I think I can take from that, then I could just take it and go down from there. I don't think it's not that complicated. I don' t have any other way of getting any money except working for it, so I've got to go to work. I was in a meeting one time, this was many years ago, that had got a little off, and this was when I lived in Grand Island, and one of the people in the meeting was a school administrator. He was a principal at the high school, a good guy. And the meeting had got all the way through and he said, if it's a work day, when I wake up, I never ask God if I'm supposed to go to work. He said, there's a whole bunch of stuff down there. I've contracted to do that stuff. There's people down there waiting for me, so I just go to Work. That's what I think God's will is for me as far as Work is. I think I can be fairly safe as far As the natural virtues like kindness. Remember, I told you, if I tell you anything I did, it's not because I want you to think I'm a good guy or anything, but just like yesterday at the airport when we got there, I saw the guy up there on security. I thought he was blind. I even remarked to Julie, I said, look, a blind guy. Well, when we get there, I didn't mean it like that. I don't know what happens when I come to get it. It's sort of like when you stay up too long, you know everything starts to be funny, you get punchy. And I think something happens to me when I get around Peggy. I don'T know what happened. My mind deteriorates or something. But anyway, so later, Julie had already got her food. I saw this guy coming by and he was pushing his own wheelchair. He was moving real slow. Well, I knew if he went just a little further, he was going about a half a mile because there's only, if he was going that way, he was going down to either continental or northwest. That's at the far end of the thing. So I could see by then, he wasn't completely blind. He had on glasses and he was in a wheelchair. And I said, man, could I push you? And he said, oh, man. He said, I'd sure appreciate that. Well, what had happened, he'd been shot in the war. He's an army captain and he'd been shot. And he says, I'm not going to He said that I can see and he said I can walk but I'm real dizzy and I'm weak. So I pushed him down at the end. Well, that's what I think God's will is for me. I think that's God's Will. I think anything that I can do, the natural virtues are God'swill. I think of kindness. You know, one of the things... My sponsors have been on this thing for the last few years about the longer you're sober, the more important it is to be a nice guy, the more often you hear something. I just listened to a documentary about Wayne Gretzky, the hockey player, and they call him The Great One. Well, they kept talking about... Everybody that started out talked about... There was like a memorial to him. They talked about his accomplishments, and then every one of them had personal stories. Every one ofهم said the important thing to me is Gretzky's a good guy. Guy told a story is because people are around Gretzkys so much, he came and watched my kid practice hockey at 5 a.m. in the morning, and he gave my kid a stick, and he spent time with my kid. That's what that guy remembered about Grettsky, not that he's, you know, the greatest hockey player that ever lived. So I think those things are important. I think that's what's important. You know, that I need to... By this time that I've gotten to the program, I need to have put back in what I've taken out. And I can never get that paid, but I need to stay at that. You know, I need to keep doing those kind of things. So the 11th step is just a matter of keeping current with what that is. And I try to read that stuff on a daily basis. You know? The instruction tells me what to do, tells me how to do it. And then you can just be current. I mean, you know, God's will for me is to stay sober and carry this message. The reason I know that is because that's what I've done. And then all of these other things have happened for me. You know, that thing in the... And great things start to happen out of that. You know that line in The Doctor's Opinion, I think it is, where it says you may rely absolutely on what these people say about themselves. Well, you talk about a good way to live. My kids, for example, they're grown women, 27 and 26 years old. I have a granddaughter and a son-in-law. Son-in law, I got the wrong one's got the kid though. The one that's got the kid doesn't have a husband. So, you know, I wouldn't have done it all that way. But my kids can rely absolutely on what I say. And at 11th Step, I remember one time in 1981 or 1982, at the mini-conference, Dick was assigned 10 steps, 10, 11, and 12. And when he got to the 11th step, he said something to the effect of what we're doing here today fits well into the 11st step, to sought, to seek. You know, we're trying to find out, we'RE trying to go spiritually. and the way God has made that happen for us is he's put us together. He's given us Alcoholics Anonymous so that we don't have to be alone, so that мы can move forward into this stuff. So the 11th step, when I first looked at that, it looked ominous and removed as opposed to being practical. What I believe about perfect spiritual principles is they're intensely practical. Your average man or woman, remember what, you know, and if you want to look at some of this stuff in another way, remember what the way God worked this stuff out. I mean, in a very real sense, Dr. Bob was a scientist and a surgeon. He was a scientist because he kept all those records about stuff and how he did stuff and all of that kind of stuff. You would have thought he'd have been the one that would have been interested in all the head stuff. He's the one that told Bill Wilson, let's not louse this thing up with a lot of Freudian complexes, stuff that might be interesting to the scientific mind but has nothing to do with the drunk coming in the door getting a break. That's what our job is. That's why I'm here today. That's my job. This has been freely given to us. We need to freely pass it on. And I don't think it was given to me for me to stay home and hang out. I can only take so much of that. I mean, I'm grateful to have a home. But, I mean one or two days of hanging around and watching TV and reading, I mean I'm ready to roll again. Just, I don' know if that's just the way it is. I mean ,I don't know if I'm different than that or other people or what. It's just, the way is. I think it's a good thing, not a bad thing. My wife don't want me hanging around all the time anyway. She told me that when she had a bad long-term marriage, she had been in a bad marriage and when she was shell shocked for a while and when she was ready to start dating, she told her friends what she was looking for and somebody told her, she said, well, Julie, you need a married guy. And she said... She said, no, that won't work. Well, that's what she got with me. I ain't hanging around there all the time. I mean, I got stuff to do. She don't want me hanging around there bleeding her. Get out of here, boy. Go do something. I don't wanna watch TV or read a book, you know? So it's worked out. It's great. And the 12th step, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Again, how often have you heard an AA member get up here and read the 12th step and substitute a for the? I had a lady explain many years ago to me, she said, when you look at the 12-step, what's the most grabbing word in that step? I guess I guessed every word in there, spiritual awakening, message, all kinds of stuff. This lady has been an English teacher. She said, no, the word that makes the 12 step go is the word the. and the reason for that is the word the explains where a spiritual awakening comes from it's the result of the first 11 steps you don't have to do anything my spirit has been awakened through my application of the 1st 11 steps through trying to forget about myself for a little while and just like Dennis was talking about last night he has these things happen because the example he gave could have been any example was he quit doing what he wanted to do muted the television and listened on the telephone and then these things happened My spirit has been awakened through the practice of the first 11 steps. The 11 steps, a spiritual awakening comes in on its own. What is a spiritual awakening? I guess there's lots of definitions to that. It just means I can do, see, feel, and believe things I couldn't do before. It's my experience now. It would be impossible to convince me Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't work, wouldn't it? It's mine. It's not my experience. You know what it says in the big book, that Henry Ford said the thing of supreme value in life is your experience? That's true. I've had the experience. my spirit has been awakened so I know where that comes from I know how that comes about it's by the practice of these steps and trying to carry this message I've had wonderful things happen with that I gave a guy his last drink over 28 years ago I always get mixed up he either asked for gin whatever he asked for I gave him the opposite one of them was gin and one was vodka I think he asked for gin and I gave ihm vodka he was too drunk to get off the floor in the back seat of the car but he immediately realized I'd given him the wrong booze now he had his last drink and he ain't had another drink I've had all kinds of other things happen you know, I've worked with people that are now dead I've told you about my friend Jeff that returned to drinking and killed himself I mean, I'VE HAD ALL KINDS OF THINGS HAPPEN I'VE HAD All Kinds Of Things Happen As The Result Of These Steps A while back, we got a letter there's a young kid I sponsor He had destroyed his family. He got sober in 1997, but he had just started his first year of college. He'd gotten kicked out of college, and family was good, honest, hardworking people. I mean, you know how devastating that can be. Family was just shattered. They didn't know what was going on. Well, this kid got sober. We sent him immediately back to Appalachian. He ended up a great AA member. He ended UP on the chancellor's list as a role model for the college, got out of collage and shot through there in a little less than four years. He just graduated from law school the other day. well, a while back now as long as I don't believe this stuff it's fine but a whileback I got a thing in the mail from his mom and basically what his mom was telling him about was how great I was and on and on something about we were invited to this thing so I tossed it to my wife and I didn't think much of it I said she's really laying it on isn't she? and Julie said no no she isn't you saved her child's life well, it says in our literature that we have the power to help others We have that power. Is it our power? No, it's been given to us. It's been visited upon us to be used for God's good works. So the reason I never... One of the reasons I never say no to anything I'm asked to do in Alcoholics Anonymous is if I can possibly do it because I don't know what God's... You might be asked to make a little talk. There's a tremendous amount of speakers meetings in North Carolina. I might be ask to drive 30 miles down the road to talk to 20 people but that didn't have anything to do with why I went down there. I might end up going down there to talk to some poor joker in the parking lot. I mean you don't know my idea is to show up at the dance so I've had incredible things happen with that the practice these principles all my affairs I think I've gotten increasingly better with that as time has went on have a lot of affairs just like anybody else I had a late payment since I've been an Alcoholics Anonymous I mean I you know I I've been able to do what I'm supposed to do in life and I'm with you know fair amount of trouble thrown in there there's no doubt about that I mean i've grown up here I've taken my place here. So the practice of these principles in all my affairs is really my opportunity to live life at its very best and to do what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what we've covered and haven't covered. I mean, I don' t know what's been left out. I know that any time you try to do something like this, I always think of stuff I should have said later and all of that. I guess it doesn't make much difference. If there's anything left out, we'll cover it tonight or tomorrow or next week or just keep going and something will happen. So I want to thank you very much for inviting me here this weekend. I have airplane rides, I tell you the truth, right up there with sex. I'm not part of that deal about people that don't like airline travel and when you go through the airport people don't look like they're having much fun. I'm having the greatest time of my life in the airport. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than ride around the country on an airplane. is for me the world just ceased to exist so I appreciate very much the opportunity to be here with you this weekend and I hope that we've illuminated those 12 steps I know one thing, it's not an easy thing to share your experience like this but they're a lot easier to talk about than they are to practice I know that but it's well worth the trouble I don't know of anything more profound, it just seems to me that it's been God's gift to us to practice these steps. One of the things I'll close up with this thought and we'll come back and take another shot at this tonight. One of the things Harry Truman said in life, Harry Truman just fascinates me but one of the thing he said was you never know what might happen in life and when an alcoholic gets hooked up to these principles and the power of this thing actualizes in their life I mean there ain't no telling what will happen I mean this thing is so powerful if it will reverse a killer illness then almost anything is possible. It's certainly possible that I can take my place, I can be a responsible citizen, and I can be part of the answer to life instead of as part of the problem. So thank you very much.